Life

P 3492 I know life can be difficult…

/ DVH

…it has not been so-wunnerful-at-my-house all the time either! However, Psalm 27:5-6 says: “For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling; He will hide me in the shelter of His sacred tent and set me high upon a rock. Then my head will be exalted above the enemies who surround me; at His sacred tent I will sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the Lord.”

I wanted to talk about the subject of trials today, because I totally understand how this life can keep anyone — angry/busy/anxious/devastated — one way or another. Verses like the one I put above, are so comforting, but at the time, when any ‘stuff’ is happening, it seems like these things are just words. Sometimes I can barely find my faith! I learnt that we must stop looking for evidence, and start believing Him … simply because what He said is in the book!

I’ve realised that verses like these verses are not just beautiful words, they are lifelines. Something we grab hold of when the room starts whirling around us, and our world goes upside down. We can’t afford to read them and not use our faith. We need to walk around our house, and thank God that He is keeping you safe. Even when it looks like He has forgotten you. I think of things like Psalm 27 or Psalm 91 in difficult times, I have no idea what worse might look like, but I know He is protecting me from worse, and I thank Him. 

Psalm 91 has taught us: ‘I am a spectator, I am hidden in the secret place of the Most High God!!’  The glory of that verse lies in the fact that once you have chosen to hide yourself in Him, all the ‘sound and fury’ stays outside. However, first, you have to actively put aside what you feel, and believe what He said. The bible also says: “weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning.”  Instead of checking on your situation, the things that are often dreadful – hold fast to the fact that if it is in the book, the Lord has preserved it for a purpose. Bit by bit, crawl into the place where He said it, you believe it, and now you are acting on it. 

I think we learn faithfulness by being faithful to Him, especially when we don’t feel like it and it seems like we have no evidence. HE’S GOOD WHETHER WE HAVE PROOF OR NOT. And we choose to believe what He said even when everything around us screams at us — “that is not true, God doesn’t care about you, otherwise He would heal you, set you free, help you, give you strength etc.” Our enemy uses the lack of physical evidence to distract us from Who Jesus is. The lovely things we are promised in His Word, belong to us, and we must use our faith and go after them. Then His peace takes over. 

Let me tell you what I’ve learnt, the very best place to be is:  in trouble, just getting into trouble, or just coming out of it. NO! I am not nuts! Plus, the only PEACE worth having is His peace, and we will have to fight how we feel to get it. We need the practice. We can learn more from our heartaches and failures than we do from anything else. Most people want a comfy, orderly, cosy life, but we are more like to scream out for His help when stuff starts landing on us.

Let’s remember, this life is not all there is. We need total transformation, intensive bible therapy, plus the kind of exercise that comes from doing what He wants and pushing through all the junk and grabbing hold of His goodness. If you are in a hole and you can’t get out, please remember Psalm 27, and Psalm 91. They are not impossible dreams, they are a reality you can cling to when everything is upside down. God’s peace is not in the absence of trouble – but His Presence is still IN US in the middle of it.

We all need to do this particularly if it feels like somebody accidentally shoved you into an armed forces firing range, and you can barely raise your head, because you keep hearing: “Incoming!!” The Lord is still there with you, and He has you sheltered under His wings. Even if you were to tell Him in anguish, “Make it stop, I can’t take anymore.” HE won’t go anywhere! His commitment to us is firm. He’s the Shepherd that goes after that sheep that got lost, or was chased by a wolf! God does things His way, and His idea of what we can do or take, can be very different from ours. We can underestimate our capacity to endure when we are under pressure.

Exhibit A! “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.” 1 Peter 4:13. So, why are we often surprised when bad things happen? Yeah! I wish that wasn’t in there either. When we believe what He said, despite the awful evidence all around us, we  will begin to walk in faith … Our God is more loyal, more faithful, more good and kind that we can imagine – and moaning and groaning will not help us get free. Stand firm and hold onto His goodness.

We can rejoice in our sufferings because they teach us we can’t do a darn thing without Him!! … Life is difficult, but life without Jesus is impossible. Where would we go, without the love He freely gives us, when it is so undeserved? I urge you to do more than agree with the bible, stake your life on it. Bye 👋.

P 3488 Finding faith is personal.

/ DVH

We can’t afford to have second hand faith, we need our faith strong enough to survive all that this world throws at us. It is so tempting to think when bad things land on us, that God has left us to battle them out by ourselves. But nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus experienced the pain and consequences of our sins and difficult situations on that cross. How could He ever forget us?

Listen to what Isaiah 49:16 says: “Behold, I have indelibly imprinted (tattooed a picture of) you on the palm of each of My hands; [O Zion] your walls are continually before Me.” We are forever with Christ! He can look at His own hands to see us. That’s written in Isaiah for you and I to take comfort from it.

What interferes with our connection to the Lord in our terrible moments, is like static on a radio, and our thoughts and emotions start reacting. We are tempted to imagine worst case scenarios. I have to say, I have repented so many times for judging what God has done and seems to be doing a poor response to His goodness. Sadly, when life squished me, I came to my own conclusions. ‘This happened because of this, and that person did that because of that other thing.’ — When we lack understanding we make very poor observers.

