Knock

P 3346 Persistence.

/ DVH

Hubby is my full-time carer, but recently he has been battling daily with arthritis in his hands, feet and back. Do we pray about it? Of course we do! We’ve been praying for ill-health in our lives for years, and we will continue to do so. However, we refuse to let those things stop us, because this life is not all there is — around 3 billion people haven’t heard about Jesus, even once.

Which brings me to today’s theme from Luke 18:1-8. V1:“Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up…” I’ll let you read the rest of these verses for yourself. Suffice to say, this lady was a real pest. She drove the resident judge crazy — yet Jesus chose this illustration as an example of how important it is to keep on persisting. It is His desire to bring justice for ALL. The fact that we are coming up against unfeeling, sometimes hardened people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet shouldn’t stop us. All of us need to put down the bat, and use our words, based on 1 Corinthians 13. Perseverance pushes through because it wants LOVE to win. 

We are assured that we’ll be heard when we cry out to God — and we can have faith He will make a way. This lady didn’t just sit home and sulk, or badmouth the judge, she banged on his door until he answered, and he answered because she wouldn’t go away. Jesus called that faith. I’d probably call her a pest – but Jesus did not! I am not suggesting we bail up people physically, or harass them – but  I am suggesting that we must engage with our problems. First of all, we speak to the Person who is ultimately in charge – God! Then we speak to the authorities or the people who can help us.

Many times in my life I have met real injustice. Each time I stood up and said ‘that’s wrong.’ Because I did so, rules were changed in favour of someone less fortunate than me. I’m not a lobbyist, or a politician – I’m a blogger, a mother, and a grandmother. I left school at 14… was married at 20. But because of the scriptures, when I met injustice, I knew God was with me, so I stuck with it. I prayed and kept banging on the door demanding for truth to prevail. Sometimes we need to prayerfully, politely, and firmly demand to be heard.

Second thought in Luke 11:5-13. Let’s look at verse 8. “I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.” Again we have the Lord using the same word – persistence. For the second time He is saying:“Pray like this!” He follows on from this parable about stretching friendship, into two verses that are often quoted …Luke 11:9-10. “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” 

Persistence is invaluable with faith. We can’t afford to pray, give up and walk away. We need to put our feet into our prayers, like the pesky lady who went to the judge, and the friend with a visitor who went to his mate’s house at midnight. We don’t have to be violent to be heard. That’s why we pray first. We pray until we are filled with Holy love, then we engage our feet. Over the years we’ve allowed Christianity to become  passive not active. So when you want to care for the poor find something to do. If you think a thing is unjust, speak up. Have a prayer meeting, get the Lord’s heart on it, and then go.

Let’s not just assume the Lord is on our side, instead, let’s remember that we are on HIS SIDE and find out what that is! When hubby and I go out to share the gospel and give away bibles etc., we meet all kinds of people, with all kinds of faith. We don’t talk at them – we demonstrate the love of God toward them. If we are not sure what that looks like then we listen and then act on James 3:17:“But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.”

We don’t give up, instead we go after wisdom. We all need to show other people God’s love on purpose. Make a plan to demonstrate His love in action. When you can, pray for people in person. Keep your life clean, make sure you actively forgive those who despitefully use you. And find a way to feed the poor, heal the sick, raise the dead. If our faith is inactive it can easily seem like our faith isn’t big enough for this kind of stuff. We have to persist. It’s great to pray and give, but going grows your faith.

Bang on the Lord’s door, Jesus our Friend, He’ll open the door because He loves us. He sticks closer than a brother. We are always going to need fresh bread from the bible, for everyone we are going to meet today. Chew on the Word, for a bit and then go and live out what it says.“But how are people to call upon Him Whom they have not believed [in Whom they have no faith, on Whom they have no reliance]? And how are they to believe in Him [adhere to, trust in, and rely upon Him] of Whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?” Romans 10:14. 

You and I are the Lord’s hands and feet, so wherever we are we need to:  “preach the Gospel at all times and if necessary use words.” His Love will fill us as we physically reach out to others, because we are doing what Jesus loves to do. Bye 🙏.

Our daily bible readings are our fresh bread.

P 3105 Take regular BATHS in the Holy Spirit.

