Meditate

P 3286 Cling to Him

/ DVH

Jeremiah 9:23: “This is what the Lord says:“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.” V25-26: “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

This is the Lord’s pronouncement over Israel, He is throughly sick and tired of these people who say ‘yes’ but do ‘no.’  He makes it perfectly clear that being rich, popular, strong, and wise in this world’s ways, is not for His kids. What He is looking for is a people who know Him, and know His ways, and love Him so much they will follow Him wherever He goes.  And because of those deliberate choices then His ways will show up in every attitude and action they take. First of all let’s look at what delights God and what is His benchmark, because the Holy Spirit very kindly gave us a list!

He loves kindness, righteousness and justice. He operates from those things. It will never be enough to read the words and nod and smile, or even wipe away a tear. Crying is easy, changing is not! However, whenever  God speaks, He is telling us about Himself and we need to listen to Him. The Jewish people were not wrong in their desire to please Him but pleasing quickly turned into placating. They carefully implemented 613 laws to make sure everyone did what He wanted – and woe betide any Wally that tried to do anything else! They were punished by the religious. These dear people put Almighty God into a box of His own design. The glorious box He called Mercy and Grace, they misused the Mercy Seat and then they walked away from personally knowing Him. The Mercy Seat is a place of meeting, not just dropping off your sins like a dry cleaner! The thing that is heartbreaking is, He is so easy to know. He told us what He likes and doesn’t like. 

 
Where His chosen people missed what He was saying, was that they legislated something that was meant to flow out of willing obedience, compassion and a desire to honour Him. He wanted the Jewish people to love His Ways —not just salute the flag and run back into their old habits. Only to front up at Yom Kippur and pay the set price for their disobedience, lack of loyalty etc… once a year!  He is saying that lovingly, and willingly honouring His ways is the way we love Him. “But He’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.” Micah 6:8.  

You might want to pause and think on that.  Almighty God isn’t just looking for a transitory relationship— a sometimes on, sometimes off again, depending on their mood — a girlfriend. He wants a pure and holy wife for His Son! Father God is a parent. He wants someone worthy of His Son Jesus, and all Jesus has done for us — to be His Son’s precious Bride. Someone who is willing to have the Lord cut away everything that has taken up residence in our hearts that can defile us. Sadly, sometimes those things also define us – yet we are proud of them. His people back then were circumcised to show to the world around them that they were His children, but their hearts remained unaltered. The question I want to ask today is this: has our heart, life and attitude been altered by following the Lord Jesus? Or do we settle for the outward appearance of being ‘church people’ without any inner conviction and subsequent changes to our lives.

 
Do you want to truly delight God? Then let Him circumcise your heart. Not just fill you up with more information, more rules, or sadly, even more failure. Instead, surrender your whole life to Him, like Jesus surrendered His whole life for you – willingly, joyfully, devotedly. Falling in love cannot ever be a set of rules, it is a process of choosing to get to know each other, enjoying the other person’s ways. The Lord Jesus is totally acquainted with each one of us, who we really are. He already knows every single thing there is to know about us — and yet He picked us anyway! Amazing. Next time you sing: “Amazing Love, how can it be?” Please remember that. Gratitude is our only response. 

When we meditate and act on His words, HE becomes our focus. This is a lovely side-effect of loving the Lord that will improve our view of His kingdom, this world, and other people. We will lose all of our judgment and gain compassion in this process. But at the same time we cannot circumcise ourselves. That’s why we have the New Testament, to explain to us that He has, in fact, already done that. Praise God that He knows exactly the right time and place to put His loving finger on something that is holding us captive to our old way of thinking. The Holy Spirit longs to help us as we cling to Him and get to know His Ways. Bye. 👋

P 3216 Obedience is not an optional extra.