The bible says this in Proverbs 4:7: “The beginning of wisdom is: Get [skilful and godly] wisdom [it is preeminent]! And with all your acquiring, get understanding [actively seek spiritual discernment, mature comprehension, and logical interpretation].”

My advice is to ask for His wisdom, as well as asking how to proceed from wherever you are stuck. Press in for yourself, so you can personally understand what He is doing at this moment in your life. Christianity is personal, present and powerful — we can’t out-source it – but we can rely upon what Jesus did for us. Let’s start from “God is always good.” Here’s another truly beautiful word of encouragement for today from Luke 12:6-7, something that can be tucked inside our own hearts permanently. Jesus said it: 

“What is the value of your soul to God? Could your worth be defined by any amount of money? God doesn’t abandon or forget even the small sparrow He has made. How then could He forget or abandon you? What about the seemingly minor issues of your life? Do they matter to God? Of course they do! So you never need to worry, for you are more valuable to God than anything else in this world.” Luke 12:6-7. 

I pray that we will believe and act on what we read, which means we will take things like this scripture to heart even when our life gets tough. Don’t just read it, take what it says to heart even when things appear to be contrary to what it says. Make what He says your yardstick. These words are full of life, and His love. We cannot afford to join in with the people around us in their quest for happiness, prosperity and comfort. As Christians we have another goal. We are deliberately, purposefully going after the heart of God – which means we cherish Him.. Jesus will come after us because that is His very nature. 

Read John 15:9-13: “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love. If you keep My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Living this life the way the Lord has told us to, helps us to remain in Him. He’s not like a doona – you can’t just tuck Jesus in around the edges. He’s the bed, He’s the floor, He’s everything and IN everything! We simply can’t afford to leave Him out! In this scripture the Lord is sharing how to live a life of love, and true joy. It is not enough to know what love looks like, we must experience it flowing through us toward others who are not lovely. Then loving others becomes our own personal way of life. God’s love does not look like this world’s idea of love, so we need to learn to love like He does. Father God allowed people to kill His precious Son. He always has a bigger plan!

Sin is our enemy, but I think there is something is even worse than sin … because Jesus Himself dealt with sin. We have to faithfully deal with our own penchant for living a compromised life. People think like this: ’A little bit of this, a little bit of that, what’s the harm?’ Those thoughts lead us the wrong way. Living a life of compromise means we can easily be distracted by pressure, our needs, terrible events and legalities. That’s what I think happened to the Pharisees and Sadducees. They didn’t plan to start a religious system, they wanted to sincerely follow God. Unfortunately they became enforcers, not supporters.

There are many things that can try to interfere with the Lord’s personal directives for our lives. And compromise is a big one. Sometimes I think even all our learning and note-taking can keep us from the truth. Father God wants to teach us personally. He wants you to go chasing after the truth for yourself. Your pastor can show you where, what and how to look, and why — but being mature means we need to dive into the bible and forage about for ourselves. Finding faith is personal. Bye. 👋

P 3466 Our new life is an adventure.

/ DVH

Spending time with the Lord can quite easily become just a habit. It is a good habit … BUT… the reality is, I don’t choose to spend time with my husband out of habit. I love him, and I enjoy his company, plus I also totally appreciate the way he looks at this life. We need to see our Heavenly Father and think of Him that way too, because Jesus Himself instructed us to call Him “our Father” in Matthew 6:9-13, and Luke 11:2-4. You can’t do better than that! He dearly loves each one of us. What more can we ask for?

In Genesis it accentuates that ‘God Himself is our shield and great reward.’ So let’s think about a shield and what it does. First of all it means the Lord is between us and trouble. Nobody should hold a shield at arm’s length, away from their body, and expect it to protect them! A shield is meant to cover your whole body, all the vital parts, Father God wants and needs to be that close to us. Over in Ephesians 6:16 it explains what the shield it is for. “In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” We put out all kinds of fires in our lives as we choose to hold up our faith-shield of His love for us.

Our faith in His Word and His goodness will always be our shield. We can’t manage this new life of ours without it, so trying  to live any other way is folly. I’m a literalist … When God tells me I am safe behind the shield He gave me … I believe Him. What He says, in His book, is my point of faith. That is based on the fact that I know our God does not lie. The things that are sent by the enemy to maim or kill us, need to crash into this shield, before they ever get near to us.

Behind us and around us stand our brothers and sisters. When we are together we are a tightly knit army. We all have a God-given shield, along with other defensive and protective things, also listed in Ephesians 6, these things are designed to keep us safe and active. I’m not big on this thing means that … blah blah blah. I like to take the Lord God at His Word. I believe the bible was written for dumb people – and I know I ARE one.

“After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.” Genesis 15:1 NKJV. “My God is my protection and with Him I am safe.” Psalm 18:2. It seems to me that we have a quorum – here are a whole lot of verses which say that Father God’s desire is to protect me, the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus agree with Him, and I join in with “YES!” Done deal.

