KIngdom

P 2490 Do you pass the litmus test?

/ DVH

‘“So I give you now a new commandment: Love each other just as much as I have loved you. For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you’re My true followers.””John 13:34-35 TPT.

Okey dokey … let’s look at these two verses in some sort of context. Jesus has just deliberately washed His disciples feet to illustrate what ‘love one another’ means. He has an interesting interchange with Peter, who clearly doesn’t get what is going on… and He washed everyone’s feet, including Judas’ feet too. I think, in that moment, the Lord Jesus was loving those who despitefully used Him. That thought is important in this blog today, the next time you want to brain or maim somebody for hurting you – ask yourself … Could I kneel down in front of them and wash their feet? Believe me, that thought sorts stuff out on the spot. Remember, Jesus is always our example!! 

And just in case you think that this stuff doesn’t really apply to you … or me, the Lord actually says this in verses 15 and 16.:“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the One who sent him.” And there’s that sorted! This attitude of humility and love applies to all of us. Never forget, forgiveness is our way of life now. Forgiveness is also the way we pass on Grace from His Kingdom to others … who don’t deserve it any more than we did!  Lacking love means we are stuck somewhere in unforgiveness.

Back to my own thoughts: And so Peter continues on his merry way of somehow saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Man! I identify with that guy! … And so he organises John … who is not quite so subtle about making sure WE all know that Jesus loves him best, in the book he wrote 🙄…  and then John asks the Lord about who it is.  I want to pause here and reflect on how very little we actually know about ourselves. All of these guys are just human, even though they were involved with miracles. They all have their faults. Remember the two disciples who wanted to be sure their position in heaven was fixed so they sent their Mum to ask the Lord about it? 

I often wonder if Peter is scared, at this point, that somehow the betrayer  IS actually him because he seems to make lots of unforced errors! Maybe that is why he prompts John to ask the Lord?  Sadly, eventually he betrays the Lord too. We never can tell what any of us will do under pressure until we are right in the middle of it. Isn’t Jesus wonderful? The Lord speaks to Peter about what he is going to do next and warns him about it. That warning has always fascinated me – was the Lord trying to warn Peter, and prepare him for his biggest mistake? I think that that warning was love in action.

Many of these 12 disciples are subject to public rebuke and learning during their time with Jesus. We should not be surprised when He corrects US too. James and John learnt about rampant ambition from the Lord Himself and Peter shows us all that mistakes aren’t fatal, but cultivated disloyalty to Jesus is a trap that leads to despair. Maybe because we stop thinking about what we are doing to others, and focus on ourselves. Jesus takes our disloyalty to others as if we are disloyal to HIM, because we are His family now.

Judas cultivated his own disloyalty in an ongoing fashion. He kept right on pinching money, and money appears to be the source of his downfall. Eventually the Lord forgives Peter for his personal betrayal of Himself. However, Judas sinned against the group, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he put Jesus into the enemy’s hands. He’d totally missed all the lessons of love that Jesus carefully taught them, day after day for three and a half years.

Truly loving others is the best diagnostic tool I know of – and most of us miss it. Just because we think we can’t love this person or that one, that does not excuse us from participation. It’s a commandment. It’s not a suggestion, or a great idea – Jesus Christ commanded us to love one another. And when we read what the disciples wrote eventually in all of the Epistles … we can see that they are now saying the same thing  too … LOVE MATTERS. Not ‘tolerated’  ‘like,’ or ‘admire’ – but love. When we don’t love others we become preoccupied with ourselves – my feelings, my hurt, what YOU did to me. We lack obedience and humility. That’s a dangerous place to live. To be like Jesus, we must live this life the Way He did – we cannot be our own reference point.

Christianity is for the devoted. People who truly believe that Jesus Christ IS the Son of Almighty God and He came here and died for their sins too. These people actively believe and practice the fact that the new birth transformed their lives, before, during and after it happened. So much so, that they don’t live for themselves anymore. They choose to die to what they know, and feel. Other people will betray us, and … maybe we will also betray them. So when Jesus tells us to love one another, these people fall on their faces and confess their utter lack of love, and ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. And when difficult people turn up in their lives they know that God is giving them someone to practice on!

