Love

P 3037 Praying the bible.

/ DVH

Hubby shared the following verses with me the other day, and this morning I want to encourage you to use them for prayer – because that is the way he sent them to me. I am learning to do it when I can’t think what, or how to pray. It kind of ‘primes the pump’ so to speak. 

“Grant me to be strengthened with power through Your Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith as I encounter Him in Your Word. Root and ground me in His love, so I would have strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that I may be filled with all of Your fullness, O my God.’ Amen. Ephesians 3:16–19.

We need to know, that we absolutely know — that we are dearly, passionately, LOVED, by God Himself. It is not enough to just know that in our heads, we need to be rooted and grounded in that love spiritually. We must hold tight to that fact in the good times, and, in my way of thinking, especially in the bad ones! To be grounded in His love means it goes right down inside us, comprehensively covering every part of who we are. The bits that are seen and unseen.

Then it will flow out of us when we are squeezed tightly by this life. Lately at my house, that seems like practically every other day!  If I were attending baseball practice in the nets – the pitching machine has gone insane, and I keep getting bopped on the head by the multitude of random, erratic balls flying at me. Not fun. I want to yell: “Will somebody please turn that rotten thing off?” Stuff just keeps happening! Sometimes it seems like there is no time to take a breath. 

You know, a big dollop of curiosity is a valuable thing in this life. It helps me to step outside the same old same old routine and look at them differently.  I used to take things apart when I was a child. Fortunately they mostly still worked when I put them back together again, or I might have met the hand of great disapproval on my delicate rear end! 🤣

Once, when I was about 9 or10, I took apart a pair of pyjamas I particularly liked, and used the bits as templates to make another pair. I hand-sewed both pairs back together again and I had two pairs of pyjamas instead of one. They weren’t Chanel – but they worked! Another time I took a watch apart … but that’s a whole other story with a less happy ending. However the watch still worked! Curiosity is just part of my nature.

So, whenever I read the bible, that’s what comes out, and one of the first things I want to know is… “why.” There are times I also want to know …“what on earth were they thinking?!” Or even; “what does that mean?” Then the ‘game is afoot’ and off I go. The Lord points to something and I start researching this and that, fitting bits together like a big jigsaw puzzle.

Sometimes I suspect that In His great kindness He indulges me, because He knows I like that kind of chase. He just drops one word or a phrase into my heart and tells me to go look it up. Then I am off like that artificial bunny running round the greyhound track. My step-Dad liked to gamble, so I went to all sorts of interesting places I’d rather not talk about, when I was a kid. 

Moving on … Jesus helps me with the process.  He gives me the strength to get up and sit at the keyboard tapping away writing this blog. Some days it feels like I would rather be a contented carrot in His garden — not mindful of anything! Yet every single time, when I read His Word, things just leap off the page and off I go again. Meanwhile there are days when I get lost trying to accomplish the task, instead of just simply walking with the Holy Spirit. He is wonderful at helping. The moral of that story is ask for His help immediately!

When we pray the bible over ourselves, we are doing more than just reading it, and agreeing with it. We are acknowledging its power. This book is incredible. It has within it, the power to change our minds. I don’t know exactly when this happened to me, but after years of reading, praying and doing, now I find myself using the bible as the reference point for everything else! I bring absolutely everything up against what His book says and chuck anything out if it doesn’t fit. I didn’t set out to do it, BTW, I just left secular understanding behind somewhere back there, and now all I care about is: “What does Jesus say about that?” 

In the above verses, I particularly like the phrase:“so I would have strength to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that I may be filled with all of Your fullness…” Boy do I need that kind of strength. My comprehension of love is so limited by my life experiences. Have you ever noticed how our enemy likes to reinforce negative stuff? I’ve  become aware of a little kink in my thinking that just slightly colours everything so that I miss out on LOVE.  Yes, I’m praying about it!

You and I are in a race. Some of us aren’t as fit as we used to be, and some of us weren’t fit in the first place! I  understanding most word meanings, but the word love, the way it is used here, often escapes me. It’s bigger than I am. I have nothing to tie it into, no reference point. My own personal experiences of love have darkened its meaning for me. So I have to start with the fact that I need His help to even begin to understand the kind of love the Holy Spirit describes in the book! It is much too easy to revert to;  love means I get what I want. 

At those negative times I desperately need His power to understand what the Lord has freely given us. That’s why I pray the scriptures over me. Otherwise I can very easily get stuck in error, subscribing to the age-old system “if you do something wrong you will be punished.” Jesus was punished in our place and Almighty God paid an incredible price for us to know how very much we are loved individually and corporately. Wouldn’t it be incredibly sad, if we missed it because we don’t understand how anybody can be that loving, and care that much about us?

I want to encourage you today, to see the bible as a resource for your prayers. Especially for intangible things like love, joy, peace. Find a verse that says what you would like to say, and pray it for yourself. Bye.👋

P 3036 Upside down thinking.

