Love

P 3135 Baptism.

/ DVH

Baptism is not only an outward sign of an inward heart response – it is a sign to the whole world that we are choosing to change our allegiance. Now, we live for Jesus! The act of baptism is making a statement that we want to die to this old life, and enter into His new life and live in God’s kingdom! Baptism shows us, and everyone else, that the person who used to live their lives doing precisely what they wanted, whenever they wanted to do it, is gone. Now, we have chosen to live under our King’s reign. We live this life, His Way. 

It means that person being baptised has deliberately chosen to die to our earthly ambitions and talents and proclivities and leave them behind. Those things are not gone, they may come back and jump up and down and demand that we pay them some sort of attention – but baptism is the pivotal point where we die to our old responses. Now we live for Jesus, and we respond with obedience and Love – just like He did. Baptism is a symbolic act that now we want what He wants.

“We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death? We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we will certainly also be united with Him in a resurrection like His. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him.”Romans 6:2-8.

The difficulty I’ve often encountered, when studying books like Romans, is that sometimes the old fashioned language gets in the way of my perception of the truth. Some of the words are big and cumbersome and not many people use words like these in today’s society! I found, if I am not watching out, that I have a tendency to skip over the hard bits, instead of giving them prayerful thought. The Holy Spirit loves it when we ask Him for His help. I ask Him all the time. The truth is, I could not write this blog without Him.

Baptism is a statement of intent. It is not a ritual, or a religious routine – it is an action noted in heaven. Jesus was baptised! I think that the Lord did it as part of His identification with us, but, I’m no bible scholar. It is not like joining a club, it is more like moving from one country to another. Renouncing your former previous loyalty and affiliation to your country of origin, and declaring your allegiance to a new one and then standing by that choice. We literally move kingdoms – forever – when we choose to be baptised. 

It is a serious choice. And I think many times people don’t understand the spiritual implication of that physical activity. For some people it is experiential, like moving from darkness into light, and others don’t feel anything but they simply obey. Like Jesus said to Thomas, ‘blessed are those who don’t feel a thing and obey anyway!’ (That’s my slant on that story!) 

Years ago when I chose to be baptised, nobody took the time to explain to me what happened to you spiritually, when you chose to let somebody half-drown you! I was not told the life-changing spiritual implications of baptism. They are huge. The person being baptised is publicly declaring their allegiance to Jesus, and they choose to illustrate that decision with this action. The next step is to go on from there living out what they just symbolically did. They are literally moving from death into life, by their own choices, in front of our eyes. It is a solemn statement of intent. This is where they have chosen to die for Jesus’ sake and now live for Him.

Sadly nobody talked about living by faith back in the ark, only ‘special people’ lived like that. We talked about physical things like healing and money. The favourite subject for discussing was speaking in tongues, being baptised in the Holy Spirit, spiritual gifts and miracles.They are my favourite subjects too! But understanding what was going to happen the moment I went under that water was not explained – except in religious language.. I did not know I was telling everyone I was choosing to die to self from now on!

That in effect, I would need to die over and over gain, every single time my will and the Lord’s collided! When we take our sin to the cross and ask the Lord to wash us clean, we are actively participating in the well-being of our spiritual life. Like many things in Christianity, It is a symbolic act, followed up by physical, emotional, and spiritual implications for change. So is baptism.

To be truthful I cannot recall anyone telling me that my salvation was something I had to live out as an inner and outer lifestyle, with the Holy Spirit’s help. That living like this would cost me daily, sometimes minute by minute. Particularly whenever I want to grump at my dear hubby! However, the Lord and my husband (!) are both so patient with me, and the Holy Spirit keeps me pressing in to know Jesus better. 

Baptism, as I said before, is a declaration of intent. It isn’t just about getting things right, and cleaning up your act, it is about choosing the same road Jesus chose. A road of voluntary self-sacrifice and contentment in God alone. Bye. 👋

P 3134 The best response.

/ DVH

Our justification before Almighty God is based entirely on what Jesus did for us. He came to earth, totally identified with mankind, and chose to die in our place. That fact continually amazes me …. What amazing love! What an incredible exchange! 🙌 The Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit have such a passionate love for humanity, wherever we are, no matter what we have done. Always remember, Jesus knows how hard this life can be. Because of what He did for us, now we are DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, dead! All dead – so we live like we are DEAD!

