Jesus

P 2484 He is always with us.

/ DVH

“… for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]”Hebrews 13:5.

The sun is still always there in the sky, even when we are surrounded by lightning and thunder and overwhelming circumstances. Despite how we feel, nothing has actually changed between us and the Lord. Perhaps, something ugly and overwhelming has just pushed its way between us and the One we love… but His truth does not change. His love is unchanging. And the sun is still shining above those dark roiling clouds that are producing fearful storms. It will return. Breathe … and hold on. 

2 Corinthians 4:16-18: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

There are times in all our lives when we feel assailed on every side, and overwhelmed by circumstances beyond our control. Even beginning to know what to do next, seems so far away – and right now it is buried under the weight of trying to hold onto what we desperately need to believe. I hate that feeling of waking up into a brand new day, only to have the memory of some darkness or other crowd out His light. 

However, the Lord is so precious, even when we let go of Him — He will not let go of us. His goodness is always flowing toward us constantly. Like a heartbeat. There are no easy ways through dark times, no magic words to say … instead, it seems our worst fears have exploded into despair and destruction … but we are always His, and partakers of His unchanging love. Hold on. 

The first thing I would like to contribute, something that I’ve learnt myself, is that when desperately hard things happen, don’t ‘should’ on yourself. What I mean by that is don’t start counting up things you think you should have done, or should not have done. The past is the past, all the regret in the world cannot change what has already happened. Now we are waiting for redemption – not a rewrite.  

Even if we have what we think is evidence proving that we have accidentally contributed to our dire situation, don’t let the enemy of your soul use that regret to throw you into a sink hole. Fight for your right to believe in His goodness and then grab hold of Jesus’ hand. We don’t even have to pray, just grab hold of Him and hang on! Some prayers don’t have words! But do yell if you need to … our emotions are never too big for our precious Saviour to handle. 

Despite the temptation to continually think things through to try to somehow find a different ending, just let finding the answer, an answer, ANY answer … go. This is not the time to revise or review things, this is the time to REST in what we already know about Him, not change our theology or methodology. There is no easy way through the rivers that have risen above our heads, or a fire that threatens to burn through our very existence. There is no quick quote, no scripture, no quick fix when our faith is being severely shaken by overwhelming circumstances.

The things to bring to mind are things like …God is always good. He is still on His throne. Jesus died for this too plus the Holy Spirit is ever with us. These awful circumstances are not punishment – He took ALL our punishment onto Himself.

I can’t even try to begin to explain why bad things happen to people, I just know they do. In my limited experience sometimes the people who love Him dearly, have hell thrown at them, and there is no rhyme or reason to it. And I know, that I know, that HE hasn’t caused it. I also know, that blame of any kind, is always deadly – it poisons the soul. This trial, this suffering or sorrow, is not something that Almighty God thought we deserved – it is simply what life looks like in a fallen world. 

Sometimes the way through difficulties is one step at a time, so do what David did. He used his awful times to remember the goodness of God. “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.” Psalm 42:4. Remember how passionately you feel about your faith, even though those feelings may have disappeared at this time. Our faith is so much more valuable to God than gold or diamonds or precious stones.

In these times, we particularly need to do our best to take care of our bodies. We are not betraying anyone else if we take care of ourselves. When a crisis happens, each day can bring its own troubles, and we are going to need strength to face things as they come at us. Read scriptures that have great meaning to you, over and over again, when you can. Say them aloud, so your ears can hear them. And let the Body of Christ send love to you, in whatever form it comes. I pray, today, that whoever is needy, will find comfort in Him. He is always with us, even in this life’s darkest valleys.  Bless you. 😢

P 2483 Let’s go on a treasure hunt, every day!

/ DVH

Father God hides clues about what He likes, and what He doesn’t like, right throughout the bible. Sometimes it seems so understated it is easy to breeze on by it all and start to read, blah blah blah. As I said yesterday, we need to pay attention to the words used, just like the words – “present your body as a living sacrifice, that is our true acceptable spiritual worship…”  (Romans 12:1) …  are a new way to think about living this life we have.

Hidden in those words is what God really wants from us. He wants US! ALL of us. That stuff is not there so we can just ‘get by,’ it is there as a clue to what is really going on. He wants us to worship Him the way Christ did. With all of us. You know, Jesus didn’t stop half-way through His sacrificial offering on the cross and say: “Well, that will DO!” 😱 He hung there until everything … the past, present and future redemption of mankind… was finished. Our response to the Lord cannot be half-hearted, or temporary… depending on how busy we are. Or even once in a blue moon — we all know how trouble flies about like pollen on a high wind day! 

