Light

P 2290 Where is your treasure?

/ DVH

“For your heart will always pursue what you esteem as your treasure.” Matthew 6:21 TPT. This scripture caused me no end of genuine soul searching today. This is the kind of thought that I wish wasn’t in the book. When it comes to spiritual things, sometimes we like to give ourselves a passing mark, without actually looking hard at what really happens from day to day.

FYI, I have this experience a lot – the false pass, the big tick where there should be a big blank, because the truth is, I dunno and I don’t think I will like my truthful answer! Meanwhile does wanting it count? This is where I would like to be but I’m not sure there is enough evidence that it is who I actually am… yet. Sigh. Today is a check-up day… here’s another one …. Matthew 22:37&38 “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”

Yeah. His book always does this to me. But, just when I was ready to go stick my head in the oven – a fruitless task, because we have an electric oven, not a gas one, hubby pipes up with this …“We may not be aware that God is not our treasure. But when He asks the question, now our treasure is exposed by His light so it is up to us to respond when His light exposes our hearts.”

And he got that happy thought from reading the scripture below this morning. You know, I think our church society is so geared into looking right, and sounding right, and doing our best to giving the appearance of being right (good ‘ol Dudley Do-rights that we are) but we often forget that God made such an expensive provision for our hard heartedness before we were ever born. We don’t have to pretend – we just need to admit our faults and co-operate with the opportunities He sends us. I do know this much, loving the Lord with everything entails putting Him first.

“But if we freely admit our sins when His light uncovers them, He will be faithful to forgive us every time. God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and He will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we claim that we’re not guilty of sin when God uncovers it with His light, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”1 John 1:9-10 TPT

The secret is not to hide from the light, or even pretend it isn’t on, by walking around with our eyes shut. Our God has provided for this exact situation. There are times when we’d like to have the right answer, but the truth is we don’t. How can I say that? I have a million reasons actually, more than this space allows, but let’s just settle for this one: 

How many people did you tell last week that Christ was alive and He died for their sins? Hmm … There I go again, asking questions nobody wants to answer. Moving on. We trundle along, Sunday by Sunday, singing loudly, giving our money and being nice to each other … sometimes … and hoping that will do.

BUT when, and IF we let His light in, we will find there is no need for shame. The shame comes when we say sorry and have no intention of changing whatever it is, at all! We just hope magically it will manifest itself in our lives one morning when we wake up. Maybe we need to be even more honest and say, “I want to Lord, but I kind of stink at it..” Perhaps it is time we told the Lord that we are probably kind of a dud, and without Him we can do nothing… because … we can’t! 

Instead, most of us are far more used to letting our lives be dragged about by circumstances. Or by appeasing grumpy people, who are in plague proportions in this ever changing world.  Instead let’s make a quality decision to be honest with Him when His light hits whatever it is. As well as honest with ourselves. Let’s decide to take the kind of action that leads to change. ‘I pray we will be more like the second man in this scripture that Jesus taught, than the first one. Amen.’

“And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14 NASV. Jesus is like totally our treasure – He is also our MAP! Bye 👋🏻.

P 2256 Move!

/ DVH

Some people, in the past, have said that I’m a bit prophetic. Hmm I don’t know about that! However, yesterday, in my mind’s eye, I could see time like a large wall, stretching backward and forward. In this wall I saw a window. It was a large window but the scary thing is – it was slowly closing. I believe this window is called the window of opportunity. 

Meh! Ask the Lord about that for yourself.“And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and He will give it! He won’t see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures but He will overwhelm your failures with His generous grace.” James 1:5 TPT. He straightens out my theology all the time!

Back to my point: what with Tsunamis, 9/11, Covid, the war in Ukraine, earthquakes, monetary markets crashing, food and medical shortages, plus various other awful things happening;  these things have polarised the world and affected everyone on this planet. It seems to me that nobody feels really safe anymore, because we have quite regularly experienced worldwide destructive events in an unprecedented fashion. 

However, this also means that the church all over the world, has a huge opportunity, because the people-who-don’t-know-Jesus-yet are ready for something real. And we are incredibly blessed because we know that Answer, personally. And, right here, right now, it’s our time to shine with the light of heaven, Jesus Christ. It is remarkably easy to put your light under a basket when things are overwhelming. But our time to live His way – I believe, is here and now. We must stop sort of squashing Jesus in, around the edges of all the fun things we can do, and live up to our Master’s faith in us. He is our place of safety.