/ DVH

Being obedient is the best way I know to walk with the Lord, and it can prevent a whole lot of confusion. I discovered that I needed to purpose in my heart to simply choose to be obedient. I’ve learnt to read the bible, pray and meditate on it and — do what it says. At the same time, I’ve found as I focus on loving other people, suddenly a whole lot of stuff that I needed, was added unto me along the way. “We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.” 1 John 4:16.

I believe that the depth and purpose we desire to love the Lord, appears when we intentionally, continually apply our dedicated obedience to His Word. Father God doesn’t need our mental agreement with whatever He has said, Jesus and the Holy Spirit agree with Him and that’s a majority right there!! This is what Jesus said about obedience in John 14:15-17. “If you love Me, you will obey My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper Who will be with you forever. That Helper is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it doesn’t see or know Him. You know Him, because He lives with you and will be in you.”

The Holy Spirit is our Helper, and Jesus specifically asked the Father to send Him to us – to help us to obey the Father. At the same time, the Lord expects us to treat the Holy Spirit with reverence and respect. The Spirit of God is gentle in His heart, like Jesus is, and we need to respect that He will not cannonball all over the place, or even push us along. He clearly knows what truth is, and it is unfortunately quite evident from the above scripture, that a lot of the time, we do not! 

My favourite times with the Holy Spirit happen when He shows me what the truth is, in whatever scripture I am reading. It’s like someone turns the light on when I’ve been sitting in the dark trying to puzzle out what God wants to say TO ME.The precious Holy Spirit will not show us His heart, or what He wants from us, or even share His secrets with us, if we have no desire to be obedient. What would be the point? 

Let’s look at Jesus’ own personal lament over man’s lack of willingness to live their lives close to God. It is recorded in Matthew 23:37, where He says to Jerusalem:“How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Have you ever tried to cuddle a child that didn’t want to be cuddled? They are all wiggles, arms and legs and cranky with it. That’s what I think about when I read Matthew 23. God wants to love on us, but we want to hold ourselves far enough away from Him so we still have a say. Or we try to wrestle ourselves out of His grasp, as we go as close as we dare to — but no further.

Here are some more specific scriptures about being obedient: 1 Peter 1:14 “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,…” Acts 5:29: “But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” Psalm 1:1–2: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.”  What we think about matters. The problem seems to be this — when we think about obedience long enough — if the change in our life is going to be hard, we postpone it, or try to go around it. 

Human beings keep their minds busy, trying to figure out this life so we feel more comfortable. So we problem-solve. Many times our minds will keep on returning to the difficulty, trying to figure out another answer, because we don’t like the one we have! The Lord has taught me to give things to Him. He told me to put every problem down, at His feet, and refuse to pick it up again. I give my problems to Him and He carries them for me. 

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” That burden we worry about all night might never happen, and even if it did, what can we do about it? Our King promises to intervene and teach us how to get through things, AS we learn to rest in Him.

Years ago, I kept getting stuck on the way other people I knew were living. What I thought they should do. All that stuff meant I was not meditating on God’s goodness to me! Instead I was whining, grumbling and complaining because my feelings were engaged in things that weren’t anything to do with me. At other times I wanted someone to help me, but I wanted them to do it my way. I didn’t want to consider God’s answers in case I was convicted of sin and I needed to change my attitude. I blamed those other people, because they wouldn’t change their way of doing things, and … make my life easier for me!  Yeah, you heard me! Oy vey!

Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”  I kind of think I might know why we do this… we want all the lovely benefits—but not the training in righteousness. We want a maid, or a butler, or a personal trainer following us about doing the hard yards for us. Jesus did all those the hard yards for us, long, long ago. But now, today, we must enter into the battle of all battles with our old self! The battle to think like He does! 

Obedience is not an optional extra, it’s the narrow way mentioned in Matthew 7! It is designed to reveal His heart to us, and our hearts toward Him. Living for His sake is always a choice, but it is also part of our ongoing salvation. Bye. 👋 

P 3156 Imagine that!

