Love

P3448 Danger is present when we choose to love.

/ DVH

“For Yahweh is always good and ready to receive you. He’s so loving that it will amaze you— so kind that it will astound you! And He is famous for His faithfulness toward all. Everyone knows our God can be trusted, for He keeps His promises to every generation!” Psalms 100:5 TPT. The biggest temptation we will ever face is not about having a happy life – the biggest temptation we face, daily, is whether we choose to believe our GOD IS GOOD and FAITHFUL … or not.  Any other attitude is dangerous. This points to the very heart of Who our Father is. 

Now before we move an inch further, I want to say … The Lord is so faithful, loving and kind, He deserves every single bit of our thanks, praise and worship, forever. But when stuff happens around us, and to us, it can become so easy to doubt His goodness, faithfulness, etc. Doing that undermines our faith. Doubt yourself, your friends, your life, what you hear, your family, your circumstances, but do not ever doubt God’s goodness.

I know the concept of His kind of love is far above our understanding, but that’s the bit of the kite of God’s Grace we totally need to hold onto. I strongly urge you, don’t ever let go of Who He is – His goodness – no matter what is going on in your heart or around you. I’ve found that when I focus on what I think I need, my knowledge of His goodness toward me, fades away. Like that kite I mentioned, it climbs up so high, I can barely see what is written on it. God Himself has promised us grace, grace and more grace. (James 4:6).We will have it when we need it – ask.

This is why we read and soak in the bible. It daily reminds us of His loving kindness, which is so much better than this life can be. It is also very helpful to read the bible looking for descriptions of Who He is, How much He loves us, as well as the things that position our hearts to be in communion with Him. We were made for that. Let’s enjoy Him now, and appreciate His love now. In our hard times a sacrifice of praise is a worthy gift for our King.

However, there is always a danger for us to simply fit the Lord in, around the edges of our already busy days. Or we can take up our time with Him, with lists of prayer requests. But the bible tells us to … “Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.” Psalm 100:4. So much depends on our responses to His instructions, and I choose to treat those things as a to do list! I follow the verses looking for things to do, or things to say, or not to say -then I act on them. 

We already know that love, is an action word, not just a noun. God loved, so He gave. And Jesus laid down His life. He healed the sick. Raised the dead. He taught the truth. He lived to serve His Father’s will. All action words. Now we are alive, right here, right now, to do the same things He did. We choose to love our enemies and those who despitefully use us. We don’t love them because they are loveable, because that would be masochistic! We do it because Jesus Himself told us to treat people this way.

If we take our Heavenly Father and faith out of our own daily lives, we won’t have anymore power to overcome the things of this world, than the-people-who-don’t-know-Him yet. Why are we surprised when all kinds of people do terrible things? “Without God, (as in all of mankind!), none of us can do anything.” We need Him to lead us out of temptation, into loving those careless people around us who have no idea how to live in love, and it’s our job to be a witness for them.

The danger we face every single day is that we will read what He said, agree with it, and then DO nothing about it. That’s when our faith becomes dormant, because we only use it to ask for the things we think we need or want. I understand when desperate people pray for healing – I need healing too. I too have been in impossible relationships that nearly destroyed me. But if Jesus came to our house in Person, I would not say: ”Why was I not healed, or delivered, Lord?” I would put my face on the floor and worship Him, and all that other stuff would fade away.

The things I need to remember are things like these: “The righteous person may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; …” Psalm 34:19. “He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. In Him we have placed our hope that He will yet again deliver us,..” 2 Corinthians 1:10. “We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; …persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9. This life is a blink. A hiccup in the passage of time, only made boring or heartbreaking by the way mankind approaches it!

As Christ’s followers, let’s learn to live with the possibility of danger and trouble landing on us, pressing up against our faces and hearts until we feel we are going to die … but we won’t. That’s when Jesus says to us:  “Now, you are ready to learn of ME!” So we pick up His yoke, and find true freedom. Feelings come and go, depending on whether we get what we want or not, but ‘The Word of our God stands forever.’ Isaiah 40:8.

“For we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about our trouble in [the west coast province of] Asia [Minor], how we were utterly weighed down, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life [itself].” 2 Corinthians 1:8. The Apostle Paul knew, first hand, how very dangerous choosing to love others can be. Bye. 👋.

P3447 A firm foundation.

/ DVH

Here’s Philippians 4:19 (AMPC) “And my God will liberally supply (fill to the full) your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Well, that nails that on the head …if we need it He will give it to us. This is Paul talking, and he too had needs. But nothing must come between us, and glorifying our Lord. Sadly, the world around us, currently runs on greed. Greed is not only about having excess — it’s about wanting what we don’t have. It’s like a huge head devouring people, money and time.

I think our churches have been building on the wrong foundation —- a foundation of gain, and an easy life. We’ve been building on what Jesus can do for us …instead of what HE HAS ALREADY DONE! Let’s just pause, breathe, and think on that for a bit. The Lord Jesus is not a ‘gimme’ vending machine. He told us we would have suffering in this world – yet we want to pray our way out of the very things that will mature us. It’s not about my comfort – it’s about God’s glory!

