Joshua

P 2695 Loyalty matters to God.

/ DVH

Let’s not take Father God’s kindness toward us for granted, or we can end up walking in presumption. To start with, we can easily be distracted by the cares of this life and forget Who He actually is! That’s when we could end up focussing on our own greedy little agendas of what we need or want. The point of a relationship is not just about what the other person does for me, it is also about what I bring into that relationship! What do I do that benefits that other person? We must not use Him for our own ends, He needs to be our great treasure. 

Our God’s benefits are for always seeable, and available to be easily seen, when we are living our lives loyal to Him. And He loves 💕 loyalty! Read the book. In the Old Testament we can see that His people spent more time being disloyal to the Lord than they did being loyal. But, whenever they repented and turned back to Him – His loving provision and benefits were seen and recognised and appreciated. I believe in order to see the Lord’s benefits, we need insight into the way we regard Him. God is not wishy-washy, whimsical, or careless. His preference for our salvation is crystal clear, but the decision to accept that, with all it means, needs to be taken seriously.

This is a good time to ask ourselves, where do I, personally, stand on this loyalty issue? Am I ”on the Lord’s side?” …like Joshua was? Joshua was prepared to die for God’s will to be done. Or am I on my Saviour’s side purely for so-called benefits, “I’m saved, He answers my prayers.” Maybe I get disengaged or ticked off when I happen to get trouble or tears? Is my main desire to live in His Presence? Can I see past His hands to His face? In my observation, most of the time when the going gets tough for Christians – the not-so-tough bail out!

I want to briefly talk about the incredible value of the Lord’s benefits. We have such wealth. We are strongly exhorted in Psalm 126:3 to: “… forget not all His benefits…”. In this Psalm, it talks about restoration of fortunes, reaping in joy, carrying seed to sow, and bringing in sheaves. But all of that comes after a whole lotta shaking and hardship going on – including sowing in tears! The thought struck me that we all want the joy, and the restoration, and the seed plus the sheaves … but not-so-much with the tears. It’s a package deal.

Some Psalms contain lists of the benefits of our loyalty to God. In Psalm 119 there are a whole lot of stated benefits. However, I think seeing God’s benefits is linked to our loyalty – and if we do not value Who He is, we won’t SEE them. These things are way too costly to be treated carelessly, haphazardly or poorly. Anybody can participate in everything He has done for us, but our response needs to be a heart filled with loyalty to Him because He has been so gracious to us.

Let’s look quickly at Psalm 23:1. In the Living bible it says:“Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need!”  This shepherd was totally in charge of his sheep! While they were under his protection the sheep lacked nothing. Even if they wandered off he would go and seek them out. This is a fine example of Jesus’ loyalty to us! Outside the camp there are wolves etc. This shows me that our faith can easily be devoured by cares and worries of this life – the shepherd’s sheep knew the value of staying close.

Some times we merrily produce our largish lists of needs and wants, and post them off to the Lord without bearing in mind where our loyalties are currently lying. Are we paying lip service, or are we His devoted servants, looking to simply be His sheep? Meanwhile if we are that distracted, will we even see the answers He sends? In Philippians 4:19 it says: “I pray that God will take care of all your needs with the wonderful blessings that come from Christ Jesus!”

Our God is so much more than the supplier of our needs – He’s Almighty God. He made everything we can see!

Every blessing we’ve received was bought for us by Jesus Christ’s own suffering. This life is not about Him getting us a new car, or having a baby, or getting into a course we think we want!  It’s about belonging to SomeOne so incredible, so loving, so focussed on us, that we take the time to see His heart and love Him back. We need to carefully inspect the origins of some of the things we claim and ask for, because loyalty and gratitude matter – especially to Him.

GRACE IS FREE BUT IT WAS NOT CHEAP. This is why everything we do, or want, needs to be prayerfully requested with our eye firmly on the prize of honouring Jesus. Otherwise we can go from faith into presumption in a heartbeat. Let’s not rob the Lord of our loyalty … 👋

“Jesus said to all of His followers, “If you truly desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:23-24.

P 2637 Be an original.

/ DVH

I sometimes live in the land of stone-cold-tea! I actually get so focussed on writing, I forget to drink it when it is hot. It is the bane of my hubby’s life having to warm up my tea all the time, so I can enjoy it. There are days that I’m such a FUN person to live with. Not. Ho- hum. ☕️ I think my record of tea re-warming is 3 times in a row. Ask hubby!  Any-hoo, the other day I discovered this great little gizmo from China that keeps a cup of tea or coffee hot for hours. I love the creative genius behind that seemingly insignificant invention!! 