The blood of Jesus washes away every single bit of our ugliness, carelessness, spite, anger, rage and wanting what we know we cannot have. Now, because of the freedom from fear of reprisal, and the power of God given to us to live like Jesus did – it’s time to put this AWAY world’s junk and LIVE for Him. God is no longer angry with mankind – all His anger was spent on Jesus. Now let’s ask some questions: what are we doing with what our Saviour DIED to give us? Do we squander it by living this life doing whatever we want to do? Or pay Him lip service on Sundays, while we live for ourselves Monday through to Saturday? What should our response be? Romans 5:1-6,8-11,16b, has the answer: 

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us. 

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… … But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation… … The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.”

Have you ever told a lie, thought an unclean thought, or wanted to seriously hurt someone else – even in your head? God calls that, and many many other things, sin. In His kingdom, that which is not LOVE is SIN! Instead of all of us facing punishment, Father God chose to give us the opportunity and power to live this life glorifying the One Who gave us so much. Jesus is with us in Person, day by day. 

Thank God, our ignorance or rebellion, has not cancelled out the magnitude of what was done on our behalf. The Lord Jesus made us right with Almighty God, and it cost Him everything this world had to offer, to do it for us. He paid our outstanding debt! A legal contract that eliminated what we owed forever, washed clean in His blood. Before we knew Him, we had no inkling of need, or even the personal power to gain that kind of incredible favour for ourselves. We’ve been tainted by sin since the moment we were born – even the sin of our forefathers still haunts us. His LOVE toward us, is the reason we are compelled into action.

After Jesus Christ died He went to hell and He defeated death. It had a legal right to claim all of us. He went there for us, as our proxy, the One Who chose to face satan in our place. But hell could not keep Him there because satan could not find one reason to punish the sinless, spotless Lamb of God! He had no legal reason to accuse Jesus. our enemy had to let the Lord go, because Jesus never sinned, in thought, word or deed. Everything He ever did, said, or thought, was done from Love’s motivation..

He took away every legal right satan had to torment mankind forever … and then …Holiness entered the halls of hell! Now satan cannot keep anyone there who has given their life to the Lord because he has no legal ground to stand on. Faith in what was done on our behalf is our only response. We’ve sinned, but SomeOne Else overpaid the bill for us and satan has been legally tied up. he has no recourse – except to deceive us into thinking we don’t qualify …or torture us with past sins … or get us to totally focus on getting what we want in this life. When we call upon the Name of Jesus to save us, we move from this world’s kingdom into God the Father’s kingdom. Our faith in what Christ did justifies us, gives us His peace, and releases God’s grace to live this life the way Jesus Himself would. 

We no longer belong to this world. We have an allegiance, a loyalty to the One Who paid it all to save us from ourselves. So much grace was released by what Christ did, that the power of sin over us has been broken, forever! No matter how we feel, or whatever temptation crosses our path, we don’t have to live that old life anymore. Daily we choose to live, by faith, in His kingdom where LOVE has all the power. We live  voluntarily, giving away that love, for His sake. When we choose to step away from sin, or accepting its premises, we find that now we have the power to defeat it. That’s the very best response! Bye. 👋.

“We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Romans 6:2b.

P 3133 Confusion occurs.

/ DVH

When I was much younger in the Lord we used to sing a song that went like this: “I’ve found a new way of living, I’ve found a new life divine, I’ve got the fruit of the Spirit, I’m abiding, I’m abiding, abiding in the Vine.” The trouble was we had the theory… but we weren’t changed and we didn’t produce the fruit. In the end up we kind of doubted Almighty God because nothing happened no matter how sincerely we sang it! Singing the song happily over and over again made no difference. Sadly we didn’t even wonder if that song needed our careful, attentive follow-up. 

So on we sailed, bubbling along thinking that saying it was as good as doing it, and many wonderful people fell right off the Vine, malformed and undernourished, because singing a song probably won’t change anyone’s rotten attitude. Please don’t get me wrong, I think that song is a gorgeous statement about a wonderful reality – the trouble was my generation never did get to the reality! 

Meanwhile we were still privately and secretly, grumbling at, gossiping about – our spouses, kids, Christian friends, rabbits and relations and our neighbours! Everybody chose to forget that –“out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Which means if that stuff is coming out, then it is IN THERE. And yes, I don’t much like that idea either.

There is nothing wrong with singing songs like the one above – but it is our hearts that need transformation, not the worship lists! Worshipping and praising God in song is brilliant – do it! Sing to yourself in the shower or the car. The bible says this: “Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life.Drink the Spirit of God, huge drafts of Him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.” Ephesians 5:18.  

Start by drinking in the Spirit of God, as you step out to obey Him. How many countless times has God’s great MERCY stopped us from overstepping ourselves? Praise Him! But we still need to revise any methodology that supports fake attitudes and responses, and get busy dealing with our own internal issues.

