Luke 16:19-31

P 3175 Piece of cake!

/ DVH

“Christ is our message! We preach to awaken hearts and bring every person into the full understanding of truth. It has become my inspiration and passion in ministry to labor with a tireless intensity, with His power flowing through me, to present to every believer the revelation of being His perfect one in Jesus Christ.” Colossians 1:28-29 TPT. 

“Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honor, and authority! Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm.” Colossians 3:1-2 TPT.

We can waste a lot of our God-given time reflecting on where we’ve missed it, and end up living in the land of regret. It is good to be aware of where you’ve fallen short of the mark, but not to the point where you can’t even see the mark anymore! That mark is this – Jesus’ sacrifice and His wonderful love for mankind. We have all been given a priceless gift …total reconciliation with God. Yes, He knows what we are like;  yes He knows we fail;  but our wonderful Father, God, is far greater than we can ever imagine. Right here. Right now. He sees us complete in Christ. That’s because of Who He is, His nature – not our spirituality.   

The best news ever, is this… Jesus did not fail. He was tempted in every aspect of this life, just like we are, He got tired, just like we do, He had responsibilities, just like we do. Listen to this particular responsibility!  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Luke 4:18&19. Howzat for hard? 

Yet Jesus quite naturally walked and lived with SomeOne that we need to learn to walk with, minute by minute, day by day — the precious Holy Spirit.The good news is this – I don’t have to be all that – Jesus already did it for me. Our hearts need to be awakened all the time, to the reality of His truth – by reading and acting on the stuff that is written down in His book.

For instance, the bible says: ‘agree with your adversary quickly.’  Matthew 5:25. We’ve been lied to by our enemy who told us: ‘There is no way you can ever be like Jesus. After all, you did this and that. And something much worse, yesterday!!’ So I agree with the enemy when he accuses me, but then I refer him to the bible, because that is what Jesus did when He was tempted.  I point to the cross because I know I have nothing else but His Grace to commend me.

Sometimes I think we’d rather hide in the wine press, like Gideon did, than be seen! The bible says the people recorded in the Old Testament are there ‘…as an example to us.’ 1 Corinthians 10:11. Let’s not hide like that young man did. Instead let’s remember God has a plan and we are already in it! Our problem is we need to maintain our faith in His goodness, His promises … not just focus on our sins. We have weak wobbly faith in a tiger-pouncing world! It’s time to get up off the mat and get back into doing what we’ve been destined to do …telling and showing everyone around us how much Jesus loves them! 

A lady came here yesterday and in the course of our conversation she mentioned that she didn’t go to church but she did talk to God. She said this like she thought it was a bad thing. Like somehow she was sneaking into a rock concert without a ticket! We assured her she didn’t need a ticket, because God heard every word she said. Then we went on to reassure her that Christianity is not a club you join, it’s a Person you meet, so we don’t have to shout out our number as we go through the door! She laughed, and said: “You should tell people that more often!”  We need to remember …’it is the kindness of God that leads people into repentance.’  Romans 2:4. The-people-who-haven’t-met-Him-yet are often more happy to hear the truth than we are to give it to them!

However, we all know that sometimes witnesses can be quite reluctant. Cop shows on TV taught me that!! There is no such thing as getting it right, there is only obeying Him, or not. He’s a Redeemer! He can take the mess we’ve made of our lives, and turn it into something more wonderful than we can imagine. At the same time the Holy Spirit knows our frame. He also knows our weaknesses …but when we give them to Him, He will give us His strength in exchange. We don’t have to give someone else a 20 course dinner about what the bible says, in our testimony – we just give them the fresh bread He gave us this morning when we read the bible! 

There is the saddest parable told by Jesus Himself, about a rich man and a beggar. Luke 16:19-31. As the beggar talks to the rich man he says: “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” Let’s choose to take the time to tell others that–SomeOne, God Himself!–came here and made Himself that bridge between what people think they know about Him and Who He really is. Tell them Jesus is everyone’s bridge back to God.  Our testimonies are powerful, because the Holy Spirit handpicks the people He sends us to.