I have learnt over the years to appreciate human diversity and our individual ability to see the same thing in different ways. People are truly amazing, and our God made us that way, on purpose. Ya gotta love that!! It also means that when I look at you, I can see Him, in a totally different way. WOW!! It is a shame that religion aims at everyone being the same — yet God celebrates our differences. They are part of His creativity.  In my heart I believe that each person has a unique expression of Who He is to share with the world. In other words we are all richer because He sent YOU here! Thank you Lord – You really do give good gifts!

“God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display His wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 3:10. We have this lovely lady, (she’s God’s gift!), who comes into our house once a fortnight to help us. She cleans the floors for us. I had to give up floor cleaning years ago!  Hmmm. I wish I thought that was a bad thing … but I don’t!! Tee hee. Ya win some – ya lose some. Maybe that’s one of the Lord’s benefits I’m not meant to forget!! 😂  A-ny-wa-y … this lady is the dearest Irish-born-Aussie person and having her around is a joy when you are mostly shut-in. Some people celebrate who they are, don’t they?

When she came to help us last time, she shared the above picture with us. Somebody had carefully chalked thought-provoking things about the Lord on a jogging track. There were a lot more chalk sayings that I could put here!  However, the minute I saw them, I was gobsmacked to see how this person had found such a non-threatening, original way to speak to people. I can’t begin to tell you how much that blesses me. I just adore to see people being themselves and loving Jesus and sharing His truth… all at the same time. 

Each of us has a unique way of expressing His love to others. The thing I have personally learnt lately is this — unless we are doing those things that make us feel a bit vulnerable, we are probably staying within our own comfort zone. That comfort zone is a poorly-made construct that we’ve allowed, it is used to hide us. And it will restrict our efforts to shine for Him if we are not aware of it. So we will have to learn how to be “strong and courageous” — like Joshua said. That’s what faith does. It tackles the difficult things as well as the unknown ones simply because those things can be a tourniquet on the life of God within us. 

We can sometimes hesitate to remove those restrictions that we’ve adopted into our lives because they protect our inner selves. Maybe somebody else thought that was who we are – or who they wanted us to be. Or we can use our weaknesses to our own advantage, because remaining unseen seems safer. But Jesus cheerily says: “Don’t be afraid, death is not your enemy – a lack of real life within you is!”  None of us are finished yet, but the Lord wants us to be established in Him daily, within our ordinary lives. If we yield to Him, we will have enough strength to withstand the bigger storms and dark seasons of this life. The way through difficulties is to trust in Him more than we trust our own judgment. 

I love the way the Lord is been removing those badly made constructs around our lives to expose the great work He has been doing inside… Even when we weren’t looking! Personally, I think if we had seen what He was doing with some of us, we might have meddled with it or tried to help Him! But He works in, and on our hearts in secret and brings out the very best of who we really are, and He doesn’t do His big reveals about us until His project in us is established. Our God is a master builder, and unlike the world around us, He knows how to work with stone to bring it to life! Praise Him!! 

Years ago there was this dumb riddle …”Which came first? The chicken or the egg?” The minute I heard that riddle I thought:  ‘how silly, God would never leave a little vulnerable egg all alone to raise itself!’  Then I realised that my faith is in God’s judgment, not in what seemed right to me. It was meant to be a clever puzzle but my knowledge of Him made the answer into a fact!  BTW, please don’t ask me why that stupid chicken crossed the road? As far as I’m concerned that chook deserves whatever it gets when it is challenging cars! Like I said, be an original, we need your POV.  Bye for today, have a good one. 👋

P 2573 Godly advice for the sleepless.

/ DVH

From the book! “I lie awake each night thinking of You and reflecting on how You help me like a Father. I sing through the night under Your splendour-shadow, offering up to You my songs of delight and joy! With passion I pursue and cling to You. Because I feel Your grip on my life, I keep my soul close to Your heart.”Psalms 63:6-8 TPT.

Man, those psalmists knew how to write. However, it seems like they didn’t sleep so good all the time, even back then!  The Holy Spirit must have helped them with their attitudes, because the things that are written in these psalms are wiser than the ways of men. There is no greater ambition than for us to live to praise and enjoy Him, at any hour. Today I was up at 4.30 am writing the blog … at about 6.30 am I started to wish I had stayed in bed. My brain feels like it is melting. I do wish I could write beautiful stuff like that psalmist did … he’s inspiring.

Here’s some of my less-than-spiritual advice for free — unless you are single and live by yourself —bursting into song singing to God in the middle of the night may not work out well for you! Somebody else… maybe even a bunch of somebody elses … could wake up and be less than enthralled by your singing! My advice is if you have to sing, then don’t sing loudly, or take it elsewhere … like into another room! I try to toddle off upstairs when I do the early bird routine – hubby needs his sleep, he works hard.  We can see that Jesus went away from His disciples to talk to His Heavenly Father. Apparently they weren’t like Joshua, who stayed talking to God longer than Moses did!  Moving away from those who can sleep is called appropriate public relations behaviour –  anybody with a lick of sense knows you don’t poke a bear when he is sleeping.

