Love

P 2133 We do not have to look the same to serve Him.

/ DVH

I Corinthians 12:4-6 “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.” These verses help us to understand that God’s gifts in action do not have to look the same. Just because your church does not do stuff the same way mine does, it does not mean what happens is not the Holy Spirit and your group of believers is not being led by Him. This whole thing works by faith – your faith may manifest itself differently than mine.

At the same time, I think we need to teach new believers how to individually hear Him and then supervise them and prayerfully instruct them. This step needs to come before teaching people how to use their God-given gifts. Teaching people how to listen, is about activating that person’s faith so they can hear Him for themselves and follow Him consistently. It’s called making disciples, not just cultivating spiritual gifts. Each individual in the body of Christ needs to have Godly character, and that takes time, patience and someone willing to encourage the person as well as correct them.

The Lord Jesus Christ wants to activate His army. We can go to this bible school and that one  – a good thing to do BTW… but if you are learning and not doing, then whatever you are studying is not doing you a penny-worth of good. Christianity doesn’t need more information, we need to start acting on the info we’ve already been given! Use it or lose it! We have enough Christians right now, out there in this world, to change and challenge everything around us, by simply loving our neighbour as ourselves.

It is clear that the Lord does not want us to be ignorant about the Holy Spirit’s gifts. However, just because what we do to contribute does not look like what someone else does, it does not negate the gift He gave us. What matters is obeying what He tells us to do, not just the gift. The real thing to watch out for is “Who is being glorified?”For years I was so intimidated by what the Lord gave me to do, I almost wore an invisibility cloak! I felt judged when I did what He said because it did not look the way other people’s gifts did. I had no revelation about the bigness of our God. Practically everybody mentioned in the Old Testament, was not normal by human standards – yet God chose these people to manifest His loving care and correction to others.

When we serve and bless others with what God has given us, it opens the door to the supernatural, however the supernatural is not always startling. Read the Gospels again. Jesus did some stuff other people didn’t even notice! We don’t have to be famous to be effective. We were ALL given something supernatural to share with others, but not all of us will be seen. We must appreciate that the size of the spiritual contribution does not matter – because if you butter buns and do it because the Lord told you to do it, then somebody is bound to be touched by Him and blessed! 

It is so sad that the Body of Christ has a bunch of ambulance chasers who only know how to watch and they do not know how to participate. My advice in any kind of difficulty is this – YOU pray and do what He tells you to do.  If it happens to be your enemy lying on the ground – then all the better! The Lord Jesus spoke to the entire body when He said: “GO! Heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons …” That won’t happen if we all just stand around the sick person waiting for the pastor to be free.

Meanwhile, there is NO ongoing value in looking at what Brother Wilbur does and trying to pray like him because the way he prays seems successful. Instead, ask the Lord, each time – “How do YOU want ME to do this?” The Holy Spirit does not want clones – He wants the many-sided wisdom of God to be displayed in front of this world. We are each a tiny facet of that beautiful wisdom. Glory! What a privilege. 🙌 Jesus said: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:14–16.)  Meanwhile, no wonder this world seems to be circling the drain – most of us have gone and hidden our particular light under a basket!

Staying in relationship with people is also important – first with the Lord, and then with others. The bible does not say it is OK to be in fellowship with Him and ignore the rest of the world … or even worse … be mad at so many people you can’t count them. Jesus Christ so identified with mankind that if we are mad at them  – we are mad at Him! Our personal faith can make a huge difference in someone else’s life when we choose to love them, as we are led by the Holy Spirit. “Each believer is given continuous revelation by the Holy Spirit to benefit not just himself but all…”“…Remember, it is the same Holy Spirit Who distributes, activates and operates these different gifts as He chooses for each believer.” 1 Corinthians 12:7,11. TPT 

The most important thing we can ask ourselves about whatever our gifts are … is this love? It doesn’t matter if my gift does not work like yours, what matters is this: is it my aim to be led by Him and demonstrate the love of God without prejudice or partiality, wherever I go? Our faith needs to be activated and used for the benefit of others. We have no excuse. The bible clearly says we do not have to look the same to be a part of what HE is doing. 👋🏻 

P 2129 Tick tock.

/ DVH

Ephesians 3:14-21 TPT “So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth. And I pray that He would unveil within YOU the unlimited riches of His glory and favour until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with His divine might and explosive power.” 

