Masters

P 3150 Living by faith.

/ DVH

Like I said, yesterday, this means that we will put down our desire to hone in our focus on a problem, and choose to look at Jesus instead. He perfectly mirrors the things we are looking for in ourselves, and others. Let me put that this way – if all you are focussing on is what the other person did wrong, then you can’t focus on the One Who IS perfect in all of His Ways. Unless you are cross-eyed!

A single focus is needed and the bible calls that being single-minded. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24. When difficulties occur, our part is to realise that although we are weak in many areas – Jesus isn’t! So we choose to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to focus on the Lord, because He is good at it!

Practically speaking, if we just yelled at someone else, then it is a no-brainer that we need to repent and repair things – even when we feel provoked. Extending forgiveness is the quickest way to go back to focussing on Him. It will lead us back into single-mindedness. We can’t look at two vastly different things at once. Our choices matter, and most of the time we make them almost without thinking. But when we review what Jesus said, that means our focus switches from what went wrong, to what He did. We choose to look just one way – at Him. Forgiveness is much easier to access in His Presence.

When you are annoyed or angry with someone else, take a breath, and say “Jesus please help me” I’ve read the bible for years but I have never once read about Jesus saying: “That person is wa-ay beyond redemption. It’s OK, you can’t help being mad at them.” We both know that He simply won’t do that. Why not? Because He bought redemption for everyone when He died! He knows it is a done deal. It cost Him His life-blood and His time on earth to do it! 

Unfortunately, we can easily become used to making room for our scratchy, nasty, irritated attitudes. This means our focus can be sidetracked. But if we choose what the scripture says, we will look at Who Jesus is and what He has given us, and those facts change everything! In the face of such incredible generosity, anger has no place to stand. Loving generosity takes the ground out from under our enemies – not to mention our stinky attitudes.

Because we are still in process, perhaps there are times when we don’t want to look at the Lord, because we think we want to punish that other person. After all they upset us, so they deserve to be in trouble. That whole POV is deceit. It’s like locking yourself up, throwing away the key and saying: “That’ll fix them!” Free means free – even for the guy you don’t like! In moments like that, I’m not sure we understand the whole concept of freedom clearly enough. We need to practice.

When we hold onto anger, resentment, and bitterness, we are locking ourselves away from the Answer. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. A bad attitude is extremely costly – not to mention heavy! You don’t have to sell your house and give the money away to live by faith.  We just need to live our lives like Jesus would.

This reminds me of an old cartoon, with the Road Runner and the Wile E. Coyote. That dumb Coyote was never ever going to win. It wasn’t in the script! His job was to end up blown to bits, flattened under a rock, or smashed by a train etc. The Road Runner was always going to beat him. Defeat is inevitable when we play in satan’s backyard. It is not in God’s heavenly script for us to punish the people who despitefully use us. Read the book! Living by faith is not some big deal ‘raising the dead’ occasion – it consists of the daily choice to obey the Lord, forgive others, and live like He did. One hurt at a time.

Every time we give away undeserved Grace to someone, we are releasing God’s Grace into their lives. That Grace is powerful. It saved us!! But when we hold onto someone else’s sin, we are keeping them from the kind of Grace that can deliver them from the very attitudes that caused the problem in the first place! Many people are easily imprisoned by how they feel. Hanging onto things like a list of all the wrongs that other person did – and keeping it in our heads, together with the accompanying emotions is a deep pit with no way out. 

When that stuff hits your heart – boy are you in trouble.That’s when a tree of bitterness can take root and grow. Let’s kill that tree, and stop going over what they did repeatedly – even if they just did it again ten seconds ago. Don’t throw anyone’s past sins into their face in an argument, and don’t talk about what happened to you, with other people to soothe yourself. Their opinion actually doesn’t matter. Building a case against someone else is dumb. Sin belongs under the blood of Jesus.

Lastly, talk to the Lord. He understands betrayal, heartache, disappointment, anger, and provocation etc. The Holy Spirit will help us negotiate our way through the crumbling cliffs of excuses, the explosive reactions, the endless litany of disappointment and the utter despair we face when we feel betrayed. Living by faith is only hard for us because we have not cultivated it. Bye.👋

P 2624 Take positive action.

/ DVH

“Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbour; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him.” (CS Lewis.)

God said that like this, in Colossians 3:2-10: “Set your minds on things that are above …(!!!That’s where the real action is!) “… not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ Who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator….”

… “  (12-14) “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”

So here’s my question — WHO gets all this nifty, but really nitty, gritty, hard stuff? We do! You. Me. US! This means I can’t sit about on my hands praying fervently that the Lord will change me … while I keep on doing the stuff the bible says DON’T DO! This is a really good time to remember that the Lord put Jonah in a whale (!!) to get him back on track. So if you wanna be rebellious, then you’d better stay away from SeaWorld!

Seriously, this stuff is a no-brainer. We need to take what Jesus said and make it our great AIM to leave the ugly stuff that will tangle us up and make us fall over, behind us. If you are a fighting person who gets bad tempered at the drop of a hat, then whack your hand over your mouth and vacate the premises. And don’t come back until the urge has left you! Our mouths get us in so much trouble – sadly, I have learnt this truth the hard way. What we say, or sometimes refuse to say … is responsible for so many bad things. If we choose to abuse someone else it will escalate – and unless you are talking to a door, then that other person will retaliate!