But in those moments, in the middle of the night, I sit and quietly read the scriptures to set my heart firmly back on Him. So often nowadays, this life squeezes us so tightly, sometimes it feels like we can’t breathe. Even the bible can seem to be impossible to grasp, especially when you feel like you have fallen down a deep deep hole and His love and light is hidden from you. That’s when you PAF … Phone A Friend. Seriously. But!! Not between 12.00am and 6.00am!  You might find out your friend’s smiley face is wearing thin at that hour. Most of all take the time talk to the Lord, despite how you feel. He’s your Dad and He’s always UP and happy to hear from you! “He that keepeth thee does not slumber.” Psalm 121:3.

Sadly, for me, and about a zillion other people in this world, that word ‘Dad,’ has little or no meaning. But I’ve seen enough Dad-like qualities in the godly men around me to get a picture of what a great father looks like. Plus Jesus talked about it too. Almighty God is the greatest of all fathers. He’s where Fatherhood comes from!  His book gives us a lovely picture of what a great father looks like. Here’s Matthew 7:9-11.“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!”Good verse to think about at 1.00 am.

Our Father will not lie or try to deceive us. When He says something He means it. Our task is to believe what He has said, even though sometimes in this world, other people are trying to sell us something. I’ve found that many people lie because they want something, or they have something to hide or lose. When we are sleepless, or down, because of life, or something someone else said or did — we need to remind ourselves that our God does not lie. HE has nothing to hide and He doesn’t have agendas. Everything He says is the truth. ‘There is no shadow or turning in Him.’ This simply means — because HE IS THE LIGHT … good luck finding anything dark anywhere near Him.

Our current world provides us with poor images, those things are not good to think about at 1.00am. This world is used to double-dealing, double-talking flam-flam artists who pretend to be one thing when they are really another. Deception often flows through our streets like water. Think about a simple thing like watching a movie. Movies are all about people lying to themselves …and to each other … and to YOU, for a living. And we pay them heaps of money to do it!  We’ve gotten so used to living with these things that we think of them as harmless. God is truth,  and we already know that ‘in Him there is no shadow or turning’ –so anything that is a lie is not from Him. And yes, I watch movies too! But I think that some movies are definitely not geared to help us sleep!

However, this psalmist has the sense when he wakes up at some ridiculous hour of the night, to respond to God with praise and worship. He meditates on God’s goodness, instead of making his worries bigger by thinking about them. Nor does he think about that cute little maiden he saw last week in the temple! He remembers what the Lord has already done and he gives thanks. This man is giving us sound advice. In the middle of the night when we have any worries, we need to hand them over, and go after Jesus. Try praying for people who need to be saved – satan is glad to let you nod off when you do that!  

I also like to remind myself, that even though I know I can be faithless, my Heavenly Father cannot!  BTW, FYI, I do not expect you to be Him — if I want to see what my Father looks like then I look at Christ – He’s a sure thing. The most wonderful miracle of all miracles happened a couple of thousand years ago – God came here to reveal Himself to us, personally.  And that’s plenty to think about today or tonight … or in the middle of the night when your brain is UP and you wanna sleep! Bye zzzzzzzz. 👋

P 2419 Deception can come from careless choices.

/ DVH

There is an interesting verse in Joshua, Chapter 9, V14, and in it we can see that as soon as we revert to type and start making our own decisions, without consulting the Lord, we are more easily deceived by our enemy.  At the same time we have effectively blocked out the Lord’s wisdom. Let’s look at this OT story.

Joshua 9:3-6 “However, when the people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, they resorted to a ruse: They went as a delegation whose donkeys were loaded with worn-out sacks and old wineskins, cracked and mended.They put worn and patched sandals on their feet and wore old clothes. All the bread of their food supply was dry and mouldy. Then they went to Joshua in the camp at Gilgal and said to him and the Israelites, “We have come from a distant country; make a treaty with us.”

The Gibeonites wanted to trick the Israelites into thinking that they had come from far away. They had heard how powerful the Jews were so they wanted to make peace with them using deception. And the Israelites fell for it – they used their eyes, plus their taste buds and decided what they could see was true. “The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord.” Joshua 9:14. Bad move!

Our beloved Father is not bothered by us if we ask Him into situations, at any time. He dearly wants to be an integral part of our lives. That is why He gave us the Holy Spirit to be our potential constant Companion. Here’s a heads-up. the Holy Spirit is way smarter than we could ever be, and the best Advisor ever!  We need to learn from the things He has chosen to be included in the Old Testament.   

The bible tells us that: “… whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope and overflow with confidence in His promises.” (Romans 15:4.) In other words the Old Testament is not just background info for our ‘real’ learning in the New! The Old is an important part of what God wants to teach us. In it the Holy Spirit gives insight into Who Father God is, What He likes, What He will do if we obey, and …what can happen if we don’t! 

