Joshua

P 3260 Always our choice.

/ DVH

“Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything —every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.” 2 Corinthians 9:8 TPT. Amazing isn’t it? Here it talks about the clear reality that God has given us so much Grace that now we have more than enough to give away. It’s in writing, in Jesus Christ’s WILL and WE benefit. 

Everybody likes abundance. I do too! But I wonder how often we are tested on that particular concept … ?? It feels to me like I’m tested daily to be honest! If you are tired, ill, young, old, especially or you don’t have what everybody else appears to have… all that stuff we think we need. Those things we seem to be missing out onwill come and sit on us and camp there. Removing our God-given view of the eternal. The problem is, for years we have thought that Almighty God is here to indulge US! 

Look, I’m very happy for the Lord to ‘supply all my needs according to His riches in glory‘ … Whoo-pp-eee!! Yes, please! But IS THAT what this verse is actually about? Hmmm. Please note it says… ‘according to HIS riches in glory.’  Our Heavenly Father’s idea of riches is totally different than ours! Jesus is rich in all of the Graces that this life needs… and… I am not … a-n-d … neither are you. Not unless we start to use our faith. 

He has infinitely more Grace than I can ever imagine, and He won’t run OUT… e-v-e-r.  So, because I am now in Christ Jesus — I don’t have to run out either! That’s what Calvary did for all of us. When we choose to follow the Lord and obey Him, we are potentially rich in the things that last. The thing we need to ask ourselves is this, are we appropriating what we have been given? Or do we bleat ‘it’s too hard ‘ like a lost sheep waiting for the Shepherd to come and rescue us all the time.

Have we become so busy with earthly riches we’ve forgotten all of His benefits for us? “Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [ONE OF] all His benefits” – Psalm 103:2 AMPC. It’s all a done deal! He has already given us His Grace, now we can’t afford to let our hearts forget what He did! The Lord could care less about worldly wealth. He knows it can disappear in a heartbeat. Let’s list some of His real benefits. 

1. He forgives our sins. (Matthew 6:12)

2. He heals our diseases. (Exodus 15:26)

3. He redeems our life from destruction. (Psalm 34:22)

4. He crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies (Luke 15:11-24)

5. He satisfies us with good things (James 1:17)

6. He renews our youth like the eagles. (Isaiah 40:31)

7. He executes righteousness and judgment for all the oppressed. (Matthew 11:38-30).

8. He makes His ways and His acts known to us.

Stop for a minute and just breathe. You and I, right here, right now, have access to Jesus’ own unlimited supply of His Father’s Love, the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, salvation, redemption, a brand new heart, plus a new way to live. And… AND!! … HEAVEN IS OURS!  Are these benefits or what? Let’s not ever forget that we have Grace, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control … These things now belong to us. Why on earth should we worry about money, etc. when heaven belongs to us? Jesus died so we can have all this heavenly stuff that changes our lives, here and now. 

So how do I get it? Glad you asked me that!  “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. ASK for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?” Matthew 7:7-11.

A.S.K… Ask, and then A.C.T. — it’s a piece of cake. We’ve all been given faith – now we need to use it to enter into the riches Jesus won on our behalf at Calvary. Does anybody out there think that they will need love, joy, peace, patience, etc. IN HEAVEN?? Me neither. We need it down here! What the heck are we waiting for? We cannot afford to have His heavenly riches as an add-on to earthly ones. The earthly riches will distract us, and cause us to forget the heavenly ones. And, before you know it, how we feel becomes more important than loving others. 

We need to use our faith not our feelings. We can lose our peace because we are struggling with, and for, the things that do not last. Bad move. I’m with Joshua — smart guy Joshua! … He stayed behind in the tent of meeting and learnt stuff from God Himself, personally. He received wisdom and heavenly priorities in that tent! “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:25. Joshua made a personal CHOICE. He chose to do things God’s Way. It was permanent and irrevocable – he didn’t forget God’s benefits. 

We can continue to scramble around in the dust like a chicken looking for worms, and forget to use our God-given blood-bought ability to fly high — OR we can fly like eagles and renew our strength. It’s always our choice. Bye. 👋

P 3236 We too can be dazzled by the WRONG side of Jordan.

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This is what I noticed the other day, when I read Numbers 32:1-22. When the Israelites came to the Jordan river, two tribes chose to stay on the east side of that river. They decided the land suited them there. However, Moses insisted that their fighting men had to come with the rest of the larger group, to defeat the people on the west side, and help them get rid of those enemies who lived on the other side of Jordan, in the Promised Land . 

Let’s be clear, the land these two tribes wanted was on the east side of the Jordan river to the Promised Land.These tribes wanted to stay there because they could settle down, spread out and make new lives. They preferred the land outside the Promised Land, it was more convenient, and invited prosperity.  

“The Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were suitable for livestock. So they came to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the community, and said, “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo and Beon— the land the Lord subdued before the people of Israel—are suitable for livestock, and your servants have livestock. If we have found favour in your eyes,” they said, “let this land be given to your servants as our possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan.”

Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites, “Should your fellow Israelites go to war while you sit here? Why do you discourage the Israelites from crossing over into the land the Lord has given them? This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to look over the land. After they went up to the Valley of Eshkol and viewed the land, they discouraged the Israelites from entering the land the Lord had given them. The Lord’s anger was aroused that day and He swore this oath: ‘Because they have not followed Me wholeheartedly, not one of those who were twenty years old or more when they came up out of Egypt will see the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob— not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they followed the Lord wholeheartedly.’ 

The Lord’s anger burned against Israel and He made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in His sight was gone.“And here you are, a brood of sinners, standing in the place of your fathers and making the Lord even more angry with Israel. If you turn away from following Him, He will again leave all this people in the wilderness, and you will be the cause of their destruction.”

Then they came up to him and said, “We would like to build pens here for our livestock and cities for our women and children. But we will arm ourselves for battle and go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their place. Meanwhile our women and children will live in fortified cities, for protection from the inhabitants of the land. We will not return to our homes until each of the Israelites has received their inheritance. We will not receive any inheritance with them on the other side of the Jordan, because our inheritance has come to us on the east side of the Jordan.”

Then Moses said to them, “If you will do this—if you will arm yourselves before the Lord for battle and if all of you who are armed cross over the Jordan before the Lord until He has driven His enemies out before Him—then when the land is subdued before the Lord, you may return and be free from your obligation to the Lord and to Israel. And this land will be your possession before the Lord.” 

This section of scripture hit me between the eyes. It showed me that we too, can camp on the wrong side of the river – where the work has already been done, and we know we will be comfortable because it suits our needs. But we don’t appear to give two figs about what the Lord has told us He has given us. He gave us a Promised Land filled with everything the Lord Jesus did for us. We need to be the grateful people who want to live in the Promised land and are more than willing to fight for it. These tribes, Reuben and Gad, didn’t care about the others, because they had already got what they wanted, space for their flocks etc.

Sadly, I think this is also true of the Body of Christ today. Many of us have settled on the wrong side of Jordan –  because where we are, and what we have, suits us. I’m talking about our faith. So we stay home and do nothing. We don’t want to lose our sense of safety. There are those in this world who need our help, but few want to be part of the solution, because they might lose something! We haven’t got a dispute about land, etc., per se, instead, our dispute is about comfort and where we want to settle down and be comfortable. Plus what we choose to believe. 

These two tribes wanted to settle for something God had not given them, but Moses made it very clear — they would have to fight alongside their braver brethren or lose what they had chosen, because God Himself would fight against them. The battle for real faith, living faith, the kind of faith that loves and lives a life like Jesus did, is still in front of us. He won for us! But we are not doing our part! It seems we like to go to places where we hear stories of other people’s victories, but then we want to return to the safety of the place we’ve called our own, where ‘our kind of faith’ suits us. We cannot afford to decide we know what our inheritance is – God has decided that.

Let’s learn to fight our enemy together, so Christ can have the whole reward of His suffering. The battle belongs to the Lord, but – we cannot, or dare not abstain, simply because we think that fighting will ruin what we have already decided is right for ‘our lives.’ There is so much more on the other side of Jordan, so let’s not settle for what we think is comfort, or even be blinded by the immediate,  let’s press on for personal victories!  Bye 👋

P 3232 We are never alone.

/ DVH

Despite how we might feel – we are NEVER alone. When we give our lives to the Lord, He comes to live IN us and WITH us, in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Right after Jesus told the disciples that He had to leave them – He explained the Holy Spirit will be with them instead. Let’s start chewing on these verses, because Jesus said them, and this stuff is the very substance of comfort when our world blows up! God is always with us.

Both Philip and Thomas ask the Lord questions that show they have no clue what is going on. But the Lord Jesus is extraordinarily patient with them, and He further explains Himself in John 14:15-17. “If you love Me, keep My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to HELP you and BE WITH you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.”  He didn’t say they would ‘feel’ the Holy Spirit, instead Jesus said He would be with them. This is a faith matter.

During this conversation Philip and Thomas have taken what the Lord is saying to them literally. Our own thoughts, unless we ask the Holy Spirit to help us, will just confuse us, and we need His input. Jesus is explaining to His disciples that He has to leave, but the Holy Spirit is coming to help all of them after He is gone. The Lord is introducing them to the One called Comforter. He is already resident in Jesus, and BECAUSE we know Jesus – we know Him!

These two disciples have their humanity showing, they want to know what comes next and they think they need proof. Our inadequacies don’t bother the Lord, at all. What we see here shows us that even our earthly way of thinking can draw Him into revealing deeper truths. These two conversations teach me about the Way God responds to our honest, if not sometimes misguided, questions. He responds with enduring, endless patience and kindness, and imparts to us the potential to see deeper. I urge you to be like Joshua! Don’t run out of His Presence when God gives you an answer, stay a while, and wait for what He will say NEXT. Meanwhile, if we feel condemned in any way, that’s not the Lord we are talking to! 

Jesus does not do what you or I might do, and call these men idiots because they weren’t paying attention to this or that sermon. He is incredibly generous with both of them. They are His beloved disciples and friends, and He knows that the thought of Him leaving is scary. I am greatly comforted by the fact that this shows me that no question is too dumb! These men teach us it is better to ask a dumb question than it is to remain silent.