We are often fooled into praying for this bad thing to stop, and that good thing to happen. And the truth is … that’s all about our own comfort. We pray for what we think we need, to make our lives better. It’s the wrong foundation — this can create people, who want, want, want, and they aren’t often satisfied with what they have already been given. The King of glory died in our place. That’s our only focus and only foundation. We are here to serve Him now. 

Sadly if what we’ve prayed for happens, then becomes far too easy to just move on to the next apparent need. Material needs are a distraction. The appetite they create cannot be filled, and we can waste the life of God in us, plus the time He has allocated to us, by running after those things. Let’s listen to James 4:2-3: “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” 

Why are we building church buildings to the glory of God, when the glory of His Presence is what we actually need  … not more buildings? Our focus seems to be skewed. It needs to be on the-people-who-don’t-know-Him yet, not building maintenance. Jesus Christ did not care about material things, He was grateful for food to eat, and a place to sleep. That’s the King of ALL Glory in a wooden food trough in a tin shed, and He also slept rough on the side of the road. Nobody cooked Him a twelve course dinner.

We are here to build His kingdom, not ours. Most people in our churches do not understand what the Lord Jesus did to provide for their daily spiritual bread or where their focus needs to be. He died and gave us His rights, so now we can use His rights, His way – for others. He saved us, and our primary task is to learn to love the unlovely, not gather things.

At the same time, we can be easily deluded. Sometimes we sing “Jesus took my burdens all away,” and many people walk out the doors of our churches just as burdened as they were when they came in! Sin is a burden. We CAN carry it on our backs, but it BELONGS at the foot of the cross. Put your sin, the government’s sin, your family’s sin, anybody else’s sin down, and walk away. Let Jesus meet all your needs.

When people are evil to you, then pray for them and start rejoicing that He set you free from whatever they did. I don’t much care for psycho babble, or blaming this person, or that parent — if HE says we’re free, then we are free. Feelings don’t come into it. We are not using our faith to believe Him. Our aim is about ‘feeling good’ – instead of worshipping Him for what He has done.

Our greatest treasure is Jesus! Plus the freedom to live the new life He died to give us. We’ve been taken out of darkness into His light. That means we don’t have to pray for light, because we already have it  — Who He is, and the bible are now our light. Jesus taught us to pray like this: “Our Father Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name, Thy kingdom come,Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”  What comes first in that prayer? Our needs, or His will, His way? 

Our focus has become so worldly, we call what we have been given blessings, but perhaps they have also become an ANCHOR, tying us into this world’s systems. Those systems/cisterns? can’t hold the water of the Holy Spirit. (Jeremiah 2:13.) Paul says: “”For me to live is Christ, to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21. Now that’s a useful cistern! Jesus didn’t die to give us a trip to the Bahamas, He died to set us free from the kind of greed that puts God Himself on the back burner.

Our foundations need to be firm, otherwise our faith in Christ will remain shaky and unstable. What Jesus did for us is the only Rock we build on, everything else is just His loving kindness blessing His kids. Bye 👋.

P3445 Hold fast, dear saint of God.

/ DVH

“I pray that you will continually experience the immeasurable greatness of God’s power made available to you through faith. Then your lives will be an advertisement of this immense power as it works through you! This is the mighty power that was released when God raised Christ from the dead and exalted Him to the place of highest honour and supreme authority in the heavenly realm!” Ephesians 1:19-20 Amen.

Paul was given the ability by God, to understand what we have been given when Jesus died for all of us. In this verse he talks about this power being available to each one of us, as well as being released through us. But we have been given even greater opportunities than Paul had. Christians are so blessed, we have the revelations Father God gave to Luke, Matthew, Mark, John, James, Peter and Jude. Thank you Lord!

Paul was given incredible revelations about what Christ’s life, death and resurrection did. He teaches us that one act brought about the possibility of transformation for every human being. He shows us what living this life “In Christ Jesus” means. No exceptions. The problem is we can see these things as theology, (information), but they are not, they are a powerful way to live. We’ve grown used to thinking of God’s power as the power to do miracles, but the greatest use of God’s power is allowing it to transform each one of us, day by day. We are no longer held captive by a yoke of slavery — we’ve been set free to live the way our Saviour lived. Please notice the present tense!

Like Paul says, we can choose to live for Jesus and as we do so, we glorify HIM. That does not mean we are part of some clever marketing campaign, as we try hard to appeal to other people. Instead it means we are to be a showcase of Who He is, and what He has done … for everyone else to see. BTW, the gifts of the Spirit are a separate thing to being transformed. Now it is our choice to reflect Him into this world around us. We don’t set the standard, Jesus Himself does that! Human standards without the Holy Spirit’s input, create chaos.

The Lord Jesus’ action on mankind’s behalf, took every single human being out of the realm of sin and death, and broke it’s power over us. Then He firmly established mankind as the Father’s favoured children. Yes … even the people we don’t like!  Now sin is not compulsory – it is an optional extra – we are not powerless against it anymore! The Lord Jesus and what He did, transformed everything, and we have the Holy Spirit as  our Helper. It doesn’t matter what you think, or what I think – it only matters what He thinks and it is in the book!

We’ve been translated “out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of His marvellous light.” And the view is mind-boggling … which is why our minds and hearts need to catch up with what Jesus Christ has already done for us. That’s why we read the bible, we are playing catch-up! What you and I knew before we met Him has been wiped away with His own blood, so now it is natural for us to have His point of view. His point of view is LOVE.