The Holy Spirit has promised to help us to achieve whatever goal He puts before us – we have that in writing! That includes very difficult things like loving people who totally drive us crazy! Go after the kingdom, and let knowledge take second place … because it puffs up! Most people expect to be able to easily do what He asks them to do – and so they look to their own talents. Things like they can sing well, so they are going to ‘sing for Jesus!’  Hmmm…. He’s got choirs in heaven that would blow our minds … He asks us to do impossible things so we will need His help to do them!

I don’t care how good you are … it doesn’t take faith to do something you KNOW you can already do. Let’s start with where we are, and let us let Him expand us. This is the new life, a new kingdom. HIS. The kingdom is life-changing, and transformative stuff. It’s like dynamite. When you use dynamite the landscape around you changes.  By all means surrender your talents, but get bigger than that. In the bible a talent can be buried in the ground. But His kingdom is meant to be dug up! His kingdom will feed thousands.

Now, here’s the same verse again from Romans 12:1-2 MSG. “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what He wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”  The important part of this verse is “God helping you.”

Here’s a really good idea to brighten up your bible reading, start reading the bible in a new version. However, even loving the word is not the same as doing it. We need His individual daily comprehension to do that and the Holy Spirit is ready, willing and MORE THAN able to help us. If we really want to know the Lord, we need to be serious about looking for Him and His Ways in the book. Every day should bring us new discoveries about Who He is and what He likes and what He is looking for from us.

To me, reading the bible is like a treasure hunt that happens every single day. You don’t find treasures lying about on the surface, you have to DIG for them. That means effort. It is not something we can do quickly and then close the book and think we are finished. The bible is our daily bread – we have to chew on it to extract the goodness out of the meat in there. We simply must stop seeing His Word as pretty comforting suggestions, and use our faith to expand it into a new way to live.

Here’s my last juicy bit of steak for today:“I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” This scripture shows me that no matter how difficult stuff is … I have His personal assurance that I can get through it with His strength. I love to put what He says into my own words to extract even more meaning … like this:… ‘Because I know He will help and strengthen me, I can do anything He asks me to do.’ We don’t need strength before we do something… if we already have it, then we don’t need to ask for it!! Do more than read the words, dig for the treasure of MORE.… Bye. 👋🏻

PS – from the bible app. Someone who reads the bible four or more times a week is:

  • 59% less likely to view pornography
  • 74% less likely to gamble
  • 407% more likely to memorise Scripture
  • 228% more likely to share their faith with others
  • 231% more likely to disciple others

     *  30% less likely to be lonely

P 2482 Avoid self-deception like the plague!

/ DVH

“Don’t just listen to the Word of Truth and not respond to it, for that is the essence of self-deception.So always let His Word become like poetry written and fulfilled by your life! If you listen to the Word and don’t live out the message you hear, you become like the person who looks in the mirror of the Word to discover the reflection of his face in the beginning. You perceive how God sees you in the mirror of the Word, but then you go out and forget your divine origin.” James 1:22-24 TPT.

Because it is a New Year, this is one of the times, we hopefully like to revise our thinking. It is incredibly easy within this honour system the Lord has given us, to deceive ourselves. The only clue we have that we are doing that is the absence of the Holy Spirit. The absence of His Presence means we have fallen out of harmony with Him and He has simply quietly gone away. He’s incredibly gentle and humble, and He likes to remain unseen, and so it is up to each one of us to honour Him by taking what He wrote in His book, seriously. 

I make it my priority to pay attention to His way of life – the stuff written in His book – plus the things He says to me  personally… and they are also in the book! I would rather look like a goose, than accidentally send Him away. Sadly, my humanity still gets in the way regularly – I wander off into judgment. Watching the NEWS is one of my downfalls. I start having opinions!! And if you pick on one of my kids I will still love you but … you won’t be my best friend quickly! You can see that I am not perfected in this area …. but like the scripture in my blog title says …I press on…  … I press on because Jesus is my only hope. I simply do not know how people manage without Him! 

Reading the bible and agreeing with what it says, is just the beginning of change.The way to read this book is to check yourself against every single line and then ask the Lord, “Do I do this?” And if something pops into your head, then you follow it up. When it comes to forgiveness, I just repent – Meh! It won’t kill me!! Actually, hilariously, 😂 it will! … But in a good way. Teehee. If we are continually hurting others, we are not abounding in love. It is way too easy to write off someone else’s pain as their problem … but if you have contributed, then how hard is it to take what you did seriously enough to ask for their prayers and help, and the Lord’s help? That’s what humility looks like.

Unfortunately, some forms of humility can be imitated, but in our heart of hearts we really do know when we are feigning something … it simply doesn’t resonate, and the matter keeps on coming up! Then the only person you are fooling is yourself. To me, obeying what the bible says and paying particular attention to what Jesus taught us, is my way of presenting my body as a living sacrifice. That’s my go-to method of worship at all times. Anyone can sing and wave their arms about, but unless our hearts are engaged in the process of renewing our minds and actions, you can go away from worship the same way you went in.