/ DVH

Isaiah 42:1TPT. “Take a good look at My Servant. I’m backing Him to the hilt. He’s the One I chose, and I couldn’t be more pleased with Him. I’ve bathed Him with my Spirit, my life. He’ll set everything right among the nations. He won’t call attention to what He does with loud speeches or gaudy parades. He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and He won’t disregard the small and insignificant, but He’ll steadily and firmly set things right. He won’t tire out and quit. He won’t be stopped until He’s finished His work—to set things right on earth. Far-flung ocean islands wait expectantly for His teaching.”

As you can see, Jesus is our highly recommended example of submission. Plus He is our perfect illustration of how to have a permanent, total loving connection, at all times with our Heavenly Father. He was not interested in publicity, or fame, He is always drawn to those people our society deems unlovely, broken, nasty, and unredeemable. Let us realise that legislating tolerance is not the same as loving acceptance. Father God’s will for our lives is loving acceptance. The Lord Jesus gave His all to obey His Father’s wishes so we could be accepted. 

Meanwhile, doesn’t the whole being bathed in the Spirit thing sound lovely??!! You and the Holy Spirit splashing away, having fun together! Hmmm. Way back in the ark we took baths to get rid of dirt. Are you still there? God’s grace, together with the Holy Spirit, will help us to deal with the stuff we’ve been ignoring, or overlooking because that pile of junk seems too hard and too big to tackle. But first we need to realise we need a bath! To get rid of dirt, grime, hypocrisy, jealousy, rage, and revenge, etc. – we need to regularly take a bath in the Living Water of HIS WORD. 

Our God is so good to us. He will always use His Word to encourage us when we are down, to free us when we are trapped, and to wash us when we are dirty. The following verse in Ephesians 5:26 talks about what the Word of God does in us and for us. “Husbands, you must love your wives so deeply, purely, and sacrificially that we can understand it only when we compare it to the love the Anointed One has for His bride, the church. We know He gave Himself up completely to make her His own, washing her clean of all her impurity with water and the powerful presence of His Word.”

There’s a bonus buy in this verse for husbands who are prepared to listen to it — if you follow the Lord’s advice in this verse you will have a happy wife. The advice is this: be like Jesus to your wife. That could keep some people busy until the next millennia!  And, ya might want to read that last sentence again and remind yourself that we will always need His help! Go to the gospels and see how the Lord Himself treated women. It is a sad fact that in the past men were only too happy to lead, but they kind of skipped the whole deeply, purely and sacrificially bit – not to mention love their wives the way Jesus loved the church!

A-n-y-w-ay! … Back to my real point today – deliberately deciding to take a daily bath in His Word. We can read verses like this, nod our heads and  agree with what it says, and still privately think …‘this stuff was written long, long ago, how can it be relevant today?’ The truth is it won’t be relevant unless you choose to make it relevant. Our personal decisions govern what we participate in. If we sow into the flesh—what we feel, or what we think might happen—we won’t even begin to see a harvest in the Spirit. The way to see what the Lord will do with obedience … is to decide to be obedient and get on with it.

Many of this world’s ideas are the exact opposite of our stated desire to be transformed and changed into the Lord’s likeness. You simply can’t walk with the Holy Spirit and disagree with the Way He does things! Father God is so good, He will not cross our wishes. However, what He has done is to provide us with opportunities to change our minds and turn around and go back into submission. Submission means our human mission becomes subordinate to His Heavenly mission. It means that He knows better than we do what we actually want and need – mankind is ruled by its appetites. God has a better plan, because of the Grace Jesus released at Calvary, the Holy Spirit can and will guide and lead us into His Ways.

Like I’ve said many times before – Jesus overpaid our debt. Now we have a bank of Grace that we can draw on, anytime, anywhere … under any circumstances… it is there to help us change! “…ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you …”  The problem is people have bashed on the door of this verse for years now to get stuff that they think they want or need. Things like expensive cars, houses, boats, trips overseas etc.etc.

This verse about asking was used to illustrate to us that we can have the Holy Spirit’s help anywhere, any time. Jesus is talking about receiving, welcoming and being helped by the Holy Spirit, not about me being given a new Porsche! When we allow God’s Word to wash us clean, our motivations become clean too. Let me put it this way – every interaction with His Presence changes us. If we mean it when we say,‘create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me,’  then we must choose to engage with His ways. Taking regular baths in the Holy Spirit means bearing in mind that we are looking to be clean — not just tick a box! That will change our hearts and transform our minds. Bless you. 👋

P 3091 Define the word ‘gift!’