Our relationship has been destined by God Himself to be totally intimate and functional, so we can go back to the place before mankind sinned. Where Father God and human beings were friends who deeply loved each other. He is willing to share His thoughts with us, just like He did when He walked and talked with Adam and Eve. 

I choose to read the bible to find out exactly how His point of view works itself out in my life… by taking what the Lord has said and then I ask Him to show me how, when and where I need to apply it. Then I act on it. I am not a powerless person, a victim of my former circumstances any longer. What Jesus did for me restored me, and my whole life. With my permission, He takes every one of those hard, difficult, and sometimes terrible things in my life — the good, the bad … plus those ones I sadly think of as — “boy I wish I hadn’t done that!” …and He redeems it in ways I cannot possibly imagine. Those ways are so perfect, as I recognise them, they take my breath away. 

Giving my life to Him is not a sacrifice, it is a joy. I can have God’s opinion for free, at any time. If it happens that the Lord is silent, then I don’t have to panic because His Word clearly tells me He will NOT leave me, nor forsake me. The Lord cannot be unfaithful to His Word and that is what I now stand upon. That and the blood that Jesus willingly shed on my behalf that washed me clean. Everything my Heavenly Father does is good. If it looks bad then that means I can’t see the end yet – it isn’t over, I am just observing His processes.

I refuse to reduce my Saviour to mere actions, or answers to prayer. Instead I rely upon what God Himself says in His book, and what Jesus has taught me. God does not have to prove Himself to me, He already did. Once and for all. This life has seasons, seasons of the soul. Some of our seasons are rich and bright like summer, or spring, and others seem destined for death like winter and autumn. But the life of God for us and in us, remains steadfast. Jesus taught us that.

Let’s hold fast to Him. In season and out. “Even when we are too weak to have any faith left, He remains faithful to us and will help us, for He cannot disown us who are part of Himself, and He will always carry out His promises to us.” 2 Timothy 2:13. Bye. 👋

P 3443 We influence them, this world does not influence us.

/ DVH

It can be so easy to pick up the habits, fears and general atmosphere around us, and be pressured into conforming with it, even verbally. We need to be aware that we are thermostats, not thermometers. What’s the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer? A thermometer measures temperature, while a thermostat controls it.

We have been given the Lord’s authority to set the atmosphere of any room we enter, simply because we bring the King of all glory with us!  We are not here to just measure or create atmospheres – we are here to usher in Jesus – He does that stuff all by Himself! He makes His Presence known without embarrassing people, or pontificating over them.

When we read the Gospels we see Jesus lovingly expose other people’s hearts! Maybe that is why He once said angrily to His disciples: “you don’t know what spirit you are in!” What they’d said lacked love. The only people who were offended with Jesus were the religious. Those people who like the rules, and love to wave them about like a banner. However, many people were drawn to Jesus, when they were rejected by religion. He has chosen us to be a demonstration of His kingdom, right here, right now.

There are people who find that they cannot be themselves around Christians who use religious language, simply because it hinders the flow of the Spirit of God through them. But other dear souls are so sweet about what they say, it is not at all offensive. Like I’ve said before, it’s the heart that matters. So many souls are bruised these days, it’s not our job to poke at their bruises. The heart that wants to ‘straighten someone else out’ is probably not listening well. Sadly, most of the time, religious talk makes me want to leave the room!

Jesus didn’t do it, and neither should we.

On another note, I can’t watch the news anymore because first of all, it’s all bad! … And secondly, it doesn’t seem like the news to me. It is more like a chat room with many many opinions. Criticism and condemnation and the worst kind of humour flourishes.The Lord tells us that ‘we are to be as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves.’ I strongly suspect this verse means that wisdom makes its own room, and gentleness will disarm angry people. It makes me so sad when the media has so much influence, but it uses it carelessly to destroy other people’s lives – for profit. 

It is almost like the news,  publishing organisations, social media etc. itself has become a courtroom deciding who is guilty and who is not. Life is complicated and people do awful, hateful things – however how can my opinion do anything but become further gossip at a time when that person needs forgiveness and wisdom? People in terrible trouble need prayer not hatred. Yet the media fosters hatred by the way they slant things.

My thought today is this – it is great to share Psalms, Hymns, spiritual songs, uplifting sermons, exhortations and, or life lessons on social media etc. But if we choose to stand by, saying nothing … while that very same avenue projects the whirlwind of public opinion while it is shredding people’s lives. Then aren’t we behaving exactly like Paul did when he agreed with killing off Christians?  Jesus had to blind Paul to help him see! 

That story in Acts 9 is about Paul, and it teaches us a story about this servant of God and how he temporarily lost his sight. Plus it reveals Ananias’ bravery. It also shows us that human beings often follow leaders without questioning them. People stood with Paul, and as he consented to other people’s deaths, so did THEY. They were persuaded that murder was the only answer to stopping the preaching of the Gospel. Some of them even carried out the murders, in God’s Name. 