Jesus tells His disciples they are to wait for the Holy Spirit to come, because He is going to return to heaven. Do you see that? The Greater revelation is coming, they just have to wait for HIM. The Father will personally send the Holy Spirit back to them to be their comforter, teacher, guide, counsellor, the One Who would be there beside them and IN them. All of these verses show us the Lord is focussed on US…His disciples. Jesus isn’t expounding theology, He is revealing truth – even though these men don’t get it yet. 

Meanwhile, disobedience, not stupidity, or silly questions, can get in the way of us hearing and obeying Him. Humility is needed, otherwise we will have blocked our own ears. However, just because we don’t understand what He says to us, that does not mean we’ve done something wrong. The Holy Spirit loves to help us understand – His aim is communication, not information! His ability to be everywhere with everyone, all at the same time is to our advantage. We simply need to remember that we can’t put a timer on God’s answers. He will answer us, in the fullness of HIS time. 

Because of these verses we can see that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are ALL engaged on our behalf to help us and comfort us whenever we feel lost and alone. Even if we have sinned, or done, or said something dumb, They are there for us, to walk us to a new place where we can understand. Just don’t give up when you don’t get it. Wait! Press in, keep asking the Holy Spirit for His help.

Jesus teaches us that we can recognise the Holy Spirit because the Spirit of God will make Himself real to us.He will say the things we daily read in His book..“ALL Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honourably with personal integrity and moral courage];…” 2 Timothy 3:16.

If we need His comfort, we can read from anywhere in the bible and the Holy Spirit will reveal God’s comfort to us. It doesn’t matter where we read, just press in and wait. We will discover His comfort. It’s all over His book, but we won’t see it if all we want is answers. God is not Google – Google is just a servant of our times! The Holy Spirit is God sent to us to help us understand. What is under the microscope is that God Himself has given us His Word. WE can be faithless, but He is always faithful, God speaks faith – we will always be learning.  Please remember, we are never alone – He’s always there. Bye. 👋

P 3172 The humanity of this man!

/ DVH

Paul is speaking in 1 Corinthians 1:11-17: “My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptised in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptise any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptised in my name….(I love this bit!!) …(Yes, I also baptised the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptised anyone else.) For Christ did not send Me to baptise, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.”

Look at that! The Apostle Paul used the ‘I can’t remember reason!’ Love it! Love it! Love it!! Because I’m older, that’s my all-time favourite excuse nowadays. Now that my hubby’s is using it as well, we bumble along hoping the other one will remember the important stuff. Fat chance!! Thank the Lord when it comes to appointments, people often send you reminder texts. 

I know I am about to lose half or more of my fellow travellers today, but I’m OK with that. Paul mentioned the word ‘following,’ and I gotta say I hate the whole “followers” thing that currently inhabits this world. Paul had the best idea –  he followed Jesus and, as far as I know, Jesus doesn’t have a Facebook page! Or any one of the rest of the alphabet soup pages people like to frequent. I know deep in everyone’s heart there is a need to be seen and understood… but the God of all the Universe and beyond, not only sees each one us, He knows how many hairs are on our heads … or not!! WOW!!

He knows what we need even before we know we need it, and He promises to supply it from His incredible riches. He bought us these fantastic blessings, like access to  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, perseverance etc. and He loves to give them away for free, to those people who ask Him. Our God always sees when our hearts turn toward Him, even if it is ever-so-slightly, and He comes to our rescue. Almighty God willingly gave up His only Son to be killed for us so we can be truly loved. Forever! That’s the kind of generosity and knowledge that is unforgettable.

Meanwhile, those Facebook enthusiasts often give anybody a bad rep, or the flick … in a heartbeat! I don’t want to support any of those vehicles, and line the pockets of already obscenely wealthy guys! I care about the poor – the poor are too busy being  hungry and thirsty and trying to find shelter, to worry about Facebook etc. Sometimes I get so sad, we are using up the time God gave us on things that will not remain. 

What remains is faith, hope and love – who gives a toss about Facebook? There are people who can’t wait to read their social media, and they skip the bible because it seems too hard. Isn’t that a terrible sentence? They take the words of strangers to heart — and ignore the King of glory. He took the time He was given to say all this fantastic stuff to each of us, personally! One of the reasons I can’t support social media is this:  our precious babies kill themselves because of cruelty in this arena. OK that was my little rant … I’d say I’m sorry but I’m not. The truth won’t kill us, actually it should shock us into action.

I love that Paul takes the time to explain himself to the naysayers and the permanently bewildered – his honesty is fantastic. What he said is so real and human: ‘I baptised, you, you and you … um … I can’t remember if I baptised you. Oh and there was that Stephanas guy and his family – I baptised them too. But what does it matter?? All that matters is the King of glory needs us to speak to others. That’s what we are here for!’ Amen! People chase unicorns and rainbows trying to find a purpose in this life, when Almighty God already gave each of us one.