/ DVH

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, Who does not change like shifting shadows.”James 1:17.“Ask, and the gift is yours. Seek, and you’ll discover. Knock, and the door will be opened for you.”Matthew 7:7 TPT.

If I were to ask you to define what you think a good gift looks like, what would you say? A happy life, travel, health, a nice house, great kids, plenty of money …a happy wife? Here’s a side note … the bible talks about finding a wife. “He who finds a wife finds a good thing, And obtains favour from the LORD.” God has a whole other take on what He thinks good gifts look like! That cranky wife is His gift to you  – you prayed for transformation!

It seems to me that we have translated the above scriptures in James and Matthew to mean that ‘I’ get to define what a good gift looks like! Good luck with that one. Why? Because only God is good … so He is the only One we can trust to define what good looks like! You might like to put your false teeth back in and chew on that one. God’s idea of good, and ours aren’t always the same. The bible tells us in Isaiah 53:10 that: ‘…it pleased the Lord to bruise Jesus’ – His Son.

Father God looks through the difficulties and pain to the overall end result. Jesus’ death meant salvation for all of us! He will use every bit of our journey through hard things – to grow, and diagnose and transform us. I believe human beings cannot discern good, because our minds are saturated with bitterness, resentment, troubles, worries and strife … as well as the so-called pleasures of this world! Somehow all that stuff skews our thinking, and we end up focusing only on the things that we think are advantageous to US, and not on the overall benefit to everyone. 

While our minds are in defensive or offended mode – we cannot easily see whatever is going on in that other person. We’ve been emotionally and mentally distracted, and we will be clouded by our own self-interest. Maybe a nasty attitude in another person is a demonic influence. Maybe it’s a habit, or maybe they are in nine kinds of pain!! But because we are prepared for pickiness, or fight, or flight, that means we are not in a prayerful position to receive heaven’s download about the situation.

The Holy Spirit always has a contribution to make … a gift.  A word of knowledge, some insight, a word of wisdom for every scenario. If we concentrate on how we feel – our anger, loss or pain, we probably won’t see or hear His answer, or we will reject it! And that means the broader deeper blessing is missed. We sometimes trot off feeling relieved when we manage to avoid a grumpy person. But, in truth, we have only postponed change – for me, for them, for the situation. Part of being transformed means we will need to yield to His wishes, His way, even though at the time it feels like the last thing we want to do.

He says this in His word: “No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; He’ll always be there to help you come through it.” I Corinthians 10:13. Did you see the gift in that sentence?  Yeah yeah, I know you think you’ve had times when you’ve been pushed too far, but the punch line is this — Almighty God thinks you can do it! He believes in you! Here’s another gift to think on:“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” Psalm 27:14. You know, the bible says that waiting on God renews our strength. (Isaiah 40:31) 

When we start out prayerfully trying to resist any kind of temptation, we may feel weak and not capable of what we know we need to do. But waiting for Him, pulls our focus out of the normal mixmaster mindset that rattles our brain. Waiting allows us to breathe – to find our peace. This is also a gift! Suddenly all the mind-cloudiness etc. lifts and we can begin to see spiritually. When we stop rattling our brains about “this or that or some other solution” and just sit in silence, and wait for Him! The same way we might wait for a friend in a coffee shop. We will quickly find that silence is another gift.

“My soul, wait in silence for God alone, For my hope is from Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, My refuge; I will not be shaken. My salvation and my glory rest on God;  The rock of my strength, my refuge is in God.” Psalm 62:5-7.

This answer is a gift to us. In reality the Lord is saying to us:“this is the way walk ye in it!”He is showing us another way to get through difficulties – and that’s another gift! God daily gives us good gifts and if all we choose to see is this whizz-bang spiritual gift, or that special ability, we will miss seeing Him in our day to day ordinary life.

We need His definition of the word GIFT not ours. Prayerfully ask Him to help you to see and recognise Him, as He is active in your life. He showers us with blessings every single day! If you want to settle for a car park when you need one, then … have at it! But there is more! If what you receive is just perfect, then it is Him. Bye. 👋

P 2883 Don’t stop pressing in.