“Lord, in my place of weakness and need, I ask again: Will You come and help me? I know I’m always in Your thoughts. You are my true Saviour and hero, so don’t delay to deliver me now, for You are my God.” Psalms 40:17 TPT. Amen. Often our basest desire is to protect ourselves from other people’s barbs, and perhaps that kind of response has been cultivated from our own personal experiences. You know, other people don’t always mean to poke you in the ribs with a dagger, maybe you stumbled and fell on it by mistake, and you have misunderstood their motivation. Good place to stop and think.

Let’s err on the side of caution, and give our brothers and sisters in Christ the benefit of the doubt. If we don’t learn to do that, or practise forgiving even the deliberate jabs we can snidely aim at each other — then we will become an army of ONE. Father God will still be my protection –  but when we act like cranky numpties and get mad at the brethren – we lose the protection on each side of us, in the front and at the rear. An arrow can kill you just as dead from the side or behind. Ya might want to think on that too for a bit. It could be a good time to mend some bridges.

Just like knowing my husband has been a huge reward in my life, so knowing Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, climbs way off the charts. Knowing our Heavenly Father gives me access to all kinds of things I can never ever know on my own, but now I have His book, revealing Who He is to me. This book features a different perspective that changes depending on my viewing angle and circumstances.

The bible is like a prism, one way we see red, another blue, the colours are inexhaustible and so are the possibilities. He is our precious Helper, He knows exactly what I need to see when I am reading it. And He will teach us and help us translate what we read into comfort, instructions, deeper meanings and application for ME – just because I asked Him to help me. I read my bible believing He wants to speak to me!

Father God Himself will always be our greatest reward, so now we have daily access to an abundant love that does not depend on our actions. SomeBody Else freely and gladly paid for us to have this freedom, plus our ongoing knowledge of His kind of love, depends on our willingness to interact with Him. Because my sin before Him is forgiven and forgotten, I can relate freely, honestly without fear of rejection – in His eyes that is a done deal. Father God is my shield, shelter, my great reward, my ability to see further than I can with my own eyes. 

He is the supplier of everything I will ever need. This life is an adventure with Almighty God, you never ever know what He will do next. Take the time to read the Old Testament, if you happen to need proof. Bye.👋.

P 3442 Keeping our love ON.

/ DVH

One way or another, I have spent a great deal of my time in hospitals. I am not saying that to gain sympathy, it is simply true. Meanwhile I don’t like them. I feel like someone is going to pop out of the ether, and decide I need this ghastly test, or that. Or maybe some super keen doctor will sentence me to four hours of waiting in a chair. While I try not to mind my life being whittled away by people in white coats. Yeah, I have a bad attitude. The Lord reminded me this morning that sick people go to hospitals, “the fields are white!” He said. “I need more energy Lord,” I said!

Remembering to keep our love ON can be difficult at times, especially when we’ve spent a lot of our lives living the other way. Here’s what Jesus said:  “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. Yeah, I wish He hadn’t said that too … but He did. The narrow gate needs to be sought and found – it isn’t like the yellow brick road, wide and obvious!

The people who travel this narrow road study LOVE. How it works, what it looks like when we do it. The Lord has said some tough stuff in the scriptures, but when I look at the way I’ve chosen to live in the past, I am so grateful for His wisdom – I need to hear it! It wasn’t that I didn’t try to obey Him, but I know I gave complaining equal footing in my life. A grateful heart is a fantastic blessing, in the list of blessings God has given us. Let’s stop searching for the fake gold of this world, and start digging for the real treasure … Jesus Himself.

However, we will have to fight any Goliaths that have taken up residence in our lives. Those things that bellow and hurl threats of doom and despair at us, and others, through us. He yells that he will kill us, our friends, our families, plus everyone we love, to create fear. Love can’t flourish in an atmosphere of fear. We must trust the Lord to take care of us. David ran at Goliath, but he left his big brothers up on a hill hiding behind rocks! His brothers had a problem … but David didn’t! His faith in Almighty God saved an entire nation that day.

The thing I love about this young man is that he believed in the God Who was with him, when he faced Goliath. We are so much better off than David was, we have the same God IN us. That thing that we think we can’t possibly fight, we don’t ever have to fight it alone. He will be with us. He promised, so let’s choose to believe Him! David was no more alone on that battle field than WE are. Jesus told us that He has given us His power, and we need to believe Him and act on it. Then we can go to our enemy’s camp and take back what he has stolen from us. 

People spend time praying to become everything the Lord God means for them to be. I want to add that it is also good to pray that we would identify and throw off all those weights the enemy has been laying on us since birth … “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Hebrews 12:1. WE do that, God doesn’t do it for us – He does it with us!

We may not feel like we can outrun the Goliaths of this world, but we can definitely learn to outwait them. BTW, “outwait” is a verb meaning to stay longer than someone else, or to wait until a bad event or time finishes.” Perseverance is a vastly underestimated Grace. It comes directly from the fruit of “patience, faithfulness, and self-control.” We have eternity on our side – satan does not, and he knows  it! If we do not faint in our journeys with Jesus — we will win. Don’t look at problems as forever things, once we give them into His hands who knows what He will do with them?