As you can see from the above story, we can easily expose ourselves to deception when we lean on our own understanding. The Holy Spirit is ever-present and constantly standing by us to enriching our lives. It is not like we have to walk 19 kms to a phone to make a long distance phone call at 3.00am in the morning to talk to Him! He is always with us!! Friendship with Him is to be cherished, sought after and valued, because He enriches our lives and our thinking. He protects us from our own stupidity, as He walks with us. This truth is the most essential part of living the Christian life. We are not alone!

Previously to this incident with the Gibeonites, in Deuteronomy, we see that God’s man Joshua made knowing God His priority. Let’s be honest here. Most of us make a job, our family, our favourite hobby … our priority. We pray in the morning, and maybe again in the evening, and perhaps even during the day as we need His help, but He is not our constant Companion. We need to value the Holy Spirit’s company more than we value anything else. Joshua went into the tent of meeting with Moses, and yet Moses came out before He did! Think about it, it shows us Joshua’s commitment.

I think that this man teaches us that our desire toward the Lord, plus our obedience, matters. Careless choices, or an independent spirit, or unthinking attitudes, can rob us of victory. Father God can trust someone who wants His will more than their own, and our friend Joshua was such a man, despite his humanity. Our biggest choice is not whether we want to be saved or not – our biggest choice is whether we want to follow Jesus all the way to the end – living this life His way. 

Giving up the only life you have is no small thing. That’s why people struggle with it. But being independently-minded or even double-minded, robs us of the blessing of His Presence. Our biggest choice is simply “…choosing this day Who we will serve …” (Joshua said that – and he knew how to make great choices.)  We are more susceptible to being deceived when we make up our own minds, and then hope God will bless THAT!  As Christians we are subject to a Theocracy which means – He’s in charge and we ain’t! 👋🏻

P 2414 Our own private Tutor.

/ DVH

“But when the Father sends the Spirit of Holiness, the One like Me Who sets you free, He will teach you all things in My name. And He will inspire you to remember every word that I’ve told you.” John 14:26 TPT

Just look at Who is always waiting for you and I when we read His book! I have a really bad short term memory, that appears to have turned up with age. It has required a lot of adjustment, for me as well as my family. It effects my family because I can be in the middle of a sentence and forget where I was going with my thoughts… 😂 … hilarious and humbling … all at the same time. Bonus buy! 

Moving on … I love the above verse because it directly deals with that malady in my life. The Holy Spirit is so faithful, He stands by me patiently and hands me verses when I type this blog daily. And sometimes He says: “look that up” Plus He says  … “read around it.”  Context always matters! So I can personally testify that He is an excellent Teacher. I can be reading away in the bible and He says: “Go back, you missed it.”  OR… “pause and think about this!” 

People make a really big deal out of encounters with the Holy Spirit or prophecies they have been given. It’s like they memorialise them or something. They build a statue, put a label on it and they live the rest of their lives camped at the bottom — hoping for more. 😳 To be strictly honest, perhaps I don’t value encounters that much because I have had hardly any! We must stop camping around a word, and start camping around the Teacher.

The one thing I do value mightily is this — I have this incredible Tutor Who shows up, day after day, time after time after time, and He guides me through the Word of God. He corrects me when I am ‘off-line’  and patiently repeats Himself when I am in thick-as-a-brick mode. He’s my Friend Who knows what I need, and He hands it to me. The bible is like a jigsaw puzzle to me – there are bits that make no sense until I have put together a part of the puzzle. And at other times I start with one piece and all the other pieces fall into place. And I do all that with Him guiding me, so patiently!

At exactly the same time, He shows me how what I am reading is relevant to me. He says things like: “you need to pay attention now!”  I often feel like I am watching a Master at work, creating something incredibly beautiful … because the Holy Spirit can’t help Himself! He’s always doing beautiful things. It is like His nature is always on display, particularly when I read the Word, or when I step out in obedience. I love this book! 

Today I was reading in Joshua, and the Holy Spirit pointed out that He told Joshua four times in the first chapter “to be strong and courageous.”  That repetition kind of got at me, so I wondered what it was about… four times is a lot of times! Then I saw that Joshua was the new leader and Moses had been a truly great leader, so Joshua was stepping into very big shoes … leading very disobedient people!  

God was instructing this young man about how to step into that role and how to apply whatever he was told to do. It takes courage to step out in faith and send a whole lot of Israelites marching around a walled city with no weapons, just musical instruments! Plus they did that seven days in a row!  It also took great courage for that young man to tell that army that’s what God said to do. Those men in the Jewish army were reliant upon Joshua’s ability to hear the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes when the Holy Spirit tells me to do something, it is easy to obey. But sometimes He tells me to tell my husband this or that for the person he’s going to speak to – and that takes faith! Because of my lack of physicality hubby often interacts with the people on the road more than I do, and he is more experienced than I am with dealing with strangers. 