/ DVH

This scripture appears right after the Lord’s prayer. It is so important to read things in context – it really does matter. These verses aren’t taken from the next day, it is the same day and the Lord is continuing to expound His thoughts about prayer to the disciples. He goes straight from the Lord’s prayer into this little story. 

Luke 11:5-13 “Then Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.“

So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

The Lord is teaching us that perseverance in prayer matters. It would be a mistake to think what we have heard is all there is! I’ve heard a lot of sermons about this passage, so, today I got down to business and started asking the Holy Spirit questions about it. I can see, on the surface of what is said, that Jesus is telling us our Heavenly Father is not against audacity – He actually commends it. Lemme put that another way – we can be pushy and we won’t send Him away. We won’t offend Him, He might even surprise us. 

Fortunately, with His help, I began to see something about this passage I hadn’t seen before. This is not about me, or you, or even the guy who needs bread! It is an example Jesus gave us to illustrate God’s goodness, His loving kindness, His provision… and an acceptable response is unashamed perseverance. The Lord is explaining to us that His Father’s Ways are impartial. He will help anyone. Including annoying people … now there’s a BIG thought.

In the previous verses, Jesus has been talking about Father God giving us our daily bread … and these verses continue the theme of bread. Whether it’s spiritual bread or not, it doesn’t seem to matter.  He is saying we need to be like this man, and keep on banging on God’s door insisting that we want to know what He has to say to us. We must not take NO! for an answer because a bigger prize awaits us.

We would all agree that we desperately want and need the Holy Spirit, more than we need anything or anyone else. Walking with Him means we must be motivated by this kind of FAITH and perseverance. We are to go after Him – and not give up! I wonder how many people have prayed to receive His precious Presence and they thought they did not get an answer because they didn’t end up speaking in tongues!  

Jesus is telling us His Father is a good God Who wants to answer this kind of prayer. We have simply made speaking in tongues our point of faith instead of His reliability. Every single day, I urge us all to ask and keep on asking to be filled. Ask for that every single day. Then we need to go on to walk with the Holy Spirit, obediently.  God will give Him to us simply because He is a good, good Father, who doesn’t want to frustrate anybody. .

Jesus is teaching us that His Father will definitely answer this kind of prayer. Tongues are purely a sign, not the answer. His Presence is the Answer. Pressing into God will always leave US with a benefit. I pray you will take the time to press in for yourself. Bye for now. 👋

P 2507 The time has come to pay attention.

/ DVH

You know, sometimes I wonder if we have been so busy building, or maybe even re-building, our own little kingdoms … not to mention trying hard to look like good Christians … that maybe we have run out of OIL and we didn’t notice. Now satan has boxed us into inactivity. Lemme tell you a thing or nine … that box we think we can see, is a fake. Nothing can hold any of one of us captive without our permission.

Yes, I know it’s been hard at your house, it’s been hard at mine. But the reason it has become so hard is because we’ve kind of let ourselves get soft and flabby spiritually speaking. There have been difficulties flying at us like snow in a snow storm and they have been coming so thick and fast, perhaps we have not been able to stay in overcoming mode. Life got hard when Covid smacked us in the head, praise God – and now we need to wake up, or go under.

BTW, I said ‘praise God’ because we have been in a time of shaking. Christianity is not designed to be an established routine:  with Church on Sunday, bible study on Monday, prayer group on Thursday etc. Christianity is about an Army. An army can accomplish very little half-asleep on its feet! Our job is to defeat the enemy and our side already won – because the King of glory is in us.

I am greatly cheered by the story of Gideon. It starts with a guy whose faith is about a quarter of an inch high, yet he became the God-delegated leader of 32,000 men. Then the Lord Himself whittled those men down to 300. 😱 Almighty God carefully walked that man into such an incredible place. He did that to show Himself strong to His children. Meanwhile, if anyone had told Gideon that’s where he was going, I think he might have freaked out!! However this man draggled along, willingly and sometimes unwillingly, following God’s instructions, step by step – despite his own fears and misgivings.  

In my heart I know that right now, we are in a time like it was back then for Gideon. Almighty God has a way through our apathy and inactivity – He hasn’t caused it, but He will definitely use it! However, we will always need the Holy Spirit’s leadership. Father God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us with difficult times, as well as our own weakness. “And in a similar way, the Holy Spirit takes hold of us in our human frailty to empower us in our weakness. For example, at times we don’t even know how to pray, or know the best things to ask for. But the Holy Spirit rises up within us to super-intercede on our behalf, pleading to God with emotional sighs too deep for words.” Romans 8:26 TPT. 

