Lot

P 3021 “There is more than one way to skin a cat.”

/ DVH

OK. Don’t freak out. I have not lost my mind, that’s an expression. I don’t secretly engaged in cat-skinning!  EW! That saying simply means: There is more than one way for something to be done. Hopefully the title got your attention. Gird up your girdle Gertie, its gunna be a bumpy ride. 

This world is currently extremely “me-centred” and hedonistic. Today, our society has been forced to make room for all kinds of weird, ugly, and downright disgusting ideas, and it has gone on to legalise them. Some self- expressions are from the pit. However … ”You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one Who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”1 John 4:4.Here’s my point for today:  do we believe that or not? 

Without the Lord Jesus in our lives, none of us could ever know who we truly are, or why we are here. Without Him, all we can produce is dissatisfaction, rage and despair. People everywhere are so busy chasing happiness like a lepidopterist chases rare butterflies – it seems like they think that is what this life is about …grabbing happiness where they can.

We know, from the bible, that what these ?alternate? groups think about this life is chock full of sin — but unfortunately the church has taken a bad stance when it comes to God’s POV. We’ve eliminated many people before they’ve had a chance to change their minds. And at the same time the Father of all light is losing HIS beloved children, while we are erroneously operating on the idea that their sin is worse than ours!  Um…even liars end up in the lake of fire! And yes, fibs count – even well intentioned ones.

Everybody’s sin has been paid for.…including Hitler’s and sexual deviants, and let us remember that Jesus Christ overpaid! Read the book. We are concentrating on the wrong bit – other people’s sins, not the people themselves. I know that some churches welcome all sorts of nasty things from the pit, yet others would never let that sort of person darken their doors. And they wear that attitude with misguided pride.

We cling to bits of the scripture like they are our entire life-raft, when God has given us a whole book! And then we thump it over other people’s heads, because …”we know the truth and it has set us free …”  (Let’s please remember that we were not set free to be judgmental and unloving!) …God Himself is the truth that rules everything. The bible is not a private, or public opinion poll. It’s a book about God, and what He wants from His people.

There is room for ALL at the foot of the cross. Let’s at least give any outcasts an opportunity to find out!  God loves them as much as He loves us. We don’t have to become them to love them! In His eyes, there is no grading system to love. He loves us because HE IS LOVE. Who knows what an encounter with Jesus will do in someone else’s life? Pray for that!

But the lost cannot decide if we won’t allow them to find out there is another way to live. We are keeping our own faith supposedly safe at someone else’s cost. And pretty soon, those other people might be our own sons and daughters! Lot lived among people with deviant lifestyles and still maintained love.

We need to aim higher. Almighty God is bigger than I think He is! And He is bigger than my denomination thinks He is. And much much bigger than this world thinks He is!  Here’s the right attitude from Jude V 23: ” Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” Hate the sin, not the sinner … there’s more than one way to skin a cat! Bye.🐈.

P 2512 Who’s the Boss?

/ DVH

Part of the reason I think that most Christians have lost their free access to the power of God, is because we thought, or hoped, or maybe even prayed, that He would rubber stamp our grand ideas. I think we meant well … we were simply trying to advertise or showcase the goodness of God to those who didn’t believe. However, the power of God resides in every word that comes out of His mouth. Not our mouth – or even our head! If the Lord kisses an individual’s idea, then that person needs to start praising Him for His goodness toward them. He is under no obligation to do that. Even our faith comes from Him! 

God’s utterly kind consideration of mankind started in the garden. That’s where Eve came from – His kindness. After all, Almighty God was there with Adam in the cool of the evening, so he was not always alone!  Yet the Lord knew man needed someone who was the same, but different. God Himself saw and said:“It is not good for man to be alone …” Nothing is hidden from His sight, not even our needs. He is so good to us that He pays attention to every single detail. Which is why I am happy to say that if I don’t got it, then I don’t need it!

Read the bible carefully for yourself, and find somewhere where a man told God what to do, and how to do it, and it happened. “No one can tell God what to do or accuse Him of doing evil. He has always been praised for what He does; you also must praise Him.”Job 36:23-25. I found in my search for such a man, that Abraham bargained with God for Lot, and the city of Sodom and Gomorrah and God graciously listened. And Jonah was as cheeky as a man can get, but His attitude did not stop what God wanted to happen from happening – Nineveh was saved! And still God reasoned with that man. Moses ended up talking to Pharaoh even though he told God he couldn’t speak. The Lord let Aaron speak until Moses grew into the job! Our God can take a maladjusted man and make him into a great leader – He did that with Gideon. But with all these great men, Almighty God’s hand held them up!

The great Patriarchs in the Old Testament, knew enough to work with the Lord under His instructions. Moses knew the value of listening to Him and doing things the way God said. So much so, this great man refused to move forward without Him! These men, who had wisdom and understanding, as well as an established relationship with God, often learnt that kind of obedience by utterly messing up their lives first. Moses killed someone. Abraham treated Sarah like a bag of candy – he passed her around to save his life a number of times. Even Job learnt WHO is in charge the hard way. It is, I believe, an enormous error to think that we can organise God to do things our way.

