Mercy

P 2421 The saga of the queue.

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“For even the Son of Man did not come expecting to be served by everyone, but to serve everyone, and to give His life as the ransom price for the salvation of many.”” Mark 10:45 TPT. BTW, we would be wise to remember that just because lightning doesn’t strike us from heaven – that does not mean that the Lord approves of what we are doing!! It’s not called MERCY for nothing.

It’s verses like this one that convict my heart. You see, I was caught in our car recently, waiting for a half an hour, in 33 degree heat. It happened twice. There were very complicated road works and we were waiting to be given a green light so we could move on. Sadly my response was best not repeated here! I got my crank on. I was hot, hungry and not feeling well … I totally forgot I was not my own, and it was Jesus’ time that was being wasted not mine. 🙄

Let’s just think about the above verse for a minute as it applies to me in that situation. In reflection I realised I was expecting to be treated differently by a bunch of hard-working roadwork guys  … just because I wasn’t well etc. Yeah, I totally lost any kind of realism in those thoughts eh?!? Like they would know what was happening to me while they were digging ditches! 

The thing is – if I want to follow Jesus I’m probably going to go down a whole lot of difficult uncomfortable roads … that may have endless troubles — plus road-works!  However, instead of getting cranky I actually had plenty of time to pray for the poor boiling hot road workers digging away in 33 degree heat!  Rats! I definitely missed that opportunity. 😶 So today I wanted to include something in my blog that cut me to the heart – because it needed to. I urge you to read this like Jesus is speaking to you personally, I did!

I Hear His Whisper … hold nothing back from Me…

“I want to be Lord over every part of your life—over your joys and sorrows, hopes and fears, goals and disappointments. I don’t want you to hold anything back. Beloved, come face-to-face with Me. Stand in My Presence and ask for my Spirit to reveal the areas that you haven’t fully surrendered to Me. It’s time for you to release control of those parts of your life that you’ve held on to.

Let the searching gaze of My Spirit into the secret caverns of your heart. There are situations and people that I will gently bring to your remembrance. It’s important that you don’t push such a thought back down but acknowledge it and bring it to me. 

Any pain, fear, trust issues, bad habits, wrong attitudes, or areas that you’re still holding tightly to must be given to Me. They are not yours to control. I love you, and I will lovingly correct you and draw you into the place of safety, where you can lay these things at My feet, once and for all. It’s time for you to rise to a new level of freedom.” Written by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodreguiz

Sometimes stuff simply ‘gets’ at us. And before we know it, we are reacting – without asking for any help, or Grace. And then we end up wondering where our peace went! That’s a good time to remember Jesus’ OCEAN OF GRACE and His MERCY FOUNTAIN.  We get there by way of repentance but we don’t have to go either place via the road of shame! I can’t apologise to those particular road workers, who had no clue I was cranky at them. But I can repent and ask for the Lord’s help to change. After praying I found a whole lot of stuff inside that I had no idea existed. Including pride and resentment, plus entitlement … because I’m often ill… poor me! I was reminded again, that my time is His time and He can spend it how He likes. 

Secondly my comfort – or not, is now in His hands. I repented and spoke a blessing over the men working so hard to make the roads safer for everyone, and revised my attitudes. Being ill and tired is no excuse. Actually I’m doing my best to give up excusing myself, it’s a waste of time. I want to go straight to: “What’s the problem here Lord please?” 

The thing I’ve noticed is that if I am being truly honest, I also must leave behind that sickly sweet little voice – that comes from inside ME. It’s definitely not the Lord! That voice is soooo sympathetic and it says things like: “That’s OK, you can’t help it, you have a lot to deal with.” You know, not every voice we hear is the devil. Sometimes it’s just OUR FLESH! Yikes! 

Like I’ve said before, deception comes from careless choices, and there is no other place for that junk but the cross! I want to close by saying it is worth reflecting on the fact that Jesus came to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many and He always had time for everybody – even when He was dying! So it’s no big deal if I’m asked to give a half an hour of my time, for a few hardworking road makers. 👋🏻

P 2416 Mercy is a fountain.