Praise God, right at this moment, the Holy Spirit is praying for all of us, and boy does HE know how to pray! Hallelujah! The bible tells us that when we are weak, then He is strong. Nevertheless, our obedience is essential. Gideon had to obey God and send men home, some of them for the most ridiculous reasons. Father God also called Gideon a mighty warrior, and that was something he would never call himself. Our God sees us differently than we see ourselves. He has no problem with faith! He knew what Gideon could do when he was empowered by the Holy Spirit.

You and I may feel that we have little to offer the Lord … we can’t preach, or teach, or prophesy, or heal the sick, or raise the dead… or so we think! But Gideon shows us that an obedient, weak person in God’s hands has far more power than they can imagine, because God is on their side. You and I are never alone. We walk with the One Who made the moon, stars and universe. We know His Name and He knows ours. 

Our problem also has never been about power, He gave us power. Our problem is about per-cep-tion. Just like Gideon. He had no idea Who he was dealing with, but as he was led along by the Holy Spirit, that man saw miracle after miracle. The God of miracles is waiting for you and I to rise and be strong in the Lord, and in the power of HIS MIGHT.  If Christians started to live their lives the Way Jesus lived His, purely for our Father’s will … we’d see what Jesus saw …transformation, souls saved, and miracles. 

It isn’t who we are – it is WHO WE KNOW. The time has come to pay attention and begin to practice taking faith steps. His power is let loose through our obedience to Him. Bye 👋

““Ask, and the gift is yours. Seek, and you’ll discover. Knock, and the door will be opened for you.” Matthew 7:7 TPT

P 2455 Give up cherry-picking!

/ DVH

There is no point in faithfully reading the Bible every day if we are only going to cherry-pick the verses we like, and just obey them… and leave out the ones we don’t particularly like or understand … AND not even TRY to obey them! Prayer is the answer, not avoidance. The whole point about the verses we don’t understand is we need to take the time to find out what they mean – which means we will spend time with the Holy Spirit asking questions. 

I’ve been nagging the Lord, for years about some stuff I still don’t get. However, the Bible is best understood when you read it bearing in mind all the other things that are written in it! Otherwise it is far too easy to take stuff out of context. Misreading this particular book can lead to all kinds of nasty errors. One verse needs to be read in the light of others. Look for themes and principles not just verses: “I really like.” Maybe we ought to throw out all those comforting ‘gimme’ verses, and look for challenging ones instead! And my point was (?) – cherry-picking verses that benefit me is one way to stumble off into error! 

When we read inspirational books that explain this or that verse, or some big thought we’ve never seen before, we are eating someone else’s stale bread. It’s food, but there is nothing like the smell and the taste of fresh bread … especially if you are hungry. Stale bread is only good for puddings or toast! Our God is so gracious, He can take anything we read and make it into bread, even someone else’s leftovers. But that is not the optimum way to get bread from God. We really need the word from His mouth that was sent to help US get through THIS day!! 

On the other hand, our pastors produce fresh bread every single week, that’s why we need to be prayerful when we are listening to someone’s sermon. We pray that God will give us eyes to see and ears to hear to what He is saying to us. It is not about sermons being interesting or fun! … Tickling our ears is not what we are there for .. we go to church, because  “man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Our pastors bring us that mouth-of-God-word every single week. That’s their job. 

In the light of our pastor’s effort and our own daily bible study, obedience has never ever been an optional response. Dying to self still means what I want is now dead …  And that includes my own comfort and sometimes even my safety. PS… I’m definitely SAFE when I’m dead! However, when we treat the Bible like any other book we are opening ourselves up to double-mindedness, and a double-minded man can’t get anything from God because that person is too busy trying to find the right angle to benefit HIM! It is far better to assume that there will be something in there that we need to take the time to find out about. Something that will help us grow to be like Jesus.

We don’t have to read reams of the Bible in order to be fed anymore than we need to sit down to an eight course dinner every meal, every single day! We simply need to trust the Holy Spirit when we sit down to read that He will give us what He has for us. Then when we get to the daily bread bit, suddenly something we couldn’t understand — even if we stood on our head and read it fifty times — becomes clear. The next step is that the word that jumped out at you – is actionable. That’s the Holy Spirit speaking – we cannot afford to ignore Him. So we apply what we’ve read to our hearts and minds etc., we pray over it, and then we go and do it. Well, you might want to skip being whale food … but you get my meaning!