/ DVH

Christians can have some upside-down thinking when it comes to the Lord. We inadvertently blame God for the bad things that happen to us. Or at other times we take the higher path and accept that we are being disciplined —without understanding what it really means. Our God will never leave us. Because He is holy, He wants us to share in His holiness. He tells us in Hebrews to look at Jesus, Who never doubted His Father for a second.

Hebrews 12:3-10: “Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart…… In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son?  My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when He rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and He chastens everyone He accepts as His son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness.”

We know that God loves us, because He disciplines us, and His discipline will always be for our good. He is encouraging us into His Way of Holiness. In other words – if we want to be holy like HE is, this is how you get it! We need to trust Him and learn to endure in the hard bits. That is not the same as gritting your teeth and waiting for the hard time to be over. Trusting Him and learning endurance happens, when we hold fast to His goodness, and His astonishing ability to work even terrible things together for our good. He is not mad with us, just because our little bit of this world has gone upside down. The reality is, we are birthing something of His kingdom into our lives that we cannot get any other way. When we respond in faith to difficulties and trials. Christians often gravitate far more toward things that inspire us, instead of things that challenge us.

We listen and observe through ears that filter things by whether it affects my life or not! Those things are anchored into the world of ME! My comfort, life, and my salvation. It all gets filtered through my perception of how spiritual things are meant to work. If I happen to like a certain biblical teacher, then that teacher also provides me with a part of that filter. When writers and speakers say things we like, we assimilate them into our theology. I absorb their revelations often without praying about it or searching out the matter for myself! It’s kind of a short-cut approach to growth. But we must also learn from the Holy Spirit, who speaks “ME” intimately.

Almighty God has an Eternal Language called Love. When He disciplines us, the bible says: He disciplines us because He loves us! That can seem like upside-down thinking!  In our way of thinking, when people love us, it means they are for us, and they wouldn’t dream of hurting us. It seems that our ideas of discipline today mean punishment, and they must not to be tolerated. That’s not true in the bible. Sometimes we don’t get the depth behind the Lord’s words. “God disciplines those HE LOVES.” In other words — His discipline in our lives, is one of the ways we know we are loved by Him! 

Now if you are like me that thought automatically leads to: “I wish you wouldn’t discipline me quite so much, thank you, Lord!”…B-u-t … I probably wouldn’t say that out loud. That’s because I am misreading the word discipline. The Lord wants to correct us with His eye on us. Our wonderful Father God is not just randomly walloping us when things get difficult or we do something we know we shouldn’t – He is showing us He loves us. We simply don’t understand His language. We need to move into maturity. Our Father’s aim is holiness, not just our comfort. His Love values intimacy with us above our idea of a happy life.

Father God has promised He will never leave us, even when things are terrible. He loves us so much He is leading us on into deeper things – so the next time something bad happens, we will have something concrete to stand on —  assurance of HIS LOVE!  God does not send the trouble but He will use it for our good. Jesus took all of our punishment on Himself, but we still need transformation. Embracing His holiness in our lives will totally change our perspective. Jesus was absolutely holy – but He didn’t float about with shiny gear on and a halo!  He showed us His holiness by only doing good from a pure heart – then He took the punishment that belongs to us. Yielding to God’s ways under fire, means we will not be burned, we will be spectators.

We must make it our aim to accept, and be blessed by God’s discipline, He is saying to each one of us:“You are Mine. I love you. Come up higher.” By all means, ask for trouble to be taken away! But if it remains, then God is doing something else. He is saying to you — “come closer, let’s talk.” That is not upside-down thinking, it’s thinking that has turned the right way up. Bye 👋

P 3035 What eternal love looks like.

/ DVH

“The mature children of God are those who are moved by the impulses of the Holy Spirit. And you did not receive the “spirit of religious duty,” leading you back into the fear of never being good enough. But you have received the “Spirit of full acceptance,” enfolding you into the family of God. And you will never feel orphaned, for as He rises up within us, our spirits join Him in saying the words of tender affection, “Beloved Father!” For the Holy Spirit makes God’s Fatherhood real to us as He whispers into our innermost being, “You are God’s beloved child!” And since we are His true children, we qualify to share all His treasures, for indeed, we are heirs of God Himself. And since we are joined to Christ, we also inherit all that He is and all that He has. We will experience being co-glorified with Him provided that we accept His sufferings as our own.” Romans 8:14-17 TPT.

These verses in Romans clearly show us the depth of God’s passion for humanity … we are His. Jesus died to remove every single barrier between us and Father God. It’s like Song of Solomon 2:16 says:“My beloved is mine and I am His…”  That fact is irrefutable and repeated over and over again, throughout the bible. When we give our hearts, minds and lives to Jesus, He accepts what we give Him – what a privilege that is! We can only do this because He made us worthy. Don’t be like Esau and let someone, or anything else steal your birthright.

We belong to our Heavenly Father – because of Christ’s death and the choices He made – not by our own feelings or circumstances. Often our circumstances are far from ideal! What Jesus did for us, the price Father God paid, is where our faith needs to be anchored – not in what goes on around us. He paid a high price to call you His! This earthly life, good or bad, does not change what He said — “You belong to Me and you are Mine.”