/ DVH

Jesus lived and walked, talked, loved and healed, right alongside the people who wanted to make Him king on one day — and on the next, they wanted to torture and kill Him! The bible says:“And He did not need anyone to bear witness concerning man [needed no evidence from anyone about men], for He Himself knew what was in human nature. [He could read men’s hearts.]”John 2:25. He knows all about you, the good, the bad, and the ugly – and He loves each of one of us anyway. Our God is always speaking to us – He just doesn’t always use words! People often tell me that they can’t hear the Lord, my advice is this, we need to learn to look around us – at the people He loves more than life itself.

But our priorities often kill off spontaneity. Most of us like to make plans for holidays and outings. Those preparatory days are often filled with excitement, laughter and anticipation. You know, if we can take the time to remember to bring the sunscreen, and the insect repellant, then it seems to me that we can make some time to meditate on God’s Word!

Maybe the reason that kind of meditation seems difficult, is that mulling over God’s Word doesn’t have a sun hat, the blue sea, plus a golden beach, with drinks that have little umbrellas in them. We have become so tied into what makes ME feel better, we are losing the joy of knowing Him, personally. We’ve become self-obsessed, which is in total opposition to the way the Lord Jesus lived.

The bible tells us that meditation on scriptures is good for us – it helps us keep Christ before our eyes. “… because we don’t focus our attention on what is seen but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but the unseen realm is eternal.” 2 Corinthians 4:18 TPT. You would think that if someone saved your life you wouldn’t forget them in a hurry! Yet we all yield our precious time to the things that won’t last, or we monitor the time with the Lord because we are busy people. So we remain content to live inside the nether world of those soon-to-be-forgotten things. And try really hard to forget that God is calling us to Himself. You know that’s the very safest place to be!  

It is sad to think that many little ones today, are being raised in an atmosphere that is frivolous, pressurised and frenetic  One that has no more meaning than the next gift – the next fashion, the next shiny thing. Our world is currently filled with so many useless distractions. From the time that we get up, and we go back to bed again, we don’t seem to think about anything else but the things we have to get done before we finally collapse! Even leisure has become an effort. It is so easy to live this way. This world presses in on all of us, with its opinions and temptations. We live in a buy, buy, buy atmosphere —‘You must have one of these because the one you bought the other day is now obsolete!” 

Meanwhile, outside — right over our heads, day and night — God is speaking to us. He made everything we can see, purely for our sake. The stars, and galaxies, are His decorations in the sky. Our Father hung them there like we might hang ornaments on a Christmas tree. “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.” Psalm 19:1-2. This shows us that there are so many different ways for our God to speak to us. Jesus spent His life loving others, speaking love everywhere He went by what HE DID! Our world is filled with useless words, words that don’t have any life in them. So let’s stop making everything purpose-driven and just step outside and look up!

Here’s what real life sounds like “…(Jesus) emptied Himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”Just think about that scripture for a minute. He’s the One Who made everything we can see. But once long ago in a life just like ours, God Himself was see-able!  Every time we read His book, and think about what He said, we can see Him again and again. Jesus Christ stripped off every vestige of His heavenly glory and became one of us. He spoke to our hearts by what He chose to do!

The One Who made everything is speaking to you every time you look at His creation, every time you read His book, every time you look into someone else’s face. One day He is going to step back onto this world’s stage and blow mankind’s collective mind. Imagine that!  Bye. 👋

P 3120 Know what you believe.

/ DVH

“Christ’s resurrection is (y)OUR 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, honour, and authority!” Colossians 3:1 TPT. My first question—do you often during your day, reflect on what Jesus did for YOU? Are your thoughts on His kingdom, or yours? I thank Him when blessings come, and pray ‘help,’ when stuff is difficult. Whatever we mull over and meditate on influences our daily walk of faith. Don’t beat yourself up if you forget or overlook His new way to live. Just remember, that  faith, and our awareness of His love for us, will simply melt away IF we lose focus;  or we choose to live in the dark and pasty, unhealthy light of this world’s rejection, ideas, schemes and plans.