Doing the things we hate is another form of worship, as we do them “as unto the Lord.” Let’s face it, without the Holy Spirit’s help, none of these things are actually appealing. They are easy to read, but it is much harder to motivate yourself to do it. We want to raise the dead and heal the sick, and have a ministry, etc. But Jesus wants us to be bullet proof — He cares about our hearts first. And Paul gave us a list of things that we need to remember to wear. So as we put on the full armour of God, we put on those things are illustrations of the new way we’ve chosen to live now. This is how it works:

‘Always speaking HIS truth;  remembering we have Christ’s righteousness as a gift to clear our path;  at the same time we are always ready to share the gospel;  and our faith guides us and prompts us to act. Together with the knowledge that Jesus died to save us and now we have the Holy Spirit with us.’ Let’s embrace active cultivation, through our own personal choices, and make room for the growth of the fruit of the Spirit. As we “…put on love, which binds …(all the other graces) … together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:14. We can’t be patient, kind, self-controlled etc. without LOVE leading us. 

Doing things we dislike is a challenge, but there are so many riches that are already in place, waiting for us to draw upon them. So let’s focus on the Lord and His blessings, not our feelings.. Our faith when it is active, will give all these things, substance. They become evidence in our lives of His Presence.  The answer is simple — don’t take your love off … Jesus’ love is always on! Bye. 👋

P 3439 “To be or not to be…”

/ DVH

“[It is that purpose and grace] which He now has made known and has fully disclosed and made real [to us] through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, Who annulled death and made it of no effect and brought life and immortality (immunity from eternal death) to light through the Gospel.” 2 Timothy 1:10.

When you get older, death pops up in your thinking wa-ay more than you’d like it to! Seriously. Hey, I read the bible lots of times, I know what comes next … Yet sometimes I am like Elsa in Frozen 2 – digging in my heels because what I see and know here, can be realer than what I know about that other place! When I see Elsa struggling against her destiny, I think that her struggle resembles the calling of the Holy Spirit, in the song  … ”Into the unknown...” Moo-ving on …

Paul tells us in this verse from 2 Timothy, that Jesus has annulled death. Here’s the meaning of the word annulled, I put it in because it offers great insight, plus, I am a big fan of the dictionary. Here’s the meaning of — “Annulled” …it is the past tense and past participle of the verb annul which means to officially declare something legally void, invalid, or as though it never existed.”

Did you get that? Death doesn’t exist anymore, it is officially invalid. Jesus wiped it out forever with what He did for mankind at Calvary. He told the man dying beside Him on the cross that he would be with the Lord in PARADISE that day. Human beings were created to be eternal, as well as being created in His image, that’s in Genesis. You or I might have some weird family trait that means we can roll your tongue over so it is upside down … I can by the way, its my one claim to fame 🤪 …

But that weird trait that found its way genetically through all the previous generations, to me – was a gift from my forebears. Money would have been better, thank you! However, despite our personal inherited genetics, we are made in His image. The point is – we need to practice looking for Jesus in each other – instead of looking for faults.

Here is a quick recap … spiritually speaking …we both look like the Lord, and we can’t die, forever. About now, you may be wondering if I have lost my mind? Probably. But both things are true, and… they are in the book. The bible is our plumb line when it comes to spiritual things. FYI, a plumb line is used for making buildings straight, vertically. They’ve found those doohickeys in Egyptian tombs in 1250 BC. And they still work today. The guys who built the pyramids weren’t stupid, they simply were no match for God’s incredible wisdom. Remember … their chariot wheels fell off and got bogged??? Revenge is never a good plan.

Yet even the Egyptians who chased the Israelites are not dead! They are just not here anymore … unless some museum preserved their dusty bones. However, the inner person is not gone. Your great great great Grandpa is not dead, he is either asleep until the judgment, or with Jesus already. Which is why Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:13: “Now we do not want you to be uninformed, believers, about those who are asleep [in death], so that you will not grieve [for them] as the others do who have no hope [beyond this present life].” 

We can’t NOT ‘be.’  We are forever people, and I ain’t talking about the undead! Jesus didn’t just remove death, He introduced into this life, a brand new eternal way to live – right here, right now. That new indestructible life in Him burst out into this world when Jesus left that grave behind Him. 

When we pray “thy kingdom come” we are not just speaking about the truth of a new rule and reign in heaven one day. We are also talking about US – TODAY. We bring His new Kingdom with us wherever we go. Look in the mirror. The kingdom of God is within you. Are you planning on letting that kingdom OUT any time soon? We all know what it looks like, the book tells us – it is empowered by LOVE. 

Eons ago, when I taught Sunday School about this subject I made sure I wore a cardigan. I said this to the kids: “I am alive here and now, right? Pretend this cardigan is part of my body … whoops! There it goes” – then I let the cardigan fall to the floor behind me. “When I die, I will leave my earthly body behind, it will die, but the real me is still alive. My body/cardigan will get old and start to fall apart, but the inside me lives forever.” We can start living forever, now … it is our choice where we spend it afterwards.

