Law

P 2222 How to know God.

/ DVH

“Jesus explained, “I am the Way, I am the Truth, and I am the Life. No one comes next to the Father except through union with Me. To know Me is to know My Father too.” John 14:6 TPT. Jesus is doing something extraordinary here – He is pointing out how to be close to Father God – how to know Him. When we read the Gospels and we are observant about the way Christ interacts with people, as well as what He says, we will know the Father too. We will begin to see God the Father’s heart toward mankind.  

Jesus Christ spent His time talking to, and mixing with, ordinary people. Up until He came, these people had no ‘WAY,” to get close to God Himself. The view of God they knew up until Jesus came, was always going to be remote and unapproachable. Only the High Priests dared to approach Almighty God, wearing thick smoke and total darkness as a disguise! Isn’t it fascinating how religion HIDES God?! The Pharisees, the Sadducees and the teachers of the law, were the only ones with any chance of gaining knowledge about Him. However, we are so blessed. We have a book filled with stories about Him, and the Way Christ interacted with people.

To humanity’s great astonishment, Almighty God Himself already had a solution to this total separation – God Himself solved this problem and He came to us. HE approached us!  Ya might want to pause and give thanks for that. 🙌 And … sometimes I also like to give thanks for Paul. If God hadn’t saved Paul, we’d still be on the outside looking in!  Meanwhile, Father God did not replace the Jews in His affections – instead, He added us into them. I gotta say: I love the Lord’s Maths!! He always makes things more beautiful and BIGGER.

I don’t know about you but I was totally unchurched – if Jesus hadn’t revealed Himself to me – I’d still be dead in my sins. And I strongly suspect those sins would have piled up into a very large stinky pile by now!! I did not know ONE CHRISTIAN in my whole life before I met the Lord Jesus – there was a whole other world out there I had no knowledge about. I strongly suspect many people fall into this category.

Do yourself a favour, read the Gospels with Almighty God in your mind – because Jesus IS Him in human form. Father God broke all the known rules and yet He fulfilled them all at the same time – IN A PERSON. Christ! (Ephesians 3.) That’s Almighty God as a 12 year old child, in the temple talking about the rules He already gave the Jews personally, a couple of thousand years previously, through Moses. Yet  the Lord Jesus never flaunted Who He was. That’s called humility. 

Think about the gospel stories like this – that’s Father GOD touching a leper. That’s GOD walking all the way to Samaria to meet a Samaritan woman. No Jew would speak to that woman, she had five husbands – but the Lord Jesus revealed to her another way to live, instead. That’s GOD Himself delivering a demoniac who was living(?) in a cemetery. That’s GOD striding through the colonnades at the Beautiful Gate to get to a man who had the faith to believe, but he could not get into the water fast enough – so GOD came to him!  How prophetic is that??!! That story always fills my eyes with tears.

It is time to get rid of our ideas about who, and how people can be saved! It’s not just the dear people who gather up the courage to come into our churches. He wants to save the people out there that look like everyone else, but they are wandering about, eating anything that looks remotely spiritual. They are looking for something REAL! We’ve made their lack of knowledge about God about them, but it is really about our inability to actively carry the Presence of God with us wherever we go. WE ARE NOW HIS PRIESTS. Religion will not comfort their broken hearts. You and I, we have the reality of Christ living inside us. We dare not separate ourselves from this crazy world because: “We are IN this world, not OF it.” And it is our God-given duty to tell them there is a whole other reality out there.

Jesus met people where they were – in the streets and market places. Every day as we work, play, shop, clean and learn, we are now, by His Grace, in union with God Himself. We can not only learn about Him – we can KNOW HIM, for ourselves – in Christ. 👋🏻

P 2145 Some very interesting questions.

/ DVH

The Lord asked my lovely husband some questions recently, when he was praying in his quiet time and he shared them with me. The questions were all so good I thought I would include them in today’s blog, with hubby’s permission. Maybe we can both give them some further thought, so I’ve put them here for you to think on too. Please bear in mind that the first part of each question relates to law and the second half of the question relates to Grace. I think it is very useful to have questions to use to help us understand the way the Lord thinks.