I think these verses are a fantastic prayer to pray for yourself and all the people around you. This is how we need to live – when things are good, as well as bad. We all live on the other side of the cross. Even if we don’t know Him yet, we can ask the Lord Jesus to reveal Himself to us. He has already given this world everything – total forgiveness, plus He poured out eternal His love, and He gave us the power to learn about Him and walk with Him. Our God hasn’t left mankind alone. The Holy Spirit is God and He is here. He came and He never left! And our task is to cherish His Presence and follow Him – the same way Jesus’ disciples followed Him. Using our faith.

You know, the disciples didn’t go on holidays, or have a slouching-about-the-house-day, in those three and a half years of intense ministry? They simply walked and talked with Jesus, each other, and anyone else who needed something. It takes faith to do that when the immediate stuff of this world presses in on us. These men woke up with Him, they ate with Him, they walked dusty roads following Him. I don’t think we can begin to understand the blessing of living, walking and talking with Jesus Christ, every single day. Christianity does not work part-time. We need to constantly use our faith for something else other than excusing our bad behaviour.

Back to Ephesians: “Then, by CONSTANTLY using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of His love will become the very source and root of your life. THEN you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is His love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!”  WOW!

There is one thing we need to know above everything else – our Heavenly Father is looking for a resting place – a habitation – and He wants US to be that place. God is holy and we are not.  But Jesus Christ made this utterly impossible thing – walking and talking with God Himself –  possible for us, in our lives, before we were ever born. I cannot give anyone some formulaic system on how to walk with Jesus minute by minute. My only solution is to make Him the centre of everything you know, and then go out and live for others while we are doing that. This means simple things like – in a conversation with someone else – what they have to say is more important than what we have to say! We need to intentionally reverse the selfish polarity that is dominating this world – and that has to be done prayerfully, and on purpose, through our own choices.

Here is the last bit today: “Never doubt God’s mighty power TO WORK IN YOU and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energises you. Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ—and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity. Amen!”  

We cannot know what we have been given, unless we make an effort for ourselves to find out and seek Him. Somebody else can’t give this to us – even the most anointed man or woman has to choose to pray when they have other matters pressing in on them. We need to ask for a revelation of the importance of our lives for His kingdom’s sake. Otherwise spiritual things just stay as words on a page, and eventually they become interesting information.  

But the reality is, we are all destined to be citizens of heaven, our names are written in His book, the book of life, forever. How sad it would be if we won some super prize in a lottery and we didn’t go to pick up the prize! JESUS IS OUR PRIZE – His nearness from day to day is our greatest blessing, whether we feel like it or not. And most days, at my house, I live with ‘OR NOT.’ We must pray for His power to overcome the seemingly unimportant every day things that hold us back from living our Christian lives in victory!

Everything depends on how you look at this life you have been given and what you cherish most. Whatever we make our priority, will fill our vision. I love that old hymn, “Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart…” If living this life from day to day, is all about finding the rent, going to work, or paying the mortgage, and raising our kids then that will be the main priority of our lives. Ask the Lord to help you to focus on Him above everything else. satan does not have to corrupt us in order to render us useless, and stop us daily living in God’s kingdom. he just needs to lull us off to sleep with our everyday humdrum lives, lurching from one financial or moral temptation to another.  

The Lord has some people in this world, who dearly love Him yet they live under a constant barrage of fear and danger, as well as a huge need for food and shelter. They don’t have a problem focussing on God! He fills their thoughts. Our biggest danger in the Western world is apathy and human busy-ness.  It takes focus to walk with Him and live our lives acknowledging His ways, because this life we live from day to day, crowds our thoughts of Christ and what He did for us … OUT. If not now, then when? Tick tock. ⏰ 👋🏻

P 2123 The road to maturity.

/ DVH

Maturity in God happens as we choose to do the things we do not want to do, for His sake. Like loving people, and reaching out to strangers …  by helping them practically, and sharing God’s loving kindness with them. That is the best way I know to stretch our faith and start down the road toward maturity. The church has become so stuck on evangelising people – it has made those people who don’t serve God for a living, feel inadequate!  Evangelists are one of the gifts that have been given to the Body of Christ. If you have that gift you know you have it because telling people they need to be saved comes naturally to you. However, a witness simply tells others what they know about Him and what they have seen for themselves. 

John 4:28-30: “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a Man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward Him…” 38-42 ”…Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to Him, they urged Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days.  And because of His words many more became believers. They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.”