When Jesus took the keys of death and hell away from satan, He said this: “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Revelation 1:18. Jesus Christ NOW has those keys. He bought them with His own blood – to let us OUT, not keep us IN. We have a choice, TO BE all we can be! Bye. 👋

P 3433 Entitlement.  

/ DVH

Entitlement. Now there’s a buzz word in today’s world. A  lot has been said about the younger generations who are responding to this life differently than we did. Many older people think these young people live entitled lives. Here is my idea of balance:  they are facing a different world to the one we grew up in. I can’t afford to assess their responses by my own experiences or standards, they don’t apply. 

I didn’t have an Xbox, or TV the size of a wall, or Co-Vid, bird flu, or trolls on social media facing me. It was quite safe for me to leave my house after dark, and I could leave my front door open and people would still knock. Life whizzes by, and many many things are changing at an incredible rate — the impact of those changes cannot be judged by yesterday’s standards — and yet they can affect the way we view this world and the people in it, today.

Actually, they shouldn’t be judged at all, that’s not our role – it’s HIS. But let’s move past that obvious fact, onto today’s  point. Entitlement isn’t just a problem for our youth. People my age have unrealistic expectations too. The thing is we simply cannot afford to look at this life through our own eyes. We need a filter – the bible is that ever-present active filter. I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is for Christians to know the bible. This book needs to be written inside us. We are simply fooling ourselves if we are not coming from the Lord’s perspective.

It is much too easy to become selective about what parts of His book, we choose to read, or even believe. In 2 Timothy 3:1-5&7 there is a prophetic prediction, that seems to be becoming more and more accurate in our world today:  “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people … … always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 

It is important to realise when we read verses like these, we must not excuse ourselves, by explaining away our own behaviour. Instead we need to ask ourselves: ‘Am I always learning but I haven’t arrived at practising my knowledge of the truth? Am I satisfied with theories, not spiritual life-skills?’ Unfortunately that one attitude can be quite easy to hold onto. So can an entitled attitude: “Jesus wants to make my life happy.” He will, but not necessarily in the way we imagined!

“But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.” 2 Corinthians 10:12b. Jesus is always the only standard, not us. He will judge this world, not us. We aren’t qualified to do it. Only the One Who paid the ultimate price on our behalf can judge mankind. The sad truth is we are often way too busy excusing ourselves, to be in a fit state to judge anything. The way to read verses like these, is line by line, asking the Holy Spirit to show us where we have missed His mark. Dismissing or overlooking stuff arbitrarily, is a huge mistake.  

So let’s take a really quick look at Timothy.: “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.”  Sadly, it is not too hard to put a tick on that one, I just need to look around me at the way people treat each other. “Lovers of themselves” … every time I choose me, my ideas, my feelings above His or yours, I am not choosing to do things His way. “Lovers of money …” There is this crazy theory that if you don’t have money this doesn’t affect you. Rhubarb. It’s when you don’t have it that you desperately chase after it. The people who love money don’t have to be rich! On we go: “…boastful, proud, abusive …”  

… Let’s look at Matthew 5:22: “You’re familiar with the command to the ancients, ‘Do not murder.’ I’m telling you that anyone who is so much as angry with a brother or sister is guilty of murder. Carelessly call a brother ‘idiot!’ and you just might find yourself hauled into court. Thoughtlessly yell ‘stupid!’ at a sister and you are on the brink of hellfire. The simple moral fact is that words kill.” FYI, Jesus said that. The bible will assist us to read itself, let’s just be open to its correction. He makes these things impossible without the Holy Spirit’s help… that’s the point!

I haven’t got room to talk about all 6 verses, but I would like to end on this note and highlight one more verse. Verse 5: “…having a form of godliness but denying its power…” That’s self-explanatory and it dismisses the whole: “I can’t live like that. I’m too hurt, sad, mad, bad, indifferent to do it.” We can’t afford to excuse ourselves from obedience. Like I said, these may not be not our favourite verses… but they are necessary, for godliness, life and healing. The power of God has been given to us, at great cost — it is here to help us with our inner thoughts and attitudes.

What Paul says to Timothy brings us quickly back down to earth again. We stop judging and feeling entitled – pity wells up inside us, and suddenly we find that we have compassion for other people who aren’t perfect either. Our sense of entitlement, that me first, last, and always attitude—bites the dust and what comes out is: “Please forgive me Lord.” Bye.🙏.

P 3422 The bible.

/ DVH

I think the version of the bible is less important, to me this book is a springboard into hearing from Him. It’s His Word and He can take His Word and touch our hearts however He chooses to. The Lord makes a lot of statements in the bible that sound wonderful, but unless we choose to act on them, as the Holy Spirit brings a verse to our minds — we can easily forget them again.

The scriptures are given to us to be life and health to us — food for the weary soul. Let’s look at Jeremiah 31:25 TPT: “For I will refresh the weary soul and satisfy all those who have given up on life.” Here are a few more versions. Amplified bible:  “For I will [fully] satisfy the weary soul, and I will replenish every languishing and sorrowful person.” The King James version: “For I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul.” Last one, Easy-to-read version:  “I will give rest and strength to those who are weak and tired.”

