KIngdom

P 2619 Let us not misunderstand God’s Love.

/ DVH

Our Heavenly Father’s Love is always ON. His love is ablaze with fire and passion for all of us. His love burst forth in a visible form at Pentecost.  And His Grace has been abounding on this earth for centuries. Imagine that! It doesn’t wane, become greater or less, or fall away. That’s because our God is love, it is His nature.

Jesus Christ suffered unimaginable pain and suffering, not to mention humiliation and death, so WE could be called the Sons of God. His death teaches us, by example, that Love ALWAYS looks like something. It looks like a broken, bruised, bleeding, unrecognisable, totally innocent man, hanging on a wooden cross, tortured and dying … simply because He loved us all, and He spoke the truth. But people rejected His truth because they could not comprehend a love that could love the unlovely.  Humanity’s glorious opportunity to know God’s love for us, literally cut Him so deep, it was, and still is – incomprehensible.  Father God spared no cost, and held nothing back, now we know that Almighty God’s idea of love includes sacrifice not just emotion. 

“If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates (works against) his [Christian] brother he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”1 John 4:20. Our Heavenly Father takes love  seriously and His love is so far-reaching into our lives, plumbing our very depths, simply because we choose to belong to Him. Now the way we love our brother, exhibits a direct reflection of the measure of God’s own love IN, and toward US. We cannot conjure up such a love, but we can learn it if we choose to – one sacrifice at a time. 

That thought today made me wonder if one of the reasons that we feel we can’t love some people is because we have not actually comprehended what we are constantly being given! We often excuse and underestimate our sins, and exaggerate the sins of others. God didn’t love each one of us just enough – as in a measurable quantity – just enough to meet the requirements, and no more! His love is so overabundantly great it is always available and it is designed to daily transform us. His love is so deep we can swim in it, drown in it … and yet still live.

As we start to understand, through our own experiences with Him, and others in this life, how much undeserved GRACE we have been given, we will start to comprehend what Paul said in Ephesians 3:17-19.“…so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Most of us have never experienced what being filled, right to the top with love, over and over again, is like … even though we all know Jesus. I have prayed Ephesians 3 for myself for years! I know I need ever-increasing comprehension! It seems to me that everything we know about Almighty God and His kind of love hangs on those verses. He wants our hearts to respond to His heart with the same kind of passion He has already shown us. And we will all definitely need His help to do it, because human beings have a habit of hiding who we really are from ourselves.

In the Old Testament the Israelites were kind of …blah about God. He was a figurehead Who was there to provide and care for them, and when it appeared to them that He wasn’t doing what they thought He should do – they voted with their feet and went after empty pagan symbols that had no power or meaning. That’s a childish kind of love. Our reciprocal love toward God is not meant to come from a “I won’t love You if You don’t please me.” kind of response. Our admiration for His Grace toward us, needs to overtake our judgment of others.

Maturity understands that what He did surpasses anything we can possibly hope for or imagine. Let’s remember God’s love in Christ is not exclusive.  It is utterly inclusive. He doesn’t treat us as we deserve – EG: ’that guy’s sins are worse than mine.’ Instead His love is part of His very Being, His substance. It simply doesn’t have self- imposed limits. The reason the bible tells us to love our enemies, those who hurt us – is so we will quickly realise that we need to be constantly and comprehensively flooded with His love to such a level, that the other person’s reaction or response doesn’t come into it! A shortage of His love is not the problem, our decision to die to activate it in ourselves is!

Let’s not misunderstand God’s love or make it into something that it isn’t… God’s love is utterly incomprehensible unless you start to chase it. His kind of love causes the one He loves to flower and be the best version of themselves. Loving others transforms ME so I don’t see them the same way. It is a key to “His kingdom coming here on earth as it is in heaven…” Jesus Christ left us His keys to His kingdom. Sadly this means we can lock other people into being less than they can be, by our lack of love for them. But if we live this life, prepared to die for others, like our Saviour did for us, the passion and fire of the Holy Spirit is always with us. He will do that IN US.  👋

P 2617 Thinkaboudit. Prayaboudit. DOsomethingaboudit!!

/ DVH

“But how can people call on Him for help if they’ve not yet believed? And how can they believe in One they’ve not yet heard of? And how can they hear the message of life if there is no one there to proclaim it?”Romans 10:14 TPT.  Quote: “There would be no sense in saying you trusted Jesus if you would not take His advice.” (C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity.) 

Jesus Christ told us, as His disciples, to “go.” It was not a suggestion, or a happy thought, it was a direct order! The Lord wants us to go … individually, personally, and corporately. Whatever He wants us to do when we get there, is between Him and you. However, we all need to obey what He said when He said GO! And here’s a very good reason why we should go, that many people aren’t aware of…

… the plain fact is, most Christian people are stuck in a rut when it comes to their faith. They battle doubts and fear all the time, but especially when life gets difficult. And life, nowadays, gets difficult OFTEN! Jesus Himself is speaking here: “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]” John 16:33. He said, expect trouble!