We were made ‘good enough’ because of what God Himself did, Jesus paid a debt we could never pay. “But when this priest (Jesus) had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool. For by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy, the bible says.” Hebrews 10:12-14. I like that last sentence, verse 14, very much. I am “…being made holy…” That means I ain’t there yet, and …neither are you. However, our imperfections are not the feature film here … His great love is! It would be such a shame to miss out on the main feature because we are distracted by the local news’ highlights!

Jesus did more than simply save us from our sins — it was an exchange. He gave us His holiness – His righteousness, His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. We simply need to take Him at His Word and act on that Word, daily. We’ve been reborn into His family. The fatherless now have a Father. The orphan has been adopted. In the meantime, we need to be about our Father’s business, too. 

There is a short-cut that will help us find out why we are here, and what we have been chosen to contribute for the Father’s kingdom. People want to find out what their “gifts” are – and the best way to do that is to choose to walk the Way of LOVE.  We deliberately choose to be guided by how Jesus defined love. His  Love lasts. It quite simply can’t run out, because now we have entered into the eternal! It doesn’t care if nobody sees it in action, it hopes for the best in every situation – no matter how negative the situation is. The good news is His Love can’t fail. Our gifts will be manifested when we walk in love.

Sometimes I get stuck in my thoughts about the Body of Christ. I look at Jesus’ Bride and I get puzzled about the way we are going. We do not look like a Bride Who is getting ready for a wedding. Instead we seem to be focussing on the here and now, and not on eternity – eternity is the marriage! We are now eternal beings. Let’s look forward to seeing our Bridegroom — even in the middle of all this stuff down here – the stuff is temporary, heaven is not!

When human beings love someone, our thoughts about them are all positive. However, our flesh cannot define God’s Love nor can we define our worth by our standards. The God of all the universe, Who loves His Son … and loves us –– let Jesus be mistreated, badly spoken about and slaughtered! That’s what eternal love looks like! Now we need to live in that greater reality. Right here, right now. These present light infirmities are nothing in the light of what He died to give us. It seems to me that sometimes we really don’t understand the magnitude of what we’ve been given.

We should never even entertain the thought of not-being-good-enough, even for a second … look at the price He paid to buy us all back! Jesus took our never-will-be-good-enough to the cross with Him …“…having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved…” Ephesians 1:5-7. We are dearly loved, and made good enough by SomeOne Else’s voluntary sacrifice – now we live this life receiving, rejoicing, and giving thanks for God’s lavish love. Bye 👋.

P 3034 Reparation.

/ DVH

“Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honourable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”Romans 12:17-21. This means we are doing something – I think of that as releasing Grace..

Jesus Himself warned us that: “A man’s enemies will be those of his own household.” Matthew 10:36. I pray that isn’t so for anyone reading this! However, making reparation or fixing things, has kind of fallen out of fashion within the church. I believe in it. It is not just about the other person, it is about what happens to you when you dismiss someone else’s pain, lightly. It is incredibly valuable to acknowledge our sin. Just because Jesus paid for our sins that does not mean we have nothing more to contribute. 

Because we value love, we need to take action, and He will help us to do it. However, the verse above makes it clear we can only do this when the other party is willing. But in order to know if they are willing, we will actually need to ask the person/s if there is something we can do to restore things! We need to tell them we want restoration. We have become – officially: ” …repairer(s) of broken walls, Restorer(s) of streets to live in.” Isaiah 58:12.

Here’s an example of how that works: “He (Jesus) entered Jericho and was passing through. And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. … … And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today…” So he came down at once and welcomed Him gladly.  All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”” …”Luke 19:1-10. 

That’s reparation. It flows out of a genuinely repentant heart. That’s why Jesus said what He said about Zacchaeus. This man clearly shows the turning around and going the other way, that repentance contains. For far too long we have contented ourselves with saying: “I’m sorry”… when perhaps a better response is: “Oh! I can see I hurt you. How can I fix this? How can I help us to re-establish our relationship in a better place?” 

Jesus’ visible love toward this funny little man changed his life. Being included by the Lord opened a door for him to change. This man was practically an outcast because of the way he conducted his business. Yet the Lord accepted him in front of everyone else, and Zacchaeus’ immediate response to the Lord’s undeserved loving acceptance, was to repent and repair. I believe those accusers’ comments against Jesus, on that day, cut Zacchaeus to the heart. Plus at the same time, the Lord’s reputation as a good Man was cast into doubt, simply  because of Zacchaeus’ sin.

This response is not just noteworthy, but essential to true reparation. We didn’t just sin against a human being – when we hurt someone else – we’ve sinned against Him! And now we need to: “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” Matthew 3:8. Things need to turn around and change with His help. Now we pray and follow the Lord through His processes for restoration. Our sin is gone – but we dare not leave our neighbour bleeding on the street, and wander away, comforting ourselves with the fact that Jesus has already forgiven us. That’s called presumption, and it is mean-spirited.

