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P 3462 Wouldn’t that blow your mind?

/ DVH

The other day we had someone in their early twenties come to visit us. We were talking about something terrible that happened to this person last week. Their situation was both frightening and dangerous. so they were overwhelmed and afraid. Then the Lord said something to me that totally blew my mind — He told me to tell this young lady to hand those things that were too hard for her over to Him. He said: “Tell her to do it like this.”…

“She needs to treat her burdens like a footballer would treat a football, (she’s a mad football supporter). She can handpass any balls of trouble and heartache that come at her over to Me, right after it comes at her.” 🤯 I said: “Um.” (I say UM a lot!) “Would now be a good time to mention she definitely doesn’t know You yet?”  Boy there are definitely times when the Lord really rocks my Casbah. I’m older, I can easily get set in one way of thinking instead being open to new possibilities. Because right after that interchange the Holy Spirit simply said: “Why not?”

I didn’t have an answer. The more I thought about it, the more I realised I had an odd mindset, that said you can only have all of His benefits after you’ve signed on the dotted line and given your life to Jesus. I had relegated the Lord’s benefits and help to Christians in prayer lines etc. That’s when I thought about the Lord Jesus, and what He did when He was ministering and teaching.

Of course then I immediately saw how wrong I have been! He told all kinds of people all kinds of things and they didn’t all follow Him. The Lord once told a rich young man that he should sell everything he had and come and follow Him. You know that was an enormous step of faith for someone who simply asked a question?! This particular true story is in the bible in 3 different places.

Here’s what it says in Matthew 19:17-22 “Why do you ask Me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” “Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honour your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’ “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.”

Hmmm…. it seems like there is a big tendency in the Body of Christ to tell stories like this one without looking hard at their implications! That was a very big ask for a small conversation, but Jesus honed right in upon the real issue for this young man. Once He told a young woman about her past and a whole village was saved! Another time as He was going to raise a little girl from the dead, He accidentally healed a women who was crawling along behind Him, trying to reach His coat.

Then I had another big thought: maybe in a very well-intentioned way we kind of try to market Jesus into a package deal, because we want other people to make a commitment to Him. Our motivation is splendid, but  … where’s that in the book?? It says help people and TELL the world, not market Him. The whole idea of making Jesus Christ appealing, is appalling! Yeah. That’s when I realised I was nurturing a wrong mindset and repented. 

Back to my guest. I simply explained to her that she should pick up that negative experience and throw it like a football at Jesus because He wants to carry it for her instead. “I can do that!” she said smiling. After that the Lord dropped this other verse into my heart, from Hebrews 11:6. “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.” If and when she does what the Lord said to her to do, she will meet that criteria in Hebrews 11. Think about it. 

We spend a whole lot of time trying to fit Jesus into other people’s lives instead of using our faith, and talking about Him normally, wherever we go. The thing is, clubs have secret passwords and rules, but, praise God – the Body of Christ has a far broader canvas to paint on. Jesus never didn’t do same thing with a different person, twice. I think we need to meet the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet where they are, and show them Jesus’ love however HE wants to do it. 

The Lord Jesus talked to different people in all kinds of unusual and different ways, and situations. He caught their attention because He knew what was going on in their lives! I believe we cannot afford to overlook these seemingly ordinary, but varied supernatural events, as we follow Him. Our part in other people’s lives is to be a vessel that allows others to ‘… taste and see that the Lord is good.’ Especially because the Lord Himself did it first. He simply responded to whatever situation the person in front of Him was facing. 

Yet again, I have become convinced that the use of a Word of knowledge or a Word of Wisdom is powerful in its effects toward others. Forget marketing — that depends on your budget — listen to Him! He can tell you what He wants that other person to know about Him, and how to do it. That will blow everyone’s mind. Good! Our minds are all together too stodgy in the first place. Bye 👋

P 3350 Reality rush.

/ DVH

Boy, I had a reality rush this morning … And the Holy Spirit’s clarity helped me. I realised that when I can end up saying to myself: “What is good right and profitable often feels like I am lying, because my experiences don’t always back it up.” So I asked Him – why? 