“Beloved ones, God has called us to live a life of freedom. But don’t view this wonderful freedom as an excuse to set up a base of operations in the natural realm. Constantly love each other and be committed to serve one another. For all the law can be summarised in one grand statement: “Demonstrate love to your neighbour, even as you care for and love yourself.” But if you continue to criticise and come against each other over minor issues, you’re acting like wild beasts trying to destroy one another!” Galatians 5:13-15 TPT.

When awful thoughts fly through my mind, I need to grab God’s butterfly net (the Word) on purpose! And capture the junk, then transform it by doing whatever He tells me to do. The reality is, what He says is current, not something I just cherry-picked out of the book to suit my feelings. I remember the Lord speaking to me about my nasty attitude toward one of my parents, I called it defending myself, however, God called it disobedience!

He has clearly told us in His book, to honour our parents that it may be well with us. I’m pretty sure complaining about them to everyone within earshot doesn’t qualify! Instead of spending my time thinking how to avoid family members who drove me bonkers, I had to pray that He will show me how to obey Him and bless them… “bless those who persecute you and despitefully use you …”  We don’t have to deny the injury someone does to us, we simply need to choose a different response. That’s what love does.

That’s when He told me this person’s love language was time spent with them … and I needed to give them time… which was the very thing I didn’t want to do!  It took me ages to realise that doing it, didn’t mean I had to love it! God could care two cents about our feelings, they change on the wind. I cannot praise the Lord enough for taking the time to deal with me over issues like this one.

I had no guarantee any time I went to see this person that they wouldn’t stab my bleeding heart all over again whenever I saw them. But again, the Lord showed me something else that helped me. This person had no idea, not a thought in their elderly head that they were hurting me. They were simply manipulating situations to get what they wanted. It wasn’t personal!

We need these kinds of revelations for the people around us who drive us up a wall. Humanly speaking, we are not equipped to deal with massive abuse or rejection, and so we retreat or lash out. There’s another way. We need to remind ourselves that if what we read or sing does not lead us into action, we are wasting our time. Confusion occurs when we just sing or say things, we need to act on what He has told us in His book. Bye. 👋 

PS. Singing helps lifts our spirits so we can obey Him willingly.

P 3129 Is God trustworthy?

/ DVH

We can all face issues that seem to be impossible. Today I want to look at those impossibilities from the best possible place. Is Almighty God trustworthy and reliable? He sees impossibility as an opportunity to show us His faithfulness, mercy and love, so we can’t afford to doubt what He has said on the basis of unanswered prayer. 

Romans 4:18-25.“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, BUT ALSO FOR US, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in Him Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

Abraham’s walk with God, is an illustration that shows us that God can do anything – human reasoning need not apply! This man faced his own inadequacy, and he saw with his own eyes what God told him was going to happen. It was a no contest situation. However, this Godly example for us looked past what he knew human beings could do, to the God Who can and will do anything!  His faith was in God, Who told him they would have a son. 

He gave Almighty God glory for what He had promised to do, be-fo-re He did it. We can get stuck on what we call reality, or reason, if we only look at these senior citizens on the old-aged pension having a child, and miss the entire point. God gave that man what He has promised to give each one of us who choose to follow Jesus – Christ’s righteousness. We have Jesus’ position of favour before the Lord. But we need to remember, the bible says Jesus did not ever take advantage of that favour. 

The birth of Isaac was secondary. The Lord showed us through Abraham our right-standing(righteousness)  with God is free and not earned! Abraham looked at the One Who told him it would happen and believed Him — before the event.  His faith in God’s ability to do what He said He would do, gave Him righteousness with God, and made this man ‘the father of the same sort of faith we have.’  Almighty God initiated what happened — Abraham responded with faith in the One Who spoke to Him — and God was generous. Faith believes we are righteous even when it seems like everything around us  is screaming that’s not possible. My faith is in what Christ did.

Abraham is not just an example of faith in action, he lived in a position of being right with God long before Jesus came to die for us, and God gave that to him – just like He gave it to us. Our hopes can’t afford to be in the answer to our prayers – they are in the Person we ask! Jesus is God’s Answer to mankind’s prayers and when He died He gave us God’s favour, for free. No matter how impossible things seem – our God is trustworthy. Any promise that He gives us is wonderful, but the Character of the One Who gives us that promise is everything. Steadfastly keeping our faith firmly in Him, Who He is – despite any obvious difficulties – is our real promise. 