Here is a fantastic secret I have discovered about go-ing. Go-ing means we will have to use our faith. Well, that seems like a duh! thing right? But it’s true. In order to obey Him, we will have to take what the Lord Jesus said seriously, and move out of our comfort zone and into the battle zone. The thing is, if we look carefully, we are already living in a battlefield every single day, anyway! However, daily using our faith makes it stronger!

satan doesn’t just want you and I to be inactive – he wants us dead. So, every day we fight for our faith as well as our lives. But, at the same time, we can also use up what little faith energy we may have developed, by striving to live in a neutral place — seeing only occasional evidence of our faith’s reality. Most of us live pedantic, sadly disappointing lives, and we never experience the joy of being in God’s right place, at His right time. Trust me there is NOTHING like that in this world. Instead of doing the same old, same old, every day – spend your life for His sake!

There is no surer way to kill off faith than to live this life only dusting off and dragging out our faith Sunday by Sunday. Or using it as an emergency cord, when things get bad. We either believe what the Lord said, or we don’t. Practically everyone I know believes what Jesus Christ said is the truth … the whole truth and nothing but the truth! But most people do nothing about what they believe. How tragic! You and I have God-given appointments to fulfil.

We all have a destiny. I discovered that there were actually things that only I could do, that didn’t involve setting up a tent somewhere and hiring an evangelist! I read in His book that I am destined to usher in His kingdom everywhere I go! So I decided to believe what I read. Now, I live this life aware of the kingdom of God in me and around me. You and I carry His life within us. All we need to do is to let His life out every day – instead of saving it for a chat around the urn, slurping on a cuppa tea at church!  We are all full of faith round that urn! There are people all around us daily who have no idea that Jesus Christ is alive – today.

Yes, it IS dark out there, but remember Christ Himself said: “The light shines more brightly in the dark.” At the same time, please, don’t let fear stop you. Fear is the antithesis of faith. Fear will make you self-involved. I’ve found out personally, that even tiny little things matter – they sure make a difference to people who have heard nothing. The truth is, people will be drawn to His light in us.  Kindness and love toward others can make a huge difference. We don’t have to give them the whole gospel in one sitting, sometimes all we need to do, is to say: ”Jesus loves you so much. He cares what is happening in your life.” Then they cry, and you get to explain why they are crying – it’s a piece of cake!

The bible says: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you …”  Along the way in my life, I’ve discovered that faith gets ‘added to’ when you use it.  Don’t let anything stop you from entering into any God-given opportunities He will send your way. Look for them, they will build your faith. Tell Him, daily: ‘Lord, I am available at any time, any place of Your choosing.”  Thinkaboudit. Prayaboudit. DOsomethingaboudit!! Bye 👋

P 2612 Where are our empowered lives?

/ DVH

In our world, we learnt – some of us from the cradle, to be polite and watch what we say. However, the latest younger generations have stomped all over that idea. I think they see manners as a kind of hypocrisy, and I honestly think I agree with them. I wish they were nicer about how angry they are, and that grace might abound in them more, but I think that older generations try to keep things the same, because ‘the same’ is comforting as we get older. However, the reality is the Body of Christ is not living Holy Spirit inspired, empowered lives. And who we are behind closed doors is daily disproving what we say and act out at church!

There is no more room to continue to hide our old ideas under excuses, traditions, and made up theology. Our stranglehold on what we call reality is not the only one. The thing is, I’m pretty sure that younger people scare the pants off people my age, because they’ve taken all our manmade rules and torn them up. Us oldies are guilty of living concealed lives, mainly because we do not want to be vilified by our peers. Sometimes we’ve simply hidden what we really feel;  because the old way, the polite society way, said it isn’t nice to blurt out your thoughts and feelings all over other people. After all, maybe those other people will judge us! In other words, we’ve been afraid. And fear and love can’t occupy the same space.

It is hard to believe for the best in people today – without pretending at least some of the time. We’ve been a powerless people who refused to talk about reality for way too long. In a world that says whatever it likes, I honestly think I’d have gone down the proverbial plug hole if it wasn’t for Jesus helping me. He has helped me to see the blessing in truth, openness, and facing what is really going on. And traditions, old and new, suck the life out of true faith. Our generational hypocrisy is now showing. It is much too easy to dismiss any messenger because they don’t say something nicely, or respectfully. Or maybe we feel superior because of age. However, if we don’t take what Jesus said seriously, there is a possibility we will continue to lose our God-given ability to change.  