Even when I actually don’t want to obey, I still go to the Lord and tell Him that I know that my attitude is wrong, and I desperately need His help to obey Him. Then I go and do whatever it is I don’t want to do … using my faith. I believe all this nice-ey nice-ey pretend stuff is hobbling the Body of Christ. We can all put on a good show, for a couple of hours on Sunday …but what is actually happening inside? If hearing someone’s name makes me want to punch them on the nose, then I haven’t hit real repentance yet!! Even worse still –  I definitely haven’t hit His kind of love! I can give my attitude a fancy name, or hide behind my hurt …or I can confess my fault and face my flaws – knowing that the Lord will always love me. That’s a done deal.

Hubby sent me this verse this morning – he didn’t know what I was planning to write about: “I consider Your Word to be my greatest treasure, and I treasure it in my heart to keep me from committing sin’s treason against You.” Psalms 119:11 TPT. The WAY I value His word dictates the measure of love I have for Him. If I lightly dismiss it, and then excuse myself, because I think I can’t help it … then I am resisting the Holy Spirit. I have stopped operating in faith and gone back into feelings. It means I have forgotten what I saw about myself when I read it. The more I dismiss His word, the harder my heart gets against what He wants. It also hardens my heart against others at the same time.

Reading without doing, is self-deception, and that attitude is one of the hardest things in Christianity to get rid of. Everybody else thinks you are Mr or Mrs Nice-guy but inside you are a fake pile of dirty stinking old rags. We need to remember that SIN is the one thing we all have in common! Pretending we are perfect, is self-deception. Not dealing with myself over whatever it is is just sheer laziness! Jesus provided a WAY. I exhort everyone reading today, to pay real attention to the mirror of the Word, it is the only way forward.👋🏻

P 2481 We are personally responsible to restore love.

/ DVH

Here is an great excerpt from: “I Hear His whisper.” “All that I am is inside of you.My power is not diminished because it has found a home in a temple of flesh. I am vast enough to fill all of creation, yet wise enough to fit My Spirit within vessels of humanity. Never limit the greatness of My glory within you. Never let the frailty of your humanness be reason to doubt what I can do through you. My strength is not limited by the weakness of its surroundings. I am God, after all.”

“The voice of My Spirit is alive within you, and you were created to hear, to speak my truth, and to declare My love. My compassion tugs at your heart, but it’s up to you to respond. When you walk with Me and recognize the greatness of My glory alive within you, you will do what few have dared to do. You will be a light in the darkness, encouragement to the weary, hope for those who have no hope. Partner with Me and allow me to work through you, and you will see greatness and glory in ways you have never known.” (Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez.)

“The earth and sky will wear out and fade away before one word I speak loses its power or fails to accomplish its purpose.” Matthew 24:35 TPT. Good morning! Hubby shared the above thought with me, this morning, from the Passion bible translators. I thought it would be good to think about it and remember that this is who we are – His LOVE CARRIERS and PEACE MAKERS, by His Grace. There is enough bad news flying about telling all of us that this life is just too hard, so Christians need to live their lives remembering everything He said in the book.

Here’s some more Good News. The Christian life doesn’t have to depend on us … it simply must depend on Him. Our choices to go His way, plus our actions matter. However, it is not enough to choose Him, we need to follow those choices up with loving, peaceable actions. It is not up to other people to adapt, it is up to us, as individuals, to obey His Word. That is when our lives will slowly change, and we will see His glory. Remember Jesus Christ is a Redeemer.

Repentance is good for us, it humbles us, and brings us into submission to God. We need it. We live in a world teeming with ‘me first’ narcissists who don’t know any better… People who are always right, yet they are actually disobeying God’s written instructions so they can maintain their own disobedience. There is enough self-aggrandisement in this world, plus plenty of books to tell us how human beings are not wrong, just misunderstood. Baloney. It is God Who is at work within each of us, for HIS WILL AND HIS PLEASURE and His glory.

Romans 12:17-18“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.”  What a scripture! True peace belongs to Jesus. If we, or the people around us, have no peace, then it is up to us to go after it and revise what we’ve done to destroy it. But we are not the source of restoration – the Holy Spirit is. We obey Him and usher in His true peace, then His peace will affect everyone else around us.

To maintain love we must give our struggles to Him and take the time to check with others to see if they have been affected by what has happened. None of us live in a vacuum. After we have done all we can, when whatever it is comes up in our mind, we give it back to Him. Meanwhile, check your spiritual bible mail daily! God can speak to us in many ways, because He’s wiser than we can ever hope or imagine. He can use other people to point out our wrong responses. We must not fly solo, we have the body of Christ to help us. Remember when God acts, miracles and revelations flow – hearts are transformed. 