So looking at all that, what can we do when we are full of sorrow, tired and weary? We’ve learnt that we need to REST and be REFRESHED by the fact that God has given us His Word. He will help us find answers. He will take care of … whatever it is! What the Lord is doing is far beyond our scope of our limited imagination most of the time. His timing is totally perfect, but it simply doesn’t always scratch where we are itching, when we are tired and sad. But He is still doing something.

I think the secret is this – don’t pre-decide how the answers to your prayers will look. When we do that, we can utterly miss His answers to our prayers. Resting on what He says in the book, is our faith at work. Fussing and fretting about what we can do about things when we are already worn out, is a misuse of our God’s freely given resources. Take a big breath, look up and give it all to Him and wait for Him.

The Holy Spirit is our primary resource and His Word is our reference book. If we start looking at other people, and comparing or judging what’s happening to them, we are living under the misunderstanding that we are all supposed to be in the same spiritual place at the same time. We aren’t. We learn His ways by walking with Him individually. This is the God who makes enemy armies fearfully run for their lives, when no-one is actually there!  What one verse means to me, may not be what it means to you.

It is so important to value the cross. Every now and then go back to it in your mind, and remember what He did for you. What He did then, He is still doing! And don’t forget that empty tomb either. Our faith is founded on these events. The bible teaches us how to live and respond to difficulties, based upon a war that has already been won. He won it for us.

If we don’t feel ‘fully satisfied,” like Jeremiah said, then don’t blame yourself, someone else or even the Lord. Instead ask for eyes to see what He IS doing. He’s God … He can do trillions of things at once. Maybe we are missing what He is actually doing because we are too busy meditating on our unhappy circumstances. Let’s choose to be singleminded about these things. Focus on what His book says. That’s a skill we can cultivate, and it involves trust. For our faith to be real it has to be tested. The bible tells us how to face and move through those tests.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2-4. 

This verse reminds us that God is always doing something. At the very least, He’s testing our faith in His goodness. He wants us to know that when our faith is tested we are developing perseverance. So we decide to rest. That means we stop trying to figure it out by ourselves and just WAIT. We are on God’s assembly line and our tested faith will produce perseverance, but we need to hold fast to what He said in the book. Let’s allow Him to finish what He has started.

We are faithfully waiting and looking to see God’s goodness in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13) Sometimes we can miss the answers to our prayers because the Lord is doing something so much bigger than we could ever hope or imagine. The thing to remember is that we are also doing something, when we choose to trust Him and His Word, instead of running about like a headless chicken. The Lord says: “That trouble is the exercise that will strengthen our faith muscles.”

The bible is a spiritual document. That kind of thing is often hard to read, but we are so blessed … we have the greatest Lawyer ever, praying for us, helping and teaching us. He understands the law and He operates freely in GRACE. This means He knows how to plead our case for us. Let Him. Bye. 👋

P 3421 Get rid of that!  

/ DVH

To begin with today, I need to explain an Aussie word that can have entirely another meaning in other countries – otherwise someone’s hair might turn grey and fall out. “Piffing – primarily functions as the present participle of the Australian slang verb “piff”. It means throwing, hurling, or discarding something vigorously or carelessly.”I need to explain this word because I am planning to use it, and its other meaning is not a good one! 

There are things in our lives that we find are extremely difficult to discard. I’m not going to name anything, because I think that’s for all of us as individuals to go away and figure out for ourselves. But I pray this prayer regularly and I have seen extraordinary answers to it: “Dear Lord is there anything in our house that You don’t like? Please help me find it.” Amen. After I prayed that prayer I have found lots of things the Lord didn’t like, and I did not know they were there! I chucked them out.

Just like we do spring cleaning in our homes, we need to do regular spiritual cleaning. Let’s assess if and why we think we need something or other so badly, and why that habit or action is so hard to discard. Hence my use of the word PIFF. Which can be also translated as “chuck.” (I thought it was a bit much to put piff in the title, someone might take offence!)

There are things we do, or that we treasure, or even stuff that is laying about somewhere in a cupboard hidden, that the Lord may not like. And without being too obsessed about it, you and the Lord can have a great time, finding and removing such items. I have. Once I found something yucky I didn’t know we had and the Lord helped me locate it supernaturally. Doing such an ordinary thing with Him, helped me to learn how to listen, and it improved my faith at the same time!  When I am in doubt, by the way, I chuck it out anyway, or I prayerfully choose to stop doing it.

Moving on to two stories from the past: As a child, my son happened to be incredibly untidy – he has since grown out of that. I’ve heard stories about untidy kids who pile everything they don’t care about on their beds and the mother has to go rummaging about to find the washing etc. Not in his case. He chucked everything… and I mean everything … the things that he didn’t want, or want to be seen … under his bed. Eventually, the bed grew lumpy from the crowded floor under it. It didn’t bother him, but it sure did bother me because I had to clean it up just for hygiene’s sake. 

