love story

P 2965 We owe Him our choices.

/ DVH

I want to be perfectly clear today. The Lord Jesus was tormented about the cross – even though He knew it was His Father’s will for His life and it would benefit mankind – He had to make a hard choice. He prayed for hours that the cup that He knew He would have to drink on our behalf, would be taken from Him. And at the same time, He shed blood thinking about the ramifications of what He was about to do! He became sin, for us.

Let’s just try to imagine what it would be like if every single one of your motivations were pure, right, and just — and you were living to benefit others, but you had to live amongst men and women who had embraced a strict religious regime. Love is the only vehicle that will reach them. They are locked into systems that cause them to strive and worry and lie. Yet Jesus knew His Father’s aim and the ongoing love story between God and mankind. He knew His Father’s heart toward us. So He chose to come here, He chose to live here, and He chose to die, here.

Now He is asking you and I to do the same thing, to make hard choices and choose His Father’s Ways over our own. So the next time the Lord says to us;  ‘forgive this or that person’ we need to remember that He is not doing that from an uninformed, inexperienced place. HE KNOWS the cost of forgiveness because He paid it all. That’s why He sent us the very best HELPER — the Precious Holy Spirit. 

Jesus could never be called ill-informed, or uncaring about mankind’s daily difficulties. That’s why the Heavenly Father sent Him here, to us, in an unheard-of tiny village, as an infant. Oh how I wish we would study the Lord’s attitude toward sinners more — He was a Friend to sinners. He loved to restore people, body, soul and spirit. Right now there are people in your life who keep saying spiritual things you would rather not hear … they keep saying this stuff because they ARE your friends.They have learnt there is better way to live. Jesus Christ hated religion, not people. 

Religion robs people of their God-given birthright to be God’s Sons and Daughters. The Lord Jesus was lovingly, passionately loyal to His Father, and He knew His Heavenly Father was being misrepresented by a system that burdened people. “The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, NOT DESIRING THAT ANY should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.”2 Peter 3:9. Amazingly, Almighty God can do something we can barely understand  – He can love the sinner and hate the sin.

Unfortunately, if we choose to live in satan’s camp from day to day, indulging our own selfishness, then the other guy has a legal right to push us around. But fortunately!! … We have the best Saviour, and the most informed, pure and brilliant Lawyer/Advocate that there ever was, to represent each of us before God Himself. Jesus Christ is God’s righteousness personified. He is our example. We also have examples of the way our God deals with all kinds of people in the bible. The Old Testament is not just a group of stories about how other people who lived long long ago — we need to watch how God Himself perseveres and is long-suffering toward them. He is not a God Who stands a long way off – He came here in Person to reveal His heart to us!

This is why our day-to-day choices matter. The Holy Spirit Himself wants to walk you and I through each part of our personal transformation, daily, until we shine with the light of God saturating our very beings. From the inside out! We must stop thinking of choices as something that are meant to appeal to us … and understand that as each choice is made … we will die a little. That’s the aim! This is why the Apostle Paul said: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21. And he also said …”I assure you, believers, by the pride which I have in you in [your union with] Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily [I face death and die to self].”

Jesus is not asking us to do something He did not do Himself. He is asking us to follow Him through the land of many choices into the solitary possibility of ONE CHOICE…. HIM. He’s looking for passionate dedication to His mission from His followers.Yes, He saved us, once and for all, but He saved us to serve Him, and serve others. I write this blog to exhort you and encourage you to remember that God is always on your side. In His heart He wants the very best for you. He wants to help you and I into the kind of transformation of character and spirit that we can only dream about.

This is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit back here to help us. He’s here, right now, with us, to help us make the kind of choices that will prosper our life spiritually. Instead, we are going to be made rich in the things that LAST. Forget physical prosperity … that stuff has to be protected and fought for … what the Holy Spirit gives us, He gives us for free. It’s free because we didn’t earn it or deserve it.  Because of what He did for us, we owe Him our choices. Bye. 👋

P 2677 Looking for the good.

/ DVH

“Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.”1 Corinthians 13:7TPT. I highly recommend speaking life into whatever you can see that is good, and of God in other people. It is God-honouring to tell the people we know, what’s good about them. So today, I wanted to follow up yesterdays’ blog with something positive we can hopefully all do.

I am not talking about flattery. I believe we need speak real things, positive things, things that will help others feel encouraged and loved. You can be used by God to create a safe verbal shelter for the people you care about — and who doesn’t need that?! Flattery is also deceitful. It can’t build anything because it has a rotten foundation. Often the motivation behind flattery is to gain advantage over someone else.

I love this verse from Song of Songs 4:7: “You are altogether beautiful, my darling;  there is no flaw in you.” Oh, the things the Lord says! This whole book is about a love story and worth reading just from that POV. The bride/beloved in it, is not flawless, the Shepherd is talking about the way he sees her. On the other hand, unfortunately, the Shulamite woman can see her flaws clearly. Some of them are even physical, but the Shepherd sees so much more than she can see. When we look through LOVE we can see so much more. It is interesting to note that if we have a physical flaw, sometimes we cannot see beyond it.

The Lord rebuked me recently about the way I view myself and He said something that was so accurate I laughed out loud. It seems I avoid mirrors. If there is one in the room I look away from it, or even down. Apparently, I am ashamed of the way I look … so … I don’t look at me unless I have to! This attitude shows me a place inside, where I need His loving, caring touch. I know I need to let His Love into my mind and heart, or I will just pass that shame on to someone else in my own speech. 

The way the Shepherd in this book speaks to his bride, as well as about her, is a wonderful example of love building the other person up! Song of Songs is a fantastic illustration of the power of words to transform a life and develop LOVE. The Shepherd’s love spoken out, freely deposits that quality into the Shulamite’s life, and she does the same for him. That love transforms everything it touches.

