Matthew 6:24

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 2916 Value His Presence.

/ DVH

This is a very special privileged place. It cost our heavenly Father everything to give it to us. His Presence is our treasure. So it is important for us to value and prioritise our relationship with the Holy Spirit. The way we can daily live walking with Him. This comes from an intimate understanding of His Ways – what He likes, what He doesn’t. I think it is a mistake to write out, or adhere to rules etc. regarding this relationship. And the Spirit’s virtually unseen contribution into our lives is about keeping those relationships flourishing with the joy of knowing and serving Them.

Because of the Holy Spirit and His help and influence, we can cultivate the utter freedom to love and serve others no matter how difficult they are. Love conquers all, and it will pay any price to do it. However, sin and rules will quite simply block our spiritual ears and eyes and muddy our understanding of Him. That’s when our focus shifts from Them … to me.

We need the Spirit’s Presence and wisdom permeating our lives, constantly, because His influence will build our faith in our Father’s loving kindness and goodness. He equips us to do His work for God’s kingdom to flourish through us. The Holy Spirit will not take over, but He loves to strengthen us so we can choose the good and be delighted in, and for, Father God Himself.

To get this place of safety, we must continually renew our minds so that we know, that we know, that without Him we can do nothing. By ourselves we can’t ever meet God’s standard of selflessness, purity and holiness, that’s why Jesus came and died in our place. He gave us His right-standing with our Father. When we live like Jesus would, we are living under His cleansing blood. Just look at the Lord’s confidence in His place in His Father’s eyes, as He prays outside Lazarus’ tomb:  “So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that You have heard Me.  I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that You sent Me.”John 11:41&42.

Now let’s be clear, without His Presence we can rocket from one giant mess to another … which is actually the kind of ‘nothing happening here’ stuff that lasts … and, over time it will get worse!! We can however, live our lives repenting from the things that distract us daily, plus the occasional things that are exposed which have held us captive so far. We can live this way because we have already been given His strength, so we can forgive any perpetrators, as well ourselves – and that stops that dumb unfruitful dance from continuing. 

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from ALL unrighteousness.” We can also confess our faults to one another, and dig into His Word until we hear His voice through what is written. This a reliable pathway back into living for His kingdom. Now our task is to believe and act upon what God said to us, personally. Our King is extremely humble. When we follow Him, that means we will also live humble lives, acknowledging we are not there yet.

Moving on … … for too long we have tried to serve God … AND… insert-something-in-here-that-you-are-unwilling-or-afraid-to-give-up! The solution for that is to tell the Lord the truth. Tell Him you don’t want to stop whatever it is that He has put His finger on, but you will – simply because it is important to HIM. That’s God’s love language – our response to His generosity and beauty – especially when we die to self for the sake of His kingdom coming. 

Then we ask for His help and exercise self-control. This fruit of the Spirit grows and flourishes in an environment of transparency, honesty and humility. Almighty God is a jealous God, He doesn’t like sharing US – we are His chosen family. That’s why He sent Jesus to save us. He will share His love, and He will shower us with mercy and grace … but He does not like a divided heart. Matthew 6:24; Psalms 86:11-17.

We need to remember that He wants us for Himself and there is no greater honour. “When you abide under the shadow of Shaddai, you are hidden in the strength of God Most High. He’s the hope that holds me and the stronghold to shelter me, the only God for me, and my great confidence.”Psalms 91:1-2 TPT.

The bible tells us not to forget all of God’s benefits in Psalm 103 – but we need to know that His benefits are bigger than just the stuff that suits me! His benefits are there for you too, through me! When we act under His instructions, like the Sons and Daughters of God, we destroy the works of the evil one.“But as for me, Your strength shall be my song of joy. At each and every sunrise, my lyrics of Your love will fill the air! For You have been my glory-fortress, a stronghold in my day of distress.” Psalms 59:16 TPT.

He wants to be our hiding place, our strong deliverer, our healer, our redeemer, our joy and our song – so we need to learn to not abuse what He has given us. We are the people who value even the Shadow of His Presence. Amen. 🙏

“My true life is the Anointed One, and dying means gaining more of Him.” Philippians 1:21 TPT.

P 2697 Half-heartedness. (Matthew 6:24)

/ DVH

“Love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and with ALL your soul and with ALL your mind and with ALL your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31.