I know that I know, that this is the time to start taking our Christian lives VERY seriously. We must stop thinking that going to church Sunday by Sunday is all there is, and take the faith that Jesus died to give us, and use it. If we do not start to use it, I am deeply concerned that we will lose it. As I said before, these are unprecedented times with unexpected and terrible pressures. That’s when the pressure to survive becomes more important than anything else, and real active faith goes on the back burner. The thing is, we need our faith now more than ever, because the enemy is distracting us away from our true God-given purpose.

Let’s believe and act on what we talk about. Hubby and I have been out there, where people are, and we know they are ready for something real. Like James, said, we need to show forth our faith by our works. Obviously I mean the kind of works that originate in His heart and are led by the Holy Spirit. It’s time to prime the pump of obedience. Sadly, because we’ve had a lot of unknown factors recently  – we are all a bit wary of more bad things happening – so we’ve kind of bunkered down, waiting for the storms to pass. But they haven’t. Praise God, it has opened the hearts of the people outside our churches, instead!

So what happens when we decide to take a risk and to talk to family, friends, and strangers about Him? We could get to look like a goose … and in my case, that wouldn’t be the first time!  Many people have crashed and burned in their desire to bring glory to their Master, Jesus. When we do that we are in some really great company … like the people who have gone home before us! It’s also time to face those things in our lives that we would rather ignore and hope they will go away. Our faults, our flaws, our generational, soul-destroying stinky attitudes and actions!  The Lord Jesus is absolutely excellent at putting broken Humpty-Dumpties together again. So true active repentance is the order of the day as well.

Getting this stuff wrong, ironically … is good. It is like a cleansing fire, it burns away all the dross that this life has accumulated. Pride disappears, so does fear. Instead, living for Him and obeying Him humbles us and sends us to our knees. This is not the time to sit back and look at our hypothetical barns, (Luke 12:16-21). We can’t afford to relax, or maybe even plan to build a new one! Our time has come. And we need every single one of us active and ready to obey Him. We all have a part to play in His plan. There is simply nothing like seeing the light of illumination come on when you are talking to someone who does not know Him. 💖

The alternative is to try to wait the bad times out, promising ourselves when things get better – then we will try to follow Him. There is another kind of trap that says that we will obey when we are more informed. It doesn’t work that way. First we obey and then we learn of Him. Stepping out is putting on His yoke. This yoke is not about Him blessing me while I am going in my direction, but it means I am following the lead oxen – Christ – and going in His direction instead.  Submitting to change, no matter how settled we are, or how old or young we are, stretches us. It’s time to wake up and stretch. Move it or lose it. 👋🏻 

P 2249 A gift must be received.

/ DVH

“Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].” James 1:17. Sadly, Love is often simply a word to us, or a feeling, that can sometimes lead to actions. God’s love is ACTION – first. He came toward us before we knew He existed. In order to receive His love we must understand the gift. His love has been personified, and given to us in a form we can understand. Jesus Christ. A gift must be received.

God’s love is not just received through our senses, and our minds, because they are limited. When we receive His love that way – our senses or minds will begin to automatically define love for us. Our reception of His Love pivots on us understanding His love is an undeserved gift. Sadly, to some people any kind of love means you cannot say NO to them, and still tell them you love them. To others, love means strict rules to follow, and they cannot comprehend a love that needs no works. To others it means you live in some sort of euphoric state which can eventually fade. God’s love is not anything like that.

It is important to me today, that you understand my little scribblings here are totally inadequate for the subject I am tackling. I have never, and probably never will comprehend how incredible His love is. I am limited by my personal experiences and how much I can actually take in about this subject. However, I am doing my best here, to describe what I’ve seen through His book. 

So what is His love like and how do we receive it? I want to answer the second part of that question first, I believe when our heart says yes to Jesus: through prayer, through reading His book, or through something someone else says to us – we begin a process that never ever ends. It is similar to the conception of a child – there is a moment of conception. At that moment we say yes to the One Who chases each one of us through time … playfully, relentlessly, and with great passion and loving purpose.

Father God’s love is sacrificial as well as unmerited. It doesn’t wait for the ‘other person’ to love first. His love doesn’t depend on us or our behaviour. It is altruistic. God loves mankind both corporately and individually – the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is because His love depends on Himself, not who we are. He does not simply love responsively. He initiates love, even into a loveless vacuum. It is His very nature to love, so He doesn’t fall in love with people – because falling in love implies you can fall out! He is not irrational or whimsical about love. Our universe keeps expanding because His love keeps expanding!