Loving one another is the best litmus test we have. In my own life it shows me I’m not “done” yet! I just might live to be 150 years old at this rate. However along the way, I’ve definitely learnt not to hold grudges and to forgive others when they sin against me. However, there are still some people I simply cannot love without lots of prayer and His help!! So feel free to pray for me and … I will pray for you, too. Bye 👋🏻

P 2489 Allow His beauty to inspire us.

/ DVH

“Discover creative ways to encourage others and to motivate them toward acts of compassion, doing beautiful works as expressions of love. This is not the time to pull away and neglect meeting together, as some have formed the habit of doing. In fact, we should come together even more frequently, eager to encourage and urge each other onward as we anticipate that day dawning.’Hebrews 10:24-25 TPT

We can concentrate on relating to others, by nagging away at someone else, and doing our best to get the other person to understand our POV. The objective of that idea is that the other person will change. OR, we can help motivate the people around us further in God, by encouraging them to be bigger!  One way leads to war, and the other leads to expansion. Personally I think that winning in any conflict is hollow. We simply must decide to learn to speak life, not criticism. But maybe we got our feelings hurt by somebody else? Boo-hoo! Move along please … you and I aren’t meant to be living in our feelings in the first place! We.Walk.By.Faith.

Will we grow our faith, or will we invest in our flesh, our feelings, or our supposed needs, and allow those needs etc. to grow stronger and even more demanding? Let’s not be the generation the Lord has to pass over to get to the next one coming after us! Right now, it is our turn, our time … on the stage of life to shine forth His light and motivate this dull cranky and crabby old world into better things! Having come so far, we cannot afford to quit on this faith life now!! At the same time, we can always inspire each another. Because of Jesus, we are the broken who can be made beautiful.

There are people who are leaving churches because they are not happy in their current church – their focus has gone off others onto themselves. They have stopped contributing beautiful things, encouraging things, and started to focus on “how hard MY life is.” Join the club, nothing is easy for anyone nowadays!  Spreading around His love and kindness is a high AIM, that sort of thing can be harder to do when we don’t practice it. However, deciding to do positive things and making them into a lifestyle… changes us. Always remember, we have a Helper!  Plus what we focus on grows bigger in our minds. If I focus on your faults and mistakes those things will eclipse any good stuff you might do… Just saying is all …

Going to church has become difficult for many people, for all sorts of reasons, but that is not a reason to stop going. We need to meet with others in order to receive the kind of understanding and encouragement that comes from talking to other people who want to live a life of faith like we do. It isn’t about bragging on this spiritual exploit or that – it’s about our kindness and mercy helping others to press on, and prevail, against those pesky difficult things that stop growth. Other people’s stories, their testimonies … even their struggles can be used to reassure us that even though our lives may be topsy-turvy at that moment, the Lord is still busy on the Body’s behalf.

“You know God has bigger plans for us than we have for ourselves.” (The director of the movie “Journey to Bethlehem” said that.) It seems to me that we all need to stretch and decide that internal growth is not a great theory, it’s a lifestyle. When we focus outwards, on others, on blessing and encouraging them … the things that bug us daily shrink back to normal size. Self-focus is self-limiting.

In our everyday world, art, nature, literature and such things can inspire people to appreciate beauty. In the world of His kingdom, the things He does, sometimes silently – almost unnoticed, those things need to become our inspiration. If we don’t talk to each other, the little things that He does, will come and go and we will all have missed the opportunity to be grateful for those blessings. What are we here for if not to appreciate the One Who saved us, and the One Who is continually helping us transform our lives?

As I read this scripture today, I wondered, what “beautiful works as expressions of love,” look like! Thankfully, I have dear friends who love to let me know how God has blessed them, even in a small way, so I can give thanks with them. I have a pastor who produces the loveliest tracts with reminders of the things He preached about recently. I know those things that he makes take time, and effort and research, so I think that qualifies as a beautiful expression of love. 