Speaking personally, Jesus has gotten me out of loads of stupid stuff I staggered into, sometimes with my eyes open, sometimes with them on things that were never going to help me in the first place! My advice is to learn to repent, repair and restore things, quickly –simply because we are peace makers and love carriers. That thought has helped me over many hurdles. In my heart I have a pending file. It is full of stuff I haven’t found an answer to, or I can’t explain. I can’t fix things or change the circumstances so far, but I’ve done everything He has told me to do. But I will never give up taking these things to Him be-cau-se …

… God loves sudden-lys and He is my senior Partner. Things can be topsy-turvy for years and my part is to keep my heart right with Him and others, stay humble, and stay ready to be wrong!  And then  … suddenly …. everything turns right side up and I have not got a clue how it happened. Like the nice translators from the Passion Bible said: ‘Never let the frailty of your humanness be reason to doubt what I can do through you. My strength is not limited by the weakness of its surroundings.’Bye 👋🏻

P 2480 Empty cups!

/ DVH

We have all been born, broken. There was sin in this world before we arrived here, and it will still be here … when we die. Someone once said that we come into this world with our little cups that need love, empty. Yet we all need love – some of us need it so badly we steal it!  The sad fact is we often wander around with our little empty cups from person to person, looking for someone that gets us … someone who sees us. Someone who will understand us, especially in our best or worst moments.

We may be fortunate to find a selfless person who gives freely, but for every selfless person there will be many many others who drain the cup of our hope and provision. So we need spiritual help and provision. Jesus never felt the lack of His Father’s Love, until He was in Gethsemane and He went on to die on that cross. That’s where He suffered that awful loneliness for us — if we need understanding we need to remind ourselves that the Lord Jesus understands. He entered into the human condition. We were designed to LIVE in the Presence of God. Go back to Eden, look at Moses, or Abraham … human beings were not designed to live without God and still flourish. Life batters everyone.

Sadly, many of the people around us that we choose to fill that cup, either leave, or they damage us further. Sometimes we even get married, with that huge thirsty need in the back of our emotions. We badly want to be fixed, but …. often so does the other person!!  And they too, see US as their answer. Human beings have a deep need to be loved … and those other people cannot fix you or I, because they have empty cups too. The ability to love others freely without limits, even the vile and the profane, is not found in people… that ability is only found in God Himself. We need His love to fill us and overflow in us and through us, then we will be giving away from abundance. If someone hurts us, most of the time they are not doing it for spite … it may well be that they are also hurting. I know this is trite – hurt people hurt people. But when we actively apply the truth into our lives it will set us free.

I believe the answer to filling this cup to overflowing is found in the 23rd Psalm. He prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. Even at our lowest moments that cup is there to be drunk, using our faith. Don’t search your feelings, simply remember God’s realm operates through faith. Sit with Him, discern your need for love in the middle of the chaos, and ask for Him to overflow in you. When we are tormented by the pain of lovelessness, loneliness and emptiness we also need to ask to be able to discern His cup, which is always available. We must take our eyes off the problem and fix them on Jesus.“He is the Author and Finisher of our faith …” Hebrews 12:2. Faith is always the source of provision. 

Other people cannot fill that void. Only Jesus can. He said: “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].” Human beings were designed to be loved and accepted for who they are and Jesus is the only Person I ever met Who does that!  We simply need to go directly to the source. Jesus did. He got alone with His Father in the midst of a busy schedule. We must stop badgering God for answers, answers are a temporary patch. Tomorrow you will need more! Just go and sit and be with Him. He is LOVE, and all the acceptance we will ever need.

Jesus  also said:“I am the way the truth and the life …” Did you get that? Our new life is in Him now – He is the way into that new life and He always speaks the truth. He is more alive than anyone else that has ever been on this planet! He has that vibrant life in HIMSELF – He paid an enormous price to get it, and He gives us His life for free. Our faith is the key to unlocking the door to love’s provision. Only our Heavenly Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit can love human beings the way they need to be loved. Why? Because the Trinity are not needy. They have Each Other. Love is the language that flourishes between Them and They all love to share.

Just to remind you that He is our help with the empty cup pain that no-one else but He can fill: “… my cup overflows …”(Psalm 23:5) Remember this cup is to be found in the presence of our enemies … We need to take our focus off our feelings of emptiness, or the lack we feel, or even the people tormenting us—and focus on the overflowing cup …“The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup … “Psalm 16:5. We are the people who never have to live this life with an empty cup – we have a Saviour. 🙌

P 2479 Learn to live in love.