This Samaritan woman didn’t give a theological discourse to her village, she just told her neighbours what she heard Him say about her, and her life! I believe that we step into our destiny by actively sharing with others, and that puts us on the road to becoming a mature Christian. But this life is distracting, and so we concentrate on what has happened around us, or to us – instead of intentionally focussing on God’s purpose in our lives. That’s when we miss the blessings He has for us in the middle of the trials and troubles.

God is treating us like His very own precious children. He allows things to come into our lives so we can choose to follow Him through them. Our minute by minute choices to do what He said, or not, count. The trouble with choices is we can make them too quickly, and give in to our emotions – sometimes for convenience sake – without even giving our responses to the difficulties thought. Maturity makes hard choices.

In the bible, the people who love God and serve Him, are either, in trouble, about to get out of trouble or about to get into more trouble. Read the Old Testament! Or read the NEW! Trouble is a sign we are going the right way!! Paul had himself a whole heap of trouble, he was in and out of jail unable to travel sometimes, but he chose to see and learn God’s ways, rather than focus on the liabilities. Meanwhile how could Paul ever know that those difficulties would benefit US? He was just looking after the churches he founded back then. He had no idea his letters about Christ and how to grow in God, would become a book that would reach the entire world! We cannot always understand the purposes and plans of God – that’s why it is called faith. 

Sometimes we miss opportunities to choose to mature because of our immediate needs. This life is full of distractions. Things that need to be done instantly. But when we choose to trust Him above our own understanding that is when we let our faith loose. A transaction occurs inside our spirits and we stand up a little straighter and feel bolder – we actually start owning who we really are by making hard choices. Read Romans 8:31-39. ‘Nothing’ … means even our feelings can’t separate us from Him, unless we give in to them. We belong to Him now, and even though we can be faith-LESS He is always faith-FUL.  You can stake your life on Him. 

Philippians 2:13 says: “For it is [not your strength, but it is] God Who is effectively at work in you, both to will and to work [that is, strengthening, energising, and creating in you the longing and the ability to fulfil your purpose] for His good pleasure.”

The Holy Spirit wants us to win. He believes in us. He longs to help us. I exhort us all to step out of the boat of safety onto the waters of change. He will not let us drown. Dust off your testimony about how the Lord Jesus changed your life and tell Him He can call on you whenever He likes. Don’t worry about time – I’ve watched Him stretch my own time, personally. Challenge yourself to find one person today who needs to hear that they are beautiful in Christ’s eyes, they matter to Him, and He loves them dearly. “Shed the love of God in your heart ABROAD …BY FAITH …”👋🏻

P 2122 Thoughts on the New Year.

/ DVH

“Now, if anyone is enfolded into Christ, he has become an entirely new person. All that is related to the old order has vanished. Behold, everything is fresh and new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 TPT

I love belonging to Jesus! My life has meaning because He brought His meaning into it. Because of the bible I know that if I had a difficult day struggling with my flesh, I can repent, repair things with Him and others and … start again tomorrow.  However, I praise God that “His mercies are new every single morning!!” because I definitely need that. Read all about it in Lamentations 3:22-23; Psalm 30:2l; and 2 Corinthians 8:1-9.

The secret to being a joy-filled Christian is to live our lives continually being enfolded into Him. Isn’t that a precious thought? I remind myself daily, that His forgiving Love utterly depends on Who He is and what Jesus did. I am loved because He is lovely – not necessarily because I am all that loveable.😂 The Holy Spirit puts His arms around each one of us and He is holding each one of us up, in prayer. He freely gives us His help, and He reminds us of who we really are, by God’s good Grace. Our task is to stay in His hidden place of refreshing and comfort, focussing on HIM and not the humdrum stuff that rushes headlong at us. We may sometimes feel overwhelmed but we do not have to be overcome by this life.

Today I want to talk about another way to read the bible – we can read it to be informed, and transformed, but aside from that because of this book we can also see and know our King. It is good to read the bible as a love letter from Him to us. Part of being enfolded by Him is being aware of and comforted by His Loving Grace. Many people at this time of the year often make New Year resolutions hoping to change bad habits etc. – well here are a few things to think on today that we all need to be reminded of regularly.  Here are some thoughts I had: 

“I will remember, by choice, every single day just how much my Heavenly Father loves me, because of what Jesus chose to do for me. His love has no dark side or purpose in it. It is more constant than the sun in the sky, deeper than the Marianna trench, higher than the heavens, and it does not vary one single bit from one second to the next. People may get sick of me, leave me, hate me, or neglect me – but the Holy Spirit is always there for me, helping me, teaching me, filling me, guiding me, and caring for me.” 