Our God is where love comes from. He is the source of all that is loving, pure and holy. And so He defines love in ways we barely comprehend. To Him patience is not what we think it is  – it is an aspect of love. Whereas we think patience means sometimes we barely put up with one another – or we are stretched unfairly. But His kind of patience does not depend on the other’s actions, it does not fluctuate according to the other person’s attitude. His love is more like the sun, than the moon. Always there.

His love is expressed through kindness, it thinks the best, sees the best, and speaks the best to the other person and none of that is for personal gain. Nor is it deceitful. It is filled with hope instead. Yet our God is the ultimate realist – He sees us as we are and yet He still loves us. He came after us. And His love lacks any kind of jealousy which is possessive and controlling. Instead it throbs with a kind of jealousy that is beyond our tiny minds. Our God is so passionate about us – that even the idea that we would spend our life and energy on anything that cannot help us, and will not bring us closer to Him – those things stir Him with a passion to fight for us and win us back. He wants His beloved safe, with Him.

Think about the Eternal God in the garden – when He banned Adam and Eve, after they had sinned, and drove them away, He did so because they could easily have eaten from that second tree. That would have separated mankind from Him forever, because the fruit of eternal life was on that second tree. Eternal life filled with death was on that second tree because they had disobeyed.

But because His love is so patient, we have had thousands of years of history to see, over and over again, what WE are really like without Him. Any virtues we manage to produce are finite. His are totally endless. When a gift is given, a gift must be received. The key to understanding His love is to receive Christ into every single part of our lives, our thoughts and actions. This is why Jesus cannot be an add-on to whatever we want. When we do that we are treating the love the Father shows us with disrespect and contempt. That is the ultimate failure to appreciate and receive what we have been given. Bye 👋🏻

“But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name. …”

P 2233 There is no light like His light.

/ DVH

The world we live in today does not like the light, so it has hidden and distracted itself away from it. Maybe they like to think it is more fun in the dark … but the real truth is, they don’t know any better. I am of the opinion that the church needs to stop throwing rocks and abuse at the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet, and begin to realise that we are also guilty of ignoring the light of God! What’s our excuse? We know the truth, and the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet don’t even know exactly WHO they are rejecting!

John 1:9-12 “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him.”

Just because we’ve been blessed by the Holy Spirit with spiritual insight that Jesus Christ IS Who He says He is – that does not mean we can skate merrily on by waiting for our turn to go to heaven one day. We act like salvation is the Lord’s final goal. His goal is transformation – which is a very b-i-g step beyond salvation. It’s called total surrender and it’s not just for the pastor or the evangelist.  Every single Christian has a purpose, a role in His plan. Let us recognise what we are here for and go and do it.

The power of recognition relies upon sight, and sight relies upon LIGHT. Sadly, the people of this world cannot see Christ, because the church is not being the LIGHT. Yet, the bible tells us clearly that we are to be the light of this world … Jesus said so: in Matthew 5:14:“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden.”  However, being the light doesn’t mean we just run about constantly pointing out the dark – it means we shine with the reality of Christ IN us. We glow with His light and love, and that ushers in illumination and revelation. The people around us will see the darkness when we shine.. “But when Simon Peter saw this, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Luke 5:8. Take the time to learn how to shine.

So, how does the Lord’s church in 2023 manage to remain hidden? By our personal, and denominational choices. We’ve said ‘yes’ over time to so many things that the Lord does not agree with, that this world hardly knows what we actually stand for. Sadly, when we do stand up and say: ‘Well, you can’t do that, that’s against our religion” … This world turns around and says – “Good gracious, are YOU still here?? I thought you’d all died off years ago.”

The world around us does not know Who Christ is because we’ve failed Him. Time to repent. We reduced the Living Word of Almighty God to images. A baby in a manger, a cross on a chain, a big black book. We are here to be His Word in this world, alive and visible to everyone around us. That’s what light does. It shows up what’s in the darkness by illuminating stuff.

In this current age, Christians would much rather tell this world where it is WRONG – than love them – we say: “it’s too hard to love them, they are impossible.” Instead of blaming them – it is time to examine ourselves! We need to live this life shining with His love for others. “They will know we are Christians by our love …”  For us that means ‘show’ as well as ‘tell.’  You know if we want to truly follow Jesus, like the disciples did, then we will have to walk down the same roads He walked on. Transformation into light happens on that journey. 