Never doubt the Lord’s miraculous intervention on our behalf, even if we have been a bit of a dummy and gone the wrong way and chaos resulted. Abraham did! Pray and then hand the mess over to God, and leave it with Him. Follow His instructions, and start to praise God for giving us Christ. Our redemption does not hinge on our behaviour. It hinges on what Jesus did. Everything depends on what we are focussed on, the outcome, or the Person Who provides the outcome. One fosters ‘results’ thinking and the other relationship.

God gave us His Word that we now have Jesus’ righteousness. Now we need to believe that God is good and trustworthy and He will keep His word. Our faith rests on God’s Character and His Word, not in our current circumstances changing. Our faith will stay strong when we put it in Who He is, rather than the answer to our prayers. Father God gave Abraham His Word, and He kept it, but there was a long stretch of time between those two things. But, Abraham’s strong faith in God’s Character led to him being called righteous with God before Jesus ever arrived. Protect your faith it is your most valuable gift from God.

Heartache happens when we presume, or rush ahead and try to get our own answer – like Abraham. Wait for Him. God tells us that He will take care of us from the cradle to the grave, and we need to believe Him. Even if bad things happen to us in our lives or the roof falls in. Do I believe He keeps His Word? Is He good? Is He faithful and true and reliable? Sometimes we can have more faith in the results of our prayers, than we do in the God Who gave us all these promises in the first place!  We need to hold fast to our belief in Him, and His goodness.

One word of caution, it is not wise to use our own enthusiasm to prop up what you know about Him and yourself. We can be led astray by our own passions. (James) Our righteousness before Him, is a gift given to us by Jesus. Cherish it. But hold fast to the fact that He is trustworthy and reliable because that is a greater blessing. Deal with anything that might try to destroy that. Bye. 👋

P 3124 Accessing His power to change.

/ DVH

Each one of us needs to choose to grab hold of the power Jesus died to give us to change the way we live in this world. It is always available. We do that by using our faith that what Almighty God has said in His book, the bible, is true. I will not lie to you – living like this is costly at first. We have to give up our right of reply, self-defence, or vindication and trust God Himself to vindicate us. And that whole scene usually happens when you feel extremely provoked and you want to zap a zinger back at the other person! 

But we have to choose to be finished with our old life when we said yes to Jesus. Then we choose to enter this new life to learn how to walk by faith. Sometimes by taking baby steps, or by making big strides. Almighty God loves faith. “…It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that He exists and that He cares enough to respond to those who seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6b MSG.

Here’s an illustration that might help make this ‘faith’ thing clear. Let us say, I have $1000 in the bank, I can’t see that money, it’s just a number on a bank statement. It won’t become viable until I use it, or collect it. I can even  give you $500 of that thousand dollars, and no physical money needs to change hands. All that will happen is that the numbers being recorded will change on both sides – yours and mine. I’ll now have $500 and so will you. With regard to using our faith – the power for transformation Jesus gave us is limitless, it cannot and will not run out until time itself ceases.

Back to my illustration. For you to get the money I’ve given you, you will have to spend it, or somehow use it, and you do that by using your faith that the money is actually there, even though nothing visible needs to change hands! Our God loves it when we use our faith – our belief that He is Who He says He is, and He Has done what He said He has done, is His pleasure. We can do whatever He says we can, it is all written on His bank statement in the New Testament and He has given it to us. When He says we can do it – then we can do it – feelings don’t come into it. We defer to the Holy Spirit’s goodness and wisdom:  then we obey and trust in the Person Who gave you His Word. 

The day we said ‘yes’ to Jesus, we were given Christ’s power to overcome. To use my illustration, that power was ‘deposited’ in our account. It came when the Holy Spirit convicted us and we responded with joy and repentance. While He was on earth, the Lord Jesus overcame sin, this world and the devil. Because of that He has imparted that power to us as His legacy. Just like someone might leave you money in their will – in Jesus’ will, we inherited many blessings including total transformation into His likeness!“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,…” Romans 14:17. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me…” Acts 1:8. Do some research for yourself in the book, and start obeying what you find. 

Even though we may not see anything or feel anything our inheritance is still there. It is a reality. Hebrews 8:12: “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”When Jesus took His own blood and poured it all over the heavenly Mercy seat, He washed away all our sins. and now God has no record of them. They are like a bill you’ve paid – stamped “PAID IN FULL” However, I may not feel any difference, because I’m still living in this world which is anti-God. Now I will have to take the Lord God Almighty at His Word. 

Everything we have been given comes from Calvary, and it was carefully written down in the bible, by the Holy Spirit. These things have been credited to our account, but we will need to access them by using our faith. We don’t need to make big one-off withdrawals, rather we can access the kingdom of God step by step as we ask for His help to obey Him, and then step out and act on what the bible says. That help is with us, right now, from the moment we gave our lives to Him. We began by using our faith and we continue by using it.