Oh! If we could only enjoy what we have been given! He is a God unlike any other, Who watches over us, comes to live in us, came to earth to save us, and deeply cares about every single little detail in our lives. Independence is overrated! Total dependence upon the Spirit of the Living God is to be appropriated and cherished forever. Amen!

Sadly, submission is not a popular topic in this world – human beings are incredibly busy fighting for their own rights. Everybody  thinks if they yell loud enough and make a good enough logical case that things should change in their favour. I cannot imagine anything more frustrating or fruitless than going along banging into the Lord’s will, and getting up and doing it again! We show our ignorance and lack of maturity when we start to think that being saved means we are the boss now. WE do not have the omniscience and omnipotence of Almighty God – Who knows the end from the beginning … and all the bits in between.

Having said that: we can, and we should command the things of this world that are out of order to come into order – but that needs to be HIS order, not ours. I think that is why Jesus rebuked His disciples in Luke  “…  but the people there did not welcome Him, because He was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” *But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then He and His disciples went to another village.” Luke 9:53-56.

In another version it says that like this: *“Jesus turned about and rebuked them, saying, You know not what manner of spirit you are of. The Son of man has not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” It is plain from reading the book that we cannot be trusted with that kind of power. Mostly, because we don’t know if we are in the Spirit or not, half the time! Yet those men watched, walked, slept and ate, for three and a half years with Jesus Christ, God’s Son. And they still said and did the dumbest things!! Using our own understanding got us into this mess in the first place. The most blessed place to live is the place of freely submitting to His will. Like I said: Independence is overrated!

Who is the boss? Here’s a verse to think about:“Why do you call Me LORD, and you don’t do the things I say?”

Luke 6:46. 👋🏻

P 2339 Christians have a different normal, it is not ‘of’ this world.

/ DVH

My intention is to put an exclamation mark on what I wrote yesterday. Luke 17:26-33:“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.

“It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the housetop, with possessions inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything.  Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it. “

Yesterday, I spoke about this scripture briefly and I felt the Lord tell me to go back, and look at it further. What He said to me was this: “Did you see that?” Of course I hadn’t. I can’t see this kind of stuff until He helps me by opening my eye to what He’s thinking. 

He said this: “THEIR LIVES were going on from day to day NORMALLY, when the sky literally fell for Noah and his family, and Lot and Co!” Then the Holy Spirit asked me this question – “What do people do when their lives are violently interrupted?” 

My answer for myself was I probably hit despair and then panic! So, I asked for His help and I began think about what human beings see as ‘normal.’ Those things we sometimes valiantly seek after, are actually poor preparation for the extraordinary situations that really do occur in this life. Yet I can see that most people strive, and pay a great deal of their attention to the status quo, trying hard to fit in – or find it – and live in it. Fitting into what this world calls normal. 

It is almost as if superstitiously, we are scared of and avoid thinking about bad things and contemplating their existence.  But they actually happen anyway … without our permission. It seems to me that as difficulties occur regularly, it is careless not to prepare our hearts, with practice, by meditating on what HE says and renewing our minds. We need a substantial spiritual root system to give us severe storm strength. We get that from our confidence in HIM, using our faith, and applying His Word. He is always ready to help us.

We buy insurance for our cars, houses, lives, and the future etc. and yet we remain vastly ignorant or experienced with, those things that are eternal. Those things that cannot be moved or shaken, because their roots are in our Almighty Immovable, ever-present God, Maker of heaven and earth. We need a deep confidence and experience with His involvement in our lives. We need to know personally, first-hand what He thinks.

Otherwise we end up gauging His care for us, by answered, or seemingly not-answered prayer!  Normal is never our aim – ushering His kingdom into our current situation and surroundings is! To do that we need to be very personally well acquainted with what our King did, or will do, no matter what else is going on.  And when we are hard pressed we need to learn to lean on Him. Always remembering that – His kingdom gives out of poverty, it loves from lack, it tenderly engages others despite personal feelings and proclivities.

Secondly we need to stop aligning ourselves with who this world says we are meant to be, and allow Him, and trust Him to take us step by step into our eternal destiny.  He knows the way through … anything! As it says in Psalm 23 we will be led by the Shepherd through the valley of the shadow of death. In order to be properly led, we need to know and trust the leader.

Noah and Lot were confronted with horrendously difficult circumstances, BUT their societies were not unlike ours. Yet they each had a relationship with God to fall back on. What we need to fall back on to sustain us through trials is our personal irrefutable knowledge of Him. Otherwise we will let this world’s scenarios be painted on our hearts, and default into fear.  We must see difficult things as opportunities to deepen our faith. Psalm 34:19 says: “Disciples so often get into trouble;  still, God is there every time.” 👋🏻