Joshua found his purpose, He served God! –  In Joshua 24:14-15, he has always impacted me with these words: “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  I urge any parent reading this today to say to the Lord daily, “ …as for me and my house we will serve the Lord!”  Whether everyone in your family agrees with you or not – say it anyway! Speak purpose over those you love. People need a purpose! Why do you think kids drink, drive like lunatics, and take drugs? They have no purpose. Hopelessness leads to despair or sin. 

Paul is reminding us that there are some things more important than others in the kingdom of God. We don’t follow a preacher, we follow them, as they follow Jesus. God has something much better for each one of us to do, and some things are definitely more important than others! Who cares about who baptised who or whether I posted on social media today? Serving HIM, now, TODAY, is so much more important. We cannot afford to rest on past accomplishments when tomorrow is rushing at us. Praise God for Paul’s honest humanity! Amen. Bye. 👋

P 3149 Strongholds.

/ DVH

My first thought is this … never ever forget the prince of the power of the air … that guy is still around!  On to my subject for today… It is not comprehensive … this is about awareness.

It seems to me that we all have habitual attitudes that we have cultivated over the years. They profit us, as well as help us get our own way.  So when you keep coming up against the same ungodly attitude in yourself, it shows that there is a stronghold in your life. In my opinion, strongholds are sins that have dug in – something has dug itself into our roots in childhood, OR this captivity has taken advantage of our willing participation. We can, and must walk away from anything that drags us along.

Here’s my next point – people who have a stronghold don’t necessarily yell – they can also become pathetic on cue. Neither of these attitudes agree with what God says. Sadly rotten attitudes are often profitable – people get tired of the same fight over and over and give up! An immature personality often makes decisions about life and how to get what they want. They dig a familiar rut into the essence of who they think they are, and they march up and down in it, guns drawn, knives out – hankies and tissues by the score and … off they go! A stronghold is a collection of self-supporting thoughts that always have an answer, but it’s not what JESUS said in the book.

This is a diagnostic verse about strongholds: 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 “For though we walk (live) in the flesh, we are not carrying on our warfare according to the flesh and using mere human weapons. For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds, [Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) …” In other words, watch your thought life!

Many things roll about in our heads in thought patterns, or unsolicited emotional reactions, or even lies and deceptions we have believed about ourselves, and/or other people. We may have picked up judgmental attitudes from parental oversight, and now we are trapped inside those things – thinking: this is who I am – I can’t help it! When God’s Word plainly says we can! These deceptions can hold us captive. This stuff denies the power of God to transform us. It makes God less powerful in our eyes, because we are virtually saying – ‘He can’t fix me.’ I call this stronghold ‘internal deception.’

Some of us have been taught that the attitudes we have are the right ones, and anything else is wrong. Those things are roadblocks to change, because they get us stuck in man’s own version of reality. Often people’s decisions are based on the thought that their actions or reactions, are a human response or normal attitude. It stinks of pride. I call this one ‘the alternate reality’ stronghold. It’s not real.

However, the hardest mind-pattern to overcome is the one that says: ‘This is just who I am and you are rejecting who I am!’  These people use their stronghold to attack you for the very thing they are doing themselves. Many people don’t like anyone disagreeing with them and their ideas. When we hit that kind of wall, we are hitting a stronghold. We can’t argue others out of strongholds, that stuff needs repentance, and the person’s agreement that what they are doing is not profitable. They need to choose to believe this life can be better. I call it the unwilling to learn and change stronghold. To combat that, I throw His unconditional love at it. It is ‘the kindness of God that leads us into repentance.’

Strongholds are way beyond our ability of persuasion. Start releasing God’s Grace, Love, Joy, Peace etc. You can’t sin when you aim at these God-given Graces and give them away. The bible tells us ‘there is no law against those things.’ We are to live our lives so that others can be built up to embrace their godly purpose. Judgment has to go out of the window, it just muddies the water. Even if you have doubts about any stuff that you might be doing without even thinking about it – run your attitudes by your pastor, and the Holy Spirit, prayerfully. Ask the Lord to correct you with His eye on you, then deliberately take the time to listen. God’s power inhabits His Grace.

Here’s a couple of tips if you discover a stronghold in your life … Joshua and Co. walked around Jericho for 7 days – the Lord used obedience and praise to pull that stronghold down. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and Almighty God used that time to deal with their religious, idolatrous, gimme gimme attitudes. Sadly they all died off!  Lastly, I think that if we are provoked by what someone else is doing, then we are staring at a stronghold of our own. At the bottom of our annoyance is the reality that we don’t want to be inconvenienced by someone else’s learning curve!

And BTW, I’m not talking about this today so you can figure out what’s wrong with your spouse … we all need to be transformed. You’ll never know what else will change, when YOU change and start dealing with your own strongholds. You could end up being His catalyst. Bye 👋.

P 3145 Who Am I now?

/ DVH

Our identity is IN CHRIST. So if I want to find the real me, I can’t look in the mirror, or even at what our society says about who we are, or what we think we are. We will need to look into the mirror of His Word. Unfortunately, that’s also the place where we will discover the places where we are unlike Him as well! And our destiny lies in what we choose to do about those things. When we brush His Word aside, we can end up going round and round chasing the things of this world.. 