We can’t afford to participate in popularity polls in the church, mainly because we can be very poor at using the gift of discernment when it comes to leadership. We often pick the popular guy, not the man of His Presence and the Lord’s principles. We are more likely to go to the church run by a man or woman who tickles our ears, than listen to someone who says the things we don’t want to hear … yet we need to hear them. 

Suspicion and discernment are two different things. One closes down honest interchanges of ideas, and the other sees the person behind all the talk, and identifies the spirit leading them around by the nose. Jesus is the judge and He has already paid for everyone’s sins. And Proverbs 18:13 says: “He who answers a matter before he hears the facts—it is folly and shame to him.” James 1:19: “My dear brothers and sisters, understand this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.” 

Our influence on this world must not be underestimated, the Greater One lives in us. Perhaps we all need to repent for allowing the world to enter our ship and colour our opinions about who is in and who is out. A Christian’s quest for holiness must not be the vehicle we use to crush any human being who has no faith, or less faith than we have. Bye. 👋

P 3442 Keeping our love ON.

/ DVH

One way or another, I have spent a great deal of my time in hospitals. I am not saying that to gain sympathy, it is simply true. Meanwhile I don’t like them. I feel like someone is going to pop out of the ether, and decide I need this ghastly test, or that. Or maybe some super keen doctor will sentence me to four hours of waiting in a chair. While I try not to mind my life being whittled away by people in white coats. Yeah, I have a bad attitude. The Lord reminded me this morning that sick people go to hospitals, “the fields are white!” He said. “I need more energy Lord,” I said!

Remembering to keep our love ON can be difficult at times, especially when we’ve spent a lot of our lives living the other way. Here’s what Jesus said:  “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.’ Matthew 7:13-14. Yeah, I wish He hadn’t said that too … but He did. The narrow gate needs to be sought and found – it isn’t like the yellow brick road, wide and obvious!

The people who travel this narrow road study LOVE. How it works, what it looks like when we do it. The Lord has said some tough stuff in the scriptures, but when I look at the way I’ve chosen to live in the past, I am so grateful for His wisdom – I need to hear it! It wasn’t that I didn’t try to obey Him, but I know I gave complaining equal footing in my life. A grateful heart is a fantastic blessing, in the list of blessings God has given us. Let’s stop searching for the fake gold of this world, and start digging for the real treasure … Jesus Himself.

However, we will have to fight any Goliaths that have taken up residence in our lives. Those things that bellow and hurl threats of doom and despair at us, and others, through us. He yells that he will kill us, our friends, our families, plus everyone we love, to create fear. Love can’t flourish in an atmosphere of fear. We must trust the Lord to take care of us. David ran at Goliath, but he left his big brothers up on a hill hiding behind rocks! His brothers had a problem … but David didn’t! His faith in Almighty God saved an entire nation that day.

The thing I love about this young man is that he believed in the God Who was with him, when he faced Goliath. We are so much better off than David was, we have the same God IN us. That thing that we think we can’t possibly fight, we don’t ever have to fight it alone. He will be with us. He promised, so let’s choose to believe Him! David was no more alone on that battle field than WE are. Jesus told us that He has given us His power, and we need to believe Him and act on it. Then we can go to our enemy’s camp and take back what he has stolen from us. 

People spend time praying to become everything the Lord God means for them to be. I want to add that it is also good to pray that we would identify and throw off all those weights the enemy has been laying on us since birth … “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” Hebrews 12:1. WE do that, God doesn’t do it for us – He does it with us!

We may not feel like we can outrun the Goliaths of this world, but we can definitely learn to outwait them. BTW, “outwait” is a verb meaning to stay longer than someone else, or to wait until a bad event or time finishes.” Perseverance is a vastly underestimated Grace. It comes directly from the fruit of “patience, faithfulness, and self-control.” We have eternity on our side – satan does not, and he knows  it! If we do not faint in our journeys with Jesus — we will win. Don’t look at problems as forever things, once we give them into His hands who knows what He will do with them?

Doing the things we hate is another form of worship, as we do them “as unto the Lord.” Let’s face it, without the Holy Spirit’s help, none of these things are actually appealing. They are easy to read, but it is much harder to motivate yourself to do it. We want to raise the dead and heal the sick, and have a ministry, etc. But Jesus wants us to be bullet proof — He cares about our hearts first. And Paul gave us a list of things that we need to remember to wear. So as we put on the full armour of God, we put on those things are illustrations of the new way we’ve chosen to live now. This is how it works:

‘Always speaking HIS truth;  remembering we have Christ’s righteousness as a gift to clear our path;  at the same time we are always ready to share the gospel;  and our faith guides us and prompts us to act. Together with the knowledge that Jesus died to save us and now we have the Holy Spirit with us.’ Let’s embrace active cultivation, through our own personal choices, and make room for the growth of the fruit of the Spirit. As we “…put on love, which binds …(all the other graces) … together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:14. We can’t be patient, kind, self-controlled etc. without LOVE leading us. 

Doing things we dislike is a challenge, but there are so many riches that are already in place, waiting for us to draw upon them. So let’s focus on the Lord and His blessings, not our feelings.. Our faith when it is active, will give all these things, substance. They become evidence in our lives of His Presence.  The answer is simple — don’t take your love off … Jesus’ love is always on! Bye. 👋

P 3441 We carry His Presence …

/ DVH

…and that is a privilege. This life is not meant to be a drudge, slogging on from day to day, only to get up the next day preoccupied with the same problems that occupied our thoughts yesterday! Or perhaps something new pops up and that takes over. 