We must treat God’s great goodness toward all of us with humility and reverence. Our Father’s heart is right in the centre of His generosity toward mankind – Christ’s death cost Him everything. He turned His back on His beloved Son for our sake. Like I’ve said, many MANY times, Almighty God does not do things the way we do them – He loves unconditionally and that it is eternal.He is not a ‘sometimes’ God- only available on demand to people who know the password! We are privileged, whenever we knock on His door, it is always open to us. 

From the moment of our new birth, the Holy Spirit is watching over our hearts looking for Jesus’ likeness.  We need to whole-heartedly choose to become a people who seek to repair the schisms that occur in this life. It is part of our ministry to allow His love to enter into situations where anger, jealousy, spite etc. have prevailed. This means we go to people who have hurt us, or the ones we have hurt and say: “please forgive me,” and then we ask those people: “how can I help you to move on from what happened?” 

That’s what humbling yourself looks like. We aren’t obliged to do it — it comes right down to His selfless love inhabiting what we do, and inspiring us to be better! God promises to repay that other person for whatever they did to us, so let that be enough. Let the knowledge of His love for us, cover their sin. Reparation is costly —but Jesus did that for us, and we simply pass what we were given on to others. Bye.👋

P 3033 Love’s Way.

/ DVH

God’s Love manifests itself in a different way to our love. Human beings often hand out love to others like it is a prize for pleasing us. Or we think it needs to be bestowed upon people we really really like. That is not God’s Way. God’s Love exists far, far above our human behaviour, that is why our love will not do!  His love seeks to bring out the best in us. It does not hold grudges, or remember the past, it does not self-protect. Think about it. Jesus hung on that cross for all the world to see, yet He was totally innocent of any crime. They had to make something up to even capture Him. At the same time, He chose to suffer injustice to provide us with Mercy.. 

Every single thing that was said about Him by His enemies was not true. He IS God and what He said was not blasphemy. Our lack of understanding of what God would look like, and what He would do – caused people to misjudge the Lord. And yet He still stood there, accused and silent. He suffered through a terrible, unwarranted death, and He went through all of it unprotected by His Father, or thousands of angels, or even the men that followed HIm. He allowed Himself to be murdered and made a mockery of, for humanity’s sake. 

Peter actually tried to protect the Lord by chopping off someone’s ear, and the Lord immediately spoke to him about it. Jesus’ response amazes me, because even when He was under so much threat and pressure —He still responded with LOVE. He repaired that man’s ear, and taught Peter a lesson, right in the middle of the worst time of His life. He was suffering from terrible betrayal, by those He loved best. Jesus virtually said to Peter: “That is not the way I want you to live! You will die if you live like that!” Meanwhile God does not need our protection. A useful thing to remember. 

Love is far more powerful than revenge or hatred or even self-defence. To me, this makes learning to love the way God loves incredibly important. Otherwise my motivation can become pretty suspect because it comes from an ungodly self-centred motivation. I can convince myself that I am doing something or other for you, and at the same time, I can ignore the way I am doing it and how it hurts you. The point is —I can’t trust my own judgement! I need a Helper to help me to transform my thinking to be like His. Even though I am actively renewing my mind, my judgment can still be impaired by the way my thoughts and feelings have framed everything else that has happened to me. I need an outside reference – Jesus Himself is that reference.

Here’s a tiny bit of ?useful? info. It is not always true — however I have observed many times in my life that people do not do bad things TO you … they do those things FOR themselves. In other words it ain’t personal! Those hurtful things may not be aimed AT you … those people are protecting themselves, or ambitious for themselves etc. They could use you as an excuse for their own behaviour,  but that can mean that you have somehow threatened them. 

Let’s look at what happened to Jesus. The ruling religious people could not find fault with the Lord’s behaviour, but they were scared witless that what He taught and did, would take away their own little world, where they felt important … They were scared and jealous. They recognised that Jesus was SomeOne with more authority than they had, and He was able to do the kind of things that grabbed the attention of the people. Meanwhile fear only produces chaos and we can’t afford to give in to it. We must voluntarily choose to learn to be perfected in Love.

In difficult situations  when we can’t easily sort things out, look for the fruit produced by what has happened. Don’t look at what someone else said or has done – review your own behaviour. Look for the log in your own eye. What is, or what has been the result of the situation? Do people love each other more? Do they trust each other more? Instead of excusing your own behaviour, and accusing others — look for opportunities to give Grace room to show up! All sorts of nasty little minions hide under the heading of FEAR. The good news is His perfect Love throws fear out and He replaces it with Himself.

The cross released a flow of Grace and Love that is still flowing today, 2000+ years later. But we need to choose to jump into that river and let love win. We need to stop standing on the banks of all that living water, telling each other “isn’t that lovely, doesn’t that look pretty?” Christianity is a participatory lifestyle not just a collection of pretty, sometimes useful thoughts. It is a WAY to live — and that Way is called the WAY OF LOVE.  