When I share what the Lord gave me today, with you, it may not be pertinent to you. After all it is MY daily bread but it may not be yours. Perhaps this is why sometimes your friends and family do not cheer and get excited when you share something the Lord told you. Maybe that bread was not for them. While it is okay to share with others, it is far better to encourage other people, including your kids (!), to go after their own bread. To start with, if everyone became bread-seekers and gathered their own, we would have so much more of the “many-sided wisdom of God” to enjoy! (Does that sound like gathering ‘manna’ or what?)

There is no point in taking on board the value system of this world and fitting it in around what the Holy Spirit says in the Bible. The Bible needs to be our yardstick – our plumb-line – not this world or its customs. The hard chewy bits of this book are the best bits. If you don’t understand stuff, then start cheering. “Ask, and you shall receive, SEEK and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”  Please, give up cherry-picking and go looking for your own bread! 👋🏻

P 2283 A Personal Opinion.

/ DVH

I want to begin by saying to those who are sick, brokenhearted, or injured – God has not left you, no matter how you feel. Even if your friends, or family have given you up – He will not EVER leave you. I have learnt in the hard places, like many men and women of God have learnt before me, this is the time to lay down upon the altar: “I will build an altar to You in this difficult and dark place. I surrender once again Lord, to Your will, Your way.” Amen.

This is a difficult subject for me, I have experienced healing from the Lord, supernaturally, many times in the past. But at this moment in time that is simply not my current experience. I wanted to talk today about some of the things we don’t want to talk about. Instead we can get caught up in a little man-made eddy of “I’m asking the Lord to heal me, or somebody I care about, and I must speak positively all the time or I will wreck it” – only to find that the answer is not what we hoped. 

We can easily go astray in our faith walk while we are in a dark valley. We know the Lord Jesus is with us – He promised to be there. But the reality of our experience denies the faith we are fighting to hang onto. So we read books about healing, because we desperately want to be healed, or to see it happen for someone else. We read the Bible reading the appropriate scriptures out loud over and over again. We run after His grace and go and get prayed for in every and any healing line. 

Meanwhile all of these things are good things to do – however, would the Lord require us to lie? I don’t think so. HE doesn’t lie, so why would He require us to lie on His behalf? Still, we can and must learn to persevere, Jesus Himself said so on several occasions. “… ask keep on asking so you can you find knock on the door will be open to you.” He taught us that perseverance in in prayer is a good thing. It was said of the Lord that He healed ALL who came to Him. Even when He fed people – no-one left hungry… Our God loves to provide and heal – it is His nature.

So what do we do when our experiences in these areas do not match up with what we are taught? Here is my two cents worth: whether it is my fault, and I don’t have enough faith, or it’s misunderstanding about what the Bible says, or simply haven’t been to the right person to get prayed FOR … —I refuse to measure Almighty God by my experience of Him or with Him. Instead I choose to find out Who He is from His book, independently from my own experiences.

He doesn’t ever answer to me, I answer to Him. You could easily say that I have weak faith in this area, but I say it takes more faith to believe in His goodness in adverse circumstances, than it does to believe in His generous and precious provisions in this life and receive them. Often we measure the King of all Kings with our grotty little man-made rulers and then we do one of two things –

We decide that it must be the unhealed person’s fault …OR …we sentence the sick person into a nether world of trying hard to get healed, and strangle them with the edict that they must not be negative and honest about their difficulties, thereby leaving them to struggle with their enormous burdens – alone. Neither of those responses even vaguely resemble what Jesus would do! He once prayed for a blind man twice… and offered no explanation for doing it that way either!

Jesus’ disciples also prayed for a little boy that had a demonic spirit that kept throwing him into the fire. The kid had convulsions, and the disciples couldn’t do anything about it. It is interesting to me to note that the Lord rebuked THEM. He didn’t growl at the father, or the kid, or even the people standing around watching. He rebuked his disciples instead for not having enough faith! 