This means we can with His help – love the unlovely. We can, with His help …”do good to those who despitefully use us.”We can overcome personal sin, this world, and our enemy because Jesus gave us His power to do it. At the same time, each deliberate act of obedience transforms the way we think. Daily we use our faith to access the Holy Spirit, our personal Coach and Helper. As we learn to walk with Him using our faith, His Way of living becomes more and more natural to us. We’ve stopped looking for our own advantage and started doing what He wants. Jesus began our faith, and He always finishes what He starts!

One of the difficulties of this transformation is that faith is not feelings. It is a deliberately chosen act of obedience responding to what God has already said in His book! The feelings, if they come, come much later. Accessing His power to change our old ways of thinking, doing and being, will now become our new way to live. We live for whatever Jesus wants, and follow His ways. Bye. 👋

P 3123 God Has Set Things Right.

/ DVH

Romans 3:21-26: “But in our time something new has been added. What Moses and the prophets witnessed to all those years has happened. The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in Him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. 

Out of sheer generosity He put us in right standing with Himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where He always wanted us to be. And He did it by means of Jesus Christ. God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in Him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with Himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins He had so patiently endured. This is not only clear, but it’s now—this is current history! God sets things right. He also makes it possible for us to live in His rightness.”MSG.

There are times we need to read, and reread, about what Jesus voluntarily did for us, otherwise we can become a bit offhand and take for granted what we have been given – the incredible cost our sins incurred on Jesus. Gratitude is a powerful tool against presumption. Not the absent-minded “thank -you Jesus” kind, but the kind that stands in wonder at what actually had to happen so we could be restored into God’s family, forever.

Righteousness isn’t something to be glossed over, because it is an anchor point of what we believe. Sadly, we can often work extremely hard to explain away our sinful attitudes toward ourselves—and others. Day by day, we privately struggle with this bad attitude, that nasty temper, and an attitude of neglect toward loving others the way He loved us. Instead we hide those things behind a happy smile, and we try to modify our behaviour according to our own efforts, Christianity calls that works. But works don’t WORK! So today I just want to pause everything, and look at something we all think we know: but I believe we have yet to appropriate the glory of what we have been given. We haven’t paid it enough attention.

God has given me something of Himself that makes my relationship with Him, and YOU work. He gave us the same status in His eyes that He has given Jesus. This incredible blessing was here before I got here, and it will continue to change this world long after I leave it. The Lord wants us to enjoy that gift He has given us, every single day. It is a totally restored relationship with Himself. However, problems of perception crop up, and old attitudes and habits drag us away. We might even live this life aware of what we have been GIVEN—but we are utterly lousy at giving it away to other people when they have hurt us. Yet, OUR SIN KILLED CHRIST. That is the thing that balances out what they did! … “that which is not love, is SIN.’

This righteousness we’ve received is free, but it will not free us if we insist on grabbing hold of our neighbour, or spouse, and demanding they recompense us for their sins. Free is free. And like the unforgiving servant in the parable Jesus taught – we are happy to receive pardon, but not super excited about giving it to others. They hurt our feelings so they should PAY. This means we hold onto resentments, past hurts, and act accordingly toward the person who hurt us. We have cleverly constructed reasons for this deceitful behaviour – and we take polls with other people to make sure we have a consensus to say that our behaviour toward them is only natural, because of what happened to us. Other people’s actions should not interfere with our responses – we have been given the power to respond differently.

So we distance ourselves from others for our own protection. When we do that we negate Love’s power to overcome every obstacle. We are happy to be forgiven, but when something bad happens we misuse what has been given to us, to make ourselves feel comfortable. We inwardly declare the other person has now crossed the border into the land of “too much,” and they’ve nullified our need to give away something that was freely given to us. I just want to point out that the overriding premise of this gift is that we will always give it away whether the other person deserves to get it or not! It is an essential part of receiving righteousness, to give it away freely. We didn’t deserve it either! We don’t just receive righteousness we have to give away righteousness.

We can quite quickly rabbit-on about the power of God being sent to change our lives and the lives of everyone around us, but the truth is God cares more for action than He does hot-air. Saying this, and singing that won’t even remotely change us, unless we ask for His help to transform our selfish, self-centred mindsets that choose to withhold love from others. The truth is, we can be stinkers too, in some circumstances – and we don’t ever deserve His righteousness or forgiveness either. It was a gift.