The Lord Jesus showed all of us how to live that lifestyle. You never turn it off! And the Holy Spirit will walk with us and remind us of how love thinks and behaves. Every circumstance is an opportunity. As we move on through this life we cannot afford to have a thought in our heads that Jesus would not have had in His. That means, especially for me – I’m going back to school, even at my age, because I simply must learn how to live by LOVE’s Way. Bye. 👋.

P 3031 The Holy Spirit loves to remain.

/ DVH

Acts 3:11-12: “And as the lame man who had been healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch, which is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, “Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man walk?”

Peter himself says: ‘don’t look at me! I don’t have that power, and I’m not special.’ Listen to what he says to the beggar in verse 6: “Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” I think this illustrates clearly something that might lead us astray when it comes to healing and the power of God. Remember, these guys were fresh from the day of Pentecost, full of the Holy Spirit and His purposes. This is just a throw-away line toward the bystanders to sort out their wrong theology. However, Peter’s point is very clear – WE don’t heal people, GOD does.

My secondary point is that this healing is about the Holy Spirit’s character, not our ability to be holy! We will live our lives holy when we choose to remain in Him, and we let Him remain in us. It is about our heart attitude. Don’t go after holiness, you can end up in legalism that way. Seek His Presence whenever you spend time with Him, and then just follow His instructions from the book. EG: If you are angry – fix it. Attention to repentance is a necessary attribute.

At this time, Peter was absolutely overflowing with the Holy Spirit’s Presence, and ministered to the beggar’s need out of the overflow. THAT IS A GREAT PLACE TO TO AIM AT. Living in the overflow of His love. Peter doesn’t just give God glory — He SEES His glory everywhere! That’s what we need to see, God with us, everywhere. We can end up doing all sorts of things, claiming this, and praying that, because human beings need healing etc. — but the truth is that we only have what He gives us … and He gave us Himself!

What did Peter have if he didn’t have power or holiness? He had the ongoing greatly cherished Presence of the Holy Spirit within him. That’s why he could give away what He had! He imparted God’s presence to this beggar and the Presence of God made the man well. This is the reason, BTW, that I don’t much like the terminology “anointing” — the word “anointing” implies that the power of God is a thing, something incredible that some people have or do. Unfortunately we can use that as an excuse so we don’t have to be obedient. EG: “I don’t have the anointing, but that guy does.” Anybody can walk with the Holy Spirit if their aim is to make Him welcome in their lives.

The Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost and He has never left. Peter had a Person living within Him, teaching Him, guiding Him, the Holy Spirit not a thing or tool we can use! This man deeply loved and cared for the Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit remained with Him. Peter probably gave up many things, simply because he loved the Holy Spirit’s Presence more. Walking with the Holy Spirit is a matter of Who we cherish, not some special thing that we can’t do that someone else can. 

Here’s a small illustration: When we go to a restaurant, someone comes to our table to ask us what we would like from the menu … we tell the waiter and he tells the cook. The cook makes the dish, but the waiter is just the delivery person. In God’s marvellous ways, we are the vehicle, the waiter God uses to bring whatever He wants to those who are needy. 

Why is that so important? Because if we feel we must somehow have the power, or be holy …  or supposedly have the anointing before we pray for others— we can easily feel too intimidated to even try! Instead we end up  wandering about looking for feelings and signs and wonders to prove to us that we can do the very thing Jesus Himself told us to do! The bible says we can do this. Sadly, sometimes if we still don’t see anything we can also think –‘I can’t pray for the sick.’ Yes you can, because the RESULTS aren’t up to you. Jesus said “YOU lay hands on them and THEY will recover.” 

Like most Christians, you talked to Jesus this morning, about your life and the universe etc. You know His voice – through the bible, or in the depths of your heart when He speaks to you. We simply take that attitude with us wherever we go. We choose to be protective regarding our Beloved Friend the Holy Spirit, this means that we don’t do this or that, because He doesn’t like it.

You and I don’t have to have some kind of wonderful power to pray for others … (yes I know Jesus said ‘you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you’) but that POWER is a PERSON. We intentionally live this life – the only one we have – walking with His Spirit, and we follow His instructions. If the person gets well, He did it and if they don’t, all that happened was we tried to obey. 

We minister out of our own ongoing personal relationship with Him and that is an ever-increasing  developing thing. It grows like all relationships grow, by nurturing it, protecting and cherishing it.. The Holy Spirit’s language is LOVE.  We will see He is with us when we speak LOVE … and love is patient, kind, full of faith and hope etc. plus it is sacrificial. Love doesn’t resent sacrifice, because we don’t do this stuff for people or performance – we do it purely because we love Him.

We may need to sacrifice many things, actions, speech, attitudes – in order to maintain our relationship with the Holy Spirit – because this world we live in promotes the things He hates. But He wants to remain with us, that’s why we cherish and chase LOVE. At the same time, we cannot afford to define love, HE DOES. He’s the only One Who can be trusted to do it accurately. Don’t live chasing the symbol of His Presence – chase HIM.  Bye for today, 🥰.