My question is this: ‘how can we repent from stuff we’ve done, if we refuse to acknowledge it is there?‘ Many churches today are living cloistered lifestyles. However by shutting out what we think of as ‘bad things’ – we are turning away the very people the Lord wanted us to love on. Sadly, we can quite quickly draw up our robes and refuse to associate with anyone who doesn’t look like us. Many churches barely tolerate each other, instead they continue to live their own little autonomous lives, as if they were the only church in the world! If that isn’t hypocrisy I dunno what is! We all claim to have the same foundation but we’ve built all kinds of weird houses, with even weirder ideas and theologies on top of that foundation. It’s time to take down, or choose to tear up the stuff that cannot remain.

Maybe sometimes our kids don’t want to come to church because they are living their lives in a very harsh real world and they can see what we believe has no substance, it is hollow. We say we believe this and that, but the power to change is not present. These kids are sensible, they want something REAL from their faith, and our battered, bent and adjusted theology doesn’t do it for them.

I met someone recently who had been a missionary child, stationed overseas with their folks, and their parent had been powerfully used to evangelise the country they were sent into. The adults were successful in the eyes of their home church, because many people came to know Christ. But, their own children suffered all kinds of abuse at the parents’ hands and no-one else knew about it. Christians have been hooked on the devil’s crook that says we will undermine our credibility if we own up to our faults. It must stop.

It is a shame that others outside our walls are blowing the whistle on how far we’ve fallen from our glorious ideal, Jesus Christ. He didn’t preach church ideals and rules. He preached about a whole other kingdom that very few people know exists – thanks to us! We need to start thanking our children and grandchildren for saying out loud the things we’ve tried so hard to keep hidden from ourselves and others. “For the kingdom of God consists of and is based on, not talk but power – moral power and excellence of soul).” 1 Corinthians 4:20, and: “…God’s Way is not a matter of mere talk; it’s an empowered life.”  Bye.👋

P 2603 Some thoughts are not welcome!

/ DVH

Some thoughts are definitely not welcome, they are not worth our time, or even losing sleep over! Here are some great scriptures. Matthew 9:4 “Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?” Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” 2 Corinthians 10:5 “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

I am sure you already know these scriptures — but today I want to briefly talk about taking them seriously and acting on them. We would not ask an unreformed, repeat-offender, serial killer to stay at our house and babysit our kids! That would be, like … insane!! Yet, in our minds, there are times when we entertain all kinds of bad and poor thinking habits… and we kid ourselves that those thoughts don’t matter. Entertaining dumb thoughts is like nailing one foot to the ground — we will go round and round and round – and get nowhere. Because those thoughts will eventually take us CAPTIVE.

Whatever we have meditated on in our heads will come out of our mouths. ‘As a man thinks so is he.’ If all you can think about is how mad you are at someone else, then that stuff will leak out… somewhere. It’s like a forest fire, give those thoughts enough kindling and we end up with a blaze nobody can control!! Let’s look at this a bit to clarify the subject. 

Before anything happens it starts as a thought. My advice is to do spot checks on your thoughts and begin to decide, for yourself, which ones aren’t worth a welcome mat, because they are not helpful. Otherwise, what we often end up doing is this:  we will beat ourselves up for having some rotten thought – and satan probably ran by and threw the thought at us in the first place. However! he is delighted to add fuel to that kind of fire. In the end we can get so busy concentrating on what we think we are not… WE FORGET WHO WE ARE NOW!

Blaming yourself produces nothing but shame. Shame produces hiding. Hiding produces avoidance of the truth instead of application. Stop the production line!  Simply agree with the bible and apply it to your life. Act on it. Truth becomes stronger when you stand on it in faith – no matter how you feel. You know, Almighty God doesn’t say ‘always get it right‘ – He says use your faith! God loves YOU and I unconditionally. As we walk with Him, we need to grow used to living in His unconditional love for us. That’s how we will grow His fruit. Acting on our faith, not our feelings.

Try to look at the bible as helpful hints, and don’t allow a bad thought to stay long enough to become an obsession or an action. There’s a very old saying:  ‘You can’t stop the birds of the air from flying overhead, but you can stop them from making a nest in your hair!’  When Paul tells us: ‘“let your mind dwell on these things.” He is talking about the things that help us: “whatever is good right and profitable.” Beating yourself up for doing something dumb IS NOT PROFITABLE. All you will learn is punishment, not LOVE. Repent, repair, and then – move on! Teach yourself to discern what is not profitable by digesting the book. Digestion follows doing.

The time to take the next step is often when we least feel like it, but we can learn through the Lord’s processes that our feelings run dead last in a kingdom mentality. God isn’t saying we need thought police, instead He is telling us what sort of things are helpful to think about and warning us what to stay away from!  Do you have family or friends? Start thanking God for them. Even if some of those things are broken – just transfer your thoughts away from what’s wrong about them, to what He says is right. It’s a skill, just like brushing your teeth… we all can learn it.