Romans 6:6-14 (bits of it) “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, [that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin… …In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

What Paul is saying here, is that the way we regard ourselves now we are alive in Christ, matters. We have not been set free to please ourselves, we have been set free specifically so we can choose to obey Him. At the same time we no longer have to sin – those desires and their accompanying actions went to the cross with Jesus so we don’t have to live with them anymore. When we choose to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him, every day, we are choosing God’s way over our own. 

Then we have put away the immediate gratification of indulging our feelings, or what we think we want, in favour of giving God what He wants.That’s when we act like His kids and begin to become more than conquerors. The biggest enemy in our lives for us to conquer, is the enemy of SELF, not somebody else. We must put away our old attitudes, hurts, actions, and the past, and begin to renew our minds by reading and obeying the Word.

The Lord Jesus was motivated and activated by what His Father wanted. Did He feel like it? We certainly know of one occasion when He didn’t!  But we are clearly told that Jesus was mirroring our Father’s attitude toward us and sin, and that helps us to see Father God more clearly. When our desire to please our Heavenly Father overcomes what we imagine that we want, we will begin to walk like Christ did. His Grace, and the power of God is there with us to undergird us, as we step forward into a brand new way of thinking about this life. This process is not a happy walk in the park! Each one of us still has some sort of wilfulness and a desire to get our own way, inside us. 

The Lord wants us to choose to do what He has said in His book, simply because we love Him and want to be with Him. Personally I am learning that I want the Holy Spirit’s guidance in my life – more than I want my own way. But it still can end up in a real wrestling match, especially in these dark times when everything we see around us is about self-gratification! Also we can each have a poor perception of what we can really accomplish –  mainly because we’ve been acting a certain way all our lives, and it seems insurmountable to us to act differently.

The point is what Joshua said: “Choose this day Who you will serve … as for me and my household we will serve the Lord!” Our obedience comes down to our choices. And when we choose His way, we will die a little. Personally, I have found that being dead looks much better than having my own way! Yes really!! Father God can do a great deal with even one ordinary person who is happy to stop living for themselves and start living for Jesus’ sake.

We simply don’t have to be slaves to sin anymore. Jesus Himself personally showed us the way through that trap – obedience to God’s Word works! Romans 6:17-18 “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” When we see something in the book that the Lord told us to do, that’s when we pray, ask for His help and go out and co-operate with Him.

It is good to ask the Holy Spirit if we are a slave to anything other than Jesus’ righteousness. There is no shame in discovering places inside your life where we’ve been trapped by our own dumb choices. But because we can see it, that means we need to pray over whatever it is, repent, and ask Him to show us the way through it. Then we go out and live differently. So, instead of saying something inflammatory, now we deliberately choose to go with love, kindness and patience etc …

Here’s a tiny clue that helps me: Pray first. Secondly, don’t expect happy feelings to overcome you, this is about stretching your faith. It hurts – just like stretching out a calf muscle will hurt! Find out what the Lord thinks in the bible, and do that. Things can seem to be very entrenched into our personalities – so repetition also helps! That’s how I learn who I am. I am His child, learning His Ways, because He chose to love me first. Bye. 👋

P 3047 Let this sink in.

/ DVH

“Yahweh is my best Friend and my Shepherd. I always have more than enough. He offers a resting place for me in His luxurious love. His tracks take me to an oasis of peace near the quiet brook of bliss. That’s where He restores and revives my life. He opens before me the right path and leads me along in His footsteps of righteousness so that I can bring honour to His Name. 

Even when Your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for you already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of Your love takes away my fear. I’ll never be lonely, for You are near. You become my delicious feast even when my enemies dare to fight. 

You anoint me with the fragrance of Your Holy Spirit; You give me all I can drink of You until my cup overflows. So why would I fear the future? Only goodness and tender love pursue me all the days of my life. Then afterward, when my life is through, I’ll return to Your glorious presence to be forever with You!” Psalms 23:1-6 TPT. 

Here’s a thought — how about you sit yourself down with a big mug of tea or coffee and let this beautiful Psalm soak into the places in your heart and mind where you feel exhausted, beaten up, or maybe, not good enough! Our place of rest is always in His love. Like the needle on a compass always points to north, our hearts need to return to HE LOVES ME. Do that. Sit there, breathe, and say to yourself slowly:: ‘Jesus You love me.’ Don’t get sidetracked into what you have or have not done right recently. Start with Him loving YOU – and then, thank Him for it. 

The God of the Universe knows our names. He calls each one of us by name. I have relatives who probably can’t remember who I am – but Almighty God knows me, inside and out! Why? He chose too! If that doesn’t make you want to jump up and down — then take a breath and stop and think about it. Our God is a personal, engaged Father, Who is never too busy for His kids – He knows exactly where we are and what is happening to us.