But then I began to wonder what do I do, that would qualify me. And that led me to write about this subject today. Sometimes in this life, one day follows another with almost alarming similarity. There is a lot of same old, same old in our days! I think that is why I like to make bookmarks etc. I feel like I am investing in someone else’s future, in their opinion of Who God is, and helping them to see Him in a unique way that is unchurch-ified. 

Today, I want to leave us all with a challenge for this coming year — are we going to let the darkness hide everything God has done and what He is continuing to do, all over this globe? I think we need to let the beauty of Who He is inspire us to grow and encourage others even when things are tough. Bye 👋🏻

P 2488 We need to live by faith.

/ DVH

““So above all, constantly seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness, then all these less important things will be given to you abundantly.” Matthew 6:33 TPT. “Take advantage of every opportunity to be a blessing to others, especially to our brothers and sisters in the family of faith!” Galatians 6:10 TPT “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 2 Corinthians 9:7.

In this new life that we have been given, we cannot afford to have mixed priorities. Faith is never an optional extra for the people who follow Christ. “The just (that’s us!) shall live by faith”… So Christians don’t give to get, we give to bless. In these turbulent times faith is a necessity. Otherwise we will end up deserting what we think is a sinking ship … but it really is a battleground centred around what we decide to do with our faith!

None of us are living up to our full faith potential. We are all way too busy trying to live a double life with a double standard. That was Ananias and Sapphira’s problem. They rationlised what they gave and wanted to look right without actually doing right. Let’s note that this couple did actually give, but they lied to the Holy Spirit and the brethren, about how much. They fell under a common deception. Giving out of what is left-over, or what we can afford, is not the kind of giving that blesses God. We need to be careful we are not committing the sin Ananias and Sapphira committed, where they liked the appearance of good more than doing good! That means we are lying to ourselves and God, because it is not His kind of giving.

One of the clearest signs of the Holy Spirit’s Presence in someone’s life is generosity. This sort of giver is not interested in appearances or their own gain, they are far more interested in showing others the kind of Love God gave us, in a practical form. Jesus came and lived here and He died to benefit us. We owe Him the same sort of choices. Let’s remember the amount does not matter BUT … the sacrifice does! Jesus talked about a little widow who gave away her last two pennies. (Mark 12:41-44) Her giving was sacrificial. Sacrificial giving is God’s way.

Many Christians are inadvertently living in compromise… while nearly half of this world’s population is in great need. Faith begins and ends with the way we live – not the way things look to others. Our Heavenly Father dearly loves us, and our own faith needs to reflect that unconditional love back out into this world. This new life of ours is not an add-on, our faith is our life. It can be seen, touched, tasted and experienced by others because it is demonstrable. …

This morning I was listening to someone complain that we don’t need any more rain where I live – because everything is saturated and people have lost their homes to floods. We even want RAIN to arrive to suit us! 😱 What about helping those who have suffered great loss because of the rain, instead of seeing what we have been given as a nuisance. That rain will disappear soon enough, then, I suppose we will complain about how dry it is!

Our lackadaisical attitudes to the things that God has asked of us – are not fooling Him. Giving without sacrifice is not the Lord’s way. It is our God-given task to encourage others to experience all they can of the wonder of the Holy Spirit’s help and Presence, and we must use any method, any resource to do it. We can no longer afford to live on the fringes of faith, times are tough, we can easily fall off those edges and fall away. 

The church, like everyone else in the Western world, has been tormented by panic, and ceased being generous givers. We thought we might lose everything we’ve worked so hard to gain. A pandemic happened and the world’s monetary systems started failing, and we all grew afraid and cautious. We’ve stopped being content with having whatever we need to live, and became obsessed with comfort and having extra – just in case. Real human beings, mothers, fathers etc. who love their kids like we love ours, are starving, and they have to face all kinds of diseases too, without help! People who used to live in a house, like 3 months ago, are now living in a borrowed tent.