We can be kept so very busy trying to get to a place where we can obey what He asks us to do, that in the end, we do nothing. Instead we are always waiting. Always in transit but never arriving. The minute we said “yes” to Jesus, the things of this world became secondary. Our primary goal now is to love and serve Him and others. Let’s actively learn to let Father God take care of us. He will look after ‘matters concerning us.’ I spent years trying to figure out which bit was my bit and which bit was His! Finally I thought … “You have the lot Lord, I can’t manage this juggling at all, I keep dropping things.”

Let’s be clear: when I finally realised what DEAD means I did more than just have a thought, I actively took my life and its problems, and prayerfully handed it all over to Him and then I refused to pick them up again. My problems were often people, and the way they had treated me. So I gave up my right to be protected from people who didn’t care a hoot about how I felt, and started practising Love, I chose to change my focus from making them happy to loving them. I was rotten at it and I needed His help. Love does not mean you have to give in. Love means you listen to Him – FIRST. Let the Lord draw your boundaries.

Now, I take my thoughts captive and hand them back to Him. If I end up ruminating over something or other, then I repent and give it back to Him, and ask the Lord to redeem everything. We cannot afford to live in partial surrender. We will spend most of our time trying to figure out which bit is His and what’s ours! Total surrender is the only way to go, otherwise we can be distracted from our main purpose.

Jesus reminded us of that purpose in Mathew 22:37-40.“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

We need to remember our God-given purpose. Love Him first, then love others. That’s because we can’t actually love others unless we meditate on how much He loves us! We are His disciples, we distribute the bread that has been broken in His hands and we give it to the hungry all around us. He was broken for all of us.

If the Holy Spirit had not come at exactly the right time, the disciples could easily have wandered away, and maybe set up their own ministries based on what they saw Jesus do, around them and through them. They too needed the power of God to fall on them. The Holy Spirit released in them the same clarity, courage and purpose Jesus  had. When you read the Epistles etc you don’t hear the Apostles talking about how this or that difficulty occurred last week. Their focus is on Christ, crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected. 

They didn’t care if their parents smacked them too much, or someone bullied them, or stole their money etc. They had better things to do! All this prayer for healing of our inner selves can waste a perfectly good life. Stop living in the past. Be like those 10 lepers!  They were totally healed as they went. Thank God for what He has already done in you, and keep asking Him for more. Then go out and love on other people. Ask Him to help you recognise in yourself anything that could distract you from His primary purpose of loving God and others. 

Back to the Lord’s disciples. It would have been easy to walk about grandly despatching this snippet of information, and passing on this new revelation. If they did that they would have become a brand new breed of Pharisee, Sadducee or Teacher! We don’t need labels, or chains of honour, we need the Holy Spirit. Forget ministry, that will overtake you when He is ready. Those twelve men could have sat back and said, “We were His friends, we saw Him do incredible things.” And lived off that for the rest of their lives..

But they didn’t. They were the ones who had walked with Him and talked with Him and learnt from Him … and He said …“GO!” … So they went. They sought out lost people who didn’t know what Christ had given them, and they daily gave away what they had. They died living that way. 

It makes me want to weep. We sit in our comfy houses in the Western world, and drive our nice cars to church, and pray that Almighty God will make our lives happy and the lives of our families happy. And when they aren’t the way we think they should be, then we pray for Him to make the trouble go away. HE is the centre of the Universe … we aren’t. We aren’t even a blip on the Richter Scale. 

We’ve been given the privilege to carry His Presence with us wherever we go. Leaving the Holy Spirit behind, ignoring Him and His directions is incredibly risky. One day we could wake up and think: ‘maybe the bible isn’t true, maybe it is just an old book with sweet metaphors about niceness.’  People do not often lose their faith in one gigantic explosive event, it is more likely they will lose it little by little and walk away. It’s called compromise. Value His Presence and His love for you, and others, daily. Bye. 👋. 

P 3440 We need EYES.

/ DVH

Jesus gave us His power to impart His life, healing, deliverance into other people’s lives. We need His power, otherwise we will end up trying to love others without His input. We must be filled with His love over and over and over again. I’ve met many people who inadvertently get this concept around the wrong way. Maybe they think that being loving is meant to come from inside us. Well, they might have lots to give away – but I plumb run out – all the time! 

When we realise we’ve run out of love, we need to go back to the Source — or like a broken down car, we will be running on empty. Unfortunate things can sometimes happen when we do good for the wrong reasons. We must go to Jesus our Supplier, ask for His Grace, and then go and do whatever He tells us to do, using our faith. Our reliance is upon God’s POWER, not ours, that is a key factor, not an optional extra. We must lean on Him.

Love comes from God Himself. It can come in many forms but it always includes the grace to share it. The grace to even see other people and their needs comes from Him, and the grace to meet those needs also comes from Him.  We don’t have it and we can half kill ourselves trying to dredge it up. If we cannot be persuaded to engage with Him and then others, then we will expect someone else to do it and step back. 