Christianity is not meant to be a walk in the park, or a trip to a fun fair – with lots of groovy rides. We are on a death march. Our reward is not in this life. We have watered down the gospel to make it somehow more palatable, and doing that has diminished what Christ died to do. We need to repent before it is too late, or we will never reach our full potential in this life. Sadly humanity habitually thinks that we all have more time.

Our times are always in His hands … however, let’s remember that it is always time to be about our Master’s business. Even when we are very busy walking down some dusty road and we see someone bruised and bleeding in the dirt. We are never too busy to serve humanity. Christ wasn’t ever too busy – and being His light means we don’t have that option either.  👋🏻

P 2195 No time for a Nanna-nap!

/ DVH

“But you, beloved brothers and sisters, are not living in the dark, allowing that day to creep up on you like a thief coming to steal.For you are all children of the light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night nor to darkness. This is why we must not fall asleep, as the rest do, but keep wide awake and clearheaded.But since we belong to the day, we must stay alert and clearheaded by placing the breastplate of faith and love over our hearts, and a helmet of the hope of salvation over our thoughts. He gave His life for us so that we may share in resurrection life in union with Him—whether we’re awake or asleep.” 1 Thessalonians 5:4-6, 8, 10 TPT.

The bible says His word is ‘a lamp to our feet and a light unto our path.’ And the Message bible says this: “By your words I can see where I’m going; they throw a beam of light on my dark path.” Christians do not lack light – we actually can’t! Jesus is the light of this world and we are in Christ – it’s not EVER dark where He is. You will always have plenty of light when you hang around with Jesus.

Sadly, sometimes what we do lack is the will to go and sit in the light and learn from Him! We need the Holy Spirit’s help to stay awake and alert in these overwhelming times. Ignoring why we are here is sleeping. Unfortunately human beings are not inherently good, despite popular opinion  – they are often uncaring, self-centred, independent creatures who want what they want when they want it. And if you don’t believe me read a newspaper or look at social media. Those things will quickly convince you that without Christ we are all helpless and at the mercy of our own appetites!

But because we live in the light – living there means His light will convince us that darkness cannot oppose us. Turn a light switch on when it is pitch black – darkness doesn’t leave grumbling and complaining – it is simply gone. Part of the way we shine His light out there into the darkness is to actively engage in learning His ways from the Holy Spirit. How to love others – our family, the people at work or school, our neighbours, so it is incredibly important that we see other people through His eyes. We get our Father’s eyes through living in obedience. His eyes are full of compassion. Otherwise our eyes are full of our own needs and our problems. Living in the light means we are learning to unconditionally accept the person in front of us. We can’t ever do that without the Lord’s help.

As we go about in this world, it is easy to see that many people have become so used to the darkness – that the light in us, and coming from us, hurts their eyes or they are afraid of it so they hide from it. But there are others who are drawn toward the light because it resonates deep within them. In today’s careless self-centred world, we cannot afford to be asleep on the job because who we are is always on display. People watch us  simply because we are standing in His light. 

Alert people keep their faith going even when it is opposed on all sides. If they have to hang on by their fingernails, they hang on! They tell themselves, “God has got this. These circumstances did not surprise Him. He has a plan, His plans are for my good and my future. I cannot afford to see my circumstances through the white noise this world produces, even though it is all around me – I must look at this life through the Lord’s eyes not my own.” These people stop holding onto what they think they must have or need, and let everything go – other people’s sin, the absence of real love everywhere etc. simply because walking with Him is more important than anything else.

Our personal faith is far more incredibly valuable than we realise, and we access and use our faith when we choose to love others, no matter what is going on in us and around us. Faith is a belief that our God can and will only do all of us good whether we know it or not – because He is good. We need the kind of strong faith that protects our hearts. The kind of faith that covers our heart with the belief that He loves and cares for every single person individually – no matter how things look, or how we feel.

Our faith hides in, and depends upon His goodness. It hides us from the deadly attacks of the enemy. It creates an atmosphere that is alert and notices whatever the Lord is doing. Our faith looks for good even within the bad. Our faith believes in Him, His Character, His never-ending kindness, goodness and love. And it shields our hearts by reminding us of everything He said in the bible. Our faith is not in circumstances or people, it understands other people fall victim to their own lack of faith in His reliability.