Convenience reigns everywhere, not generosity. Loving the Lord with our finances is one of the best ways I know to learn how faith works. It takes great faith to give in the middle of hard times.“A dear friend will love you no matter what, and a family sticks together through all kinds of trouble.” Proverbs 17:17 TPT. Let’s not neglect the poor and needy now times are tough. If the bible says the Lord loves a cheerful giver then we need to go out of our way to find places to give, and forget about giving out of any supposed excess. Let’s just start giving by faith, and call it sharing. Too much of this world’s wealth is concentrated in the pockets of excess. 👋🏻

“Every time you give to the poor you make a loan to the Lord. Don’t worry—you’ll be repaid in full for all the good you’ve done.” Proverbs 19:17 TPT.

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

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     *  30% less likely to be lonely

P 2477 No, we may not be excused …

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P 2465 Stick-to-it-ivity.

/ DVH

““Staying with it—that’s what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry, and you’ll be saved. All during this time, the good news—the Message of the kingdom—will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14 MSG.

The biggest problem we will ever face, as Christians in my opinion, isn’t just the temptation to disobey, it is the temptation to give up entirely and live mediocre lives. Comfort and ease are our enemies. So is thinking we have arrived and this is as good as we will get!  Ask your family, they can tell you if you have arrived or not … they live with you. Here are two more verses to chew on … and yes, they give me indigestion too! James 1:2-3. “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

2 Peter 1:5-8 “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness;  and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”It is not enough to have these things, they must be growing!

Did you catch the point that our own inner attitudes are essential to help us overcome? The more we choose to obey the Holy Spirit, the more we will have these qualities added unto us! That, BTW, doesn’t mean that we can’t short-circuit the process, by being disobedient and self-indulgent. It simply means that one thing builds upon another. The thing beneath it, holds the next one up! Faith holds goodness up! Goodness holds Godly knowledge up… etc! PS w are not just meant to sort-of kind-of have these qualities – they are meant to increase as we go along.

We cannot afford to pretend this stuff doesn’t matter … that attitude will whittle away at our faith. The bible says when bad stuff happens:  count yourself/consider yourself… blessed, because this stuff is a sign that you are doing something right!  Everything changes when we stop regarding the bible as sweet sayings that are there to comfort and bless us – and instead we ingest them and regard them like they are medicine or vitamin pills. So we take them as prescribed. If we watch over our own words, they will give us a clue about what is going on inside. BTW, this isn’t censorship, it is self-awareness.

I’m not saying you have to be false about how you feel when hard things happen, these scriptures simply mean this is the way we are to look at those things. It definitely doesn’t mean paste a fake smile on your face and pretend stuff doesn’t hurt you! We are to regard these sorts of difficulties as a witness that what we are doing is right. Plus sometimes nasty scenarios tell us that the other person involved is being convicted by the way we are behaving and living. Conviction is good! It can lead to repentance, reparation and new beginnings.

The bonus buy of living the way the bible prescribes, is that we start up God’s production line on the inside of our spirits. We begin to grow Kingdom qualities. These qualities come from heaven and they hold incredible power to bring about change. Sadly, it is so much easier not to do any of this stuff at all, and short-circuit the process… OR … you can get sick of doing it and lose the prize.  That’s where stick-to-it-ivity comes in! The prize is having our automatic inside attitudes, changed. It is incredible to find that you are keeping your mouth shut when you know that’s impossible, especially if you are being provoked! It’s real, and you have no desire to chop the other person up into little pieces!  

Now bear with me, one more scripture – of course it is about difficulties producing some God-designed quality when we allow them to work on our characters! …”We also have joy with our troubles, because we know that these troubles produce patience.  And patience produces character, and character produces hope. And this hope will never disappoint us, because God has poured out his love to fill our hearts.”  Romans 5:3-5a. Even more of the construction process!