But engaging with other people’s needs, requires prayer, then action. Meanwhile, we can be running toward something while we are praying, but please remember we need to PRAY. The Lord has so many miracles for us to share with others — we can’t do them, but He can. Let’s do things the way He tells us. We also can’t afford to postpone our participation in the works He has prepared for us for a time when we feel up to it. I know I fight that all the time, when I feel unwell, and I am tempted to withdraw.

 “We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.” 1 John 4:16 TPT.  The secret to our participation is to choose to live in love – then we can see other people’s needs. I’ve been reading a lot of written prayers recently – do you know that they all sound the same? “Please Lord help me with this, that, and the other. Please fix this and that about my life, please help my life.” Amen. It’s like we are ordering take-out! 

He is Almighty God, we serve Him and others. We cannot afford to allow any of our own needs, doubt, anger, disappointment, frustration, opinions to separate us from the Love of God. If we are not actively participating in His love then we are not truly living.  

Father God knows the end from the beginning – He knows LIFE wins! However, our faith will contain mystery – it can’t be faith without it. If a thing is a certainty then no faith is needed. But our little steps of faith responding to His love can move mountains. As we spread His steadfast love around us, we will help those who have never known or seen it before. And in the process we get blessed as well. That’s what God’s economy does – it blesses everyone it touches … we need eyes to see what is going on around us. 

We will also need to give up compromise. What do I mean by that? Perhaps we can see someone who needs help, or a bucketload of God’s love tipped over them, but we know them and they can be so grumpy, especially when it comes to the things of God. Nobody wants to run into the back of the truck of someone else’s prejudices, or hit the edge of their rage, because that person thinks the Lord didn’t do what they asked Him to do. Maybe rationalise away what we can SEE, by telling ourselves we don’t want to make things worse. We can’t afford to take that kind of risk, we could alienate someone we care about – so we don’t say anything.

We must look at others through His eyes of love and see them the WAY Jesus sees them. Which is impossible without the precious Holy Spirit’s help.  All we can see is the bluster or their external disguises on the outside, those things are put there to protect the person. Jesus can go right around the external and wave at them, and sometimes He says: “peek-a-boo.” 

Hubby and I have seen Him do it. We even had one person ask us: “What was that?” We explained it is a WHO not a what … and that led to an interesting conversation. Looking at this world through His eyes can give us a fresh perspective on the way this life was designed by God Himself to work. What we see as bad, our Heavenly Father has designed for our own good.

Let’s continually pray for love’s eyes to see what is really going on, because His eyes can see things we can’t. Otherwise our prejudices regarding what is good and what is bad … get in the way. I need more input from the Lord Himself and His eyes to see and understand what He wants from me, as He sends  me. Bye. 👋.

“And great crowds came to Him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at His feet, and He healed them,…” Matthew 15:30.

P 3439 “To be or not to be…”

/ DVH

“[It is that purpose and grace] which He now has made known and has fully disclosed and made real [to us] through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, Who annulled death and made it of no effect and brought life and immortality (immunity from eternal death) to light through the Gospel.” 2 Timothy 1:10.

When you get older, death pops up in your thinking wa-ay more than you’d like it to! Seriously. Hey, I read the bible lots of times, I know what comes next … Yet sometimes I am like Elsa in Frozen 2 – digging in my heels because what I see and know here, can be realer than what I know about that other place! When I see Elsa struggling against her destiny, I think that her struggle resembles the calling of the Holy Spirit, in the song  … ”Into the unknown...” Moo-ving on …

Paul tells us in this verse from 2 Timothy, that Jesus has annulled death. Here’s the meaning of the word annulled, I put it in because it offers great insight, plus, I am a big fan of the dictionary. Here’s the meaning of — “Annulled” …it is the past tense and past participle of the verb annul which means to officially declare something legally void, invalid, or as though it never existed.”

Did you get that? Death doesn’t exist anymore, it is officially invalid. Jesus wiped it out forever with what He did for mankind at Calvary. He told the man dying beside Him on the cross that he would be with the Lord in PARADISE that day. Human beings were created to be eternal, as well as being created in His image, that’s in Genesis. You or I might have some weird family trait that means we can roll your tongue over so it is upside down … I can by the way, its my one claim to fame 🤪 …

But that weird trait that found its way genetically through all the previous generations, to me – was a gift from my forebears. Money would have been better, thank you! However, despite our personal inherited genetics, we are made in His image. The point is – we need to practice looking for Jesus in each other – instead of looking for faults.

Here is a quick recap … spiritually speaking …we both look like the Lord, and we can’t die, forever. About now, you may be wondering if I have lost my mind? Probably. But both things are true, and… they are in the book. The bible is our plumb line when it comes to spiritual things. FYI, a plumb line is used for making buildings straight, vertically. They’ve found those doohickeys in Egyptian tombs in 1250 BC. And they still work today. The guys who built the pyramids weren’t stupid, they simply were no match for God’s incredible wisdom. Remember … their chariot wheels fell off and got bogged??? Revenge is never a good plan.

Yet even the Egyptians who chased the Israelites are not dead! They are just not here anymore … unless some museum preserved their dusty bones. However, the inner person is not gone. Your great great great Grandpa is not dead, he is either asleep until the judgment, or with Jesus already. Which is why Paul tells us in 1 Thessalonians 4:13: “Now we do not want you to be uninformed, believers, about those who are asleep [in death], so that you will not grieve [for them] as the others do who have no hope [beyond this present life].” 