Revelation 12:11 –“And they overcame him (satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”  You and I don’t have to be the whole band – but … you can be the banjo Jesus plays on… OK!… Let’s not be picky … you can be the flute instead! Piece of cake. Bye.👋

P 3064 The missing piece to the meaning of life …

/ DVH

… IS IN THE BIBLE! Our Heavenly Father God has not left us to our own devices, instead heaven invaded earth in the most innocent, harmless, least intrusive and threatening form – Jesus Christ came here as a little, helpless baby! HE IS OUR MISSING PIECE. In the bible we have a permanent record of God’s love in action throughout the whole book. Because men and women, just like us, saw our God in action and wrote it down. Now we need to act just like the leper in Mark 1:45 ‘… he…began to publish it much, and to blaze abroad the matter,…” What do we proclaim everywhere? That God’s love is clearly demonstrated through Christ! He is the Major piece of our life’s puzzle.

We have discovered that His Love needs evidence — and Jesus Christ is our personal, and corporate evidence that mankind is now, and will always be, greatly cherished and loved by God Himself. This fact was never meant to be kept a secret – God Himself came here!! We’ve been incredibly blessed, because the bible says to each one of us:  “whosoever-will-may-come!” In other words:  we don’t care what you did. If you are willing to make amends and walk away from sin, and trust Jesus to save and heal you from the torments and angst that sin has produced in your life … you are welcome here! There is no secret password, handshake, keycard or any particular puzzle skills needed! The bible has been given to us to make God’s love for us clearly known. 

That Love for each one of us is another major piece to find. Christians have been reborn to be walking, talking demonstrators of God’s love in action. We are to live this way with each other, and that will be our witness to the world around us.“In addition to all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” Colossians 3:14. The Father, Jesus His Son, and the precious Holy Spirit already have this perfect bond of unity. If we think about Their mutual love like that, then we will begin to understand how important OUR unity is to Them. Their kind of love explodes in us, and on us, and it intentionally fills up our hearts. But this love is not just a feeling – it is a choice. Choice is another huge part of our puzzle. 

Christ chose to love us and that love has always been on display through His words and actions recorded in His book. He did that whenever He chose to lift people up who were burdened by their sin, and He challenged those who thought they weren’t! He healed the sick, cleansed the lepers and delivered those long held captive by the devil’s wiles. One of our enemy’s greatest deceptions portrays him as a scary person in a red suit with horns. But, our bible portrays the enemy as disguising himself as an angel of light. So we need God’s wisdom to see and hear properly – there’s another puzzle piece. His book can teach us. 

Together with the Holy Spirit’s help, plus everything contained within His book, these things are our very best puzzle solvers, and part of God’s heavenly plans and tactics. However, even the bible itself can be a puzzle. We will sometimes need 3D laser skills to see the reality contained inside it. The Holy Spirit helps us to look through the words to the realities within. “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” John 10:10. If whatever you have bumped into steals, kills or destroys yourself, or others, it is not God. Jesus Himself made that clear. Our only hope is to tune into whatever the Holy Spirit is doing, then we can see beyond the obvious things in this world, into His realm, where love prevails.

We also need to hold tight to another puzzle piece that says ‘God chose to give His precious Son as a sacrifice.’ Jesus chose to come here. And the Holy Spirit chooses to be present all over the earth, guiding each one of us, as He is going to and fro. He is watching out for anyone whose heart is toward the Father. The Trinity’s deliberate choices have led to us having absolute freedom to choose which way we will personally go. And no-one else can take that choice, that puzzle piece, from you. You will have to choose to lay your entire life down at His feet. 

Day by day, we continually remind ourselves of His Ways by reading His book – that book is the key to every eternal mystery. My next proposed puzzle piece is an important fragment of the eternal puzzle we need to understand. When people die, where do they go? His book tells us that. The bible shows us the answer, when it tells us about a rich man who had a beggar named Lazarus at his gate. The rich man ignored the beggar’s needs. (Luke 16:19-31) You can read about the results for yourself. This puzzle piece looks like this:  whatever we’ve been given is to be used to further His kingdom, not ours.

My last pivotal puzzle piece is that salvation is available to every single human being, even the worst of us. In God’s kingdom ALL means ALL!  Almighty God does not use hyperbole, He doesn’t have to. What He says is truth! Jesus clarifies our view of our Heavenly Father and personifies His ways beautifully in the bible. This eternal puzzle was always meant to be solved by us… and FYI …Jesus Christ is the missing piece. Bye 👋