There are times I feel to give a specific bookmark, or say this or that, and hubby goes and does it and the results are miraculous and extraordinary. We have over fifty instances of that on this last mission trip alone. This verse spoke to me today, because we both need to be strong and courageous, plus I need to speak up, otherwise I could simply take a backseat and let hubby do all the work and say nothing. We need each other just like that army needed Joshua’s leadership, plus their commitment.

My dear husband listens to me, and follows the Lord’s leading through me, and most of the time it makes very little sense to either of us – until the person in front of us starts crying their eyes out! That’s when we simply stand back and watch Him work. The best thing Christians can learn to do in this life is to learn to trust our precious Tutor. He knows stuff we do not know — about people we’ve never met. It’s AWESOME! 🕊 🙌

P 2384 Single-mindedness.

/ DVH

I was awake at 3.00am the other day, thinking about Joshua. What an incredible man! Later, as I read about him, I discovered he is often featured as a great example of how to be a leader. Actually, I’m not interested in that angle – I’m pretty sure loads of other people have covered that better than I can – I only have 10 paragraphs or less! Today I’m interested in Joshua as a person who loved God. He’s a great example of someone who decided to follow the Lord, no matter where it led him. 

I want to talk about him because he was incredibly singleminded. That’s a quality we can all use! Some people might call that dedicated. The first thing I asked myself was why did Joshua remain behind in the tent of meeting when Moses left? Here’s what I think, I think this man fell in love with God Himself, after spending so much time in His Presence. This attitude is not something that can be taught, nor can it be enforced. But Joshua shows us that living a life dedicated to the Lord, and valuing His Presence above everything else, is a real, valid, productive way to live. 

It is way too easy today, to think that living a life devoted to our Lord Jesus is a bit too hard. There are just so many forces about trying to drag us away, so it almost seems like ” … it is kind of OK… to just do your best and live as good a life as you can.” Just so long as we go to church, read our bible and pray, then surely that’s OK? Personally, I think that we have an extraordinary God Who deserves our best and I really like the way Joshua thought, and lived. Soaking in God’s Presence produced so much wisdom in this man. It made him humble, reverent and teachable and strong in the Lord. You can read about him here – Exodus 17, 24, 32, 33; Numbers, Deuteronomy, the book of Joshua.

In Joshua’s time he was surrounded by people who preferred EASE. It seems to me that the Israelites expected God to prove Himself by spoon-feeding them whatever they wanted, to win them over. They had been in captivity for hundreds of years, and although their captivity was evil, murderous and dire – it actually actively taught them to be HELPLESS. Does that sound at all familiar??? This God-chosen nation kind of proves, that you can take a man out of Egypt, but getting Egypt out of a man is a whole other ballgame! 

Let’s just kind of pause and look at the words – God-chosen first of all. Yes, God chose us first, yes we are now HIS people, but as you can see from the stories of Exodus, Deuteronomy and Numbers etc. being chosen does not give us a licence to live this life however we want. Being chosen has responsibilities. We do people a grave disservice if we teach them that following Jesus is an all-you-can-eat-or-want buffet! Joshua made some very hard choices and decisions in his life. However, I think deliberately choosing to live in God’s Presence gave this man the tenacity, wisdom and the character he needed. Personally I don’t think these skills can be taught, I think they come as a result of a carefully cultivated relationship with Him. They produce devotion, dedication and single-mindedness. 

The thing is, it is easy to think that leaders are meant to be better Christians than we are. We expect so much from them, while we excuse our own lackadaisical attitudes as “it’s really tough to live in the real world.” (It seems that Joshua also had a family – yet he put God first.  Our first responsibility is to Jesus, and if that isn’t our POV, then what are we teaching our families? When I was a child my mum had an expression, when I hung around a door, often listening in to the grownups. “Come in if you are going to, or go out if you are not – but don’t hover.”  Sadly, today, we seem to have a plethora of drones … people who hover… but never seem to engage.

To me, Joshua is the epitome of “seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you!” He sought God’s wisdom and His ways by spending time with Him. In my opinion, you and I can do that through prayer, reading the bible and our obedience to what the Lord said. The interesting thing about those three things is that nobody else can do them for you. Even though teaching, exhortation, or experiences can make you and I want to apply ourselves. I want to offer up a thought that may be a bit offensive to some – postponement of application is actually saying NO! 

There is only one answer to the call of God on each of our lives: “…here I am Lord send me.”  The bible shows us that people like Joshua did that, they lived singleminded lives and they found a whole new way to live. 👋🏻

1 Corinthians 10:11-13: “The things that happened to those people are examples. They were written down to teach us, because we live in a time when all these things of the past have reached their goal. If you think you are strong, you should be careful not to fall.”