No-one wins in an argument. Even if you think you’ve won you’ve lost! When we bad mouth or abuse someone else, we are deliberately walking away from the Lord and empowering the Old Self. Jesus won’t interfere, He wants us to take responsibility for our own behaviour. Honestly, I don’t care what they said — what am I going to do about it? We must stop expecting the Lord to supernaturally intervene, and work on changing our own hearts. HE WILL HELP US but He will not do it for us! Nothing else matters but being with Him.  So put away the things that are going to drag us away from loving Him, worshipping Him, following Him. We cannot serve two Masters. Jesus said that in Matthew 6:24. 

For those of you who are related or married to somebody who loves to pick fights, or someone who gets irritable easily … stop blaming them, and quit engaging with the argument. I don’t care how wrong they are – what is the kingdom of God worth to you? Sadly, for some people it is worth less than their own opinion. We want all the power in the world so we can move mountains, but we cannot deal with the mountains of disapproval, criticism and lust in our own lives? Good luck moving that other mountain Jesus spoke about, if you can’t control YOU.

Start speaking love and approval to the other person. It is extremely hard to argue with someone else who keeps telling you how terrific you are, how valuable you are. It is not lying – that person is valuable to God! When we are angry with someone, we rehearse their faults – why not rehearse their good points?! Life is not a competition, it is not about who wins or loses. It is about life and death. Yours, theirs and the people around us. We’ve been put here to shine His light into a dark place —- not to increase the darkness! Lastly, revenge belongs to the Lord, so do yourself a favour and don’t get in His Way.

Jesus said this verse nobody likes, remember? (Matthew 5:29)“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for. thee that one of thy members should perish, and. not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.” Imagine what we would all LOOK LIKE if we took that verse seriously! 😱 We need to choose to participate in positive actions with His help. Lastly, “Love your enemies …” — because at the very least you will drive them crazy!

Bye. 👋

P 2336 Spiritual stretching exercises.

/ DVH

We dare not ‘play’ at following Jesus, because our lack of spiritual focus will make us vulnerable to the enemy’s wiles. It seems to me that simply agreeing with biblical principles needs to stop and we must apply ourselves to consciously start living them out – with His help. Seriously, our lack of total commitment is nailing one of our beautiful feet to the floor. And round and round we go, debating this and ignoring that …because: ..’that doesn’t apply to me. The bible is an old book and I don’t have to take everything in it that seriously… blah blah blah.’  

Really? I am amazed that people think like that. Have we never heard of such a thing as a BLIND SPOT? I know I have them all over the place. They are things I formed opinions about when I was younger, and those things suited me so I kept them. They were “nice” theology – but they fell short of God’s bigger picture. His bigger picture always includes changing ME … and none of us are exempt from that kind of change. By change, I mean total transformation. Living devoted lives of happy obedience.

Moses, who was pretty ancient at the time, missed out on a blessing because he disobeyed God. He did not go into the Promised land because he banged on a rock twice instead of once like God told him to. The Lord expected obedience from this man. And there is no point saying he was Moses and I am not, ‘because God is no respecter of persons.’ That boat simply will not float. The Lord expected obedience from the Israelites too. It seems to me that obedience is extremely important to Almighty God.!

“From everyone to whom much has been given,  much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”  Luke 12:48b. When is the last time we saw that saying embroidered on a wall hanging or written in fancy letters somewhere?! Moses could have blamed old age … but he didn’t. He respected the Lord’s response to his disobedience and accepted Almighty God’s edict. He was given much so much was required.. For Moses that meant after dealing with all those impossible people – he missed out! Obedience is part of total surrender. 

Total surrender is actually not an optional extra, it is a way of life! We are currently in a war for the hearts and minds of men, women, and children, everywhere – all the people who live around us. Compromise is not in it. Look at Daniel from the book that has his name on it, he stood up when King Nebuchadnezzar said: “bow down.” Or how about Ruth who decided to follow Naomi home and found a whole new life. Or David who took one look at a giant and said: “not on my watch you don’t pal!” Compromise is the enemy of total surrender. It tolerates ‘ifs’ and ‘buts.’

I have found hands down, total surrender to be the best thing I ever did – apart from giving my life to Him in the first place!  That is kind of the same thing really, but nobody told me that at the time! I remind myself of this surrender every single day. The reason we sometimes struggle with God’s will is because we have one foot in the kingdom and the other in this world. The result is a form of double-mindedness and confusion. Jesus said: “No man can serve two masters…”

Total surrender means whatever problem I have is now His problem, because I no longer have an agenda. He promised me He will order my steps, Psalm 37:23-24, and even if I fall over or mess up – HE HOLDS ME UP. I know it sounds over the top but that is actually the safest place to live. I’ve learnt to trust Him, no matter what happens. He’s in charge and He’s Almighty God so He can take care of it. Then I do whatever He tells me to do, and then … I leave it all alone. And sometimes I cope, and sometimes I don’t – any pressure from outside seems to be my nemesis. 

If I panic or start to worry over things, I repent and go back to leaving everything with Him. It’s not rocket science. If I start meddling or trying to fix things on my own, then I repent, etc. Perhaps it is my age, but simple works best for me. It is the same with prayer, I ask, then I do whatever He says and then I just leave it. 

Total surrender stretches you, because we’ve all been running our own lives for quite a while. But it is worth it –  because when we trust the Lord to look after us, and the things that matter to us, we are opening our hearts up to His Way to live. That’s when the adventure really begins. It is scary and wonderful …all at the same time, and it’s the best spiritual stretching exercise there is! Bye 👋🏻