On we go…There is no place in this Psalm that talks about Jesus bopping me on the head because I’ve been a disobedient sheep. Yes, He has a rod and a staff – but He has that to thump anything that comes at me trying to destroy me. That’s what our Saviour is like! Loving, loyal and … there for us. There are times I can almost hear the Holy Spirit cheering away when I am wrangling with some situation or other, and He’s calling out: “That’s it, you’ll get there … keep going!” That’s what ‘for me’ means to me – He is on my side, cheering me on.. 

Just recently I mentioned that my nearly 98 year old mother is dying. Hubby read this Psalm to her the other day. Why? Because everybody needs to know that God is not mad at them. They need to know that He loves them dearly – all the time, that’s why. We are aiming at passing on His love to her, while she is launching her tiny little broken ship off into the incredible deep waters of HIS ENDLESS LOVE. I want her to see that His love is so deep, so wide, and far, far greater than any other love a human being ever hoped for or imagined. 

There are people who might become afraid of the part of the Psalm that reminds us that we will walk through a dark valley. But the best place to focus our thoughts is on the fact that He is there with us. Instead of bursting your boiler fighting fear – concentrate on the truth! In order to fully understand any lie we are believing — we need to study the truth, not the lie. You might like to think on that …

Being loved so faithfully by SomeOne so amazing needs to be our specific focus. When we live this way, the whole bible truly becomes Good News, not just a book filled with instructions. People need good news! “God is not mad at humanity, SomeBody Else took the punishment for all of us” — that truth is far more than just good news. It is FANTASTIC NEWS … especially when this life keeps pushing and poking at us.

If you or I were in a car that has spun out of control, the best news we could ever have is that the person driving the car is an expert. The Person Who is helping us with this life is our Resident Expert! Don’t send Him away because you think you want to choose some dumb temporal thing that won’t matter in the light of eternity. Instead, call out for help.

Our Shepherd is with us to comfort and help us. His rod and staff whacks our enemies but those weapons comfort us. Jesus looks after His sheep. He stands between us and our enemies, joyfully, willingly – every second of every minute, of every single day of our lives.

We don’t actually belong in this world anymore, because we’ve been born into another kingdom. We belong to Him, and He will come to get each one of us when this life is over. I want to leave you with this last scripture: “Let your character [your moral essence, your inner nature] be free from the love of money [shun greed—be financially ethical], being content with what you have; for He has said, “I will never [under any circumstances] desert you [nor give you up nor leave you without support, nor will I in any degree leave you helpless], nor will I forsake or let you down or relax My hold on you [assuredly not]!” Hebrews 13:5.

Our God does not lie —the Lord Jesus IS my Shepherd, every single day. Let this sink in – as He was with Moses and Joshua and Abraham – so He is with us. Bye. 🐑 Baa!

P 2948 Times of refreshing …

/ DVH

“God will continually revitalise you, implanting within you the passion to do what pleases Him.” Philippians 2:13 TPT. This is one of the enormous benefits of living a transparent life before the Lord and others. We can actually hear Him whisper. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating. Years ago, the Lord said this to me: “If you will hear Me for correction, you will hear Me for direction.”  (Proverbs 3:5; Psalm 32:8)

I have taken that to mean that if I am prepared to throw myself into reverse, and own my faults – to Him and to others – it will help my spiritual hearing. The trouble with this thought for many people is that they kind of argue with what they hear. EG: “Did I make that up?” Like our imagination is somehow bigger than God Himself!  And then they start to cancel out their faith with doubt. We have the bible so we already have what the Lord thinks – in a book – check it out in the book!  I also spend a lot of time capturing my thoughts like butterflies in a net!

To do what God says we will need to be prepared to look dumb to other people. Think about Gideon, Noah, Joshua, Moses, Abraham – these men did the strangest things on God’s orders! The secret to walking in faith is to put your faith in His goodness, and don’t take it back. However, don’t put your faith in accomplishing what He told you to do – the action — because that will get you stuck quicker than superglue. A whole lot of great people fell down that hole! Put your faith in WHO HE IS, in His incredible character, His reliability, His kindness, His faithfulness etc. WHO GOD IS is our plumb line. 

Nowadays when He tells me something I just do it. If I look like a goose, that’s even better, because I can use all the humility I can get! My faith is in His goodness, and if I get it wrong, then I know, from the book, that He is a Redeemer, He can redeem anything! I’ve also learnt, the hard way, that nobody knows what they will do when they are under pressure!  Pride has to go.

The Lord regularly speaks to me through His word, and He also speaks to me in my head…my thoughts. It is extremely tempting to think, whenever that happens, that “I made it up.” However, when we make the effort to know the book, we are learning to know what He likes and wants, and what He doesn’t – so we can walk away from sin and unbelief. I also find it easy to follow a Leader, like the pastor or my husband, my faith is in GOD in them, not them. When we get into judgment of what other people are doing, we are walking away from following Him, and we start “Ieaning on our own understanding.”

We can also be tempted to take a poll, by asking a lot of other people what they think about the fault God pointed out in our lives. Polls don’t work! Big clue in the words: “what God Himself said to us!” That’s a neon sign moment. We need to trust Him. Otherwise everything becomes about us – how we feel, what someone else did to us etc. etc.…As soon as our own judgment, or man-made systems come into play, we will lose His wisdom and insight. He will just quietly disappear.