P 2304 Encourage one another.

/ DVH

I’m a big fan of this principle. Encouragement – ‘the action of giving someone support, confidence, or hope.’ Did you get that? True encouragement brings HOPE!’ It also means, ‘uplifting, inspiration, rallying, motivation, invigoration, making bold, fortifying, morale-boosting.’ HIS book calls it ‘exhortation.’

“But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”Hebrews 3:13. Will you look at that? Encouragement can help somebody else to avoid hardening their heart, without encouragement people start to stumble and fall into sin! Now … here’s today’s icky sticky question … when was the last time you encouraged someone? And please don’t tell me ‘that’s not in my nature” because when we said ‘yes’ to Jesus we got a brand new nature. 

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:1. See? This facet of Christ’s behaviour was so normal, Paul expected it. Here’s what I’ve learnt about encouragement so far …PRAY. Ask the Holy Spirit: ‘what can I say to breathe Your life into this situation?’  And if you wouldn’t like whatever it is – then others probably won’t either. Encouragement builds UP it doesn’t tear down. 

Katie Scott said this: “… Encouragement is brick by brick, word by word, action by action building towards Jesus. Not only building up, but building into— encouragement builds each follower of Christ into a home, both a dwelling place for God Himself and a location for a fallen world to encounter a risen Jesus.”

Who is Kate Scott? I dunno. But I don’t have to know her personally to appreciate the truth God has given her! 

Joshua 1:9 says— “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” This is God Himself encouraging us – and it is a great example of positive reinforcement. We are not going to do better than that! But use your own words as well as using scripture verses.

Encouragement is our investment in someone else’s future. The Holy Spirit  gave me that line, while I was typing this blog. Isn’t it lovely?  Encouragement is like releasing GOD’S very essence into the air around people. Suddenly instead of criticism, negativity and failure, people start to believe that maybe God wants to help them… maybe He does love them. We all have this power …Christ died to give it to us. 

People often go on about ‘the power of life and death is in the tongue.’  I see that verse as an exhortation to speak life instead of becoming paranoid and analysing everything that someone else says. People don’t actually mean a lot of what they say nowadays. 

I wanted to give a made-up example of what I think ‘speaking life’ might sound like to someone else …‘This is a terrible thing that has happened to you and I will not only pray for you, but I will actively believe with you that you can get through this. I think your power of perseverance is much stronger than you can see right now. These circumstances are stretching you …but you can do it, I know you can do it, I know you can push through to a new place and regain your hope in His goodness.’ 

Encouragement is a language. Speaking life takes God’s discipline and self control in the face of all sorts of visible, and invisible, apparently insurmountable odds. I believe we all need encouragement from day to day, as well as when we are going through the hard things we all face. However, we give ourselves and others a huge blessing when we choose to see what is going on through His eyes. We need to see despair, discouragement and disappointment as tools and tricks foisted upon us by our enemy. And remember that these things attack all of us. 

An encourager helps puts the wind of God back into someone else’s flagging sails so they can continue on with their journey with Him. 👋🏻

P 2301 Christianity is not a theoretical construct.

/ DVH

We can all fall madly in love with a whole lot of Christian principles. We can ‘like’ and repeat them over and over again on Facebook, or whatever … but none of that is worth a hill of beans unless we make those principles our lifestyle. There are a whole lot of other faiths that have sound principles and doctrine too. Living our lives giving away His Love from day to day changes everything – it takes the supernatural to do that.

Christianity is failing this world – especially in the West – in one place. It is all talk and no action! There are a whole lot of people who can talk a great game – they can quote the bible chapter and verse, and they have memorised whole books. But they disappear into the ether when the going gets tough and people or life get difficult. The practical outworking of their faith depends on their own personal circumstances and resources and not on flowing with the Holy Spirit.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, DEMONSTRATED Their love to us when we were yet sinners. This word means to – give a practical exhibition and explanation of …. AND – clearly show the existence or truth of (something) by giving proof or evidence.

“If anyone sees a fellow believer in need and has the means to help him, yet shows no pity and closes his heart against him, how is it even possible that God’s love lives in him? Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds. We know that the truth lives within us because we demonstrate love in action, which will reassure our hearts in His presence.” 1 John 3:17-19 TPT. Check out James 2:15-17.

So here’s a couple of my knotty questions for you today – ‘How many times in this past week have you demonstrated God’s love to someone else?’ Second question – ‘How many times did the Holy Spirit prompt you to do something and you turned Him down because you were too busy or didn’t have enough time?’ Here’s a big thought our God is the Author of time and He knows how to stretch it. Read the book. I’ve personally watched Him do that so many times…

We all long to see miracles, but in order to see a miracle, someone is going to have to take a risk. Taking risks and living in obedience are the most important part of how our faith works. If we knew what we were told to do was going to work, before we did it, then it wouldn’t be faith. We are going to have to become a bold, fearless people, which is why the Lord encourages us, through Joshua, to be strong and courageous. And through Isaiah He tells us, ‘When you walk through the fire, you won’t get burnt, when you walk through the river you won’t get drowned.’ Like I said, Christians are delegated risk takers.