“I am reminding myself, on purpose, that because God’s love toward me is infinite – His love toward YOU is infinite too. So if I feel I cannot love you then I need to remember that my love for you is proportionate to the amount of love I gratefully receive from Him. I cannot truly love you until I understand how wide, how deep and how truly undeserved and unconditional His love is for me.” 

“I am going to stop living with the expectation that everyone else needs to get everything right all the time. We all make mistakes. And with God’s help, I want to stop blaming other people for my own responses and reactions to this life. EVERYBODY has difficulties. So, I set my face to stop demanding that other people understand me before I approve of them. I will no longer excuse myself from doing the very things I get mad at them for.  I’ll remind myself that I cannot say I live in forgiveness, if I won’t own and confess my faults and stop making excuses for what I’ve done. I am not perfect, but God is not finished with me yet. However, He is not finished with you, either.” 

I believe we need to take the time as often as we can, to actively reinforce the things that our Heavenly Father has said and done, as well as the things He has asked us to do. This world encroaches upon us from every side, and the world view we face daily is selfish, and lacking any peace, kindness and true spirituality. If I am not aware of my own faults I could easily turn into a petty, mean-minded individual who is just looking for a fight or disagreement. 

My mission in this life should be to make other people so comfortable, they love to be around me because of His Presence in my everyday life. Christians need to be like honey to a bee. Sweet, appealing, life-giving and satisfying – helping the people around us, by inadvertently creating hunger and thirst in others for the reality of God Himself. 👋🏻

P 2119 What comes out when the pressure comes on?

/ DVH

Human beings can be quite clever at hiding stuff, from themselves … as well as others.  Like Jesus showed us in John 7:37-39 “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” … If we want rivers of His water flowing in our lives … then  we have to stop building dams to protect ourselves, or diverting His streams of life away from the purposes of God into our own purposes. This water goes through us to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. LET IT FLOW.

I realised a number of years ago that I could be ‘nice’ and fool people, even the people around me … but Almighty God sees my heart, and I can’t fool HIM.  Now, despite the fact that I can lie to myself and get away with pretending I am a nice person … who I really am comes out when I am squeezed tightly by life’s pressures and difficulties. HOWEVER, I am here to say today, do not give up on yourself, and definitely do not give up on Him! “But…”you wail, “I pray all the time about my bad temper, sarcastic tongue, petty stinky attitudes  plus rebellion, pomposity, resentment and bitterness I feel inside, and God hasn’t done anything about it SO… perhaps it doesn’t bother Him!” (Yeah right, telling yourself that won’t change anything.) 

You can tell yourself that, but you and I have read the book, and we all can see instantly in there that’s not what He is aiming at! I now understand that nothing happens to me, or around me by accident. The Lord allows circumstances into my life so I can acknowledge my sin, then repent, and repair things and ask for His help to change. THEN!!! …Then I gird up my loins and deliberately start taking faith steps. I’ve pray this – “help help “ all the time. Why? “The Lord is close to all who CALL on Him, yes, to all who call on Him in truth. He fills the desires of those who fear Him: He hears their cry and saves them.” (Psalm 145:18) My advice is we need to be truthful and admit our faults.

I’ve learnt that there is no use blaming other people for your response. Your response is your responsibility. Saying nothing is better than letting stinky dangerous stuff fly out of your mouth. “But I mean what I am saying at the time!” Yeah, we all do, but what is said in anger cannot be easily repaired. The thing is, someone has  threatened us, and we use our words to push back at them. At that moment we are deliberately telling that other person something they don’t need to know about themselves. Their bad attitude, if they even have one, is their responsibility – not ours. Our aim is to spread love, and our opinion about someone else’s behaviour or thoughts or actions isn’t something they need to hear from us. BTW, if you poke the bear serves you right if it bites your head off! 

Our words are meant to HEAL not hurt. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.” Ephesians 4:29. (The dictionary says: LET is a verb (used with object), let, let·ting. to allow or permit:)  “But I have a foul temper!!” Hmmm.. Thank you so much for telling me that, I will do do my best to avoid YOU! 🤣 We do not have to feed our weaknesses by indulging them. Instead, we can learn to actively transform who we are with His help. The Lord Jesus has done all the work at Calvary, now we get to live out what He did IN FAITH. The only power satan has over us is the power we GIVE him. Faith, however, is the substance of things hoped for …” We give our faith substance by acting on what we believe, in spite of our feelings or circumstances.