Here’s a question … why didn’t God STOP Adam and Eve? Because He had already given them instructions. It was up to them to obey what He said! The Lord wants willing obedience, and obedience involves an action. Nobody is going to like this next thought, but one of the best ways to start learning to trust the Lord is with giving. Generosity opens spiritual doors. In our Western world money rules everything, and Christians embrace “tokenism.” We need God to be in charge, NOT money, or this world’s riches. 

The point I want to make today is that God doesn’t just want to revitalise us, and rewire our thinking, He wants to go one step further than those two great things and give us a passion TO DO what pleases Him! That does not fall on most of us, we will have to go after it … because our Bridegroom loves to be pursued. In my experience of the faith life so far, this means God will be continually praised;  someone else will be blessed;  and I will be too, because I saw Him do something extraordinary! So I pray regularly for eyes to see Him at work, because what He does in our lives is so undercover, and subtle, it can be easy to miss Him. 

When the Holy Spirit does something only He can take the credit for what happens…it is always so quietly extraordinary! He never once takes a bow. Boy do I want a heart like His! John 3:8 “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”I too want to be the person that remains unseen. Sigh. But there are still times when my flesh squawks worse than Peter’s chicken!! Time to die, again!

I love the Holy Spirit’s nature, He is so selfless, and unassuming. Nobody can refresh us like He can. One word from Him and the colour of our day is suddenly brighter, and the world is full of possibilities again. That thing we didn’t understand is now clear, and we understand what He wants better than we did two seconds ago. Enter into times of refreshing with the Lord – by practising obedience. You will get to know Him better. Bye.👋

P 2921 Running over!

/ DVH

“Overflow with mercy and compassion for others, just as your heavenly Father overflows with mercy and compassion for all.””Luke 6:36 TPT. That verse doesn’t sound much like a suggestion does it? It sounds like a constantly ever-expanding instruction to me. So the real question becomes…how? How do you overflow with mercy and compassion for others, the way Jesus does for you … ? Sacrificially that’s how.  That, by the way, is the same loving attitude He has toward everyone on this planet!  

Well, the first thing to remember is this, nobody can think their way through this one – our brains just can’t take in the magnitude of God’s love for people. We will always need His Spirit to help us. The Holy Spirit can and will expand our capacity for love and compassion as we allow Him room in our lives — the more room, the bigger the expansion!! It is worth also saying at this juncture that as we renew our minds, the easier it will be to know what the Lord wants from us! So we have to stop skipping over the bits in the bible we think we can’t do and start asking for His help to do them.

This is why we cannot afford to hold grudges, or cheat on our income tax, or walk past a poor person who needs help, or break the law by excessively speed along the highways. Those are dumb examples of an all pervasive current attitude toward this life. When will we decide we have more than enough and start to act like it by helping others? We simply must move away from greedy, grasping, looking after ME,  into gloriously generous, overflowing giving, looking after OTHERS.

This is one of our Heavenly Father’s characteristics … He looks after us daily. Look out of your window – did the sun come up again? Then His mercy is brand new again today. If we want to look like Him then we will have to walk down the same pathways Jesus walked. It was not a mistake that Christ was born into a poor ordinary family… rich people have a hard time with FAITH. That’s not my opinion …Jesus said so!

Speaking for myself, without the Holy Spirit’s help there are many times I want to say to someone who wants even more time than I can give: “Just go away will you? You are disturbing my nice image of myself!” But we can’t actually successfully think our way through spiritual things like this. The things of the Spirit belong to HIM! It isn’t helpful to berate yourself for not having the fruit of the Spirit either. We quite simply need His help, so we throw ourselves on His brand new mercy today, and take a leap of faith. First of all, how we feel needs to become wa-ay less important than His WILL. He will lead us, He will guide us, He will show us where we can be His hands and feet.

Compassion includes action.Not just sympathetic remarks, kindly meant and said. Love actually looks like something! Now here is the rub, the Lord doesn’t just say, ‘have compassion and mercy’ — He said OVERFLOW WITH IT! Yeah! Good one. Overflowing means there is more than enough, not just a little bit kind of oozing out the edges. I often drive other people mad, because I take things in the book, so literally. I can tell you that this whole overflowing bit is supernatural – in other words you can’t manufacture that lot by yourself! And you can’t talk yourself into it either – you either got it or you don’t, and if you don’t ASK AND THEN ACT, using your faith, and then just keep on doing stuff.

We can get so tied up with ordinary everyday things taking away our valuable time, that we don’t think to ask Him in to help us with whatever is going on. He wants to be part of every bit of our lives, not just delegated to an hour every day and four on Sunday. He will show us His compassion as we learn to rely upon Him. We need to know that He is gracious and compassionate, personally. Our theories aren’t worth a kilo of bananas! To learn things like that we must LET Him help us through our own difficulties, by choice – on purpose! 