P 3029 A people of faith.

/ DVH

“And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God. So if while we were still enemies, God fully reconciled us to Himself through the death of his Son, then something greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, and because we share in His resurrection life, how much more we will be rescued from sin’s dominion! And even more than that, we overflow with triumphant joy in our new relationship of living reconciled to God—all because of Jesus Christ!” Romans 5:9-11 TPT.

I have to admit I find some people’s reactions to scripture almost hilarious. I’ve known people who pick through the bible like they are trying to avoid veggies they don’t like! Good luck with that!  Life has become so difficult there’s no chance of avoiding those brussel sprouts any more. There they are, lying on your plate staring at you, and everyone else is watching to see what you are going to do about it!

Here’s an astonishing fact:  Almighty God gave Abraham righteousness because that man chose to believe what God had told him. “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.” That fact is written down in a whole lot of places in the bible.  Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:1-22, Galatians 3:6-9, Hebrews11:8-10, Hebrews 11:17-19. Abraham believed what God said, and acted on it. This ordinary man took his family of origin from the land of his birth, and led them to a new place, Haran. Then he and his immediate family followed God on a merry dance to somewhere he never even heard of! And he did all that purely because God asked him to do it. 

Now that’s real obedience!! The Lord and Abraham had a discussion, and the man didn’t really understand what he had been given at first, because his mind was stuck in his own human circumstances. He had no children, yet God told him he would have a son of his own flesh. You wanna bet Abe thought to himself: “Who is this really?” SEE! You are not the only person to wonder if what you heard was God or not!! But because of his obedience he would have millions of spiritual sons and daughters. Abraham took what Almighty God said seriously, and then one day the Lord showed him his ongoing legacy. US!!  That is, everybody who lives trusting in what God said in the book. 

Our description now as Christians is this: “…the people who walk by faith not by sight.” We are called that because we walk with God the way Abraham did. We follow Jesus. We can’t see Jesus any more than Abraham could see having a child could be possible at 100 years of age! Instead, as his spiritual descendants, we use our faith to live and walk with the Lord in every single situation. Abraham showed us what faith looks like. It moves, it obeys, it walks with God Himself. 

Father God has called us righteous in His sight, just like He gave righteousness to Abraham. The Lord Jesus bought it for us. But it was a gift. We became righteous because Jesus took our punishment for us and now our destiny has changed. We are destined to live a new life of faith. The Lord Jesus has given us the power to live our daily life in a new way. Abraham did not deserve a son, anymore than we deserve to be saved. Meanwhile, Abraham and Sarah tried to help God along, by introducing works … but God clearly shows us through this man’s life, and his mistakes, that works cannot inherit His promises. The life lived in faith is the only life that pleases God.

Ephesians 2:7-9.”… in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Almighty God is incredibly rich in so many things we need to learn to esteem. Unfortunately we often go after monetary or situational gain. We are chasing the wind if we chase money or security, because God has another bigger plan for our lives. He showed us that we too can live relying on and counting on what Christ did for us, to totally transform our lives. Grace is not just a lovely attribute of God’s nature. It is a powerful force that utterly changed the outcome of this world. 

Everything Jesus Christ did for us was done in His great Love for us. Now our Christ-given inheritance means we will not have to come up against the wrath of God. That thought just boggles my tiny mind. In my lifetime I have come up against the wrath of many human beings …and their nasty was pretty awful. However, I do not even want to begin to imagine what the wrath of an angry God looks like, thank you very much!

“Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust Him along the way, you’ll find He pulled it off perfectly! He will appear as your righteousness, as sure as the dawning of a new day. He will manifest as your justice, as sure and strong as the noonday sun. Quiet your heart in His presence and wait patiently for Yahweh. And don’t think for a moment that the wicked, in their prosperity, are better off than you.” Psalms 37:5-7 TPT. We are His people, a people of faith. Bye 👋

P 3028 Yield.

/ DVH

“Let me emphasise this: As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life. When your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit you hinder Him from living free within you! And the Holy Spirit’s intense cravings hinder your self-life from dominating you! So then, the two incompatible and conflicting forces within you are your self-life of the flesh and the new creation life of the Spirit. But when you yield to the life of the Spirit, you will no longer be living under the law, but soaring above it!” Galatians 5:16-18 TPT.

Father God has a better way to live, instead of being driven around by what I think I need or want. When I follow Him, He takes care of all that stuff along the way. If He doesn’t, then I didn’t need whatever it was in the first place. Meanwhile, that statement comes under the heading of “easier said than done!” My flesh yells at me, “too hard – enough already!!” Being extremely spiritually sharp, that’s when I finally figured out: “Oh! He’s doing something else!” 🙄

The Encyclopaedia Britannica says this:‘Yield’ can mean “to stop trying to resist something” or “to stop trying to fight someone or something.”