“Put your heart and soul into every activity you do, as though you are doing it for the Lord Himself and not merely for others. For we know that we will receive a reward, an inheritance from the Lord, as we serve the Lord Yahweh, the Anointed One!” Colossians 3:23-24 TPT.

It is easy to see why we might want to avoid confronting ourselves with verses like these, because they cut us to the core. Some verses are clearly directional, challenging and costly. Here’s free advice from me — don’t ask yourself IF these verses apply to you. ASK THE HOLY SPIRIT – He’s our personal Resident Expert. In my experience we can excuse ourselves from the hard bits in the bible much too quickly. That is when we will totally miss the greater blessing that is contained in HIS ANSWER. Obedience brings its own reward.

On a good day I can kind of wrangle up loving support for my neighbour, but loving God with all of me often defeats me. When I’m worshipping God in church maybe I have feelings like that, but living this out, all day, every day —  I know, for sure, in my own strength I can’t do that. I believe with all my heart that half-heartedness flourishes simply because we do not know the Lord intimately. We need to know His Ways. Time after time the Lord accused the Israelites of not knowing His ways. That happened when they stopped obeying Him and did what was right in their own eyes.

We know that what Christ said in Mark 12 above, was in the context of some sort of open forum. Jesus was engaging with the leaders who were the religious experts of His day. In a previous verse, V24, the Lord says this: “Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God?“  These Jewish leaders had lost the power of God because they kept choosing to define Who He is to suit themselves. The result was that they had a spiritual veil over their eyes. They kept the letter of the law but missed His Spiritual direction behind it. Meanwhile the scriptures and the power of God are meant to go together. They are an arrow pointing us to a new way to live — IN CHRIST. He is God’s Answer to salvation, transformation and our sin.

You and I cannot raise this kind of passion for God, all by ourselves. But we were given it! … Christ died to give me His passion for His Father, as well as a love for His Father’s Ways. This was clearly demonstrated by Jesus’ hard fought victory on the cross. Christ not only loved this world, HE LOVED HIS FATHER so much that He died to bring about His Father’s dearest desire – mankind’s restitution and reconciliation with Him. This means I can see Almighty God through new eyes – His! Christ died to give this to me. I use those new eyes when I read the bible, I hear it like it is God Himself speaking to me.

So I let go of my old life, including who I think I am, as well as any religious formulas, and I choose to lean on and follow the Holy Spirit instead. I allow the bible to renew/change my mind/thinking by co-operating with what it says. To live in the new I simply have to let go of the old. We cannot love God with all our hearts when our hearts have a divided loyalty. Christ gave us all of Him, so now we live this life giving Him ALL of us! Our whole heart needs to commit to this new way to live. Because of what Jesus did for me, now I am free to do it. To love God with all I am, and serve Him in everything I do. I show God this, by being obedient. 

“I have been crucified with Christ. it’s no longer I that lives, but Christ Who lives in me. And the life I now lead, I lead by faith in the Son of God Who died for me.” Galatians 2:20. This verse means I leave my old manipulative, self-seeking way of life behind and I minute by minute, choosing to follow Jesus. Christ died to save me and give me the same power He had to overcome when He walked the earth. Now I choose to live my life the way He lived His.

If I temporarily lose focus, then I need to repent, repair and move on. Father God has good plans for my life. Things I could never imagine or dream about. However, my new choices may sometimes seem costly, simply because I am not a zombie! Instead I am a wilful human being, who is voluntarily laying down my own plans. But I have been given His power to obey and follow Jesus, and I use my FAITH in His goodness, His faithfulness to do it. I read what it says and I do it. Living like Jesus did is not a mystery! I simply read, listen to the Holy Spirit, and obey however He tells me to do it. Jesus died to give us His connection with the Holy Spirit. John 16:7.

When I daily see and discover our heavenly Father – and His loving help and concern for me – through the Holy Spirit’s eyes — my desire to love God with all of me, becomes a process of ongoing surrender. However, I don’t have to carry the weight of getting things right any more. I simply follow the Holy Spirit’s prompts and OBEY Him. I leave half-heartedness behind me and now I’m learning obedience – God’s love language.👋

Ref: Matthew 6:24; Revelation 3:16&17;  Deuteronomy 28:1-14;  1 John 2:3-6; and Romans 8:1-39.