This is what He told me: “Prior to being saved, you were raised with this world’s thinking, this world’s definition of truth. You learnt it from your parents, school, your peers, your job, whatever you read. You’ve carefully, and sometimes unwillingly, learnt the moral values of this world from everything around you. It seems like you are lying because MY TRUTH does not come from the same place that you have been taught. My truth is REAL truth, it comes from the Heart of the Father. For instance, if I say something is clean it is clean, that is what I taught Peter the fisherman. You cannot use this world as a reference point to ‘market’ or ‘modernise’ the gospel. Only My Word is truth.

The body of Christ needs to be diligent and read the bible, so they can see for themselves what real truth looks like, how it works, what it contains. The bible helps us to identify the true from the false. Human judgment leads to error. This world encourages people to have opinions, make their own judgments and to be selective about what they choose to believe. This is WHY Christians need to continually renew their minds to align with what I’ve said in My Word. They need to make My Word their yardstick – not this world’s fashions and opinions. 

Right now you need to know My Word and let it be alive in your day-to-day life, it will change what you do, who you do it with and where you go. There is none of man’s logic in the things of the Spirit, there is only the Father’s truth. When it comes to truth, this world wants to explain away sin, and present excuses. That’s what happened in the Garden of Eden – the woman and the man made excuses for their disobedience. Human beings are guilty of ignoring their Creator, and they have made gods in their own image. gods that allow them to live their lives far beneath their calling as My children. This world’s so-called ‘gods,’ legitimise sin, or excuse it.

The simple answer to sin is repentance, and it is yours for the taking. Acting on what I say in my Word, is obedience. And acknowledging that you are not wise enough to know what I know, is the beginning of wisdom …”

The thought that Christianity can often be a mixture of what we already know and approve of, as well as the truth of His Word, really impacted me. Jesus’ words are truth, and we dare not be dismissive of them because of circumstances, or prejudices. Or choose to let them be flavoured by this world’s trends. The real answer to sin is repentance – that leads right back to God Himself. Let’s daily learn to trust the Holy Spirit, He knows the Way each of us should go, and He longs to help us. 

I sat and thought about the kind of things that are now permissible today, and nobody even blinks anymore, we’ve been desensitised. As His kids we have His authority to speak His truth, in love. We can love the sinner but hate their sin. I also realised that if the truth is not setting us free, then somewhere, somehow we are believing a LIE! Let’s keep praying over the details of our lives. 

And if God says in His Word that we can do something, then we can do it and we need to locate the lie that has told us it is too hard, or ‘it really doesn’t matter because He understands.’ Maybe we have been taught something in our past that contradicts the Living Word of God – Jesus, Himself. Then as we carefully, prayerfully and actively look into His book, we will learn to separate ourselves, by clinging to what He said and repenting  from any missteps or lies we may have believed. We have been blessed with absolutes, not ambiguities, within the bible. 

Personally, I am confused and unhappy about the weird and sometime nasty things labelled ‘fair and right’ by this world today. Many times I have struggled to know how to handle things because I dearly want to walk toward the Narrow Gate — not the wide easy path that often runs willy-nilly beside it. I know that is your desire too. Some things are just wrong – the book says so! That is not said to condemn anyone. My question is: how can we know what God Himself has for us if we are walking down the wide road that leads to destruction? Deception will cloud our view.

Hubby gave me some great feedback today, he’s my editor and he helped me to clarify my own thoughts. “Our lives are a little like code for a computer program. We see the thoughts, the images and the user friendly icons that are displayed on our screen. However, right now – today – God is dealing with questionable inefficient code. We need His updating and reprogramming with HIS pure Heavenly code to fulfil our Heavenly calling. This world produces bad code, bad code can distort the output.“

Let’s choose to put Jesus in charge and obey the things He told us to obey – and leave our ideas about what we want behind us. And become like a little child, willing to be taught His Ways. Like I said at the top of the page, boy did I have a reality rush this morning! May God bless you with a day filled with His Presence and further knowledge of His Ways. Amen. Bye. 👋.