Yielding to the Holy Spirit means denying myself – will I have that last word or not? When I yield to the Lord’s processes, that will definitely teach me how much flesh I still have. People have asked me how do you know when you’ve prayed enough and you need to let go of things, or even people? … My answer is this – let go the minute you realise you are holding on! Put the Lord in charge of everything in your life. That’s what Jesus’ blood bought and paid for. He paid to give us access to all His wisdom, His ability to love, be joyful, be patient etc. But we will need to let GO of what we want, or what we think is best, for us. 

“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.” 1 Corinthians 1:27. I’ve found that I simply need to listen, pay attention to the book and obey the One Who knows everything … and then you can look wa-ay smarter than you really are! “For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” 1 Corinthians 1:19. Clever people need to watch out, you may need a big dose of humility any minute. However, that is not an excuse to hide in ignorance either.

I am not talking about rejecting education, by the way. Get some – be that person, go for it! What I am talking about is that you cannot just ‘study out’ or manufacture a relationship with people, or the Lord! It has to be ‘lived out’ minute by minute, both the good bits and bad bits. Learning to trust that other person by being open and honest about who you are. Knowing any subject does not mean you know the writer!

The secret to dying to self is to love Jesus more than you love you! Then any sacrifices become part of the process. However having faith and dying to self does not mean you sell your house and possessions, and go and plonk yourself on the curb somewhere because a voice told you to do it. Check with more mature people and get them praying too, first.

Our flesh does not like to go without what it wants. In the West, we are quite addicted to comfort, safety and the opportunity to do what we want, whenever we want to. In other places in this world those things do not even enter someone’s agenda for a minute. Those dear people are too busy avoiding death, prison, disease, starvation, and active opposition, while they are trying to find somewhere to sleep! 

The most important word in the whole scripture I’ve chosen today is YIELD. We can hinder the Lord from doing what He wants simply by indulging ourselves. It is so easy to let the flesh tell us:“It’s too hard, God wouldn’t want me to do something hard, He loves me. Life has been terrible lately, surely He doesn’t want me to continue to suffer!” BTW, knowledge, or acknowledgement of our faults is not enough, action is always required.

Father God loves us so much that He willingly gave His only Son to die in our place … did you get that? Jesus died, and the Precious Trinity agreed that it was the only way to save YOU and ME!  Ya might want to stop and think about that. God has a much different value system than we do! 

Fear can be a huge hindrance, so can pride. But yielding to God is a great way to get rid of those things. Face the fear head on and do it anyway. Some of the time pride is just a ‘front’ we put on to hide fear of failure. 

But the most important thing we need to remember is in those above verses — whatever we yield to will dominate us! Remember, we have been reborn to live above earthly things, Now we have a brand new life waiting for us to claim it, using our faith, and we aim to walk with Jesus day by day. We simply need to practice doing things His Way and remember to yield. Bye👋.

P 3025 The three “C’s.”

/ DVH

“So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together for good, for we are His lovers who have been called to fulfil His designed purpose.” Romans 8:28 TPT. 

Paul was convinced about what he says here. He looked at his life – including the floggings, beating with sticks,  shipwrecks, and physical violence. The imprisonment, as well as the persecution by various groups of people – some of them supposedly Christian. Plus the people who ignored his good advice because they had a better idea…  and he came to a conclusion. His conclusion was that “everything works together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose.”

God wants to transform the difficulties we experience into something meaningful and good, for His kingdom’s sake. We simply need to hang on in there believing in His goodness.‘The trying of our faith produces patience but we have to LET patience have her perfect work in us.’James 1:3-4. There’s that little word that gives everyone the pip! LET. Allow. Permit…Yield! Allow patience to do a number on you. Permit it to stretch you, let it teach you, and allow it to transform the way you think and act. That is what yielding looks like. WE are the boss of our thoughts  … and just like we won’t permit pornographic thoughts to occupy our minds – we refuse to LET impatience take over. We ask for the Holy Spirit’s help and hang on.. to Him.!!!

The Apostle Paul was not only convinced, he was convinced continually! That is actually the only way we can be changed. We choose to hold onto the fact that God will work our present circumstances out for our good. Continually! This spiritual stand happens over and over and over again! Christianity is a progressive pushing forward into more of what we already have been given. And sometimes there is no ‘exit’ to be seen — there is only the minute by minute pushing through how we feel, to grab hold of what God has said. This creates trust in Who He is. We lean on Him, persevering with the situation, waiting for His patience, and seeking after the love that never alters.

Stuff happened to Paul over and over again. There was a whole lot of ugly stuff in 40+ years of ministry. That’s an average of 6 rotten testing events a year! He paid a high price to evangelise, as well as minister what God told him to write … Paul once wrote that he “despaired of life itself.” Well you would, wouldn’t you? His life was no picnic, but I bet he has never given it another thought since he arrived in heaven!!

“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On Him we have set our hope that He will continue to deliver us,..” 2 Corinthians 1:8-10.