First of all, He asked hubby to consider: “Do you want to be defined by Law or Grace?  One system is defined by ‘justice,’ and the other by ‘mercy.’  One system embraces ‘punishment’, the other ‘redemption.’ …  

Sometimes we can’t leave our anger at someone else behind us, because, deep down, we want them to be punished. Those thoughts are not just childish – they are dangerous. However, that’s also when we can see that we are clinging to a system that leaves Grace out. For the other person as well as us. Our God is so gracious, He will find a way to bless that other person even while we are withholding forgiveness. But we will miss out on seeing and comprehending what He is like, when we imprison ourselves within spite, revenge, hatred and unforgiveness etc. Personally, I don’t want justice … I need mercy. Like I’ve said once before, what comes out when we’ve been squeezed tightly is what is actually IN there – don’t be condemned, but let’s not excuse ourselves either!

The Lord also said this: “One system ‘imprisons’ people, the other ‘restores their freedom.’ One ‘limits’ potential, and the other ‘extends it way beyond belief.’ One system depends on ‘past performance’, and the other hangs everything on our ‘hope in Christ.’ 

There is no prison as strong as the one we foster and create for ourselves, by expecting the world around us to conform to our standards. However freedom actually becomes something tangible when we value it enough to give it away to someone who will never deserve it!. We can’t afford to put our hope in anything else but the blood of Jesus. As soon as we start thinking “I’m right and you are wrong” – we’ve missed it. We have flipped over into performance and left our own hope in the power of Christ’s blood to redeem behind us. Let’s not limit our spiritual potential by things that will weigh us down.

Here are some more things the Lord said: “One system rewards us for ‘merit’, the other ‘empowers us for what is to come.’  One ‘judges’ others, the other ‘prophesies good’ wherever it can. The former builds on what is ‘seen’, the latter builds on the ‘unseen, and the eternal’ and speaks life into situations that look dead and finished.  

When we live our lives expecting to be treated fairly and kindly, we are denying the fact that the founder of our faith was treated appallingly, without any remorse – and He was utterly innocent. We have the power of God residing inside us, so NOW we can speak His life into desperate situations and hearts. These things are about simply making quality decisions – they are not about feelings. It is way past the time when we should start prophesying His life into the darkness around us, as He leads us. Personally I can’t face this life at all without His Spirit empowering me, minute by minute, daily. 

Lastly the Lord said to hubby: “The focal point of the Ark/Presence of God, is the MERCY SEAT.  Not a judge’s seat.” He concluded their conversation by saying: “All that sounds like LOVE to Me.” Amen! 

Mercy is a precious thing, if we want to enjoy it ourselves, then we need to give it away freely to other people. I love it when our Heavenly Father clarifies the things we think we know, with some well-placed, thought provoking questions! It seems to me that it would be a good thing if we revised all our thoughts in favour of Grace and Mercy … as a way to live. I’ve found that walking in His Grace opens my eyes more, spiritually. Instead of looking for places to criticise others, or protect myself, now l want to look for ways to bless them as He encourages me to do it. When I live that way it changes my view of everything around me as well.

I want to be defined by the Grace He gives me, so I live realising that I have and need plenty of Grace myself, so I can easily give it away to others. That will keep me humble! Every single time I red flag things that I am saying or thinking – I know that something is going on that will lead me into spiritual deafness if  I continue down that path. It means I’ve stopped listening to the Holy Spirit and obeying Him. AcknowledgIng that I cannot live my life like Jesus’ lived His, without His Grace, is the beginning of transformation. 👋🏻

“Abandon every display of selfishness. Possess a greater concern for what matters to others instead of your own interests. And consider the example that Jesus, the Anointed One, has set before us. Let His mindset become your motivation.” “He existed in the form of God, yet He gave no thought to seizing equality with God as His supreme prize. Instead He emptied Himself of His outward glory by reducing Himself to the form of a lowly servant. He became human! He humbled Himself and became vulnerable, choosing to be revealed as a man and was obedient. He was a perfect example, even in His death—a criminal’s death by crucifixion!” Philippians 2:4-8