Lastly, His hope comes directly from our belief system –  it understands that HOPE is a Person. Christ. Our hope relies upon what He did. We cannot afford to gain hope from works, or even experiences – our hope is in Him. Sleeping in the light is wasting the time God gave us all. Just because things have become darker outside, that does not mean we can afford Nanna naps! The light shines brighter in the darkness. 👋🏻

P 2136 We are not powerless!

/ DVH

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”  John 14:12. If Jesus hadn’t left when He did, we’d still be stuck and powerless over our sins and enemies, personal and otherwise. But He left, it is in the book – so-oo-ooo – we are no longer powerless.

That means it is a mistake to think that our enemy has the upper-hand in any situation – personal or not! Jesus died for this world, and everybody who was ever born into it, our job is to tell them they can belong to Him too. HE WON. satan cannot ever win again, at all, unless he tricks us into believing that what he says is the truth. God gave us power, the same power Christ had! Power to live a godly life – power to do the things He sent us here to do.Meanwhile, satan’s idea of truth sounds a lot like our own feelings. God’s word IN US needs to be stronger than how we feel and that takes practice. 

When we gave our lives to Jesus, that means that God is in charge of us, and whatever happens to us. He does not cause trouble, but – He will work all the bad things together for our good according to HIS purposes. So when things do not look the way we would like them to look, then that’s the time to start speaking to our souls. The Psalms talk about speaking to our souls and telling them to pipe down and hope in God. That is great advice! This life that we are living now, we live by using our faith in what Christ did for us …because His death and resurrection gave us the power to see and live this life differently. 

We are here on this earth, right here, right now – to be salt and light. Salt and light add flavour and clarity. Those things give us, and the people around us, the opportunity to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’ This means that we are His people who speak His flavour and His clarity into situations around us. The Lord Himself did this: John 11:4: “When Jesus heard it, He said, “This sickness will not end in death but IS for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” That’s clarity! It wasn’t about the sick person it was about other people understanding WHO Christ is!

Here’s another example of Jesus speaking salt and light into a prejudged situation. John 9:2: “His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, I must do the work of Him who sent Me.” That’s clarity again. Because He said that now we can see that something else is going on that is not obvious to the people involved. Did you get the fact that the Lord Jesus Himself said: “It wasn’t anything to do with any of them – there was another reason?” There is often w-a-y more in what Christ says than we comprehend. We don’t ever want to be a people who look but do not see, so pray for the eyes of your heart to be enlightened. (Ephesians 1:18) He often has a purpose we cannot see.

The Lord Jesus spent a lot of His ministry and preaching time on clarifying things that already existed in people’s minds – and sometimes He was very SALTY! Some of the things the Jews had been taught were not all of God’s truth – even though they were taught by rote by the religious experts of their day. The thing that often shoots our spiritual comprehension in the foot, is that we read the words, but we miss what they contain. It is not enough to just read the bible like you might read a newspaper, nor is it enough to like the story. We have to ask Him, like the disciples did, “What does that parable mean, Lord?” Sometimes I ask myself: “What is He NOT saying?” OR “How does that apply to me?” 

Years ago, practically everybody I knew that was a Christian were busy sticking out fleeces, here, there and everywhere,  to discern the will of God for their lives. It was almost like a ‘fashion.’ We all ended up playing hokey pokey with a fleece like Gideon did. But the bible itself gives loads of scriptures that talk about how to know the will of God. In the end I came to the conclusion that most people didn’t really want to know His will, they just wanted to find something that would put a big ✔️ on what they themselves, actually wanted. If we want to walk into the will of God and display His mighty works, we cannot follow spiritual fashions – we must follow the book and the book says we have received power from the Holy Spirit. It’s that simple.

There has been a false doctrine that says that everything that happens to us must always be good, because we belong to Jesus now. What a load of twaddle! Sometimes I think we treat being born again, like an arrival place. But becoming a Christian means we’ve started a journey that ends when we leave here. Perfection happens in heaven when we see Him face to face. Down here there is no arrival. Christianity is not a competition to try to be the best Christian ever either  – SomeBody already did that better than we could. HE saved US!  But failure or messing up does not disqualify us from rising from the ashes by His Grace, and going on to do some of those greater things. The power lies in His grace and humility. He will help us, because He dearly loves us. 👋🏻