Paul knew how to suffer, but he did not do it lying down. He grabbed hold of the hope that God had what He needed and wanted to give it to Him. He believed in the goodness of God Himself. If we take the time to consult our feelings about this scripture in Romans, it might seem inaccurate, utterly impossible. Nobody feels like pushing against a seemingly immovable object. But what if I told you that if you press in just one more time that object will move? I think you’d convince yourself to take a big breath and push one more time! It’s just like birthing babies, but, with His help, we are birthing and raising good fruit!

That’s what continually convincing yourself of God’s supreme power and goodness does – it draws you into a conclusion! Almighty God can’t fail us, His goodness always wins! There are some unresolved things in my life that I may not see this month, or this year, but I know that He will do them – whether I am still here or not. I do not believe those things simply because I prayed —I believe it because HE SAID SO in the book. I’m always convinced of His goodness as I continually read His book. We ain’t seen nothing yet! The best place to be in a battle is on the front line. WHY? You get to be the first to see the enemy turn tail and run… that’s why!

 Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:12: “This is why I suffer as I do. Still, I am not ashamed; for I know Him [and I am personally acquainted with Him] whom I have believed [with absolute trust and confidence in Him and in the truth of His deity], and I am persuaded [beyond any doubt] that He is able to guard that which I have entrusted to Him until that day [when I stand before Him].”

I am learning to be convinced continually, and that exercise led me to this conclusion – the Lord is worth it all. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18. In order to be convinced, I need to continually revise my belief in His goodness every single time something unexpected occurs, and then I keep reinforcing my belief that God cannot fail me. That’s the best conclusion! Life surely does happen but God has a plan!! Bye. 👋

P 3024 The sky is the limit.

/ DVH

How many people today have been boxed in by this world’s interpretation of their ability to learn, or their mental condition, or emotional or physical skills? Today’s so-called experts analyse people and put them into categories, with more labels on the outside than a misdirected parcel! This one has ADHD .. that one has Autism …  the kid is three and someone has boxed it up and classified it for life!  Our kids are actively being “categorised” before they have left High School. We need every member of our Father’s huge family and some people are just plain late bloomers.

It is a very bad idea to put this world’s ceilings on what we think someone else can do – no matter how many letters they have after their name. We must appreciate what each of us has been given for the benefit of others  “… preferring one another in love…”  There are times we try to use someone else’s differences against them – that’s ungodly. Almost half of the recorded disciples were fishermen and Jesus chose them! Today, in order to manage humanity, our societies’ categorise people, so we don’t have to deal with each person, one at a time. 

Thank GOD! He is not even remotely like that! He sees every single one of us and loves each one of us as His very own individual children. He doesn’t look down and think; “This one is broken” OR –“That one is no use to Me.” We are all incredibly dear to His heart – no matter how this world sees us. And we are all incredibly important to His Body too. We are going to need every single member of the Body of Christ standing in their place, because the enemy of our souls is at the gates and he is trying to pinch our kids by writing “not acceptable,” “don’t expect much” and “broken at birth” all over them. Don’t you believe it.

Our Heavenly Father is a redemptive Father, Who longs to reveal Himself to all of us. Every single one of us has a place in His plan! Yes, even the so-called broken ones!! We are all broken one way or another— some of us are simply badly broken inside where nobody else can see. Occasionally some of that ugly stuff leaks out every  where and that person gets put in jail. We must not disqualify people on the grounds of what this world thinks about them. Jesus clarified sin: “…but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” Matthew 5:22.

Sinfulness is our common denominator, not so called beauty, athletic prowess or intelligence! Right now we are reaping what we have sown into this world through our own ambition, and greed for more. Sadly we have sown into the whirlwind. Our children are growing up believing that to be pretty, handsome, athletic, gifted and/or highly intelligent is something to be greatly desired. Who says that? 

Manufacturers, fashion gurus, universities, teachers, people in political arenas — the people who will make money from what we do … THAT’S who is saying it! Give me one reason why we should trust their judgment? Unless making money is your god, these attitudes are poisonous vapours. They come, they go. Even the best athletes get hurt, highly intelligent people go wandering off into abstract land, and supposedly beautiful people are constantly criticised. What are we doing to our kids? Why are we not teaching them to be who God made them to be? We are a gift to each other. 

Even in the church we fail. We can easily make too much of one gift over another …“But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”?

As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honour just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?” 1 Corinthians 12:21-27 MSG.

I think the bible tells us very clearly how we need to treat each other – we need to encourage other people’s potential to serve the Lord. Let’s look for Jesus in others, watching for the Grace of the Holy Spirit on each life. I’m not talking about positive speaking either. I’m talking about having a genuine prayerful appreciation for someone else’s POV. You never know, if we all do that we all might learn something!

We need every single member of the Body of Christ, even those gentle, timid souls who hide up the back and hope nobody asks them a question. We are limiting a limitless God if we limit His kids based on our own opinions and experiences. Instead we need to proclaim – the sky is the limit and the heavens beyond it! Bye.👋