We can feed our minds good things to think about by reading His book regularly. Read the bible until you get happy that you started reading it! Look for how much He loves you. Instead of seeing the bible as things I can’t possibly do, read it to find out what Jesus wants to say to me, TODAY. If He is pointing out something that needs changing, thank Him. “For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes.” Hebrews 12:6. Don’t get stuck on the discipline part, firmly plant yourself on the fact that our God loves us enough to discipline us. That verse tells us that correcting us is His Way of showing us His love.

God is on our side and He does not stand afar off, instead, He’s closer to us than our heartbeat. The Body of Christ has forgotten who we are – we are His kingdom in action – we are the people who know that going the wrong way starts in our thoughts. Tell the things that push and shout at you, and demand to be entertained – they are not welcome. Put out the welcome mat for the things that remind you how much He loves you. 👋

P 2602 The learning curve increases!

/ DVH

One of the things I have been learning during this time on the road, is that things can get uncomfortable – even when you are doing what God has asked you to do! It’s a funny thing – it is easy to think that when the Lord asks you to do something it will all just flow along sweetly, kind of like a river. But the reality is that all rivers have snags and dry spots, they sometimes race along and other times they seem like they are hardly moving at all! 

We have a number of criteria for travel etc. that we need to meet, so that hubby is free to do what he does. He’s brilliant with people, and he doesn’t need to be concerned about my well-being while I am alone. This time I managed to do some dumb thing to one of my knees … old age and I are never gunna be friends! … so I have had to sit about a lot more than usual. The joy in this situation is that I have had the privilege of looking at some things that are very different than my own four walls at home. What a blessing it is to change my view! I’ll skip the not-so–nice parts OK?

So here’s my own personal lesson for today, it may or may not apply to you. I have found that allowing a grumpy, picky, intolerant attitude to remain in me, stops the flow of the Holy Spirit’s river in my own life. When we go on the road, there are just so many more things to get grumpy about. At home at my house, in my own comfort zone, I don’t get irritable much because … everything suits me. Believe me, it would be so easy, and soooooo nice to think that that content happy person is who I am now! It would be great to start kidding myself that I’ve been really changed… thank you Jesus! Whoop-de-doo! (Sigh!)

Hmmm. Here’s a verse I’m not thrilled about, but Jesus said it so I’d better listen.“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13-14. What these verses mean to me is that if I find myself getting all comfy, cosy, spiritually speaking … I’m on the wrong road! The right road will start to narrow as I grow up in Christ. And I’m pretty sure that if I feel I have loads of room and I can do whatever I like … that means I’ve wandered off that narrow way again! Not the most user-friendly verses are they? Meanwhile, I don’t think the Lord cares about that.

Here’s how this grand revelation came about for me.  Hubby and I decided to change direction on the home-ward bound journey. This is a stretch for both of us, my dear hubby likes things nailed down and settled, and I like physical comfort. The more I focussed on getting what I want, what I think I need, the deafer I got, spiritually speaking. I was like those guys standing by while Almighty God spoke to Jesus, some heard Him speak something, some heard rumblings, and others heard nothing. There’s a whole blog in there!!

Moving on …  tuning into what the Holy Spirit wants, takes time and honesty with yourself, even more than others!! We need to cultivate the desire to want what HE wants, more than staying comfortable. God wants us all out of our comfort zones, because doing what He wants is not supposed to be comfortable. It will test us. Unfortunately, trouble brings the junk to the surface. It is a mistake to think everybody we meet is just going to fall into the kingdom, some of those people have to be rounded up and turned toward home and they won’t be NICE about it!

My spiritual hearing is dependent upon my willingness to change …  to be changed by His love, as well as my circumstances. I don’t need to adapt – I need to be transformed by His Grace. There is no spirit of adaptation in spiritual fruit! But there is self-control, patience, goodness … I have said this before but it bears repeating, we need to learn to trust the Person Who died for our sake. So if we do get stuck, then we go back to Jesus, and watch and ask Him how to move forward. Jesus treated God’s will as His food!  John 4:34.

As a part of His ministry, the Lord Jesus slept by a road. He talked to people who didn’t want to hear Him. He walked so far He got tired and thirsty. His feet were dirty. Some days He had nothing to eat but raw wheat. And His companions on the journey were not always spiritually tuned in and at optimum performance levels. His accommodation and provisions were definitely way under par most days. If I think like that, then my learning curve begins to increase, and so, hopefully, does my hearing! 👋

P 2597 A funny thing happened after I wrote yesterday’s blog.

