John 1:11

P 2814 Never EVER forget how much He loves you.

/ DVH

I have found out when life ambushes us, and hard things, or difficult situations – or even other people, add to our pain – it is easy to forget how truly loved we are. The presence of pain does not mean we are not loved! Almighty God dearly loves all His people. To fully comprehend how much, instead of reading the Old Testament as a collection of stories, look for how patient He is with Israel. I honestly believe Israel’s inability to remember that they were His chosen people and what that was meant to create for them… caused Father God untold pain! Look for the precious things He says to this nation – if you listen carefully you can hear His heart breaking because His love is lying at their feet — unappreciated. 

“For the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel has said this, “In returning [to Me] and rest you shall be saved, In quietness and confident trust is your strength.”But you were not willing, …”Isaiah 30:15. “Thus says the Lord: “What wrong did your fathers find in Me that they went far from Me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?”Jeremiah 2:5. Humanity’s sin has broken God’s heart and we have that fact clearly illustrated even medically at Calvary – Jesus died of a broken heart. This verse is from the New Testament: “He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him.” John 1:11. These people did not know their God even when they met Him!

It is no use to say to ourselves that we would not have done that. Sin is common to man. We have all had times when we have been so self-obsessed we would not have offered the Lord Himself a room or a bed. Remember what He said? ‘When do you these things for the least of these you are doing them for ME.’ He comes to each of us each day, just to remind us how much we are dearly loved by the Father, the Son, and by the Holy Spirit, our precious Messenger of Love.

The bible tells us our God loves everybody, all kinds of people, old, or young, or wise or foolish, grumpy ungrateful people. We merrily quote “God so loved the world that He gave…”but we forget to add to that thought that it COST HIM to do it. That’s what love looks like, and this is how God expresses His love – sacrifice. What Jesus did for us was free to us, but it cost Him His life to do it, and it cost our Heavenly Father to allow it to happen. He’s a FATHER … and He’s a good good Father! We are the apple of His eye and love is His primary motivation.

Meanwhile, don’t waste your time feeling guilty, or ashamed, or inadequate – instead stop thinking about yourself at all — and give the Lord your sincere, heartfelt appreciation! He did everything He did because He loves us. As human beings we often associate love with getting what we want when we want it, or when we think we need it.  Sometimes people just want the easiest and most fun answers! We link love with feelings of comfort and ease or feeling special – but God’s love is eternally linked to a cross and an empty tomb. 

In my opinion we need to get our heads around the fact that authentic love always wants the best for the other person! Guess what! God sees you and I as the best, so He gave us His best. We are so precious to Him, He is longing to marry us to His Son. And He is very satisfied with the bargain He made by giving His Son’s earthly life in exchange for our eternity with Him.  You and I might worry over Aunt Minnie or Uncle Fred because they are not ‘saved.’ Imagine how HE feels. The Lord Himself knows them intimately. He gave them that cheeky smile, and those sparkly eyes and He longs to talk to them. They are not strangers to Him – they are His beloved.

We have clear descriptions of what God’s love looks like in 1 Corinthians 13 and Colossians 3. That kind of love is the love Almighty God Himself chose to clothe Himself in when He came to earth. His precious Son, His chosen human personification, had no soft, stylish baby clothes — Jesus was wrapped in swaddling clothes. Strips of cloth – the baby clothes of the poor. That tiny little precious infant slept on straw, have you ever even sat on straw? It’s not something you’d want for a brand new infant! I encourage you to never ever forget how much He loves you – it is more than just nice scriptures – it is a fact!  Bye. 💕

“What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since He did not spare even His own Son but gave Him up for us all, won’t He also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for His own? No one—for God Himself has given us right standing with Himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and He is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand, pleading for us. Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?

(As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.)” NO, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, Who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed,nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39.

P 2634 Bloom where you are planted.

/ DVH

Jesus Christ was planted on this EARTH, He was planted into a DRY place in a time when nobody understood who He was and why He came. A place where His knowledge of God and His ways, when Christ was twelve, confounded the leaders. But then when they heard Him speak as a grown man they called Him ‘blasphemous.’

His mother heard everything that was said and she kept it in her heart. She knew personally, He was a miracle. However, His family once tried to help Him raise up a publicity campaign to fulfil His God-given directives! 😳 And one other time, His hometown tried to throw Him off a cliff! It seems nobody had a clue Who He really was! People caught a glimpse but they did not comprehend Him. ‘He came unto His own and His own received Him not!’ John 1:11-13.

“My servant grew up in the LORD’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him. He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.” Isaiah 53:2-3.There was nothing whatsoever about Christ that would make anybody look twice. The Lord Jesus simply looked liked everyone else around Him – Jewish! And right after He was dead, He was planted back into this earth’s dry ground – He was buried in it. Praise God that’s not the end of that story!!

Some of you reading this blog today have been planted in a very dry, unGodly place. Cheer up! The Lord Himself has already gone before you. He knows what that is like, and He knows how to bring that planting, that seedling of His life inside you, into a full grown plant for God’s glory. You and I, we are a blessed people,we have now been planted in fertile heavenly ground by the Spirit of the living God! We are here, right here, right now because there is something that we can do for His Kingdom that is a unique expression of God’s love into this world. But we aren’t here primarily to preach, or teach — first of all we are here to learn to love and live, like He loved and lived. 

WE’VE all been planted INSIDE the passion of Calvary. No dry ground for us!  Incredible passion sent the Lord Jesus to the cross, and passion kept Him there until it was all done. Finished! What He did was so remarkable it left eternally fertile ground!  We can renew our passion by gazing at that cross and realising that ‘I put Him there.’  He loved us all that much. Love is defined by its actions.

Whatever we both did before we met Him was enough to send Him up that awful hill to His death! And He would have done it gladly, just for one of us. Every terrible thing this world has done, went on that cross … and it killed Him. The awful weight of human sin killed Him. Yet we both know that most human beings walk around mindlessly, totally unaware of that great and grave weight in their lives. That stuff squeezed the life and breath out of Jesus’ precious body. 

Our passion for Christ grows as we further understand what we have been GI-V-E-N. We’ve been planted in the warm, fertile, blood-soaked ground of His sacrificial, all-conquering love!  Ain’t NO ground better than that! “He sacrificed Himself for us that He might purchase our freedom from every lawless deed and to purify for Himself a people who are His very own, passionate to do what is beautiful in His eyes.” Titus 2:14 TPT. “The light of God’s love shined within us when He sent His matchless Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” 1 John 4:9 TPT.

Jesus didn’t just die so we can get on the glory train at the end of our lives and chuff off into heaven! He died to release to each one of us the potential to participate in His earthly ministry. He prepared stuff for us to do before we ever got here. We must pray we find it and do whatever it is, for His glory!

My hope is this, that we would all just stop worrying about who has this gift and who has that one, and run after and concentrate on the thing that every single one of us finds difficult and impossible in our day to day lives. LOVING THE UNLOVELY. We all have people like that –  some of us are so blessed we have a whole bunch of them! They will teach us how to love people like He did – if we let them.Those gifts we run after, will not operate properly without His love – unless you want to spend your life sounding like a brass gong! 

So let’s LIVE this life more and more passionately for Him. Bloom where you are planted – in Christ Jesus! ‘Count yourself dead to sin but alive to Him.’ Romans 6:11. Bye. 👋