/ DVH

“We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.” 1 John 4:16 TPT

“What marvellous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we’re called children of God! That’s who we really are. …  … But friends, that’s exactly who we are: children of God. And that’s only the beginning. Who knows how we’ll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we’ll see Him—and in seeing Him, become like Him. All of us who look forward to His Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus’ life as a model for our own.” 1 John 3:1-3 MSG.

Living in love means that we decide we will live, helped by His Grace, CHOOSING to love others. It’s the place we walk, talk, sleep and play in. We don’t move away from there. If we do, by accident, or on purpose, we immediately repent, fix whatever it is and GO BACK TO LOVE. We are designed to settle down into living a life of love for God and others and we never ever leave that neighbourhood. This is HOW we carry His Presence!

Living in love is not the same as living in today’s carelessly permissive atmosphere. God’s Love disciplines us, as I talked about yesterday. However, we watch over our attitudes and actions without any fear, because we are living aware of the Presence of the Holy Spirit – Who is the ultimate lover of our souls. We will not be afraid because … “(His) perfect love casts out fear” …

If we are afraid to talk to the Lord about anything, then we have not YET comprehended the magnitude of how much He loves us…. how perfect His love is toward us.The bible tells me that fear has to do with punishment and if I have fear, then I have forgotten that Jesus has already taken my sin to the cross. That is not a place of permissiveness, it is a place of great reverence for what we have all been given. I know that He forgave me, so now I can forgive you!

There are many times I may feel that someone has wrongfully accused me or misunderstood my motivation … only the Lord knows if they are right or wrong … but whenever I am in doubt, I ask for forgiveness. Whether I think I am right or wrong, that does not matter. I am protecting and esteeming my relationship with the Lord – not fighting for my own way or rights. I also ask you for forgiveness because our relationship together, matters to Him. I live this life remembering that I gave up my own rights when I gave my life to Him. Now I need to allow Him to do whatever happens in my life, His way.

You see the thing is we are to stay fixed within His love, not just work hard and hope we are getting this life right! Human beings are obsessed with stuff being right or wrong. The question we need to regularly ask ourselves is this …is this love? And to be honest with you, I don’t trust my own response – so I ask Him!! Living in love doesn’t just mean we love others, it also means we need to live this life we have now, knowing we are eternally LOVED by HIM. We are not spoilt brats, we are children of a loving Father Who gives us love freely so we can give it away.

Think of living in love like this, we need to check ourselves. If we start bad-mouthing or complaining or even repeatedly thinking badly about other people … something is hindering the flow of His love into our lives – out toward others. Ask the Lord what has gotten stuck… and deal with it… by choice. Most of the time we probably won’t want to do this, because this world around us says – whatever makes ME feel good is good.  This is where we have to go around how we feel, back into faith. 

The Holy Spirit isn’t concerned about how we feel – READ THE BOOK! It is what we choose to say and do, that gives Him room to move. The feelings come later. When we do this, despite how we feel, we are saying to Father God: ‘I love you Lord, and I welcome Your love, as well as Your correction in my life.’  That is when we are actively loving Jesus, when we choose to die to what we want, or what makes us happy. We are choosing to act like HE DID. Those steps are the beginning of spiritual transformation. 

Living a life of love is dying to self, every single minute of every single day. It is impossible to live in His kind of love and not die! Meanwhile, one person is not better at this than any other, we all need to actively choose to learn to live a life of love. Day, by day, by day.  👋🏻   🥳 Have love-enriched, God-blessed, 2024.

P 2478 So here we are again!

/ DVH

That dratted clock keeps on ticking, it never stops – it’s inevitable. And here we go again, yet another New Year looming at us. Hilariously, the Lord said to me: “At least you are still alive to complain about it!” (Yes I repented.) Let’s all pray 2024 is a kinder year everywhere, including world-wide to those who are suffering terribly.

Have you noticed how dead-set easy it is to be distracted from the reason that we are all still breathing and occupying space and time? Almost every single day now something else crashes or explodes, or gets worse and suddenly a terrible disaster looms. I have a theory … these things happen to keep us distracted from the main thing. The main thing is living the only life we have here on earth for Jesus’ sake, no matter the cost and no matter what is going on currently! Some of our situations offer opportunities for each one of us to show loving care, forgiveness and compassion toward others who probably don’t deserve it, but this is the way we have chosen to live! 

Things are happening in all our lives that threaten our day-to-day sense of well-being. Finances are not just tight they are almost non-existent, people have become sick and despite fervent prayer and good treatment they are not getting better. Marriages are under great pressure. Kids are becoming increasingly disobedient and lawless. It is as if despair is wandering around our streets looking for places to land.