/ DVH

“Celebrate with praises the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who has shown us His extravagant mercy. For His fountain of mercy has given us a new life—we are reborn to experience a living, energetic hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” 1 Peter 1:3 TPT

In everything we do and say, we must never forget God’s mercy, because of what Jesus Christ did for us. This mercy is not a small pool of water – it is not even a large body of water like the pool at Siloam – it is a fountain. A fountain has life in it. It is not static;  it flows, dances, bounces and beams light in every direction. A fountain is a symbol of His joy dancing over each one of us – all the time. We spend our lives in that fountain! Bathing in it, praising God for it, allowing God’s mercy to impact the way we think and act.

Our Heavenly Father’s mercy is like that. His mercy transforms everything it touches. We do not have to instruct people into the kingdom of God. We simply need to bring them into the proximity of that fountain. Our relationship with Him provides the proximity. So how do we do that? We extend mercy and grace to everyone – whether we like them or not! Then we stir up that fountain within us, and act on everything He says to do to keep it alive and bubbling. 

This includes showing mercy to people who don’t deserve it. PS neither did we!  That fountain resides in us now, the minute we said yes to Him. Everything Jesus Christ did on our behalf contributes to that living fountain. We stepped under/into that fountain and it began to bubble and grow inside us. Christ’s mercy is always so incredibly extravagant beyond our wildest dreams, because that flow always exceeds our demand upon it. Why would we abuse such Grace?

Our God knows everything, but that is no threat to us. Not to His kids. It is a promise that the fountain of His life is more than adequate for everything that has happened to us in our lives so far … and it will carry us in its sweet waters right on to the end. The thing is – when we appreciate that fountain and the cost that was paid – we would not dream of skating on by doing the minimum we can, hoping we can somehow fool Him into thinking it is enough. We would never dare take advantage of such a glorious gift that was given so freely for all of us. 

Christ is always our example, and the men and women who followed Him after His death and resurrection illustrate the sort of devotion we need to cultivate and protect in our ordinary everyday lives. It means whenever I talk to my neighbour, that mercy fountain within me reaches out to them, it embraces them. There is no pressure needed, because that fountain is so appealing, so incredible, so sweet, it draws everyone in. Are they grumpy neighbours? Then this fountain is more than adequate. Ask for His help! He made His help for us available through that fountain.

We have found as we talk to people all over this country that religion glazes their eyes and stops conversation. But mercy and grace opens unseen doors within them and you cannot shut them up. The person in front of us who seemed business-like and together, is suddenly transformed into a person with needs and hopes and dreams. They cannot believe that God is interested in them. They are drawn to His fountain – inside us  – they know they need Him. Both hubby and I would say we are totally inadequate to do this work, but daily He rises up within us, like a fountain springs into the air alive and working. He does whatever is needed! 

Mercy and joy go together. They transform lives by their very presence in us and through us. We will get so blessed by blessing others! Believe me this world has nothing to offer that competes with the reality of seeing His Presence touch someone. His little hidden ones, out there in every nook and cranny of this grumpy old world, know His voice. They may not know His Name, but something inside of them knows His voice. 

You and I carry that glorious wealth inside us everywhere we go. I exhort us all to bathe in that fountain, take it in with every single breath, and then allow it flow through us. Enjoy what Christ died to give us. Don’t spend so much time feeling guilty – use your time to be grateful.  Like Jesus said to His Father in the Lord’s prayer:“Manifest Your kingdom realm, and cause Your every purpose to be fulfilled on earth, just as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10 TPT.

“Use me Lord. Let your joy-mercy flow out of me.” Bye.👋🏻

P 2380 Gentleness has been greatly underrated.

/ DVH

Today, gentleness can be sometimes seen as weakness, or even a particularly feminine quality. But Jesus said: “What blessing comes to you when gentleness LIVES in you! For you will inherit the earth.” Matthew 5:5 TPT. Jesus Christ was Father God’s perfect expression of gentleness and mercy toward mankind.

Let’s look at the One Who gave us the best illustration ever of being gentle, and showing mercy under pressure, from the cross. “Then he (the thief on the cross next to Christ) said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into your kingdom.”Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in paradise.” Luke 23-42-44. And there it is… mercy and gentleness without rancour, or a lecture. It just automatically flowed toward the one who needed it, despite the Giver’s pain. 

Here’s something I’ve learnt that I will pass on for free. We need to LET gentleness LIVE in us. That means we need to be aware of what it is like, and then use every single opportunity to use this particular form of Grace to cultivate it. Let’s consult the dictionary about gentleness:  kindness, tenderness, mercy, understanding, compassion, kind-heartedness, tender-heartedness, love, mildness, humility, peacefulness, serenity, reverence, and meekness.