I believe this is our problem in this day and age. We have tied the burden of being healed onto the sick person. As if they haven’t got enough to go on with! We haven’t thought about the fact that we have taught a whole generation that being sick is a sin. Plus we are saying that these sick people are responsible for their current circumstances. Implying that there must be something terrible hiding around corners in their lives somewhere, and they’d better toddle off and dig about until they find it! Instead of simply holding them up before the throne of Grace, and reminding them that they have greater faith than even they understand, because they love Him and serve Him, despite their negative circumstances.

Jesus told the disciples once when they asked Him: “Who sinned this guy, or his parents?” His response was – ‘Neither! This is for the glory of God.’ Funny how we tend to overlook that answer. We must learn to be honest with ourselves and others, and learn to say: “I DUNNO!” when we do not know. Then turn everyone’s attention to the goodness of God and all His Mighty works, and praise Him because He is worthy. Healing is absolutely His children’s bread but the children are led by a loving gracious Father. 👋🏻

P 2218 Don’t give up!

/ DVH

I want to talk a little bit about seemingly unanswered prayers today. In my lifetime, by the Grace of God only – I have learnt that I don’t have to see something to believe it is true. There are all sorts of illustrations from the bible, of ordinary people who loved God and followed Him. They were just like me. But there have been times when I have been greatly disappointed because my prayers appeared to lay about like limp lettuce leaves. Sadly, the result of chronic sickness is that it takes over this life, and you can start to have a sickness mentality. That becomes a battle all by itself. Plus your faith can take a heck of a beating.

However, I know, that I know, that our God answers our prayers. His book is filled with testimonies on that subject from an unbelievable variety of people. I have chosen to learn to take His Word over my experiences – but that doesn’t mean I don’t wrangle with my feelings on a difficult day! One day, I know I will be healed, up there or down here. But for this moment, I will just keep on asking – and thanking Him. I have learnt that my disappointment does not cancel out His promises. That’s like an ant trying to wrestle an elephant. It’s.Not.Gunna.Happen! 

Jesus Himself told us to: “Ask and keep on asking, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.” The saddest thing we can do when we pray about something, or someone, and nothing appears to change, is to give up our belief about the Lord’s Character just because of that unanswered prayer. He loves us. Our God always does things for our good, let’s add to that our hope that He is always listening to us. “… He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”  So my exhortation today is that we need to keep going after the impossible, and don’t give up!

Our human limitations abound, but HE has no limitations and He is not deaf. We must never ever stop our pursuit of Him, so we can deepen our understanding of Who He is. There is always more we can learn about our Heavenly Father, and the way He does things. Just because some prayers we’ve prayed seem to have led to a dead end, that does not mean we should give up. Jesus Himself told us to press IN and keep ON keeping on. “Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” Luke 18:1-8.

Meanwhile, if our human relationships are worthy of careful attention and passion – just imagine how much more our relationship with Almighty God is worth! We are His people, and He is always worthy of our attention, passionate love and prayers. He loves to care and provide for us, and that love IS His nature. However, I also know, personally, that when our hope is deferred, it can make our hearts sick. That’s a good place to ask for His help. Total dependance upon the Lord and His mercy is not a weakness or a character flaw – we can rely upon Him to always do what is good, right and profitable in our lives. 

Right now whilst you are reading this – you could be ill, or injured, or something bad has happened to the people you love. Perhaps you are estranged from someone, or you are living in constant fear, or you have major difficulties in your life and you’ve tipped over into despair. Awful things do happen – ‘the rain falls on the just and the unjust.’ However, these circumstances are not God’s punishment. When Jesus died on that cross humanity entered a new Era. The Grace Era. The hard things are simply part of this imperfect life we live.

First of all, please don’t beat yourself up over your flagging faith. Simply ask for our loving Saviour’s help to move past your despair … there are days that I have to pray like that one minute at a time. However, today, I wrote this to remind you that He has heard you and He is not ignoring your desperate cries. I can’t possibly explain the situation you find yourself in or even the delay, but I know the Saviour, He brought Lazarus out of that grave and He has heard your prayers. Hold onto that.

Lastly, I want to say to those who are suffering: please don’t give up. “Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.” Hebrews 10:35. At this very minute, Jesus is praying for us, and the Holy Spirit is praying too, that our faith won’t fail. I want to remind everyone that we always need to continue to ‘ask and keep on asking’ and we must not give up and faint –  “…because in due time we will receive our reward.” (See Galatians 6:9-10.)  Bless you and bye for today. 🙏