When we move IN and OUT of the flow of His righteousness to satisfy our own agendas, we are postponing  opportunities to learn to love others the way He loves us. Then the desire to maintain a pious appearance begins to take over our efforts. Yet that is why righteousness and forgiveness were given to us freely in the first place  – so that His LOVE can prevail. Love is the language of His kingdom, and it can’t be faked, it must be learnt. This life isn’t just about ME being free, it is about ME setting YOU free no matter what you did. Our God has set things right, forever. Bye. 👋

P 3122 God sees.

/ DVH

In some places in the bible (Ezekiel and Revelation) all sorts of creatures are mentioned. They have eyes everywhere, in places we don’t even like to think about. To me this is a picture of the incredible depth of sight our Heavenly Father has – He sees ALL! Those creatures’ eyes mentioned in those books reflect Hebrews 4:13: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” Our Heavenly Father knows what is happening in your life right now, how hard it is for you.

Nothing is ever hidden from Him. And as we walk through this life toward complete wholeness and holiness in Christ – that thought should not make us afraid – it should turn our hearts to the Saviour. We need to remember what Colossians 3:3 says:“For [as far as this world is concerned] you have died, and your [new, real] life is hidden with Christ in God.” We don’t have to hide anything from Him when we choose to live our lives for Him. Let’s continually allow the Holy Spirit, to guide, correct and teach us His Ways, and continue to remain hidden by what Christ did for us. Because of what He has already done, we know that we can trust Him and His Word. 

This is why an intimate relationship with our Father is important. If we only give God importance in our lives according to our immediate needs, then we could eventually fall away. Because sooner or later our prayers will appear to be unanswered! Instead, let’s bow to the superior knowledge and sight, of the Great I AM. That knowledge is revealed in the bible. Our God sees everything, and He is a mighty JUST God – WHO LOVES US. If we sin, He already has an Advocate praying and pleading for us at His right hand. His own dear Son. Jesus is utterly trustworthy. He never held anything back from His Father in His entire earthly life, and He poured His life out for each one of us!

God’s measuring tools are not the same as ours. We cannot afford to use our own measuring stick, because we can end up deceiving ourselves with excuses … and blame. That’s why Christ came – to provide us with a Saviour Who has personal experience of His Father’s love. He showed us what obedience and humility looks like …and He had perfect confidence in His Father’s Word. On top of all that, He also had understanding about the pressures of this world! The Holy Spirit will reveal what is in our hearts to us, if we let Him. He knows everything. He gave us these scriptures and then lived them out in front of our eyes.

This why our bible reading needs to become more than just a cursory reading. We already know that it can become a diagnostic tool, and reveal to us our own hidden attitudes and actions. It also shows us the works He prepared for us to do, before we ever arrived here. Human beings like to fool themselves. We hide things, even from ourselves, because we don’t like to be wrong …instead we can end up blaming others.

Exhibit A … Genesis 3:12. Adam blamed GOD HIMSELF. “… the woman YOU gave me … ” Hiding ourselves from Him is foolish, and we are only fooling ourselves. We are like little children, who love to play hide and seek, they have no comprehension that the person who is seeking — is not really gone! God knows and sees exactly where we are and what is really going on.

In Ezekiel there is another example of what God knows and what man doesn’t. Most of us know this story so I will just give a brief overview today. The Holy Spirit whisked Ezekiel away in the spirit, to a valley filled with skeletons – dry bones. And then He talks to Ezekiel about them. These people are totally DEAD. The scene is a powerful picture of what life without Almighty God, and Jesus Himself looks like. Important people come and go in this life – famous ones, clever ones, but, in the end – we will all end up dry bones. But, because God sees and knows all, it doesn’t have to stop there!

The Spirit reveals to Ezekiel that valley of utter, permanent destruction, seemingly permanent oblivion. But God can see potential even in dry bones. He can raise up an army from a valley that has only known death for years!  Ezekiel 37:9.“Then Yahweh said to me, Prophesy to the breath. Yes, prophesy, son of man. Say to the breath, ‘Lord Yahweh says: Divine breath, come now from the four winds. Breathe on these lifeless bodies, so that they can live again.’The Holy Spirit asks Ezekiel a hard question in this chapter: “Can these bones live?” Verse 3. Ezekiel is no dummy — He gives a GREAT answer, filled with humility and hope! “…only YOU know Lord…” Then the Mighty Spirit of God commands the prophet to prophesy and command life to come back to those bones again!