Yeah. I put this list in today because many of these words are no longer common. We are not often likely to use them in every day language …However, I believe many of the responses we meet from other people are based in fear. People who do not know that they are God’s original creations, hold onto the images of who they think they are, very tightly. They can use anger, pride and spite to shove others away. I’ve watched gentleness in action, and it does not threaten or create fear – it lovingly and carefully opens new doors for His love to go in and then it waits. Gentleness is aware of the other person’s need to be authentic and to feel safe and unthreatened. 

The bible talks quite a bit about sowing and reaping, and I believe we need to learn to sow mercy, and gentleness into other people’s lives because there is so little of it around. We are to live that way because that’s the way Jesus was. He gave us mercy when we didn’t deserve it in the first place. He didn’t appear, all guns blazing like Rambo! But He came here in the most vulnerable disarming form ever – as a new born infant. When the Lord Jesus spoke to people His loving kindness went right around their objections and piqued their interest. This is what I have found the Holy Spirit is like in His Character. He is not rough with people. He doesn’t threaten them, He walks with human beings, gently suggesting other ways to interact and approach things. He doesn’t push or pull.

I often laugh when I see people and their dog going for a walk, because, even though the owner will say they are walking their dog, to all intents and purposes, their dog is walking them!  However, on the market there is another form of leash, it is called a gentle leader. It wraps around the dog’s muzzle instead of its throat or chest, and the dog, no matter what size it is, finds it impossible to pull with its nose. So it trots alongside the owner peacefully. Without trying to be blasphemous, AT ALL (!!), the Holy Spirit leads us like that. He doesn’t push and He doesn’t drag, He waits for us to walk together, in agreement.  

The thing is, with the kingdom of God, whatever is given to us will flourish and grow inside us … if we cherish it. His kingdom is not like this world — giving love, mercy, gentleness away to the undeserving, or a perfect stranger, actually helps those things grow inside us. In this world if you give something away, you’ve lost it – but in the kingdom of God, generous humility helps gentleness and mercy to flourish in our hearts. 

When we sow gentleness into the lives of the people who cross our path – the love of God is released to create a harvest. We do not have to be a fierce people – our war is already won. So this is how we deal with others …”Brothers, if anyone is caught in any sin, you who are spiritual [that is, you who are responsive to the guidance of the Spirit] are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness [not with a sense of superiority or self-righteousness], keeping a watchful eye on yourself, so that you are not tempted as well.” Galatians 6:1. 

Save your warrior face for fighting our common enemy! Not the people you meet. They may never ever deserve it, but we are releasing His Grace into their lives and that means that a little seed of gentleness or mercy is planted into a life to flourish in His timing. So Instead of a harsh word, we have a gentle one to turn away someone else’s anger. That’s what sowing gentleness and mercy looks like. It means that thoughts of revenge or punishment disappear from our thinking.

The people who give His Grace, His peace, His gentleness, His mercy away, are not just being nice, or polite, instead they have an inner barn on the inside of them that is filled to bursting with these things. “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34. What’s IN there will come out under pressure. That pressure is simply life from day to day, but the other person’s need will create an opportunity.

Gentleness is a fruit of the Spirit, it is neither soft or girlish – it opens doors that would remain tightly closed because it does not push … it respects the other person enough to lovingly watch and wait for an opportunity. 👋🏻

P 2378 Forget about winning lotto …!

/ DVH

… most Christians have incredible riches they have never even accessed. We have a Saviour. 🙌  He is the perfect substitute for our sins, He gave us His righteousness, so now we have His kind of access to our Heavenly Father’s attention. Now we give Him back our lives for His purposes. Our Heavenly Father has given us so many incredible things, including spiritual gifts to bless others. We have a book filled to the brim with stories about other people who dared to walk with God, despite their fears … so we can see for ourselves what God did in them and through them. Our God is not far away, but near to those who seek Him … and Jesus made seeking Him possible.