So we give away money in the face of recession, we talk about Jesus even when we are embarrassed and afraid. Just FYI, I never once taught my children about the Lord that I didn’t feel greatly intimidated at the time. My kids looked at the floor, looked the ceiling, looked at their nails, and every single part of their body language said ‘please shut up now, mum.’ It  is not meant to be easy to witness or love or have faith, we are going against the very fibre and fabric of our society when we do it. That’s what makes it powerful. 

In order to demonstrate God’s love to other people, as well as strangers, we have to risk disinterest, rejection, anger and being told to mind our own business. Just because it’s not popular, that does not invalidate it. There are so many times in Christian history where Jesus’ love was demonstrated, His kingdom life was given away freely, and it blew people’s socks off. Not to mention it brought new life into abject darkness! We can operate in stealth mode as the Lord leads us, but we can’t ever be a light and not expose things that are hiding in the darkness. 

Plus we cannot say we love if there is no demonstration, otherwise we are presenting a theory and not a fact. Love looks like something – to the hungry it’s food, to the thirsty it’s water, to the rejected, it’s acceptance, to the outcast, it means finally finding a home. When we give away, and demonstrate God’s love we enter the Spirit’s River of Life. I urge us all, ‘don’t paddle around on the edge … JUMP IN.’ Jumping in shows commitment. 👋🏻 

P 2276 Mercy starts with US.

/ DVH

Mercy is like a well, sometimes we can run dry, and at that moment …we often let fly!  When that happens, repent quickly, fix it, and go and get alone with Jesus as soon as you can. Then ask for a fresh infilling of His love and grace. We extend mercy to ourselves when we do that instead of beating up on ourselves. However, at the same time, we are not absolving ourselves of the need to repair, and re-connect with the other person. 

Self flagellation and self accusation is not profitable, we need His grace first before we can begin to analyse what happened, and we need to look through His eyes at the current event, and not ours. We need to choose to look at whatever happened from His POV and not the world’s. His POV of restoration is far more important than us yelling at ourselves for getting it wrong.

We need to rush to our mercy seat, Christ, and sit down with Him. The bible tells us when we run toward Him, He runs toward us. Just stop and think on that. The God of the Universe rushes toward us and the Holy Spirit is on point and totally engaged on our behalf as well. He is ever-listening and ever-present to carry out Father God’s wishes. This is the exact moment that we need to remember Whose child we are. 

There is also no room for shame either! Jesus took our shame, sin, guilt and blame with Him to the cross.  “There is …no condemnation etc . etc.”  We need to get to Him as fast as we can. Then we prayerfully override our feelings of despair about what we did or said, and start reminding ourselves of how much we are loved by Him. He is the source of healing. Healing is not just about bodily ailments, our souls can be sick …it’s in the book.

I am not talking about ignoring our own personal responsibility to fix things with other people. Father God is the place where we get the grace to forgive others. The way to get a clear conscience is to deal with the matter. Don’t get tied up in who is to blame, or who said what. The point is we have to get back to Jesus, throw ourselves on the mercy seat, acknowledge our own fault, and don’t just start raving on about what the other guy did or said and  how much it hurt you. There is no value in that. It’s like yelling at the bus when it’s already gone, all the yelling in the world won’t bring the bus back.

Condemning yourself is a bit like adding fuel to the fire of your own hurt. Take a breath. Remind yourself that our precious Father loves you no matter what and He doesn’t change … “in Him there is no shadow or turning…” Now turn and look at the cross! It’s empty!! We live in the other side of the resurrection there is hope there! The Holy Spirit knows how to turn that mess we are in around.

Don’t try to fix something while your own emotions are in turmoil. Just breathe slowly, tell the Lord you’re sorry, ask Him to forgive you. Wait for Him to speak. You need instructions. If your toaster is malfunctioning then you will probably need to look at the instructions or check out the guarantee. The bible is God’s personal instruction manual for human beings. It is His guarantee IN WRITING! So when we are malfunctioning we need to go back to the word of God, and start reading. 

When I’m in a tizzy emotionally, or in in my mind, OR both! I find reading a Psalm calms me down. I rediscover my humanity by reading about what the psalmist said.- I like to go to one of the Psalms David wrote. Pick one where David is cranky at somebody or other, so he wants to kill them, and tell God they died. And I keep reading because I know that by the end, he will have calmed down and started turning his thoughts back to God. And that’s what we need to do too.