Meanwhile, even though we may not actually say – ”I choose this” – we can end up choosing to stew on bad stuff by default. A lack of a positive God-breathed choice will leave a vacuum that satan would be delighted to fill! That guy will get us going round and round and round:  worrying about this, thinking about how to fix that, and concentrating on the lacks we all have … Until we have wasted away our precious time. Time is a gift. And we don’t have to live that way anymore. Just as surely as Peter, (who was in prison at the time), looked up and saw his jail door open – and walked out a free man!  Our jail door is also OPEN. Look up!! Revise your circumstances. We need to walk out of sin’s prison using our faith. 

At the same time we can concentrate all our thoughts and efforts on dying to self, but in the end that will just make us SIN conscious. We want to be Him-conscious, so I pray He will reveal Himself to me during my day. We need to add to our life with Him, by seeing Him at work in our lives, not just concentrate on getting rid of our sin or adverse circumstances. Jesus Christ has already done that for us! Because God’s unrelenting, always available, never-ending kingdom power was released at Calvary – we can NOW live in this world absolutely devoted to Him.  He has a much better plan for your life and mine than either of us can imagine!

“For we know that our old self WAS crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—…” Romans 6:6. Sin, regret, anxiety does not have to be in charge of our lives anymore! Our minds, our emotions will help us when they are fixed on Him;  to do that is not difficult, we meditate on His never-ending love.  We can’t afford to give up our precious time stewing over former things, turn your worry into prayers of thanksgiving for Who He is and what He did for you.

Worry is a habit – habits can be changed. When we gave our lives to Jesus, we put Him in charge. And His response 2000+years ago, was to take our sin with Him to the cross and nail it there in HIS OWN BODY. The urge, desire, and the will to sin has been dealt with, we are now free to choose.“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live IN THE BODY, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20. 

That’s how we walk out our Promised land of becoming a new creation. I don’t ignore sin, or gloss it over, or pretend it didn’t happen, instead I acknowledge it on the spot, and repent and repair things. Why? There is incredible power in redemption! satan can’t make us do anything anymore because of what Jesus did for us. But unlike satan – the Lord will not coerce us or make us do anything. He loves our freely-made choices!!  We were not saved just so we can go to heaven and be with Him one day in the future… He saved us for here and now, today—from this world, the devil and ourselves —so we can live our earthly lives, like He would. 

It was a transaction. An exchange, His life, freely laid down, bought us a new way to live and the power to do it. It was the greatest LOVE GIFT EVER GIVEN. Our sin has been exchanged for His new life overflowing in us, we take on His obedience, His passionate desire to please His Father. It was not God’s plan just to kill off sin!… Instead, Christ defeated its power over mankind! Our Father’s plan was to give us back what Adam and Eve had in the garden … the greatest inheritance ever – Emmanuel, God-with-us. The freedom to choose what is good right and profitable, AND THE POWER TO DO IT.

Acts 1:8:“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”The Holy Spirit fell on mankind at Pentecost and HE DIDN’T LEAVE. He is still here, to help, counsel, transform, and motivate us into our new life in Christ. He didn’t give us  power just so we can raise the dead, heal the sick etc! Those blessings are a by-product of our redemption.We should all live like that. But that is not God’s primary AIM. 

The Holy Spirit came to help us, and live inside us, so we can live a victorious, overcoming life, in a world that is going to hell in a hand basket. The person I was 52 years ago, died the minute I asked Jesus to come into my life. That is also true for you. If you dearly love and want Him — He will be yours, forever. His love is so great He chose to die for the whole world, even those people who refuse to accept Him. Imagine that. We have been bought with an unbelievable price.