/ DVH

…Like, at this moment I’m revisiting my own words. That didn’t take long … 🙄 Let me set the scene. Before we leave home for a bible run, the precious people from our church gather around us and pray and prophesy for miracles and souls to be saved. Their faith is fantastic!! After I’ve heard all their prayers I often start to wish they’d go instead of ME. You see, I know what’s out there … and even worse … I know what’s IN me – those two small things can sink my boat! Without Jesus I’m sunk. Moving on…

Actually, I need to be very real here or you will miss my point. Let me share with you what we’ve learnt over the last 19 years. God has a plan for each of us. We have each been given kingdom work to do, and all of it is a part of God’s MUCH bigger plan. Personally, I don’t think the Lord is looking for the next Billy Graham coming down the turnpike … 

… I think He is looking for ordinary willing people, like you and me. People who will believe they really did give their lives away to Him, and bravely stick up their hands and say: “Here I am Lord send me!” And then they go and do what He says. If anything good has come out of the last 19 years we’ve been travelling all over this country — it is because GOD IS GOOD – and He’s not fussy who He uses… sometimes He uses donkeys and whales … 😂 Hubby and I know we are both totally incompetent without Him. To be frank, without Him we’d probably give up when it gets too hard.

You and I, are a tiny part of His kingdom, and in that kingdom some people have heaps of stuff to contribute and others take their two little coins – which is all they have … and put it into His treasury for His glory! Yes, I know I just shoved two very different concepts together … hang on …  my point is that hubby and I are two normal people who dared to believe God is much MUCH bigger than our fears and we go and do it anyway – trembling most of the way.

Speaking of that … trembling I mean … the other night we sent out a frantic text to our prayer support explaining that we had suddenly discovered the next stop over on our trip is a dangerous place. That info is on Google, so it must be right! And we are staying there for two nights. It is one thing to talk about letting perfect love cast out your fears, and totally another to do it – right here, right now. We are on the coal face … so we are facing that fear. We are back in the place where our theories are going to be tested, again.  It is time to remember our peace is in HIM – not the circumstances.

A nice Indian man, who is our host at this motel, doesn’t seem thrilled with us. His spirit of kindness and co-operation flew out of the window. So, no to bibles, no to stuff for his kids, no to practically everything – including putting our food in his freezer. There are rules pasted up everywhere. To get to this outback place, we drove down appalling roads  and … …we just drove through a local locust plague. That was interesting!!

Plus, also on the road yesterday, a car driving along in front of us suddenly stopped in the middle of the road, in the 110km per hour zone … presumably to look at a great view! Another one nearly cleaned our clock in a local supermarket carpark doing 60 km/h right behind us as we were quietly reversing out.  Let’s not kid ourselves, this stuff can be hard work. Right now, hubby needs a cuppa tea, an aspirin and a big lie down!

However God is so cool, before we left home, the Lord told me to make a bookmark with an elephant on it, for an Indian lady I was going to meet. That unhappy Indian man’s wife LOVED the bookmark – even though her husband wouldn’t let her take another thing – she kept it. And the Lord did that ‘sneaky Pete’ thing He sometimes does and snuck under the radar, again. Nevertheless, there is no grace and power to do anything, unless the Lord gives it to us – you run out of manners pretty quickly!

Hubby and I have a habit of valuing obedience over everything else. We’ve learnt that if we want to see greater miracles we will need to face greater hurdles. You know … I really don’t remember signing up for some of this stuff.  I do however, remember praying … when I had no clue what was in front of me … ‘here I am Lord send me.’ Sometimes doing the work of the ministry is not as exciting as anyone might think — a lot of it consists of slogging on against opposition. 

On the plus side, living this life has taught me to throw away my always-be formal meter. Those things have gone right down the gurgler (drain), and now I have no trouble being truthful about the difficulties of this life we encounter along the way. Jesus Himself said:“I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.]”  John 16:33. My advice? BELIEVE HIM.

So why should any of us be overjoyed when doing stuff for the kingdom stops being fun and becomes life-threatening? Because joy is another point of obedience. Jesus didn’t say feel like it – He said do it! I have been laughing while writing this blog today because everything in it is just so true for us currently. Almighty God doesn’t get glory because we are trying hard to be stoic – He gets ALL the glory because HE IS GOD. ← And that’s a full stop right there. 👋

P 2576 Kingdom people.

/ DVH

When you have a moment perhaps you could read all of Psalm 73 ….Here’s and excerpt Psalm 73:25-28 “Whom have I in heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Those who are far from You will perish; You destroy all who are unfaithful to You. But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all Your deeds.” Luke 17:21: “The kingdom of God is within you ..”

We have a hiding place in Christ. The King Himself is our hiding place and our city of refuge. In Him we have guidance and protection. Jesus faced everything this world can throw at humanity — every sin, every ugliness our world was ever going to produce — and He conquered it. Now, we live our lives refusing to let this world, or even our experiences, dictate our actions and reactions. Whether we experience defeat or sorrow – we know personally that our experiences cannot negate the truth. We have the power of God to help us live and respond differently.. 