We can’t NOT ‘be.’  We are forever people, and I ain’t talking about the undead! Jesus didn’t just remove death, He introduced into this life, a brand new eternal way to live – right here, right now. That new indestructible life in Him burst out into this world when Jesus left that grave behind Him. 

When we pray “thy kingdom come” we are not just speaking about the truth of a new rule and reign in heaven one day. We are also talking about US – TODAY. We bring His new Kingdom with us wherever we go. Look in the mirror. The kingdom of God is within you. Are you planning on letting that kingdom OUT any time soon? We all know what it looks like, the book tells us – it is empowered by LOVE. 

Eons ago, when I taught Sunday School about this subject I made sure I wore a cardigan. I said this to the kids: “I am alive here and now, right? Pretend this cardigan is part of my body … whoops! There it goes” – then I let the cardigan fall to the floor behind me. “When I die, I will leave my earthly body behind, it will die, but the real me is still alive. My body/cardigan will get old and start to fall apart, but the inside me lives forever.” We can start living forever, now … it is our choice where we spend it afterwards.

When Jesus took the keys of death and hell away from satan, He said this: “I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.” Revelation 1:18. Jesus Christ NOW has those keys. He bought them with His own blood – to let us OUT, not keep us IN. We have a choice, TO BE all we can be! Bye. 👋

P 3437 He wrote it down. 

/ DVH

As I mentioned yesterday, I believe God calls us, and then we respond. Even when it seems like it is the other way around, we will eventually discover that the Lord has been working behind the scenes in our lives and we have not noticed Him working. The bible tells us His Word not only feeds us, it washes us clean, but we have to let it do what it has been sent to do.

I think the way to get to know our heavenly Father, His Son and Holy Spirit is to watch the way They work in other people’s lives, to see Their compassion and kindness toward ordinary people. It is not enough to read the bible stories, we must let those stories read us, and that means we will probably be convicted along the way. Here are someone’s thoughts as they talked to Him and read His book.

“I wrote it down  I stretched out the heavens, I numbered the sand I gave you the breath that you hold in your hand.  The world cries for answers, but you look away.  Yet My Word has spoken of this very day.  

I wrote it down.  Every line, every page for the humble and the wise, for the young and the aged.  The truth is alive. It will help you to stand. I left you My Word. It’s all in your hands. The nations are trembling, the earth shakes in pain. But still you chase idols and call on My name.  I warned you of kingdoms that rise and then fall. I gave you the prophets to speak. Through it all, 

I wrote it down.  Every line, every page. For the humble and the wise, for the young and the aged. The truth is alive. It will help you to stand. I left you My Word. It’s all in your hands.  You say I don’t see it. You say I can’t know. But My Spirit will teach you if you let it show. Heaven and earth will both pass away, but My Word remains unshaken today. 

I wrote it down, for the darkness, the fight, so you’d walk in the day, not stumble at night. The truth is before you. Don’t let it be banned. I left you My Word. It’s all in your hands… … I gave you the scriptures don’t say I was silent. (The artists are “In God’s World.” It’s a collective. This song is on YouTube if you wish to listen to it..)

This is one of my favourite songs to listen to at the moment. I love the haunting beauty of the words, melody and music, and the fact that what it says is relevant today. Especially the exhortation that the bible is not just any old book that can be read and forgotten. Almighty God wrote His love down on every single page, through ordinary people who didn’t live fancy-schmancy fabulous lives. They simply worshipped and followed our spectacular God. The thing is, I can hear the intense cry of the Lord’s heart in this song.

Our Shepherd wants to lead us… however, it is easy to think that everything He does is going to be spectacular. That does not resemble the Person we see in the Gospels! He didn’t chase opportunities, like we would. He simply moved about with His disciples and helped the people who asked Him, taught the ones that were interested, and healed everyone who came to Him. The bible clearly says in Isaiah  53:2: “He (Jesus) grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” 

This means that the Lord Jesus’ beauty came from within! The Holy Spirit was beautiful IN Him and through Him, expressing the love and life of our Heavenly Father. (PS we can choose to look like that, when we daily choose to follow Him.) Jesus looked just like any other Middle Eastern man, so if you weren’t searching for God Himself, you’d pass Him on the street! This obsession with outward beauty is a reflection of the age we are living in, where we think things have to be gorgeous and stunning, to be significant. 

There is nothing more gut-wrenchingly, devastatingly beautiful than that cross! This one event is so beautiful it reaches through time and space to touch us here and now.

Father God tells us that He did not leave us alone. He is with us … every time we read His book … we have the Holy Spirit with us – and His book! The key ingredient is to believe He is talking to YOU when you read. God is far more incredibly wise and creative than we can understand, He can take the pages of an old book and make it food for anyone.

People can get so extraordinarily tied up within the thoughts  that this word means this, and that word means that – which is useful and helpful —- but it is not what the bible’s for! The bible is spiritual MANNA. You EAT it. You treat it like a steak or a piece of broccoli … you simply cut off a chunk and chew on it.