The bible tells us that our God is a compassionate God: “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” Psalm 103:8.  I just want to stop here, and say that the bible uses lots of effusive words. Like ‘over abundantly, abounding, overflowing’ … these are all greatly excessive words. They aren’t excessive words for nothing! Don’t just settle for a little dab will do ya! Go for the gold. Be like Joshua strong and courageous … and then stay and wait in the tent after everyone else has gone home! Press in. It doesn’t take a lot of words to press in, it just takes confidence in His loving nature and the ability to believe God is good.

Let Jesus be the One you run to, when stuff happens. He wants to be closer to us than a brother. That means we will give our time, it means using we will use our faith. It means giving out of the abundance of the knowledge that our God is in charge – so I will not diminish ME if I give something to YOU.I will care if your life is tough, not just in words but in deeds. If we want a pressed down and running over kind of life where we can spontaneously and generously give to others, we will have to change the way we live. 

It will not be comfortable. What part of Jesus’ life was comfortable? If I want ‘running over’ with compassion and mercy  I will have to stop thinking of my life as mine and start thinking about it as His. Bye. 👋

P 2890 Further to yesterday.

/ DVH

Hubby and I occasionally talk about what I’ve written in my daily blog. During our discussion today we talked about various adverse scenarios. Did you know that any of us can lose the MAIN battle – which is fighting the good fight for the Lord – simply because we are trying to make a point? Making a point is a distraction. That point will quite quickly be lost in time!

Here’s a question:  is it really more important that we are understood by someone else – or does Jesus totally deserve the reward of His suffering? ← That’s the real battle! Our needs will be supplied by Him – but we can’t see the good stuff when we are snarking around growling at other-people-who-don’t-suit-us. And the reward of His suffering is to see everyone saved. We can’t con God. He is not impressed with who is right, or who thinks they are innocent, and who is not. We have been given the revelation of His Grace, in the book, that alone makes us responsible to spread it around.

There is a much greater, constant war going on over the souls of those men and women living all around us. The other guy can waste our God-given time fighting with our spouse, our kids, our parents, the pastor … whoever!! But there are people who do not know what Christ has done for us. They are dying without being told about His Love for them. An ambassador exists to represent, publicise and extoll the virtues of his home country.

What does it matter lady, if your husband leaves his dead socks on the floor? It’s those little foxes that spoil the vineyard of your love and obedience to the Lord! Maybe your house-mate won’t take out the garbage? So what? And what does it matter so much that your wife’s idea of tidy, is to drop whatever it is where she stands? You have hands, and your wife is not your mother. Work on your own responses to them, not the other person’s actions.

We can easily waste the life God gave us going on and on over things that have happened in the past — things nobody can change unless they have a time machine!! Do the schmuck who hurt you a favour, will you? That person who wrecked your life when you were little — let ’em off the hook! The only person captive is YOU. You are stuck somewhere, like a record, going round and round what happened in your mind. Repent, forgive, and …move on. Have you ever done or said something so terrible but you couldn’t take it back? I have! 

Our enemy clouds the very real issues surrounding us. he makes the daily stuff about being understood, or making a point, seem to be incredibly important in that moment.“Seek ye FIRST the Kingdom of God…” Is what is important. We are wasting our time hoping that the other person will hear us, understand and change. The point is not for the other person to change – it’s for US to change. Lemme put that another way, when we stand before the great white throne do you think Jesus is going to ask you why you didn’t change your spouse?!! He’s looking for us to love impossible people, by spreading around His Grace, that’s what HE did!

These little every day skirmishes we try to dodge, or even indulge ourselves in when we feel rejected, dismissed, or looked down on – can actually prepare us for the REAL wars when they suddenly hit us! Have you noticed that people don’t announce wars? They are instigated by stealth movements, done that way to surprise the people who are to be conquered. The element of surprise throws the other guy off. 

Think about this for a minute: our enemy suddenly throws an accident in our path, or someone gets dreadfully ill, or a job is lost. Terrible things happen to people every single day. Just ask the people in the countries currently at war, they can give you a billion reasons why they can’t forgive the other guy! We need to practise forgiveness daily, or we have nothing to give the guy who utterly shatters our lives! Learning to fight those daily battles for His kingdom in us IS our boot camp — these things prepare us for the things we may not know about, that will turn up unannounced.

I do not want to be negative but I think the positive thoughts movement grew out of disobedience to His word. We made up a god who would always understand us, always be on OUR side. How on earth can that work? Plus He is supposed to give us precisely whatever we want! Where does the bible say that? Joshua asked the Israelites this question:“Who is on the Lord’s side?”That’s the only side that matters, by the way … not yours, hers, his, theirs – God’s side! And if we are on His side then we need His help to act like Jesus would. Maybe instead of constantly collecting promises, we can look at what He says as instructions!

It is not up to us to sort other people out. We are here to preach the word, in season and out of season. We are to live out what He said, in front of the very people who deny He is Who He says He is. Every single time we choose to forgive and release people from our expectations, etc. we release the power of God’s grace into their lives. Why waste your energy fighting? Time is short and a larger life awaits us. The bigger battle is raging all around us. Let’s us our faith and grow. May God bless you as you serve Him, bye.👋

“If a ruler loses his temper against you, don’t panic;  A calm disposition quiets intemperate rage.” Ecclesiastes 10:4.