Daily, with His help, we identify and guerrilla fight all the stubborn stuff we’ve cultivated over the previous years before we met Him. Those things that keep pretending they have a hold over us. Now we can take God at His Word and believe Him. That’s how faith works. we refuse to listen to the so-called evidence that pops its ugly head up, and say to ourselves: “What does the Lord have to say about that? Is He REALLY like that?” satan can no longer use my history to define me – even if I did something extremely dumb yesterday! I have been redefined as alive in Christ. I urge you, take the time to know what you believe. Bye. 👋

P 3110 Wars and rumours of wars!

/ DVH

I have heard so many people lately who think it is the end of times. Is it? I dunno! All I know is that it seems to me that a whole lotta people have bunkered down, waiting for Jesus to come and get us, instead of growing up into the fullness of Christ. Meanwhile it’s just too bad about the poor sods who have no idea what He did for them. Let’s just leave them trying to tread water OUTSIDE the ark! 😱

I know I just mixed my metaphors, but you know what I mean. I can’t see how knowing that Jesus is … hypothetically, coming next Monday, is useful information! Ask yourself this question – what would YOU change about your life and your actions if you knew for sure that Jesus IS coming next Monday?! Now there’s a great diagnostic question if ever there was one! Here’s another one, have you been postponing obedience to a better, easier day? There’s a whole lot of other far more important stuff to go on with, than; “Is it the end of the world?” And that other stuff IS within our power to change.

The Lord Jesus is saying ‘always be ready’ — which is truly exceptional advice. I think He knows what we need to know, and what we don’t, and what’s the point of chasing unicorns when we have work to do? We need to live like Luke 21:36 says: “Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.” This is important because our inner attitudes will no longer be hidden. Right now, the church we go to, may not know we are as sweet as pie when we are with them, and a pain in everyone’s heart at our house!!

Jesus specifically taught us to take note of the times – but He didn’t say write a thesis on it. Look it at this version of Matthew 16:3: “ ... …why can’t you read the signs of the times? An evil and wanton generation is always wanting signs and wonders. The only sign you’ll get is the Jonah sign.” Then He spun around and walked away.”Take note of what is going on and pray. We also need to apply God’s Word to our hearts faithfully, and make sure we let the Holy Spirit keep us humble. 

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.“ 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

Yeah, those verses read like the lead story of our news! If WE are any of those things let’s grow up and fix them quickly. There are some days that I would be better off avoiding myself!  Meanwhile I do need to start with me …because so far nobody else came up! BTW, these are fantastic verses to meditate on. It’s like a check-list of heartless, mean, dumb things to do. However, instead of putting a mental tick on each thing mentioned, we need to ask the Lord, ‘Do I do this?’ 

At the same time, don’t let yourself be condemned, because you and I are now “in Christ Jesus” and there is no condemnation in Him. Instead, we need to agree with the Holy Spirit’s diagnosis, and ask Him to help us repent and repair stuff, then go and do it, just do what you can do to fix things. Then, move on – none of us have a guaranteed tomorrow.

Back to my main point. Jesus gave this information to His disciples two thousand years ago. He talked a lot about the end times, but the Lord did it in conjunction with our own behaviour toward others. Yet we keep carrying on like we are supposed to know when this stuff will happen, when the bible clearly says:’No-one but the Father knows.’ See Matthew 24:36. And if the Father did not tell His precious, beloved, always-obedient-to-His-will-SON, Jesus Christ, then WE are not meant to know. Think again! Let’s pray and ask Him to forgive us all, for our arrogance.

However, the “signs” Jesus mentions in Timothy, in Matthew, and Luke – are a wake-up call for us to do something about our lives. We can pray for places where there is war. We can go out of our way to care for others. We can witness. And we can let this life teach us how to love the unlovely – after all, who needs to know the love of God more? I’m talking about those people nobody likes, so nobody wants to tell them anything— just in case they repent and get saved!

We all might want to think about that, while we are contemplating – wars and rumours of wars. Personally, I think we need to use our God-given time on earth well and participate willingly in our transformation. Do you want to be like Jesus and your heavenly Father?? Then …“Love your enemies, do good to those who despitefully use you …” Matthew 5:43-48. After all, that’s our Father’s business.  Bye. 👋

P 3046 We need to focus on what matters.