If you need to cry, cry. BUT – our God does not take sides. He only has one side – HIS! Remember the angel asked Joshua ‘who is on the Lord’s side?’ There are no winners or losers in Father God’s plans because when the Lord is in charge …everybody wins!  He loves us all. His aim is for every single human being to know Him and trust Him. We need to actively learn to have mercy toward ourselves. However that does not mean we are right or wrong, or that He favours us over someone else. Everything hinges on us treating the other person with His grace because our relationship with Him cannot go forward without active grace. Grace for us and grace for them. 

The Lord has already forgiven mankind – as His family we operate by His agenda now. Forgiveness is the hallmark of Who He is, and now, it has to be the hallmark of who we are. Focussing on our flaws magnifies them – this is why it is destructive to our faith to focus on someone else’s flaws. Our focus is always on the Answer – JESUS. 👋🏻

P 2165 What does the Lord think about it?

/ DVH

When we position ourselves on the Lord’s side, then whoever comes against us, is coming against God Himself. He will give us wisdom. Difficult situations aren’t about winning or losing – what matters most is Whose side we are on! In these times, that can be a bit tricky, because being self-centred and filled up with self-importance is almost a national pastime in the Western world! We assume that God will always be on our side and see only the things that benefit us. Not that we are obsessed with our own self-importance or anything! Hmmm. Almighty God doesn’t take sides, as I’ve said before – He is on His own side. When you are as wise as He is that makes all-kinds of sense!

Joshua 5:13&14. “Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in His hand. Joshua approached him and asked, “Are You for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied. “I have now come as Commander of the Lord’s army.” Then Joshua fell facedown in reverence and asked him, “What does my Lord have to say to His servant?” Sometimes we can get so focussed on completing the task we forget to ask Almighty God about it.

It seems to me that Joshua learnt an awful lot when he stayed behind in the tent of meeting after Moses left it! He was quite a young man, but he had a whole lot of supernatural wisdom. He learnt God’s ways are far better than ours. To be honest with you, I ask for that kind of wisdom all the time – I need it. I have no clue what is good for me, and often go for an immediate solution, over a long-term gain. Sadly, sometimes, self-preservation and immediate gratification can be much too high on all our lists of priorities. Almighty God sees everything.

Let’s look at Joshua for a minute – the Israelites were entering the Promised Land. Every man and boy in the Israelite camp was very sore, because they had just been circumcised, so they would have felt vulnerable. The Israelites really could have used a Mighty Warrior on their side! Even the food that had always fallen from the sky … had ceased. They were about to go and tackle Jericho, a walled city. And Joshua had the sense to fall on his face and ask for advice. Boy is that a great trait to have. Meanwhile that young man also had the sense and the courage to carry out what he was told to do, even though it seemed weird, but those men had 7 more days of healing before they got to the action. What God tells us to do doesn’t always make sense at the time … but afterwards …

Sometimes, knowing what we don’t know, is far more important than knowing what we do! Not enough people take the time to find out what the Lord thinks. He has said plainly, in the book, His plans are for our good. We just need to let Him decide what that , looks like! Human beings have these grandiose theories about what can, and should be done – but most of the time we have no idea at all what the Lord actually wants. I can tell you for sure – He doesn’t want us rampaging about killing, or hurting, or taking advantage of other people, in His Name. Loving others is His priority. Our God has everyone’s eternal well-being on His heart, that’s why Jesus came to save all of us. Sadly sometimes all we have on our own hearts is our convenience and safety.

Plus many people want Him to put a big tick on whatever we think. So we roll up with our prayer agendas and just ask Him to “sign on the dotted line, right there, thank you Jesus.” Without even consulting Him first. Or we pray, and ?hear? that of course God agrees with US … and we have right on our side… plus we have umpteen verses to prove it. Waggling scriptures in God’s Face, will not persuade or impress the Lord. HE WROTE THE BOOK – He already knows what it says. It is far better to humble ourselves, get on our faces, like Joshua did, and wait for Him to speak and then do what He says.  

In Genesis 15 Abram did all kinds of unusual stuff in order to enter into a covenant with God that still stands today. You and I are the result of that covenant! Billions of people have benefited from Abram believing God and following His instructions – and those instructions seemed really weird. Elijah took a side road-trip that lasted 40 days and 40 nights before he heard from the Lord. Because of it, the man learnt no matter what the Lord did through him – he was still human! We need to allow God to be God – He’s good at it – and stop trying to organise or persuade Him to see things from our POV. He won’t overrule our choices, but He has promised to look after us. That’s where trust begins. So we either believe He is Who He says He is, and He will do what He said He will do … or not. 

Establish in your heart that God is God, and you are simply you, and take the time to ask Him how to go forward. Then wait and listen. He is not impressed with our wealth, our many many MANY books, or even man’s logic. What impresses God’s heart is a faithful, faith-filled, humble, trustworthy, loving man or woman who delights to do His will, His way.  👋🏻