I got so grumpy. If that poor kid could have run away to avoid these not-so-happy situations, I think he would have, but it seems he liked us all too much. I became very sick of tidying up underneath his bed, so one day I threatened him with a smack for every item I found. 1st lesson learned … never promise something you can’t possibly deliver! Hmmm. Before someone thinks of me as a child beater, back in the ark it used to be legal to smack your kid. Read the book! Any-way, when I got to item 110!!! I fell about laughing. I would have had to beat that kid to death to make good on my threat. He was laughing, probably from relief, and a fairly good time was had by all.

Until the next cleanup. I want to add that our son wasn’t being naughty, he just had better things to do in his little boy-world than clean up his room. I was talking to his paternal grandfather about this situation. He was a fun person, and this particular day he volunteered to oversee the clean-up. The kitchen was a distance from our son’s bedroom and yet I could hear them both laughing uproariously from the kitchen sink. I snuck up to see what all the fun was about.

There was Grandpa, sitting on the floor with the boy, picking up things from a huge pile on the floor and asking him if he thought he still needed it. If the answer was yes, it went on a pile on the right, if it was no … then Grandpa said: “Piff it!” loudly and chucked it over his shoulder. Of course the piff it pile was loads bigger than the keep pile simply because the kid wanted to see Grandpa chuck the thing over his shoulder! I crept away lest I spoil such a happy memory for them both. 

I realised that this is what the Lord wants me to tell you, today. When we get rid of the things that are clogging up our relationship with Him, we are making room for other more important things He wants to give us. In my son’s case it was a lovely memory he made with his Grandfather. God enables us to leave behind any weeping and wailing over loss, because the One Who loves us best knows what is best for us. Whether it is some habit that controls us, or something, or someone we feel we cannot live without. 

Many times in my Christian walk since then I have culled our DVDs, books, music etc. among other things, and these times have become precious memories of how much God loves me. So … piff it, or chuck it , or just plain get rid of it – it doesn’t matter. If He doesn’t like it, then gone is good! Bye 👋.  

P3407 Getting older in the computer age. 🤪

/ DVH

Today I was reflecting on the different stages of my life and remembering a little bit about when I was younger. The only thing I cared about as a teenager was … does my hair look OK? Is my lippy on straight? Eventually, at 20, I married, and started having kids. That’s what you did back there in the ark – only truly brave people did something else. Having kids changed my whole outlook. 

When you have kids what you look like comes last! Instead you care more about getting all of them in the car at the same time, plus finding the car keys. Now my hubby does all that running about, and my job is to say “of course” to any suggestion he makes because he has the conn, not me. I don’t miss being in charge, because this life seems to have gotten so complicated. Not only for me, but everyone around me as well. I thought computers were meant to simplify things! 

These days, my personal-computer-that-sits-on-my-neck-and-shoulders starts forgetting stuff around about mid afternoon. It is a waste of time getting impatient with yourself when you are forgetful. A bit of a snooze helps. While I am relaxing my brain it gives it a chance to hobble on over to the old style filing system in my head to find the answer. There is no zippy or flash modern NBN computer ruling in my head, just a bunch of memories of other days.

Today I ended up laughing a lot, as I thought about my history with those old-style main frame computers. Computers joined the banking scene not long after I did, I was 14 at the time. These monsters took up whole rooms and each room was devoted to only a few tasks. Before that most of the banking work was done by various levels of complex adding machines, and people. Even then, computers threatened real people and their jobs! We never even dreamt we would one day wear a computer on our wrist or in our glasses.

You know, curiosity is a marvellous, useful thing – especially when it comes to faith – but back when I was still a kid, it just made me a pest!  I have no clue what’s in the innards of my tiny little Temu count-your-steps watch, – a teeny tiny motherboard perhaps? But long, long ago, I was given an actual wind-it-up-yourself watch … no batteries thank you … by my favourite uncle. It was a fancy one, I was bored and about ten, so I eventually pulled it apart and put it back together again. It mostly worked well after that… it just got a bit poorly from time to time. The parental response to my curiosity was that I had the hand of learning applied to the seat of knowledge, and sitting down became far more complicated.

Anyway, in my time in the banking sector, I had a lovely friend who made me laugh so much I used to have to hold on to something to stay upright  … and neither of us drank! She would walk past these you-beaut, brand new, ooh-ahh computers, grin at me with a twinkle in her eye …and say: “Watch this!” And then she’d throw a single paper clip into the aperture at the front. At that moment, one of two things happened. The machine would ignore it … OR …it made all kinds of truly dreadful noises and then paper went everywhere! That machine vomited reams of perforated paper all over the floor. It just kept on spewing out paper. It took maintenance quite a while to get the stupid thing up and running again. Meanwhile we tried to look innocent and busy, all at the same time. Back then we thought computers were great because they gave us time off. These days I remain unconvinced that computers improve our lives – they seem to consume most of our time instead.

In the past few years, I have been kept informed by my son about the computer scene, he is a very talented computer programmer. He very patiently taught me how to write in HTML! That fact still surprises me. Yes, I really can write in the most basic computer language. My son talks to me about computers, but, sad to say, now I hear waves instead of information and instructions. I nod and listen. It is amazing what you can learn if you nod, smile, and keep your mouth shut. You can even look pr-et-ty smart that way. Most days, I do find my laptop is extremely useful, simply because my handwriting ain’t what it used to be.