Joy is not just a smiley face, or a really really happy attitude, joy is a God-quality. It comes from the inside out. It does not wear out, because it is in there to grow. We need to trust the Holy Spirit to produce what He said He will as we obey Him and follow His instructions. We can always ask for His help but we cannot simply pray God-qualities into our lives and then do nothing. The bible is a faith book, and obeying it, using our faith, activates growth. Plus we will need stick-to-it-ivity. Hold fast to what you are aiming at with His help, “we will win if we don’t faint.” Bye 👋🏻

P 2461 The bible is often contradictory.

/ DVH

Much of what His book says, is contradictory, or even contrary to our own instincts. Things like … Gain your life by losing it. Love people who hate you. Seek things that you can’t see or feel, and you’ll get what you need. A-n-d for one guy… get rid of nearly all your army and go fight someone else’s much much bigger army with lights and trumpets!…Or you could become whale chum as a taxi service  I mean … really!!! Moses once talked to a shrub and it changed his known world! Here’s the last one that seems odd …serve to lead.

The bible says: “What happiness comes to you when you feel your spiritual poverty! For yours is the realm of heaven’s kingdom.” Matthew 5:3 TPT. See? This guy thinks being spiritually poor is the best thing ever. Either his brain fell out or he is onto something. I think he’s onto something. God’s WAYS are always about RISK and they include our freely-made choices. Nothing about following Jesus will be easy — we will all have to die-to-self to carry those things out.

For a long time, Christianity has been about been acquiring of information. I’m going to start out by saying… I think bible school is great because knowing the bible well is the best tool we can ever have. I urge you to do it – we cannot fight the enemy without faith, and weapons. And the weapons in His book are not carnal they are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds! Actually, I think the bible will save your life if you use it the way it was designed to be used! BUT, the real point is… it was written to show us that without God — man can’t do anything. Yeah, well, that kind of cramps our super-spiritual super-star style. (Try saying that 10 times quickly.)

Hubby read me this bible verse from the Passion Translation, yesterday – “It felt like we had a death sentence written upon our hearts, and we still feel it to this day. It has taught us to lose all faith in ourselves and to place all of our trust in the God Who raises the dead.” 2 Corinthians 1:9 TPT. That kind of stuff can seem a bit loopy to someone who has studied and worked very hard to realise their full potential. However, this verse suggests that living life according to what human beings know and learn, can be a waste of time. But it seems to me that experience has taught this man something. 

Personally, some of the best stuff I’ve ever learnt has come from experience. Like Paul, I have also despaired of life a number of times. I’ve also wondered if I was really a Christian so many times I can’t count them! The Christian life is not for the faint-hearted- thank God it doesn’t rely on our faith, it relies on Him. Jesus once had a brilliant conversation with a man who knew all the right answers. We probably would have made him into a pastor or a deacon, but that man walked away from following the Lord!

Continually read this book for yourself. I advise each one of us to stop looking for human heroes to follow, or pattern yourself on … and instead …look for people just like you. People who didn’t cope and made mistakes. Some of those mistakes were so huge we are still dealing with the results today. Yet Almighty God had a plan for each of their lives. The thing is — the REAL hero of God’s book is … wait for it … GOD. Funny thing that. Who’d have thunk it?

I have been ill for most of my life and that means that I have had to continually reinvent the way I live with His help. Nearly dying numerous times will do that to you. I’ve learnt that His way not only works – it will blow your mind! His way is difficult, challenging and … life-changing.

I consider myself totally blessed because everything that has happened to me so far has led me to the place where I KNOW I literally can’t do a thing without Him! That’s not just a pretty saying to me, my life depends on it. Yet I have no idea what the Lord is going to do next! Life is one big surprise filled to the brim with more challenges than I can count. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord will deliver them out of them all.”  I can say Amen to that!!

“YOUR mission, should you choose to accept it “ 😂 … will totally blow your mind. Our own human resources are limited, but HIS, are limitless. And He has made His limitless resources available to us! Each one of us will have to rely upon Him in ways we have never ever even dreamed about. My advice is to stop trying to get everything right and start following His instructions in the book. Start with the Be-attitudes and work from there. Paul, Peter, and John also have heaps of great instructions… not to mention my good friend James! 