P 2510 Striving to enter His rest.

/ DVH

I think about rest like this … I do whatever He tells me to do, and He will do the rest. Meanwhile, resting in God is not about doing nothing. Resting in Him means we are trusting Him to help us, and get us through whatever is happening to us, and around us. We need to remind ourselves constantly that He’s in charge, no matter how this life looks, and that will give us confidence.

At the same time, we will have to fight the devil to maintain our peace and our assurance that God is always good – in spite of the circumstances we can see around us. Every time I am tempted to pick up and worry over whatever it is that I am obsessing about, I remind myself that He is now in charge of my life. My life is no longer my own. SomeBody bought me! And for HIM, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, you and I weren’t cheap! We were definitely not on sale, nor last year’s reduced price model!

This world is so obsessed with surviving … it is pushing us to strive to make sure that we become rich, beautiful, skinny, empty … corpses. We are supposed to work incredibly hard to market ourselves, YET, the King of all glory loves us simply because we are His. Why would anyone do that stuff to themselves? Yet we take untold questionable pills, exercise until we drop, and pinch, punch and pummel our bodies to somehow make them last forever. That’s just nuts! We already have forever, HE gave it to us. Why would you work for a gift? You accept a gift, that’s part of rest! This life is temporary.

Dying to self is the only way to live like Jesus did on this planet. It helps us see this life from His perspective, and it gives us, freedom. We simply give up our right to say what we will do, or where we will go, or who we will love, or where we will live … and then live the way He tells us to live … plus … love all the people He sends our way. Meanwhile, if you can’t do that …neither can I! That’s why we need to strive to enter His rest. We have to fight against sin, this world, our flesh and our enemy. Almighty God’s love is the reason we are all still here, because His Grace has kept us here. Rest is about Who we trust. Who we want to be in charge of our lives.

It has become much too easy to forget how to really live this life we have been given. Busyness and business take over! But we are here to be other-centred. We’ve been born again and now we’ve become a part of ushering in God’s kingdom, here and now, into this world. The self-centred things of this life lose their charm, because when you walk with Christ, you can’t wait to see what He is going to do next! The bible says:“Taste and see that the Lord is good”You and I are meant to be this world’s Godly taste test. 

It is extremely sad when fear is allowed to rule His people. The fear of failing Him, the fear of loss, the fear of not being good enough, even the fear of dying! But NOW, right here, right NOW, today — we are to live this life, the only one we have from another kingdom. Jesus Christ’s death took mankind OUT of the kingdom of darkness and INTO the kingdom of His marvellous light. And our lives are now the light switch for so many people!

Like Esther said in His book, once long ago: “If I die I die!” That’s what His rest really looks like. The bible doesn’t say how Esther felt about it. She just fell back into the arms of the ‘God Who saves!’  She knew how to rest – she left it up to God to see if she was going to survive – because other people’s lives were at stake. In Christ, we are a dangerous people. That’s why our enemy throws stuff at us all the time. That ‘stuff’ is batting practice. We pick up the bat of His Word, plus our faith in our Coach, and do things the way He says to do them. Just like Esther did. It takes effort to walk in faith, that’s what striving is. When I feel like I can’t do this anymore, I ask Him to help me with my effort! 

Our belief system is not just nice and comforting — IT IS POWERFUL. That power written about in His book does not just apply to an anointed few … it is here for all of us. Access to that power comes alive when we choose to love others, exercise forgiveness, exhibit generosity, and treasure to-geth-er-ness. There is NO LAW against those things because they are so far above the things of this world. We will not learn to raise the dead, if we do not learn how to raise our hopes! Rest is not just about knowing we are going to heaven when we die. It is about us fighting the good fight, bringing His kingdom down to earth, right here, right now in our own lives.

God’s kingdom has a higher aim. A greater calling. It desires to impart His reality not just a theory. Our God is real and we carry Him with us, every single place we go. The point is, we need to let Him out!  Striving to rest is about allowing Him to do what He wants with our lives. Instead of us choosing what we feel like, or want to do. We get out of His way and let Him do what He does best… love and save people through us. Bye 👋