This principle, prompted by the Holy Spirit, and activated in our own lives, can empower someone else to be bigger and more positive than they are. The other person discovers life is not about outward looks, or talents, it is about loving and being loved. In my opinion, there is a whole other person inside most of us, just waiting to come out. But we’ve learnt early on in our lives that freely expressing ourselves, and being ourselves, led to disapproval – so we quit.

Christians have the capacity and the power to speak life – Jesus died to give that to us. His truth was always tempered with mercy and hope. Everything He said contained within it the power to bring about transformation and security in love. BTW, I’m not talking about being fake, rather, ask the Lord to show you accurate things to say that encourage other people to see themselves through your eyes. This involves taking note of things that are often not easily seen. We glorify God when we notice His Ways in others.

The amazing thing is, you and I don’t have to be perfectly healed and totally whole to live this way. And the even greater bonus is that speaking out life actually increases our own faith. It takes faith to speak out kindness and love when what you are receiving from that person is anger, apathy or indifference. People don’t have to yell at you for you to know they are suspicious of you and your motivations – you can kind of guess….

Lastly I would like to include a short word of warning from 1 Corinthians 3:16: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” If I use my words to destroy you and I don’t repent for what I’ve done, I am actively cursing you. I am destroying God’s house! Not to mention the harmony that is meant to exist within that house!  Words matter. They are more than a means to communicate, they are the building blocks that open a way to build a place for God Himself to live in!

I exhort you to start praying the Lord will show something good, upright and beautiful about someone who inhabits your world. At home, at work, in your church. Let’s begin to look for the good in others and tell them. Bye. 👋

P 2567 He did it for LOVE!

/ DVH

Almighty God was never ever going to be content with lip-service and form – His love is way too relentless and all-encompassing for that! His desire is to have a real relationship with each one of us. To our astonishment, now we have discovered what He did to make that happen… And we stand by in awe and wonder about the God Who came to earth by His own choice, to pay for our sins, misunderstandings and lack of comprehension! And He did what He did personally … Jesus Christ died for LOVE’s sake.

Every single human being ever conceived and/or born, has been and will be known, cherished and loved by our God. Try standing in front of a mirror and telling yourself that regularly – it will do you good!  Today is about how far the great and Almighty God of our Universe and beyond, was prepared to go – in order to set us free from the sinful things we’ve chosen. We have all made ourselves captive to our enemy in one way or another. But our Father did what He did, so we would be free to comprehend and partake of what He has given us – at great personal cost to Him.

In order to understand God’s Love for us, we need to comprehend the lengths that His love went to – to rescue even the vilest sinner. Love is not a sentiment, it is an action. It looks like something we can see, read, feel, hear, touch and experience.  Love sacrifices even itself, in its relentless quest to restore the recipient of that love. It is utterly selfless. It is not kissy kissy love hearts, chocolates and lots of flowers! It looks like a bloodied and badly beaten, deeply maligned, and unrecognisable Human Being, Who allowed mankind to take out our murderous spite, hatred, rage and anger on Him. Those men who whipped and tormented the Lord were demonically inspired — yet they were still part of God’s plan, and His love was available to them too. 

Personally, I’ve learnt first-hand how shallow my love for God can be, I’ve had my theories tested and I found out I was definitely capable of loving me, more than HIM! Those Roman soldiers were exactly like US – even though we weren’t there in person. Nobody knows what they will do until they are tested. Christ was tempted, tested and yet He completed what He came to do. You know, you and I were in that crowd yelling abuse at the Lord, or turning our heads away, as surely as we were born back then. We’ve all sinned. We are not even remotely like our dear Saviour, Who gave up everything for us. We need help. And Help … came! 

In our minds and thoughts, what happened at Calvary does not seem like it is love – that’s because we do not define love rightly! We cannot afford to define LOVE for ourselves – when we do that we will end up indulging or even excusing ourselves. God’s idea of love does not look like our idea of it. He tells us about Himself in Isaiah 55:8-9. “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

In our own personal lives, we want to be, and sometimes even choose to be – the heroes in our own little stories. But, in the new life that HE gave us, we are daily, minute by minute, challenged to change our minds, by renewing them — so that GOD Himself becomes the Hero in ALL our stories. The Father God, the Son, the Holy Spirit and everything They did together for each one of us on that cross, is our uniting force. Their love for us – unites us. No matter who we are or what we’ve done… WE.ARE.LOVED.

I know I have said this about a kajillion times, but our task now is to observe, learn, and absorb the way our God thinks, into our own personal lives until it becomes the way WE think. And we have a bible with 66 books in it, to help us. It details the way that God Himself interacts with other people in their own lives. It teaches us clearly what love actually looks like. It looks like sacrifice.

The bible showcases our Father’s thoughts toward mankind. His thoughts are always for us, reaching toward us. Here’s a little bit of what I have observed. He doesn’t treat any two people the same way. Our uniqueness is not a liability. To Almighty God each human being is the pearl He sacrificed everything precious to Him, so we can be His. The Bible is a LOVE STORY!  And we need to be transformed into a Worthy Bride for His dear Son – Who gave up everything for us. Our Bridegroom is oh! – so worthy of all our love and gratitude.  

OUR HEAVENLY FATHER WANTS US TO BE JOINED WITH CHRIST AND SHARE HIS LEGACY. We have a family inheritance – it is not gold, silver or precious gems  … our inheritance is the ability to love others the way Christ loved us. Loving others so deeply our self involvement fades away. Bless you today, as you press on toward that mark. 🕊️ 🙌