So when my mouth wants to vomit bad stuff over someone else, I take a great big breath and pray ‘help help.’ And if doing that doesn’t stop the flow, then I excuse myself and go be by myself until the Lord and I have a strategy – and that strategy never includes hurting the other person. The Power of God can only flow through us to the extent that we let it work ON us. Ya might want to read that sentence again, I know I need too!  Stop looking at what the other person said, and look at what you are saying. Our speech needs to build up and help others, not shatter them.

“His strength is made perfect in our weaknesses.”  When I am weakest then I am strong in Him. We get strong in His Might … using our faith. Faith has substance, we learn that when we use it.  We don’t get zapped there, we WALK there deliberately, on purpose, using our faith. Jesus did it. He went up a mountain and prayed, then He spoke things that were going to help His disciples to rely upon the Holy Spirit when He came. We need to stop reading the bible for benefits and start reading it for our ways to become His ways. What comes out when the pressure comes on is what is already IN there. Change and transformation require co-operation, if we want His rivers of living water flowing through our lives.

Our mouth is not a DRAIN for our emotions. 👋🏻

P 2097 Love will always win

/ DVH

“Love never brings fear, for fear is always related to punishment. But love’s perfection drives the fear of punishment far from our hearts. Whoever walks constantly afraid of punishment has not reached love’s perfection…” 1 John 4:18-19.

Whenever we recognise that we are afraid, we need to ask the Holy Spirit where it is we need to repent, and/or, where we need His healing love to touch us. Fear is a flashing signboard … it calls our attention to something that is wrong somewhere. There is only one good sort of fear, and that is the reverential fear of the Lord! Other types of fear are flung at us by the enemy, they become opportunities to learn more about ourselves and the Lord. Remember, fear always comes from the other guy. Use his attacks to alert you to the bigger reality of God’s Love.

Jesus Christ was kind and caring toward everybody. He even warned His enemies – the people who would eventually kill Him, and they too were given an opportunity to change. Right here, right now, you and I no longer have to fear. Jesus loves us perfectly. So now – TODAY, we can go through that door/gate that Christ’s broken, resurrected body provided, into our Heavenly Father’s Presence. Because our personal debt has been paid. We start to remember that we need to live forgiving lives, and now we give away for free what we got for free. 

Psalm 100:4 tells us how to come into His Presence.“You can pass through His open gates with the password of praise. Come right into His Presence with thanksgiving. Come bring your thank offering to Him and affectionately bless His beautiful Name!”

I exhort you to never forget, whenever you feel you have hit a road-block, (spiritually speaking,) to look at the cross and start praising God for every single thing He did there. The stuff you already know and the stuff you don’t know, yet.Then start listing what He has done in your life already, and keep on going, until you are smiling.That is what “forget not all His benefits” means. It means make an effort to remember them – remind yourself  … on purpose! Some days that can be a big effort. So start to thank Him for your family, friends etc. – the nice ones, and… the not-so-nice ones. That’s called blessing those who hurt you!

I have no idea why we think … and most of us do! … that complaining a whole lot about other people is going to help them improve … or …  maybe, make us feel better. Another dumb idea from the pit. I dunno about you, but doing that doesn’t help me at all – it just magnifies the problem. But praising and giving thanks, opens the door/gate into a totally different perspective. It is easier to access love when you turn the tap of criticism, disappointment and despair OFF.  

Sometimes our generic complaining attitudes mean we actually cannot see any good because we have been overcome by the bad. At that moment my advice is to read the bible aloud, so your ears can hear something other than bad stuff. Preferably the Epistles which are full of totally brilliant things. Then ask for His help.The Holy Spirit will not do things like this for us. Instead we need to remember that WE are the ones with the power to turn things around. That’s why it sometimes seems so hard!

Seriously, we cannot use our badly chosen attitudes to duck out of our own responsibilities. We simply have to choose to change. Jesus died to give US power, over sin, this world and the devil. It is useless to ask the Lord Jesus to redo the things He already did! What He did was once and for all, and permanent. Ask Him for the courage to do things differently. Then begin by thanking Him that He loves you. His love is never negated by our bad attitudes..

My advice is this: we need to deliberately carry our own cross, and embrace whatever that means in our day-to-day lives. The cross is an instrument of torture and death – so it will hurt. But we are to live with the hope of total spiritual resurrection, every single day. Whatever we get into – HE can get us out of it. His love came to each one of us and brought us into a whole new dimension – where love always wins. 👋🏻