/ DVH

I’ve noticed online recently, a pretty big subtext of chatter about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. That thought seems to ramp up whenever the Christian world is not coping or unhappy with its lot. It seems that we are looking for Jesus to: “Get us out of here please Lord, because it’s getting too hard and we don’t like it!”  Meanwhile I am permanently glued to the fact that the Lord said:  that the whole world needs to hear the gospel first… so in my mind, the second thing can’t happen until we’ve completed the first! Here are some other thoughts on the Second Coming.. My short response is this: I dunno!

Now here’s my longer one: Jesus says this in Matthew 24:35,36. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away. “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” I’m a no-one, so I think that includes me! Matthew 24:24.“For false Christs and false prophets will arise, and they will show great signs and wonders so as to deceive and lead astray, if possible, even the elect (God’s chosen ones).” Matthew 24:6: “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.”

Those scriptures are one of the reasons you will never hear end-times stuff on this blog. I quite simply don’t know, and, to be truthful, I don’t particularly want to know either!  We can spend way too much time focussing on stuff we have no control of any of it. If Father God did not tell the Lord Jesus back then, He must have a reason. To me that is a nun-ya! (None of ya business.) Rest in the mystery. I refuse to panic when this war and that war happens, instead I pray for the poor people trapped by them and in them. I pray for workers to be thrust out into the harvest!

At the same time, I would never willingly want any of my decisions to be influenced by FEAR, and all this talk about when He’s coming … and what this means – or what that means … is worse than going on holidays! We passionately look forward to the holiday event, and pretty much zone out everything else that is going on around us while we are longing for it to happen!  We are talking about eternity here. Let’s not zone out of what IS going on, by sitting about waiting to be rescued. Newsflash! WE are the cavalry! If you aren’t on your horse by now those other people are sunk!

Because Jesus lives in us, He will always throw fear out wherever He finds it. He wants us to know His perfect love not fear! The Holy Spirit will expose that sneaky little devil, and together – He and I will find the source. At the same time, He will help us to renew our minds! And if we don’t yet understand how perfect His love is right now – we can be utterly reassured that it is His quest to get rid of doubt and fear wherever we have accidentally cherished it or hidden it. Meanwhile, if Jesus Himself doesn’t know when He is coming again, why should WE? 

Someone said this to me when I was a much younger Christian – live this life ready to go at any minute! That thought impacted me to the point where I still think like that today. It means that I can’t afford to just let things lie. especially if I have been out-of-sorts with somebody during the course of the day. The fact is, we only have today. Actually, we only have this minute. Anything else is presumption and an illusion born out of ego.  Back to today’s point …

We need to focus on what matters, in the here and now. I know that I know, that Jesus will come and collect us all when God says: “Now!” I once had a dream I’ve never forgotten about this subject, when I was a much younger woman,  but I refuse to trust in that dream. Maybe I just had too much pizza! All I know is that if it is not my concern, then I can cheerfully leave it with the One Who will come for me, whether I die first or He comes back first! Whatever!!

We can often obsess over things that don’t matter, things we can’t control. Maybe we don’t like the way our pastor preaches. Tough! The reality is this – our pastor is God’s gift to the body. Would you like to tell the Lord He made a mistake? Not me!! Our opinion on whether that person is doing the job well or not, is another nun-ya! What’s it got to do with me? Here’s another scripture to chew on …John 21:20-22: “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; … …when Peter saw him, he asked Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man [what is in his future]?” Jesus said to him, “If I want him to stay alive until I come [again], what is that to you? You follow Me!”

Now, that sounds like really good advice to live by! Focussing on what matters, means we will stay on the cusp of what the Holy Spirit wants to do next. You might want to meditate on that  thought. It is a better subject than what this grumpy world leader says or does this or that thing we can’t influence! Take a good look at the misinformation on the news – it is all about making people scared and grumpy. I’d rather talk with the Holy Spirit, He is always incredibly positive and reliable. Let’s set our minds on the things that matter. Bye 👋

P 2993 Holy Spirit breathing – in and out.