And because digestion begins in the mouth, then you talk about it, question it, research it … that’s what chewing looks like! You ask the CHEF, the Holy Spirit, to explain to you why He chose to make the broccoli into a cream sauce on the top of the steak. Then you wait and listen. Let’s remember to ask QUESTIONS and press in for ANSWERS. “How do I do that?” is a great question. 

Our Father’s reply to us is always about His love for us. Even correction is LOVE. If you truly want to know your Heavenly Father, and His Son, read the book. The Holy Spirit waits for us to open His Word. It is amazing. This book appears to be a pure bright white light – but inside it, there is a rainbow – a depth and diversity of colour, transformation and thoughts. Bye. 👋

P 3435 All is not lost.

/ DVH

“With tender humility and quiet patience, always demonstrate gentleness and generous love toward one another, especially toward those who may try your patience.” Ephesians 4:2 TPT.  Years ago, it was my children that tried my patience, nowadays … I think I try theirs! Time is a funny thing, it has a way of turning stuff around. With His help, we are all going to need humility, as well as quiet patience, gentleness and generous love, because the situations we end up in, may not necessarily be sweet or easy! 

This morning as I concentrated on the context of this verse, I decided to go and look at the scriptures around it, to get some clarity. The first thing I noticed was so interesting I am writing this blog about it! Ephesians 4:1 … “As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” There have been times when I’ve read the beginning and the ending of Paul’s letters like it is advertising. You know what I mean, ‘Dear So and so, I hope you are well …. blah blah blah … the important part of the letter — and then send my love to Auntie Jane and Uncle Fred.’ Stuff we could call, politeness, or niceties.’ … Not this time.

This time, I looked hard at what Paul had actually said and it jumped out at me: “As a prisoner … FOR THE LORD!” Big clue there. Paul’s in jail that’s why he is writing a letter, because he can’t be there in Ephesus in person. Yet he sees himself as the Lord’s prisoner, not a Roman prisoner. He’s living under house-arrest in Rome but in his mind he is still God’s servant in that prison. Just bear with me I am getting to my point. 

There are people reading this today, who have been prisoners. Locked in by so many different, sometimes difficult, circumstances. Things like ill-health, unemployment, a crummy job, being married to a difficult person, having trouble with money, or kids. So many things can lock us IN. But Paul casually points out that he knows that the Lord is in charge. We need to see what happens to us, from God’s point of view. The Lord always has a purpose – He’s doing something else.

He has allowed our circumstances to prevail for a reason. Now we are ‘in Christ,’ we need to put aside the idea of going the wrong way. Or getting into trouble way over our heads, and feeling like we can’t make it etc. God Himself put each one of us where we are right now. And He has a purpose in it! Even if we sinned and walked away from Him to get there. He is bigger than we think! The Apostle Paul is in jail, because he insisted that he be judged, as a Roman citizen, by Caesar. Was that a good plan or a bad plan? It seemed like a very bad plan – because if you carefully read his writings, he is always planning to get out!  He simply had no idea what was coming next. US!

So he appealed to Rome, and ended up side-lined under house arrest because he was falsely accused of riots etc. in Judea. In the natural, Paul should be out there preaching the gospel, giving birth to churches, because that’s what his office in the Spirit does. An apostle gives birth to church-es …plural. But he’s not. And because of this seemingly unprofitable time, when he is stuck waiting for his turn to talk to Caesar – he wrote the Epistles! He had to, he couldn’t go to some of those places in person – he was in jail!

Here’s my thought for today: you may be somewhere that does not make sense to you … but God has got you! You haven’t fallen off His radar!! He’s not surprised by this postponement, or side-lining of your gift or ministry, it is part of a plan to extend the boundaries of your tent. Paul ‘fathered’ so many innumerable churches because he was stuck in that situation, unable to go out and go where he wanted to go. We know Paul has encouraged generations of people to press on. He thought he was just writing to the people of Ephesus and Philippi. If that can happen to Paul it can happen to us. Maybe your ‘stuck’ problem isn’t about YOU!

Don’t let the enemy lie, and cheat you out of the joy and expectation of what Almighty God is going to do next in your life. We don’t know that stuff, but that does not mean we have to throw our hands in the air and live in misery. Our job is to be faithful wherever we are. We can certainly ask the Lord about it, but even if He answers us in ways we don’t understand, we can still trust Him to work it out. Paul did! That’s called st-re-tch-ing our faith.

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unfathomable (inscrutable, unsearchable) are His judgments (His decisions)! And how untraceable (mysterious, undiscoverable) are His ways (His methods, His paths)!” Romans 11:33.  I’ll say! He blew my mind over six words at the beginning of Ephesians!  I never saw it before. It was like the Lord took His little highlighter and swiped it over those words. 

God has us in His heart and hands. Read Psalm 139:8 . We gave Him our lives and He took them. It will take loads of quiet patience, humility, and reliance upon His generous love filling us, to cope with just waiting. Waiting seems like we are doing nothing useful. Waiting can lead to doubting ourselves, others and Him. But Isaiah tells us in Chapter 40:31 that it also ‘… renews our strength! We will mount up with wings like eagles.’ Have you ever watched an eagle fly? It is effortless. Give everything to Him, put down your effort, and wait – all is not lost! You are going to come out of this stronger. Bye. 👋