I said all that to say this … one of the dumbest things I think Christians can do is to mistake knowledge for application. Those things are not the same.“Now about food offered to idols: of course we know that all of us possess knowledge [concerning these matters. Yet mere] knowledge causes people to be puffed up (to bear themselves loftily and be proud), but love (affection and goodwill and benevolence) edifies and builds up and encourages one to grow [to his full stature].” 1 Corinthians 8:1.

The bible tells us that knowledge puffs up, and it becomes a big hurdle regarding true humility – it keeps us from God’s kind of love. There sure were a few big headed people back in the computer section of the banking ark. Yet I want to thank God for my mischievous friend back then, who taught me machines aren’t everything. Bye 👋.

P3405 We are God’s poems, in this world.

/ DVH

“We have become His poetry, a re-created people that will fulfil the destiny He has given each of us, for we are joined to Jesus, the Anointed One. Even before we were born, God planned in advance our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfil it!” Ephesians 2:10. 

And you thought you were not all that valuable! You and I are daily becoming a poem, a individual and collective Psalm to the glory, goodness, grace and long-suffering kindness of Almighty God. And if that doesn’t make you smile, then I’m concerned for you! Father God doesn’t make mistakes, so neither of us can be one… and neither can anyone else.

Say this to yourself – ‘God says I have a destiny, because He has given me one. I am not a mistake or a screw up. I’m here for my Father’s glory and honour.’  Amen. Father God is so present and engaged with all of us. Sometimes we don’t see Him because we aren’t looking. There is no task in our lives that is too small. You know, the lug nuts on our car tyres hold the wheels on – they don’t look important, but if they all come off, so does the wheel. Our wheels can start to come off if we believe what we do is irrelevant.  We cannot afford to let our limited human thinking, limit Almighty God.

Because He IS limitless, humanity is still discovering those things that are old news to Him. Yet He has hidden treasures for us in this world, things that we are only just discovering now. We think we are clever when we find them. But just imagine how brilliant Father God is — HE HID IT! My advice is “don’t limit God” — and never think your problems are too big for Him, instead ask Him to help you with them. Remember, He is writing all this down because … your life is a poem.

People are so funny! They ask the Lord for a parking spot if they need one, but they don’t see world affairs the same way. Our lives are governed and planned out for us by Him, and we’ve found, because of Jesus, we’ve met people we would never ever have met. That’s how BIG His plans are for us. There is a surprise at every turn, so we’ve come to appreciate the small things He does. Years ago, we were driving around in the wilderness area of Tasmania. We were in a very remote area delivering bibles when we recognised someone in another car, who had pulled off the road.

This person is famous, they are on Australia-wide TV all the time. We turned around … because God said …”Turn around” and we went back and gave this guy a bible. We chatted briefly, and then left. To be honest I am not sure he appreciated what we gave him all that much, but he was very gracious about it. At the time, we were the only two cars on that road! For the next few years of his life, this particular man had more trouble than Job did. Did he use that bible? I dunno!! We sure prayed for him! I know we were part of a much larger plan from the Lord to get his attention, we became a part of the poem He is writing over that person’s life.

That’s the secret to recognising your destiny as the Holy Spirit writes your ‘poem.’ Please don’t ever think you have to be the whole ball-game … Eg … the batter, the pitcher, the short-stop, the umpire … instead, wait in the dug-out for your turn. God will call you when He needs you. When He wants me to say something, He says: “You’re on!” Most of the time I don’t even know what to say, but it isn’t ever about what I say — it’s about carrying the One Who I am walking with. Peter recognised the eternal quality that was in Christ, when he said to Jesus “… You alone have the Words of eternal life.” So whatever Jesus says, has LIFE in it.

Part of our daily focus is about paying attention to the process of being re-created. Poetry is about the little phrases just as much as the big ones, so let’s seize any seemingly minor opportunities and follow them through. Sometimes when the Lord does stuff, He doesn’t need a brass band! The Holy Spirit loves to speak in whispers, nudges, and thoughts. Be encouraged and follow the thread and do what He says. The Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus are with us to help us with our daily lives. Remember, Jesus is the Living Word, if anyone knows what to say – He does!

You and I are poems that are destined to glorify Him. One day we’ll be dead and gone, but the Holy Spirit will continue to write poems over people’s lives until Jesus comes back! It is in God’s incredible nature to appreciate beautiful things, but His idea of beauty is not the same as ours. We see beautiful things as an arrangement of features and physical attributes – the Trinity sees beauty as an inside job. Mother Teresa was stunning – a glorious loving poem written to God’s glory!

Finally, let’s remember that we are not our own, anymore. SomeBody bought and paid for us. “We were purchased with a preciousness…” 1 Corinthians 6:20. Verses like these are written right throughout our very own Psalms to remind us of Jesus’ grace and obedience toward us. It is our destiny to be a Love poem to Him. Bless you. 🙌