We are outwardly, visibly, telling the world, around us that we love Him and belong to Him when we live this life FOR Him. However, we still have a choice to live our lives for our own benefit! But when we do that, we are turning our backs on our God-given inheritance. At the same time, by default, we’re giving satan permission to keep us busy being envious of the rich and healthy, plus those whose lives seem easier than ours. Instead of living this life fulfilling the purposes that God gave to each one of us — which is literally, the reason we are here. We were made for His pleasure. He gave each one of us a purpose and a destiny. That destiny will be progressively revealed, as we learn to trust Jesus and walk with Him.

We have an incredible destiny. It is to be the people of God in an ungodly world, reflecting His love everywhere we go. I read this whole Psalm again the other day. It seems to me that the writer’s focus had switched from God’s goodness to the world around Him, and that eventually led him into a dark place. Suddenly he felt that following God was a waste of his time, because the people who were not believers were doing better than those who were believers!

This Psalm shows us that it is a normal human reaction for us, to struggle with the difficulties of this life. We are not faithless if we do. It’s staying there that clouds our judgment. When the psalmist went on into God’s house – everything became clear.  If we have not grasped the concept of Christ’s ultimate victory, our God-given peace can be shattered simply because the bad guys are well, and they keep on prospering! However, we are exhorted to cultivate eternal eyes. 

Jesus talked about that. He talked about His people living in God’s kingdom, ushering in God’s kingdom … NOW. That fact alone means we cannot allow ourselves to be double-minded. In order to bring God’s kingdom with us wherever we go, we need to demonstrate it, as well as live in it ourselves. His kingdom must fill our view. The kingdom of God is within us – we joined His kingdom when we asked Jesus to save us. If we don’t let it out by the way we live, then other people will remain ignorant of its existence.

We are to be like the guy selling the ‘you beaut’ vacuum cleaner. Talking about it is great, explaining its benefits is pretty good too, but the best way to know if that darn vacuum cleaner is gunna work at your house is to see it working! We are God’s illustrations of what life with Him is like. You and I are His visual aids. We show others that they do not have to face this life alone – we have a Helper and they can too!

If we do not learn to cultivate these things in our renewed mindset, we can fall prey to the less-than-subtle-influences around us. Life will no longer be liveable, instead it will crash over us, and take our legs out from under us. Unless we choose to lay back on Jesus’s shoulder despite any storms that are raging and ask the Lord: “How are You going to fix this Lord? Over to You, I’m easy either way.” 

I call living like this leaning into Him. By learning to follow the prompts and doing what He says, we show Him we trust Him. In this century we are living more than ever in an information age, and we often are led by this world into thinking that if we understand something – we can handle it. Rhubarb. Unless our understanding comes from the King of all Kings, all we will get from comprehension is a deeper knowledge of how unfair everything is, like the psalmist did. 

To be kingdom people we need to progressively live in His kingdom, and start to leave this world’s idea of “the good life” behind us. We do that by choosing to love instead of indulging in hate or indifference. It is the highest form of worship we can give our precious King. Bless you 👋

P 2569 Praise God for Easter SUNDAY …

/ DVH

“For since we are permanently grafted into Him to experience a death like His, then we are permanently grafted into Him to experience a resurrection like His and the new life that it imparts.” Romans 6:5 TPT.

Easter Sunday released a new way to live … for all mankind. And the more we choose to yield to Him, the more of the Lord and His ways, we will begin to embrace. The church doesn’t just need revival – we need New Life! New life came into that tomb long, long ago – it swallowed up death. Our Saviour IS alive with eternal life and that is far greater than we can ever imagine. Our Jesus cannot be stopped. He is the source of our new life. ‘He is the way, the truth and … the life!‘

Just pause and let that sink in. The One you believe in is endless! He lives in eternity, and because of Him forever is our portion. We joyfully raise our sights above the battles of here and now, and live in the reality of His kingdom coming, now -TODAY.  Now we can watch “on earth as it is in heaven” happen … in front of our own eyes – in our own lives. We don’t have to be afraid of anything, because our source of life is not like the grabby spiteful kind of life that is in this world around us. The life in this world, decays and dies … because it is easily be corrupted.

Death can’t touch Christ. His sacrificial act on Calvary is where eternal life comes from. Death cannot touch Him, anymore than darkness can extinguish light!  Darkness cannot intimidate us because it cannot win. Praise God Jesus died to release us from sin…AND … He died to give US the power to conquer sin. So that sin can’t grab at us anymore. Sin is a place of temporary pleasure, but giving in to it means I lose sight of Him and what He is doing. What He does and is doing, right now, is so fantastic that I wanna know about it!  No brainer.

Now, He is a part of us, and we are a part of Him. We are His chosen bride. We are becoming one flesh with Him — because we are becoming united in our purpose. Dying to self is not a hopeless chore that is doomed to fail – it is the way to be united with the Lord. He died and now WE die! Our choosing to die for His sake … or even for someone else’s sake … unites us with His purposes. Just like that disciple that was constantly rattling on that he was Jesus favourite, now WE can hear His heartbeat. As we die to self, we  tune our hearts into His heartbeat by obeying and trusting Him … despite the cost … which is tiny in comparison to knowing the Lord! 