Everything and anything is happening to destroy our HOPE in HIM. The bible says that …”hope does not disappoint” so if our hope leads to disappointment, then it is not HIS hope. Perhaps we are investing in our own comfort or passions, like James says. Personally I’ve found the Lord doesn’t change some things because He wants ME to change instead! How can we learn to be strong and courageous if we do not face opposition? How can we overcome sin, the world and the devil, if everything is aways easy. These are the days of Hebrews 12:5-8 …

“And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son.”Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.”

You know when we resist the devil then he must flee, so if he does not flee then … perhaps we have need of endurance! If our enemy has something to stand on, then he can and will torment anyone. I am not into defending that guy, but we can end up blaming him for a lotta stuff that has yet to be redeemed in our own lives. We excuse things that will totally shoot us in the foot, and we can easily make room for wrong attitudes and actions and explain them away … Yet we keep score about other people’s sins against us. There are times that we may as well write an invitation to our enemy and say ‘come on in.’

The things in the bible are not written in there as suggestions. If we keep holding onto unforgiveness, then the tormentor will turn up!! Those things that we are avoiding confronting in our own lives, are keeping us from real faith. Our enemy is a legalist – he knows where we are truly trusting, and where we are just pretending. he will string us along chasing impossible dreams of perfect trouble-free lives. People are not perfect, they have flaws. We all do!  But real faith has substance. That means when it operates you can see it! It is not airy-fairy pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die stuff … Faith is designed to permeate and saturate every single aspect of our lives. Our God did not say we would not have troubles — He promised He would deliver us out of all of them! You know to get out, you have to be IN, first!

His book is filled with promises, but the greatest promise of all is that our God is good. If whatever is happening is not good then it is not God … grab hold of the bible and resist it. Then ask and keep on asking Him for a way out. Ask the Lord to show you if there is something you need to personally learn or change in your life. Keep short accounts because resentment and bitterness are prowling about – but God promised us goodness and mercy would follow us all the days of our lives! We need to let PEACE be our umpire… not our feelings. Simply because we are here again – let’s make 2024 the best year yet, spiritually – His Grace is sufficient to help us. Bye 🥳

P 2477 No, we may not be excused …

/ DVH

There are 3237 characters mentioned by name in the bible – in a cast of tens of thousands. In the New Testament, Peter; James; John; Andrew; Philip; Judas Iscariot; Matthew; Thomas; James, the son of Alpheus; Bartholomew; Judas Thaddeus; and Simon Zelotes — all of these men were named disciples of Jesus. These men He handpicked – yet the last four are relatively unknown. My point is – we don’t have to have a public face, to obey what Jesus said…

All the books in the New Testament were written by only 9 different men. Sadly we’d rather argue about who wrote what, than talk to someone else about Jesus! BTW, FYI, 13 of the books in the New Testament are accredited to Paul. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the gospels and Luke and John also wrote books that were included in the Epistles. Well now, isn’t that a nice bunch of figures??!! What did I put all those in there for? Hang on the point is coming …you definitely don’t have to be famous to live for Jesus!! 😂 Anybody can do it. It’s the way you think, not eloquence or importance. People have been getting this backward for years. We left reaching the lost to the evangelists, and forgot our part. 

70 million Christians have died or been martyred since Jesus left this earth to go back to heaven. More than half of those have been martyred in the past 130 years. Population-wise, approximately 109,000,000,000 people, have died since Jesus’ time. Yes that is a lot of noughts and, no, I did not make a mistake – 109 billion people! Unfortunately Christianity is not growing at the same rate the world’s population is growing. So, to my next point for today … it doesn’t look like we are winning does it??

Of the approximately 8 billion people on the earth, right now, 3.40 billion of them live in unreached people groups with little or no access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Nobody has gone and preached the gospel to them! Brother Everybody-in-church-knows-my-name the famous evangelist, would have to be cloned to reach that many people. So what on earth is going on? Why is this so?? Here’s my little hypothesis…

John and Betty are a typical Christian couple who raised 2.5 kids and they go their local church, every single Sunday. They also go to bible study, and prayer groups during the week. Betty helps care for the poor every other week. Sadly when they prayed for John’s mum, she died — which kind of dented their faith a little but they know Jesus and keep on keeping on. Their faith is wobbly but not gone. Unfortunately, John does not make enough money to raise their standard of living. He feels bad about that. He feels like he is ‘letting the team down.’ After all, isn’t it a Christian’s job to set a good example of what Christianity can do for someone’s life? 😳 ???

Well, Jesus Himself seems to have had quite a different opinion – He just said go, and He wasn’t specific about WHO should go! “As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.” Matthew 10:7-8. The words AS YOU GO… are a big clue to what He wants! “And He (Jesus)said to them (His disciples – aren’t WE disciples?), “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”Mark 16:15; Luke 14:23;  Matthew 28:19-20;  and Acts 1:7-8. If repetition counts then Jesus was extremely serious about this instruction.