I want to encourage everyone who has loved ones who-don’t-know-Jesus-yet — or loved ones who have wandered away — to be like Ezekiel — speak His life to the dry bones. God has given us the power to shift things that appear to be fixed. Sometimes situations like these, loom over us like huge mountains in our lives. But Jesus once said: ‘Speak to the mountain and tell it to move.’  The Lord once told the sea to be still! Prophesy to the Divine breath – the Holy Spirit. Let’s start praying for our friends and families: “Holy Spirit come. Breathe on these empty, lifeless bodies so that they know true life as His children, and become part of His army.”

God sees and knows what is happening around you. Sometimes instead of lying down under circumstances, we need to stand up and prophesy what God says: “And consider the example that Jesus, the Anointed One, has set before us. Let His mindset become your motivation.” Philippians 2:5 TPT. Amen. Bye 😘💨💨💨

P 3121 The kindness of God.

/ DVH

Almighty God’s kindness is not an open-door to live however we want … mainly because a lot of what the Lord says in the bible is definitely not lovey-dovey! That’s why I put that giant chunk of scripture on the page below today. Wherever we are reading – the gospels, or the Epistles, we can see that sin separates us from Him, other people, and His wisdom. However God didn’t wink at sin in the Old Testament either — His plan for mankind deliberately included permanent provision for dealing with it in the New! Our Saviour JESUS! Because the Lord is Who He is and He gave His all—He has an expectation that we will obey Him and trust Him. He sent us the Holy Spirit to guide us, and so He does not have to prove Himself, or His love, or His faithfulness! HE ALREADY DID.

Romans 2:1-7: “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, forbearance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed. God “will repay each person according to what they have done.” To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, He will give eternal life.”

His kindness is a pathway we must choose to acknowledge, and deliberately walk down, because it will lead us back to Him. After all, He is the One Who knows all things, believes all things, and hopes all things; especially when we focus on how much the Lord has been good to us… instead of our perceived injury or injustices. That’s when we begin to change our focus from what the other guy did—to what we have most likely done, because we’ve become aware of this blooming great log in our eye reminding us! His kindness  has already been released toward us, we don’t have to pray it down, it’s already here. Now we act on it using our faith. These actions only run into difficulties if we hate to admit we are wrong and we refuse to move on.

Hubby said something really insightful about that yesterday, it reminded me of Jesus’ illustration in Matthew 7:3-5. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” If we can see it then we have it too, and ours is probably worse than the other guy!

It isn’t the plank that obscures our vision … although it does! It’s the fact that we will go to great lengths to distract ourselves from dealing with our own sin – in spite of any immediate discomfort. We can easily identify what someone else has done because we’ve done it ourselves … that’s how we know what their splinter is! Have you ever had something in your eye? I don’t know about you, but the world stops for me until I get whatever it is out! I couldn’t possibly see, think or say anything, because that awful pain takes all my attention. Having something in our eye, is a no brainer … it makes itself known and it can’t be ignored. 

Sometimes that unacknowledged plank/log takes up so much of our focus and attention, that anything we think we can see in someone else’s eye, is totally immaterial – because we are in no actual shape to help them. Or even accuse them. The reality is we can’t can’t see anything properly because of our own unacknowledged pain and impaired sight. We have been blinded by a huge, sinful, judgmental attitude.

We can also get irritated because we can identify the splinter, but we simply don’t want to deal with our own plank! At that time we are definitely more likely to hurt the person who has a speck, simply because we can’t see properly! However, when we get rid of our own log, then we can help someone else with their smaller injury. And we will probably deal with things in a more kindly fashion, because the memory of our own pain is still fresh!!

When God tells us we have no excuse, we need to believe Him! That rebuke is His kindness in action, sent to lead us back to a position of humility and reconciliation with Him. However, our own pride will quite quickly make us fall over, and we can end up sitting on the floor wondering how we got there! Pride causes us to imagine that we can handle anything, because we sort-of kind-of, know it all. Sometimes we even barge into someone else’s life, acting like that we know  – when the reality is our plank means we can’t see it all! 

I don’t particularly care what anyone’s qualifications are… we have been told respect and love one another as a priority, and the Holy Spirit won’t take anyone else trying to do His work, lightly. He has a far sweeter, kinder touch than we can ever hope for. After He has dealt with us, we will be humble when we help someone else.

These things in the bible are not suggestions—the Lord Jesus Himself took the road of humility and look what He accomplished. We are privileged to watch the Expert handle this life in ways that may seem foreign to us, as we read the book! God’s kindness will lead us into repentance. Go after that. Bye. 👋

P 3120 Know what you believe.