Here’s another great Easter Sunday present for you! “So now we draw near freely and boldly to where grace is enthroned, to receive mercy’s kiss and discover the grace we urgently need to strengthen us in our time of weakness.” Hebrews 4:16 TPT. We are not alone, tossed about by needs, wants and the desires of this world. The winds of turmoil can blow … but they can no longer touch the heart in us. We’ve made His heart, His priorities, His goals, His aims … ours. This is how we follow Jesus. Living this life, the only one we have down here, the way He would do it. We have become His hands and feet, right here, right now. 

Everything we need as we follow Him, is available to us. I think we’ve been asking/praying for the wrong things. This world says if we get in trouble then we must pray to get out! What would happen if we pray to endureand GO THROUGH? Jesus prayed to get out 3 times, and God said NO.. go through. I’m not saying that our precious Father God and His mercy’s kiss won’t ever release us from harm. However, I am saying we will grow impervious to satan’s wiles, when we go through holding onto His promise that He will never leave us and He knows what is best FOR US.  That is how we grow and mature and gain His clarity. When we trust God, obey what He says, and go through trouble believing nothing happens to us that He does not know about – even if we die.

There are rarely shortcuts – or easy exits. To grow IN Him, we simply stand on what Christ already did. His death and resurrection are now our proof that death cannot conquer us. We may be pitiful and weak, but that’s OK, our Saviour has already given us His strength for our weaknesses.  Now our faith helps us to stand up! Or even to humbly kneel down, in the middle of trouble and strife. We have faith that says: “Trouble, you may not take away what I believe. My faith is not in answers —- it is in the Person of Jesus Christ!”  Praise God for Easter Sunday …👋

P 2566 JESUS is the reason for this season – TOO!

/ DVH

Easter is well advertised where I live. Chocolate bunnies, chickens and eggs, pop up like daisies all over the place, weeks and weeks before this season comes along. These things clog the supermarket aisles and sell like we’ve never seen chocolate before. At the same time, the hot cross buns with all sorts of weird ingredients started appearing right after Christmas! After all we mustn’t miss an opportunity to sell SELL SELL!

The local fishermen love Easter time, loads of people eat all kinds of fish this weekend and they count on selling tons of it! I saw a snippet from a news story the other day where it was suggested that the crosses on top of these buns were old-fashioned, so one bakery has started putting a Nike tick on the top instead!  True story!

Recently, a trusty news crew went out to interview people on the street and asked them what they thought about this new development of hot cross buns without the crosses. One young lady said: “Well, we are a secular society so I don’t think it matters.” My first thought was, ‘She’s right!’  And my next one was: ‘Whose fault is it that she thinks that way?’ Sadly the more I thought about what that young lady said, the more it made sense. Isn’t that tragic? Easter has become the reason for all kinds of gluttony.

Too many years ago, somebody somewhere at sometime or other, thought putting crosses on top of a spiced bun was a great way to celebrate and remind everyone about what Christ did for them. But now the true meaning has been LOST over time. However, after I prayed about it, I began to be glad that people today are actually rejecting the whole thing. This is happening because nobody has told them about the reality. The reality would definitely blow them away – IF somebody who knows the Saviour, took the time to tell them!

It is sad to me that the average person in our society thinks that Easter is all about what we eat, as well as a couple of nice public holidays. Speaking for myself, I have never actually been a fan of the symbolic – whether it is a rabbit, a bun or a chocolate egg. And, right here and now, I simply must mention my distinct aversion to that jolly red fat guy who pops up at Christmas – I don’t like HIM much either.  At the same time, I am also not crazy about those baby in the manger pictures as well. Do people bring out your baby photos when they are celebrating your birthday? I think not! 

HOWEVER, if ALL Christianity has to offer is a cross on a BUN, or rampant rabbits, exorbitant gifts and chocolate eggs or a tiny baby born under adverse circumstances – no wonder they could care less! That got me thinking about what really matters. It is so easy to get stuck on how far down the plug hole our society has gone, and gloss over the fact that this world’s apathy toward God, has been caused by the church’s silence …. plus a lack of obedience by ordinary people like me.

Fortunately, the reality is Jesus Christ doesn’t need advertising gimmicks, or pretty foil covered chocolate, to gain popularity and fame be-cau-se … even though He was exactly like us, humanly speaking, and we probably would have passed Him in the street, dismissed as just another middle Eastern man. This MAN changed this world FOREVER. How? Not by clever sales marketing or other 21st century tricks, but by Who He is and what He chose to do for people He has never met. 