/ DVH

“For athletic training only benefits you for a short season, but righteousness brings lasting benefit in everything; for righteousness contains the promise of life, for time and eternity.”1 Timothy 4:8 TPT.

One of the things that I love about this verse is anyone can do it.  You don’t have to be physically fit or train for 5 hours a day. Being trained by righteousness simply takes faith and dedication. The only thing that will stop any of us from living this way, are the choices we make. However, if we continually make the wrong choices it is like sticking our fingers in our ears and ignoring what the Lord is saying to us.

This option for spiritual fitness is available to all of us, because of what Jesus did for us. Ignoring the Holy Spirit is dangerous – so we need to train ourselves to listen to Him. When I don’t want to do whatever He asks me to do, I ask for His help to do it, then I do it anyway, using my faith. My job is to let God live in me and through me, just like Jesus did and the Lord Jesus gave us His own ability to do whatever God wants from us.

Romans 5:15-17: “Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man’s sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God’s gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There’s no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man’s wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, absolute life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?” 

We need to grab hold of what the Lord has already given us with both hands and not let go, using our faith. Instead of believing we are ‘not good’ at spiritual things, and keeping a record of our failures – or the disappointments we’ve experienced when we’ve prayed and the answer we wanted did not come. To increase our faith we meditate on Who He is, what He gave us, plus things we’ve seen Him do through us and in us. This is how we train ourselves to walk in faith with Him – we take note to encourage our hearts.

We all know Jesus succeeded in what He set out to do, so that’s where we look – not at our failures… but at His victory! He was perfectly righteous with God and His death and resurrection gave us the power and right to:“act in accord with God’s divine law.”  So any sin is to be owned, repented from and walked away from. The very word repent means ‘turn around and walk in the other direction.’ Our aim is to maintain God Himself living within us – just like Jesus did. Then, by actively choosing to live in His Grace – His way of acting and thinking – our response to this world will be unconditional LOVE.

Training yourself to live in a Godly fashion takes dedication to living aware of Him. However, our continuing response to God’s faithfulness can also deliver us from all kinds of evil. Dying to self, and living for Him means we choose to value Him above everything else. We lean on what He has given us. Jesus died and gave us His ability to live differently, we enter into that gift by using our faith. Just like we expect the bank to have our money when we make a withdrawal, we make faith withdrawals by ignoring our feelings and inclinations and obeying Him instead. We will encourage huge spiritual deposits into our lives by spending time with Him.  

Athletes train for years, to achieve goals, they employ self-discipline, plus a singular focus to achieve what they want. We also need to have just one focus, pleasing Him! If we live our ordinary everyday lives putting to death those things that will only give us temporary relief or pleasure, in favour of making Him Lord, then our joy increases. The more we want what He wants, the more He will give us opportunities to use our faith, and choose His Ways over our own. It seems impossible simply because we are so used to indulging our flesh. 

The Lord loves the secret place. He does not want us to see time spent with Him as a duty, rather it is a privilege and provision that Jesus willingly paid for, to give us an incredible kind of togetherness. An athlete rehearses their skill to improve it, but instead, we practice looking to Him daily to be our ever-present help — all day every day. This hones our focus, our total faith-driven reliance upon Him to be there and help us. 

Knowing what the Lord likes and wants, occurs as we read the book, then we do what it says, and use our faith to obey what we’ve read. As time passes we begin to carry His secret place within us, everywhere we go.  It’s like breathing: valuing Him and spending time with Him is IN… and going out and sharing what He gives us is breathing OUT. Athletes need good breathing as well as fitness … so do Christians! We also need active faith. As we learn to hear His voice and do whatever He asks us to do, we will learn Holy Spirit breathing. Bye 👋

P 2433 Food for thought.