As you can see from all those facts and figures I’ve jotted down above, there are very few people in recorded history, in the bible that we know by NAME. Which is the best clue we are ever going to get that God intends for John and Betty … as well as the rest of us … to simply obey what we were told. Hubby has had a specific instance of being called, I go because Jesus said to do it in the book!

I’ve been ‘going’ for 50 years one way or another. Even when I was backslidden I was still witnessing. We are to ‘go’ simply because HE said it. Where do we go?? To the shops, to the supermarket, on your holidays, in the schools, visiting the elderly or the sick, and sometimes even at your church. Because even there, people may not know that Jesus saved them from a life of sin and death!! 

Before I was saved, I went to a church for 3 months and people thought I was saved because I could pray out loud. That’s a personality thing, not a salvation thing – I didn’t have a clue about Jesus saving me! We don’t have to be famous to preach the gospel … all we need to be is willing! If we say we are His disciples then we have no excuse! Simply carry His Presence with you, and the Holy Spirit will do the work for you. It is scary but it ain’t rocket science. Bye 👋🏻

“Those who cling to their lives will give up true life. But those who let go of their lives for My sake and surrender it all to Me will discover true life!” Matthew 10:39.

P 2476 Ruth.

/ DVH

Ruth 1:9-17 “May the Lord grant that each of you will find rest in the home of another husband.”Then she (Naomi) kissed them goodbye and they wept aloud and said to her, “We will go back with you to your people.” But Naomi said, “Return home, my daughters. Why would you come with me? Am I going to have any more sons, who could become your husbands?  Return home, my daughters; I am too old to have another husband. Even if I thought there was still hope for me—even if I had a husband tonight and then gave birth to sons— would you wait until they grew up? Would you remain unmarried for them? No, my daughters. It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has turned against me!”

At this they wept aloud again. Then Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye, but Ruth clung to her. “Look,” said Naomi, “your sister-in-law is going back to her people and her gods. Go back with her.” Then Ruth uttered one of the loveliest lines reported in the bible,  But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.”

Naomi did all that she could to send these two young women back to their homes… but logic wasn’t the tool of the day – FAITH WAS!  Orpah returned to her homeland, but Ruth chose to stay with her mother-in-law. That just blows my mind. Think about it… one person turns back to the familiar and the household of their birth, and the other is activated and presses on into faith. Every step Ruth took after her decision to stay with Naomi, was one of faith.

Everybody loves the book of Ruth, it is a brilliant, inspiring, redemptive story about the power of God to redeem every type of human condition, and transform difficult situations for everybody’s good. The stars of this story were quite clearly not anybody fame-worthy.  But God, took an older lady whose faith had taken a battering, and a younger one who didn’t have much to look forward to, and put them smack in the middle of His-story and they didn’t even know it.

Boy is that saying heaps!! This is what the Christian life is like, it is a series of choices and we cannot always see the results. And some of them don’t seem all that significant when we make them! But Orpah’s choice separated her from a totally different destiny. She leaves the story at this point, and we don’t know what came next for her. Maybe she married again too, and had a very nice life … but there is more to this life than safety! There is courage, and innovation and freedom and the future to be fought for and won.

Our heroine Ruth starts out by being poor and having to scrounge for food, but eventually she finds a new husband, by following instructions, and by using her faith! She even has a family, when she thought that opportunity had passed her by. And she ends up being Jesus great great great great great great etc.etc. GRANDMOTHER. This story is so rich in spiritual imagery. Ruth chose to follow Naomi and use her faith and love for this older woman to move on, she seized the adventure as it unfolded before them both. Everything Naomi told that young woman to do, she did – she trusted and then she acted.

I’m starting to believe a lack of inspiration to be spiritually mature, is part of the problem today, particularly with many Western Christians. Plus we’ve all stopped being pilgrims. We seem have lost our sense of adventure. Instead of striking out in our little boats for foreign shores … stretching our faith and watching the Lord protect, provide and lead us … we’ve become settlers.

Settlers can’t wait to have a family, get a house and earn a living! BTW, we don’t need more pastors – we need more missionaries, at home and abroad!  People who leave comfort behind to make sure that others find out about Jesus. Surely we were born again for bigger things than normal! Our biggest claim to faith, these days, seems to be whether the Lord gave us the spouse/car/family/job we wanted! 