The bible is filled with people who obeyed, and they got it wrong and … God rescued them.  It is a contradictory book – filled with things that should never work … but they do … Remember, Almighty God planned stuff in advance for each one of us to do – if we don’t do it, then it won’t get done. 👋🏻

P 2460 Never underestimate the power of choice.

/ DVH

Yeah, I know I rabbit on about choice all the time. However, I have a good reason to do that. Our minute by minute choices determine the intimacy of our walk with the Lord as well as others. I want to highlight the power of choice today, because many people are under the impression that if they just pray about something – that is all they need to do. I disagree. First we choose, then we carry whatever it is out.

I totally believe that Father God always hears our prayers. I think that He hears the prayers we never even say out loud.  His love is so incredible, He cares about the unspoken things that tear at our hearts, but they are unseen by other people’s eyes. In that place human heartache has no words – the bible calls that ‘sighs and groans too deep for words…’

It seems to me that this is why He says:“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you …” Seeking His will above everything and everyone else in our lives, positions us to be under His Government. And boy, is HE a fantastic governor! His government is far more than just provision – there is shelter from the storms of this life when we choose His will, His way. He sent us the Holy Spirit to help us carry out Godly choices. The Holy Spirit is poised, ready and waiting and longing to help us … because He loves each one of us dearly and He wants us to win! Jesus relied upon the Holy Spirit, and so should we, if we want to follow Him. 

The Holy Spirit IS Jesus Christ Himself, with us – He is literally standing right at our elbows, waiting for us to ask Him to help us out of our learnt patterns of disobedience, and fear, as well as the stupid messes we make. And all that takes is the humility to choose to ASK. Jesus told us that He left this world so the Spirit could come to be with us, and convict us of sin. We know that He will help, guide, comfort, counsel, instruct, and support us. However, the Holy Spirit in us, is also the Lord’s deposit upon us for our eternal future – His Presence in our lives assures us we belong to Jesus now. We need to treasure Him, and obey Him, plus walk with HIM – that is also a choice. 

Because we long to be His obedient people, we cannot afford to rely upon our own choices, no matter how small they seem. We daily need the Holy Spirit’s help to make kingdom choices. Yesterday our kitchen sink tap started leaking into the cupboard under the sink. What a mess! We could have thrown up our hands and cried: ‘Oh no, more bills!” But we chose to ask the Lord what He wanted us to do about it. Because of that choice hubby was able to witness to a young plumber. Our choices can hinder our growth or encourage it. They invite us into our destiny or close the door.

Right at the beginning of mankind’s interactions with God, and the wondrous world He made … the one Adam and Eve lived in… Everything was lost by that one bad choice. Genesis 2:16–17: “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Death came into that garden. God gave Adam a reason not to eat from that particular tree, but they both went ahead and made the wrong choice. They were tempted to doubt God’s truthfulness and they fell into sin! They thought what they could see was all there was, because that fruit looked and smelt good!

The devil wants us all to think that our choices do not count. he whispers: ‘You are no-one, what you do doesn’t matter.’ Or he says: ’Who will know? After all this or that need is so great, God will understand.’ I know about that particular rabbit-hole, I’ve fallen down it myself … sadly, many times. I ended up in Alice’s wonderland, where nothing made sense – until I chose to acknowledge my sin and repented. 

We cannot afford to put aside the kind of faith-filled obedience that demonstrates that God knows better than we do. In reality without faith, nothing can actually make sense. Let’s face it, it made no sense humanly speaking, that Adam and Eve could eat from any tree but that particular one! But immediate gain overtook caution … and they fell in. In our own lives that is also true.

Here is some advice: ‘choose God’s way from His Word, quickly, and stick with it despite any opposition.’ And there will be opposition, from our flesh as well as our enemy! I think we can easily blame the devil when the real point is, we either don’t want to, OR our flesh is weak and it is crying out for whatever it wants. That means our flesh has become used to being indulged.