Our Saviour, died to give us healing, wisdom, strength, patience, kindness, goodness, etc. every single day. We are a blessed people! He provides for our needs, He comforts us with His comfort which knows no boundaries – including race, creed, and theology. He doesn’t judge us, but looks at us with understanding, kindness, mercy and grace through human eyes. Almost everything ever recorded about Christ is about Him gladly interacting with people! Because of Jesus – we are the people who are blessed to know what Father God, His Love and His kingdom are like. That’s what makes us rich. We don’t have to guess, or hope, or imagine – we have a BOOK full of His thoughts!

The next time someone says to you, what does Almighty God look like? You can tell them – HE LOOKS LIKE JESUS CHRIST.  Point the people who don’t-know-Him-yet to the gospels in the bible. Tell them to look at how Christ treats human beings – that’s what the Father is like. This is why hubby and I give away the four Gospels. The bible is a large daunting book to someone who doesn’t-know-Him-yet, and a lot of the language used is old-fashioned and unclear. Plus it’s a really BIG book! We want others to experience the Lord’s heart toward mankind. Then they can see Jesus in the gospels, healing the sick, feeding the hungry, teaching them God’s ways, talking to people, answering questions.

In those gospels we see Christ is single-minded – everything He says is to explain His Heavenly Father and how His Kingdom works – in terms that ordinary people can understand. He shows people how to relate to God. He talks to farmers, fishermen, religious people, homemakers, and children. He talked to everyone with the same purpose, He wanted to reveal and clarify His Father’s love. The Father’s love is the greatest treasure this world has ever seen – and Christ came here to illustrate it, in and through His flesh. People do not know about this treasure, they think the bible is all about rules that they can’t keep … BUT the bible is a fantastic spiritual gift for everyone.     

However before ordinary people can understand the death and resurrection of Christ, they need to know that ‘love looks like something’; so we believe in helping others, praying with them and for them, as well as telling them in person how much God loves them. We don’t care what they believe, our desire is for them to experience the love of God first-hand, through us!  Now, as Christians WE have also become His treasure. It is our job to feed the hungry, heal the sin-sick souls to follow Him. We encourage the down-hearted, show the lost the way home and tell people this life can have incredible meaning. 

Righteousness, peace, joy in the Holy Spirit – all these things are intangible, but totally heaven-sent riches. We are blessed to be a blessing and that blessing is not about earthly gain – it is about giving away heart happiness and contentment in spite of difficult circumstances. As well as His love which is like a spring of never-ending water. Human beings must stop thinking that blessings from God are about God being in a heavenly service industry. Prayer is not a way to place your order! It is privileged communication with the God of the universe. He provides for us, just like He provided for Adam and Eve in the garden, but our relationship with Him is about FAR more than provision.

Lastly, everywhere Christians go, we get to wear HIS ROBE. That robe is about humility. We lay our lives down for others because He laid His life down for us. You don’t get any richer in this life than that, no matter what a lotto jackpot is worth. Some of the richest, most blessed people I know, hardly have two beans to rub together. And if you happen to be hungry they will throw the only beans they have into a pot to feed you! Now that’s really rich! Bye. 😊

P 2364 Tie your heart into this.

/ DVH

“For this reason the Lord is still waiting to show His favour to you so He can show you His marvellous Love. He waits to be gracious to you. He sits on His throne ready to show mercy to you. For Yahweh is the Lord of justice, faithful to keep His promises. Overwhelmed with bliss are all who will entwine their hearts in Him,waiting for Him to help them.” Isaiah 30:18 TPT.

Here’s a word of wisdom for you: “YOU DON’T HAVE TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM GOD.” He’s a safe person – ergo, you can also trust what He says in His book! Isn’t that scripture above just amazing?  When you take the time to turn off the voice inside your head that says that this is poetic language and not personal, and read it like God Himself is talking to you instead … you will see what I mean. He looks for opportunities to bless us. What’s not to love about SomeOne like that? 

God is waiting to be good to us, He wants to show His favour and mercy, so we can see His love in our own lives, on the spot, not just somewhere out in the future – but right here right now!  I mean WOW! THE God of the Universe and beyond, the God who made people, galaxies, ants, whales and puppy dog tails, can’t wait to be good to us! Imagine that. Let’s just leave that ‘out ‘ there and think on it for a bit. I dunno about you, but thinking like that always makes me happy …

Did you read the condition that is attached to these most excellent promises? ‘entwine their hearts in Him, WAITING for Him to help them.’ (OK, OK – I’m about to do an — I told you so!! I told you that waiting can sometimes be a part of the deal.) I read this very appropriate scripture from the Amplified version of His book. It is my personal all time favourite version. Hebrews 10:35&36 “Do not, therefore, fling away your [fearless] confidence, for it has a glorious and great reward. For you have need of patient endurance [to bear up under difficult circumstances without compromising], so that when you have carried out the will of God, you may receive and enjoy to the full what is promised.” 