Pilgrims and pioneers press on, always believing there is more. More to know about Him, more to learn about themselves and others. Meanwhile we don’t have to go to the darkest places on the earth to become pioneers. We can reach unreached people groups in the alleys and doorways of our own cities! Or our offices, or schools, or at the shops. Pioneers are people with more than a dream – they are people of action. Ruth made a choice and she did not turn back. After all, she was not Jewish she was a Moabite, and yet God provided for her … all because of her obedience and loyalty. 

The Lord loves loyalty. Loyalty is more than an attitude, it is the way we live. Ruth is a wonderful example of a woman who could easily have seen her life as being over … instead she decided to take her chances in an unknown land. Today I want to leave you with yet another one of my icky questions …where have all the home-grown missionaries gone? Bye 👋🏻 

P 2475 Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.

/ DVH

Today I want to talk about the Wise men. They were travelling on camels from the East so they took sometime to arrive. Following a star slows you up a bit … there were those pesky clouds and all. Eventually they arrived at the house Mary, Joseph and Jesus were staying in. Some people call these men, the Magi. “And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary His mother, and they fell down and worshiped Him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered Him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.“  Matthew 2:11.  

Each of these unusual gifts apparently had a special meaning, and smarter people than me have written loads, and even books, about them. When I was reading this part of the bible and talking about it with the Lord, He asked me this question. “What would YOU want to give me for a gift?” My immediate response was – ‘me!!’ But you might want to think on this question for yourself. 

I don’t know if this ever happens to you, but there are times when I talk to Him when I feel like what I said was … well, Ok-ay, … but not what He was looking for! This was one of those times… so I pressed on … and I asked Him what did He mean by that question? Pressing, BTW, on is the way to go …trust me!! I exhort you, don’t give up, push on! In those moments you are on the edge of a fresh revelation of Who He is. Unless you suddenly remember you have to go shopping, or get going to work on the same train you always take. I urge you to just give Jesus a few more minutes. I truly believe one of the Lord’s love languages is time spent with Him.

Then He said this: “Those Wise men gave Me gold. Gold represents everything you own, your money etc. Have you given Me everything?”  I sat and thought about that. Gold represents material things. Have I given all the material things I have to Him? Plus I also think that Gold is also about future provision. Cars, houses, money in the bank, clothes etc. Is there anything that I am holding onto, or that I think I want or need? There are times that I’ve told myself:  ‘God doesn’t care about that stuff!’ So I asked Him if there was anything I had overlooked- just to be thorough.

Then, I realised if we lost this or that, I would probably grieve over it but the things around me actually don’t matter much. When you lose your health everything else kind of fades into insignificance! But, I do find it hard to let go of the people I love, because I haven’t learnt to trust Him as utterly as I would like to. Sometimes I don’t understand what He is doing. If my dear hubby or my kids or my friends get sick, or unhappy, I have to fight a rising sense of panic at times. So I spent some time praying over those things too.

Then He asked me: “What about frankincense?” That one took me a while and I did a bit of research. Frankincense is given to Kings because it is valuable. So, to me, this gift is about the Lord Jesus’ Kingship over my life. It has its significance when I believe God IS God, no matter what is going on around me, in my life, or in my heart. Frankincense is about trust. Is He Who He says He is, or are we all at the mercy of circumstances? Are we affected by our decisions, bad or good, especially the ones we’ve made carelessly. Even the ones we haven’t repented about. We had a long conversation about this one – I found big spaces between what I knew and what I believed. BTW, I think belief is something we act upon not just what we talk about.

The last thing the Wise men brought is myrrh. Myrrh is about anointing and priesthood. The Lord asked me if I thought I was faithful to Him as a part of His priesthood. Did I minister to Him out of duty, or was I inspired by love? I spent a while on this one too. Mainly because I did not know the answer! That’s the problem with head knowledge, it sometimes gets in the way of the heart’s true answer! I ended up with Ezekiel’s wisdom. “Only YOU know Lord.”  That’s when I remembered that true worship is presenting our bodies as a living sacrifice – holy and pleasing to Him. 

Lastly I want to say that every one of these three gifts has great value, as well as significance. These things weren’t some cheap baby toys these Wise men picked up at the supermarket on the way to Jesus’ house! Anything and everything we offer to Him is valuable to Him, not because of monetary value, but because of the personal cost. Jesus knows everything about personal cost!

I do not believe revelation is given to us just to tickle our ears and make us feel good about knowing something that nobody else does. Revelation is designed to challenge our own hearts, transform our minds, and lead to different attitudes and actions. Always remembering that ‘first He speaks, then after that, the opportunity to change my response will come along.’ I have given up thinking that what I imagine I will do, is what I will actually do – nobody knows what they will do when they are tested. 😶 

The Lord Jesus is a gentleman, He will not snatch things from us. We must give them, as willingly as we can. So today I want to ask you, what will you give Him? 👋🏻