/ DVH

“Escort me into Your truth; take me by the hand and teach me. For You are the God of my salvation; I have wrapped my heart into Yours all day long!” Psalms 25:5 TPT. Today the above scripture made me think about wrapping up parcels… I guess it is the time of year when wrapping things becomes a priority. I never know why we do it – you only tear the paper off to get at what is inside!! Maybe it is the surprise element?  

However, I just l💕ve giving gifts, it’s my all time favourite thing to do. I watch for the person’s happy face with great anticipation. That happy face is my pay-off.  It makes all the effort of carefully wrapping things worth it. Meanwhile sticky tape and I have always been mortal enemies. That danged stuff always manages to stick to itself! Sigh. I never was one of those people who could take paper, ribbon and a bow and make a dazzling creation. 🎁 OK I got sidetracked… Back to today’s point …

Somebody told me this once;  it gave me food for thought. People who are wrapped up in themselves make a very small parcel. Sigh. I think I’ve met a few small parcels recently. Sadly, they can be very tiring people to know. Every single thing is about them and their troubles and woes. It’s like trying to get close to a vacuum cleaner – everything goes in but nothing comes out. Or if it does accidentally come out – it makes a huge mess!  I think that this Psalm is a prayer as well as a declaration. This Psalmist knows what it means to have personal involvement from the Lord and he is reminding himself of what God is like. He finds no loss in Almighty God.

The Lord’s personal teaching helps this man to be intimately engaged with God.That last line impacted me: “I have wrapped my heart into Yours all day long!”  What a promise … and a challenge! When I read something like that, it kind of just seems like beautiful poetry to me. However, I’m not actually sure what it actually means for me today, right here, right now. I’m big on stuff that has significance, stuff that gives me something to DO!  That’s when I remembered that Almighty God chose to wrap Himself in skin and enter my life —HE did something for me. He’s no vacuum cleaner, if He never did anything else, that was enough.

He came here to live amongst us. As a result, the Lord Jesus, Who only made the world (!) was cold, tired, thirsty, wet, fed-up … He was also ignored, maltreated, abused, criticised, and hungry (read the book!) … all that for our sake ….and .. He chose to die. Man you could just sit and meditate on those thoughts for a lifetime. It shows me and helps me comprehend what being wrapped up in something means! He is wrapped up in us.

There is so much beauty and personal engagement in what God did when He sent Jesus Christ here. Sometimes the overall concept of God saving the world, is too far away from where we live every single day to benefit us. To be wrapped up in Him, what what He did needs to impact me every day. Maybe a clearer picture might sound like this – God cared enough to come here to save me. Because He did that, He impacted my own little world – and that impact included everybody I know and care about. Nothing about my life is trivial to Him.

When I read the bible, sometimes one word or a phrase catches me in the heart. I like that little word “escort.”. To me that means SomeOne incredible is helping me to find my way in this life, and He is extremely dedicated and personal about it. This is not a formal escort – that person just gives you an arm to hold onto. No, the Holy Spirit takes me by the heart and hand and teaches me, personally. No wonder this Psalmist has wrapped his heart into God – He can see that God has wrapped His heart into us!

Our God is active in every intimate detail of our lives. Our loves, our losses, our sadnesses, our joy. That’s because as we wrap our heart into His, He continually wraps His heart into our lives, giving them meaning beyond the mundane. Here’s another Psalm, 138:8 AMPC “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy and loving-kindness, O Lord, endure forever–forsake not the works of Your own hands.” He cares about the things I care about! And He cares enough to make sure nothing is left out. Nothing about me and my life, is insignificant to Him. 

Here’s my last food-for-thought verse from a Psalm:  ““He heals the wounds of every shattered heart.” Psalm 147:3 TPT.  Just in case you think you have not found that to be true – think on this …He doesn’t say WHEN our hearts will be healed … it just says He WILL do it.👋🏻