When we are not walking with the Holy Spirit we can make really bad choices that affect tomorrow… and tomorrow … and … tomorrow. That’s how our eyes are blinded by our needs, and the overwhelming desire to sort out our own lives. We start to focus on the immediate, instead of the eternal. The power of choice is huge, and we cannot miss God if we are guided by His Word, as well as the good advice of mature saints … plus the desire to obey … above everything else. Never underestimate the power of choice!  Choose life.👋🏻

P 2459 Run after something worth running after …

/ DVH

“Until then, there are three things that remain: faith, hope, and love—yet love surpasses them all. So above all else, let love be the beautiful prize for which you run.” 1 Corinthians 13:13 TPT.

Paul suggests in the scripture above that if you want to run after something then run toward something worthwhile — like love. In other versions of the bible, this verse says …PURSUE love. I like that. Chase after love because it is worth chasing after. We will always need to chase after love however, because with some people, it seems like it is always too far away, plus we are not perfect yet! That’s great BTW, that means we are ‘poor in spirit’ and the poor in spirit inherit the kingdom – at those times we need the kingdom!  Sadly some human relationships are often full of surprises, nasty ones. We are going to need the Holy Spirit to be our full-time coach.

Before we start, here’s a great thought to help us focus and praise God – GOD’S LOVE IS ALWAYS RUNNING TOWARD US! Back to the verse, it says if we are going to run, we need to run after knowing, and living in HIS kind of love. Forget human affection – that disappears quickly in conflict. How do you aim at His love? First of all, remember Love is a VERB not a noun. It is not just an attitude, it is an action. It is see-able! It does something good.

Now let’s look at a metaphoric illustration. You are running alongside somebody you know, and everything is going well, … Then they — we both know it’s always them, it’s never me — say or do some dumb thing, and you’ve lost your stride.  And bit by bit, the rhythm we had together is suddenly broken. Now they are nowhere near me at all and we don’t agree about anything. I’ve lost my peace, patience, and eventually my temper… usually in that order!

What happened? Perhaps I stumbled over something they said or did, or maybe they didn’t say something I needed to hear. Or vice versa. Whatever! The rhythm we had together is now lost. However, the point of pursuing love is not about running …it is the fact that you were running together. There is POWER in ‘together!’ Sadly we can end up brokenhearted when we no longer have the same aim as the other person. However, I am not powerless.  I can always aim at love – with, or without them. The result is the same. I don’t need them to love me back, or even treat me kindly, because God’s love follows the Holy Spirit and His kind of love runs on GRACE not performance. 

Further, the bible says: ‘Love bears all things’, so, in those hard moments when we cannot bear what is going on — we will actually need His love helping us to do more than resolve conflict. People are always impacted by God’s Love. Human love is tainted by need, but God’s love is highlighted by the fact it is unconditional.

What to do? Apologise! Yeah, I know, I didn’t do anything. But apologising clears the air, and repentance lets in grace. And grace makes room for the other person to come to terms with their part in what happened. You see the point is not to instantly arrive at agreement, the real point is going straight back into running toward LOVING LIKE HE DOES. Whether the other person comes or not!

When we are pursuing this kind of love we cannot enter into a brawl about who was right and who was wrong, be-cau-se … we cannot get to love, by that route! That route will end up in a bigger argument. The way to pursue and arrive at running after love is to give up your idea of how things are meant to happen, and start running after the Holy Spirit. We need His help. We do this despite how unkind the other person has been toward us. 

BTW, loving someone with God’s love does not mean we utterly approve of everything they are doing. LOVE AND APPROVAL are two different things. God’s kind of love is supernatural. We always need His love flowing through us, and we access it by obeying what the Holy Spirit prompts us to say and do. Now we stay under the instruction of the Holy Spirit – we don’t give in to our own temper or hurt feelings.

At the same time, we are going to need our faith and hope to kick in to help us to keep on running. I ask the Holy Spirit for ALL those things, plus loads of Grace – because Grace saved the world!  Meanwhile, God’s love is accurately described in the bible and HIS Love always looks like this …”Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. So the reverse of these things is a good indicator that we are not walking in love … if we are impatient, unkind, envious, boastful, or proud etc.