Don’t’cha just love that word … FLING … as in “fling away … “ In a fit of anger, frustration, or even depression we can throw away our confidence in His unchanging, eternal love, just like we would throw away a broken frisbee. These verses are saying – don’t do it!  It reminds me of those cartoons when something disastrous is about to happen and the little man is running, in slow motion, yelling S-T-O-P! Instead of panicking, maybe we need to WAIT.

Have you ever thrown out something and regretted it afterwards? Actually, it seems to me that I’ve thrown out many things only to need them, like… one week later. Ugh! Frustration looms. It’s amazing the things you can keep, thinking that this thing might – save me money, come in handy, be useful for this or that – only to end up with rooms full of little boxes, post bags, blister wrap, etc. – which, BTW you never use! OR … if you do finally find a use, then you can’t find the blasted thing under the pile of the 94 other little boxes etc etc. My point is we need to keep our confidence in Him fresh and handy!

Our confidence in His goodness is meant to sustain us through the times when we are barely treading water and we are desperately holding onto our hope that that little dot on the horizon will turn out to be a boat or a plane and not a shark! That’s when we need to tie our hearts into scriptures like this one in Luke 11:11 …“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him!”

Well, that’s pretty self-explanatory really. The thing is, in the past we tied these verses, and others like them into material things. But verses like this are equally, if not more powerful, when applied to godly concepts. Hey, if you need a new working washing machine then ask away! If your car is grinding more than jump-starting, then ask away … we simply need to remind ourselves that sometimes we have to wait for the good and perfect will of God.

He likes whatever He does to bless a whole lotta people. Everybody around us!! If we are mingy and selfish and want that blessing, right now, just for ourselves, then we might end up waiting a while. In the meantime we probably need to adjust our attitude and with His help – we can! That’s how we tie our hearts into His ways. By letting Him change us! 👋🏻

P 2361 What’s next?

/ DVH

“You can pass through His open gates with the password of praise. Come right into His Presence with thanksgiving. Come bring your thank offering to Him and affectionately bless His beautiful name!”Psalms 100:4 TPT.

I believe we need to take verses like this one literally, instead of simply reading it and nodding our heads in agreement …  we actually need to do what it says. We must get into the habit of seeing the bible as a book of instructions, and not just a book of nice thoughts, interesting stories and stuff that God said to other people! I use His own words to form my prayers as He reminds me of an appropriate verse for my current situation.

The verse above is filled with instruction. It is a road map into the throne room for a personal interview with our Father!  A bunch of people can participate together, or one person can apply it just for themselves … it doesn’t matter. This means we stop what we are doing and use the password! I never thank Him for the problem … instead I thank Him that He is going to get me out of it!  “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them ALL, …” Psalm 34:19… Man, how I love those little words!!! Learn to insist no matter how long it takes.

At the same time I truly believe our fantastic Father can use any verse in His book to bring somebody to Himself! Sadly, I think we have limited our own comprehension by making exceptions. “Oh, that’s just for the Jewish people. Oh that’s just for sinners. Oh that’s just for people who never met Him.” And we miss the blessing and the deeper knowledge of His ways. 

Praising God means we will get blessed too, it’s just an automatic flow-on effect. So when it says, bring your thank offering to Him, do it. And if you find it hard to think of something to be thankful for, ask the Holy Spirit for His help… and then thank Him! And then … repent, because you obviously have not been paying attention to what God is doing in your life! No I am not joking. 

Almighty God uses His book to tell us how we can have fellowship with Him, so we’d better be more concerned about His thoughts than someone else’s! You might wonder: ‘will my fear of failing God ever go away?’ Here’s my answer –  does satan ever fall asleep? 😳 That war inside our heads is normal, it wouldn’t be FAITH if we didn’t get stretched in the process! 