Yet we avoid telling His story, the reality of what He did, because we find that truth somehow distasteful. Hmmm. It is odd how we can cheerfully watch all kinds of people shoot one another apart, or blow-up, slice, dice, plus punch and kick each other to bits … for entertainment… yet it seems that the sight of an innocent pure man hanging, dying on a cross, is not palatable or marketable! He has been described perfectly in Isaiah 53:1-6, long before He was born … like this: 

“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem. Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God stricken by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed.”

Maybe this seemingly ordinary man is far more challenging than anyone thinks, when He is authentically and passionately presented to others by people who actually know Him. It would be good to clear the market place of rampant commercialism and present something real for a change! I seem to recall writing about that yesterday? Something about Jesus clearing God’s temple out of money lenders and sellers??

The Lord Jesus IS the reason for this season, and we need to take our responsibility to walk with Him seriously, and use this opportunity to shine His light into other people’s lives. There are no secret agents in His kingdom … whether they supposedly look like rabbits, chicks, buns, or way too much chocolate! Perhaps then people will believe our message is authentic. It all depends on how seriously we take our faith. Bye. 👋

P 2561 Anonymity can be a great blessing.

/ DVH

When you were a kid did you ever wish you had a cloak of invisibility? I did! Especially when an adult was coming at me with something in hand to punish me. Whether I was wrong or not …I truly felt I needed that cloak!. Unfortunately my mouth let me down a lot and I usually managed to say some dumb thing, or argue with my parent, and that resulted in even more discipline! I just kept digging holes with my mouth instead of remaining shtum. Kids have limited wisdom! 

However, that is not my reason for talking about anonymity today. In my opinion, fame is fleeting. The people who pat you on the back on the way up, will kick you in the tush on the way down! Fame is not always what it is cracked up to be, you only have to read the news to see that. Famous people are subject to a great deal more criticism and critique – the word jealousy springs to mind.

These words from Galatians 5:15 in the bible leap out at me: “It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life. Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom. Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows. For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself. That’s an act of true freedom. If you bite and ravage each other, watch out—in no time at all you will be annihilating each other, and where will your precious freedom be then?”

Fame is not only overrated, it is most definitely NOT OUR aim.“For even the Son of Man did not come expecting to be served but to serve and give His life in exchange for the salvation of many.”” Matthew 20:28 TPT. So let’s get this sorted … the One Who saved the world, did not aim at fame, or power, or notoriety … Jesus Christ aimed at elevating Almighty GOD when He saved US – not Himself.  Which may well be the reason that most kids today know way more about Star Wars, Harry Potter and Pokemon than they do about the Lord Jesus!

Over the years I have come to notice that we kind of look down a bit on our faithful Sunday School teachers, or Religious Educators in schools, as being a bit old fashioned. But these people know all about anonymity. Most of us won’t have a clue about what they do, week by week, so the children of these times can find out that the Lord’s Name is the name of a wonderful Person … not just a swear word. Today I want to take the time to remember those who faithfully serve. It seems to me that most of the time nobody notices what they do. 

You know who I mean. Brother So-and-so, who faithfully puts out the chairs week by week and is always up for a letter box drop to let people know where your church is. Or Sister-I-forgot-her-name who calls up younger Christians regularly to make sure that they haven’t wandered off the path. She also goes to the hospital to visit people as well calling into homes. She prays for the saints that are sick, and sincerely asks them if she can help in any way. She’ll probably hand you a cup of tea or coffee next Sunday!

I find it fascinating in a world that is obsessed by fame that these quietly achieving servants of God go virtually unnoticed. Because these people are the ones who actually understand they are not here to be served, they are here to serve. Oops! I think I said a bad word. That would be the word … SERVE. In this blab it and grab it, everything belongs to me lifestyle, where my service has to be noticed or I won’t do it — we are incredibly fortunate to have any people who still think that following Jesus means serving others. Because I strongly suspect the idea of serving the Lord and others nowadays, means other-people-are-supposed-to-serve-me and make my ministry famous. 

Many people want to be like the characters in the “Cheer’s Bar” on TV,  we want to be where everybody knows our name! Well I want to point out that if we are following Jesus, then those steps always go down. Not up. They will lead us on an excruciating journey like the one HE had — carrying something that weighed 165lbs (75kgs) on bloodied torn open shoulders and back. Not to mention a horrendously painful headache! Let’s think about carrying that lot up and down through a large city to a hill outside it, where the people we pass by yell abuse at us. 

Even when we arrive at our destination, we will be flanked by known thieves. Our reputation is in the bin. People jeer as they see us, because human beings have an incredibly perverted sense of winning when someone else appears to be losing! Humility is lost on most people. Yet while Christ was suffering excruciating pain He still breathed out forgiveness. That’s real service. We are called to be laid-down lovers of Jesus – that means, my kingdom go – His kingdom come.

Today, more than ever, we need to follow Christ into serving mankind by demonstrating His love to people who will never deserve it. And anonymity can be a blessing. 👋