/ DVH

“Christ’s resurrection is (y)OUR resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour, and authority!” Colossians 3:1 TPT. My first question—do you often during your day, reflect on what Jesus did for YOU? Are your thoughts on His kingdom, or yours? I thank Him when blessings come, and pray ‘help,’ when stuff is difficult. Whatever we mull over and meditate on influences our daily walk of faith. Don’t beat yourself up if you forget or overlook His new way to live. Just remember, that  faith, and our awareness of His love for us, will simply melt away IF we lose focus;  or we choose to live in the dark and pasty, unhealthy light of this world’s rejection, ideas, schemes and plans.

Meanwhile, even though we may not actually say – ”I choose this” – we can end up choosing to stew on bad stuff by default. A lack of a positive God-breathed choice will leave a vacuum that satan would be delighted to fill! That guy will get us going round and round and round:  worrying about this, thinking about how to fix that, and concentrating on the lacks we all have … Until we have wasted away our precious time. Time is a gift. And we don’t have to live that way anymore. Just as surely as Peter, (who was in prison at the time), looked up and saw his jail door open – and walked out a free man!  Our jail door is also OPEN. Look up!! Revise your circumstances. We need to walk out of sin’s prison using our faith. 

At the same time we can concentrate all our thoughts and efforts on dying to self, but in the end that will just make us SIN conscious. We want to be Him-conscious, so I pray He will reveal Himself to me during my day. We need to add to our life with Him, by seeing Him at work in our lives, not just concentrate on getting rid of our sin or adverse circumstances. Jesus Christ has already done that for us! Because God’s unrelenting, always available, never-ending kingdom power was released at Calvary – we can NOW live in this world absolutely devoted to Him.  He has a much better plan for your life and mine than either of us can imagine!

“For we know that our old self WAS crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—…” Romans 6:6. Sin, regret, anxiety does not have to be in charge of our lives anymore! Our minds, our emotions will help us when they are fixed on Him;  to do that is not difficult, we meditate on His never-ending love.  We can’t afford to give up our precious time stewing over former things, turn your worry into prayers of thanksgiving for Who He is and what He did for you.

Worry is a habit – habits can be changed. When we gave our lives to Jesus, we put Him in charge. And His response 2000+years ago, was to take our sin with Him to the cross and nail it there in HIS OWN BODY. The urge, desire, and the will to sin has been dealt with, we are now free to choose.“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live IN THE BODY, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20. 

That’s how we walk out our Promised land of becoming a new creation. I don’t ignore sin, or gloss it over, or pretend it didn’t happen, instead I acknowledge it on the spot, and repent and repair things. Why? There is incredible power in redemption! satan can’t make us do anything anymore because of what Jesus did for us. But unlike satan – the Lord will not coerce us or make us do anything. He loves our freely-made choices!!  We were not saved just so we can go to heaven and be with Him one day in the future… He saved us for here and now, today—from this world, the devil and ourselves —so we can live our earthly lives, like He would. 

It was a transaction. An exchange, His life, freely laid down, bought us a new way to live and the power to do it. It was the greatest LOVE GIFT EVER GIVEN. Our sin has been exchanged for His new life overflowing in us, we take on His obedience, His passionate desire to please His Father. It was not God’s plan just to kill off sin!… Instead, Christ defeated its power over mankind! Our Father’s plan was to give us back what Adam and Eve had in the garden … the greatest inheritance ever – Emmanuel, God-with-us. The freedom to choose what is good right and profitable, AND THE POWER TO DO IT.

Acts 1:8:“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”The Holy Spirit fell on mankind at Pentecost and HE DIDN’T LEAVE. He is still here, to help, counsel, transform, and motivate us into our new life in Christ. He didn’t give us  power just so we can raise the dead, heal the sick etc! Those blessings are a by-product of our redemption.We should all live like that. But that is not God’s primary AIM. 

The Holy Spirit came to help us, and live inside us, so we can live a victorious, overcoming life, in a world that is going to hell in a hand basket. The person I was 52 years ago, died the minute I asked Jesus to come into my life. That is also true for you. If you dearly love and want Him — He will be yours, forever. His love is so great He chose to die for the whole world, even those people who refuse to accept Him. Imagine that. We have been bought with an unbelievable price.

Daily, with His help, we identify and guerrilla fight all the stubborn stuff we’ve cultivated over the previous years before we met Him. Those things that keep pretending they have a hold over us. Now we can take God at His Word and believe Him. That’s how faith works. we refuse to listen to the so-called evidence that pops its ugly head up, and say to ourselves: “What does the Lord have to say about that? Is He REALLY like that?” satan can no longer use my history to define me – even if I did something extremely dumb yesterday! I have been redefined as alive in Christ. I urge you, take the time to know what you believe. Bye. 👋