Obviously aiming at love means we are going to die to self. But that is fantastic be-cau-se …”greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for his friends.” If 1 Corinthians 13 is to be part of our daily lives then we must pursue love and obey the Holy Spirit. He will take care of our attitudes and actions. Plus we are also acknowledging our own poverty of spirit. Chasing after His Love means we are running after something worth pursuing. Bye. 🥰

P 2456 Whose kingdom are we building, ours or His?

/ DVH

I asked myself the above question this morning, as I set out to write this blog. Despite the fact that we all like the easy way, the really great transforming things in the Christian life will not fall on any of us. Transformation takes choices, and there are no short cuts to a well-formed character. We need the Holy Spirit to kiss us — plus loving, listening, obedient hearts to His will. That will also take God-purposed choices. Many Christians want to know what their ministry is – but they have not learnt to love others. Ministry not motivated by His love, becomes a chore.

Our desire is to love and trust Jesus, but without God-motivated actions, we will wander along, mostly building our own little kingdoms. There is no other way, we need to choose to die to self bit by bit, day by day.  That means choosing to say nothing in the face of criticism, or being kind to someone who could care less about us. Instead we ask the Holy Spirit to help us. Because He will. The good news is … that’s how we get to know Him! 

Jesus Christ steered His way through this life accomplishing so much more than we can ever understand or imagine – and He did it all so now, today, we can be free to follow Him. He was incredibly passionate about His Father’s kingdom coming! He spent alone time with Father God, then He chose to be where hungry, sick, demanding people were, so He could pray for them as well as preach. He chose to obey.The only thing that can stop you and I right now is our will to change. We can’t turn back from it, we must press on.

Learning to yield to Him and His ways is part of ushering in His kingdom. But at the same time, we cannot be constantly distracted by the earthly things around us that don’t matter. People matter. When we let money or stuff become more important than the Lord, we’ve gone the wrong way. Making promises at the altar will not get us out of our self-absorbed ways, but paying attention to the Holy Spirit’s leading, will. Jesus is eternal, so is His kingdom.

Upholding our own little kingdoms, at the expense of other people all around us who are suffering, is not following Jesus. Loving Him means reaching out to others, simply because God has been good to us, and we want them to know His active goodness through us. At some stage in all our lives we met Him, face-to-face, figuratively or literally.  So now we know that we know, that the people around us need Jesus too. They need that much love and acceptance. The Lord dripped every single drop of His love and acceptance all the way down that cross, onto the ground beneath it – for every human being – even the evil ones.

In today’s world, it can seem like we have forgotten how to share and be there for each other. Human beings were not designed to live alone. Remember Genesis 2? The Lord God Himself said, right after He created man – “It is not good for man to be alone.” God called a whole lot of things good: but ALONE-NESS was not one of them! Reach out to those who will have no Christmas unless we include them. Spread forgiveness around because we have so much of it to give.  

There are times, in this modern world, when we can be so busy minding our own business we lose sight of the person who is in deep pain and sorrow standing right next to us. Their pain is our pain. Have we forgotten that we are quite literally, engaged to be married to the Healer of all Healers. We cannot afford to ever lack His OIL in our lamps! Political correctness has taken over from the kind of love that Jesus gave away for free. He made room for everybody.

We need to throw away our theology and just love people.

At the same time, because we are part of the Body of Christ, every single member is important. We cannot afford to lose anyone. So please take time to send that text, and make that phone call. We must persevere with people, even the difficult ones – and yes, I have some of those!  One day when we look back on this life we were given, the things that will matter are the relationships we had – the love we freely shared. 

Many people have been incredibly traumatised by this world, so they might take a bit of effort on our part. But loving others is the reason God saved us. Learning to love and include others takes effort, patience, forgiveness and time. Ask yourself, what have you invested your time in this year – your kingdom, or His? 👋🏻

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:12.