“Whatever He says to you, do it.” Mary said that to some servants at a wedding once. She had a right to ask them to do that – she knew Father God’s ways first hand! She put her body on the line. I’ve practiced doing that scripture for 50 years, ever since I first read it. Boy, I’ve done some monumentally stupid stuff, trust me – I’ve mentioned that on this site … but I’d rather try than excuse myself, and miss the blessing of seeing God do what He does best – He loves to surprise people!  Including me.

How can we affectionately bless His holy Name if we are standing way off in the distance, too scared to be seen??Maybe we are scared He will bring up something we hope He doesn’t know we’ve been doing, or something we have already done?! Get over yourself, and fix the things that need fixing. I know other people are difficult, I have a bunch of those people in my life. He knows how to handle them. We need to just follow the prompts and watch what He will do with our obedience.

Personally, I have a bunch of awkward messed-up things in my life that look like a cat got at my knitting! Stuff is tangled up so badly I have no confidence it can ever be untangled, unless He does it. But I know my God, and I’m not taking my faith back, because I know, that I know that – HE IS GOOD and His mercy endures forever. (That’s another Psalm BTW.) I learnt that stuff by using my faith – especially at times when things didn’t work out and I could see no solution. Our God loves the impossible. I loathe the impossible, I get so stretched by stuff I feel like I am going to break – but so far … He just keeps bailing me out. However, you probably won’t ever hear me say: ‘Oh goodie! Another terrible test for me to trust God with.’ 

But those moments are the time to enter His gates with thanksgiving and go right on into His courts with praise. Why? Well, first of all, praise and thanksgiving won’t change God’s mind –  He is always for us. Praise and thanksgiving changes ME! We all need to stop paying lip-service to what He says and act on it instead. The bible is a book filled with instructions, plus stories about other people who followed instructions! It ain’t rocket science. 👋🏻

P 2348 Really?? Have we become this small?😱

/ DVH

Look, I totally get that we cannot, and must not, even by inference, give others permission to live sinfully. Yes, there are people in our society who live what we might call depraved lives. But please !! It’s time for the Lone Ranger and Tonto to climb down off their horses and walk amongst the ordinary people living in this world and start living a life of love – instead of judgment. Some of our finest warriors will be people who have been snatched away from the fires of hell!

Meanwhile what do WE have that was not GIVEN to us? “For who regards you as superior or what sets you apart as special? What do you have that you did not receive [from another]? And if in fact you received it [from God or someone else], why do you boast as if you had not received it [but had gained it by yourself]?” 1 Corinthians 4:7. 

Where do we ‘get off’ looking down our noses at other people – people who may never even have heard of the Saviour – and start judging their lives. We are not here to be permissive but we aren’t here to be judgmental either. Is this really how we think we should introduce people to the One Who loved them before this world began? Like that’s gunna work! Condemnation just drives people further into excuses, and defensiveness. If we want to see people set free, then we need to stay in Love with the Saviour and live a life of sacrificial love toward everyone around us.

“Oh, but they will go to hell if they don’t repent and change their ways.” RIGHT. So our plan is to use FEAR to push them into God’s ways? Fear always leads to faith doesn’t it? NOT!! Hmmm. Aren’t we confusing FEAR with CONVICTION? Have we utterly forgotten who WE were before Jesus saved us? Speaking for myself I was a huge bag of superiority – “I would never do stuff like that!”  says I as I looked down my nose at others. Meanwhile even though I didn’t blatantly lie, but I exaggerated heaps – and of course, that meant I was always the hero of any little story or anecdote I told. 

I was guilty of lust, plus a complete lack of honesty. I couldn’t stand my sole parent and the way I was raised, and I said so to anyone who was dumb enough to ask me about it. I hated some people with a passion — usually people who had the effrontery to not like me! In short I was as ugly inside as most people are, but I had become quite adept at hiding it so I would be accepted. But it is hard to hide yourself from yourself, you gotta be dedicated to do that stuff! That kind of self-deception has to be practised.

You know sometimes I think we have not matured enough to understand that sin is not contagious, it is a choice. I will concede that bad circumstances can, and will often appear to line up against us, and temptation often pops up when we are at our weakest. BUT… people make bad choices for many many reasons. 

Some things are not actual life-style choices, instead people are driven to these dark places because they cannot cope with how they feel, and our common enemy takes advantage of their needs and weaknesses. When we are starved of love and natural human affection we are easily swayed onto darker pathways. Desperate, lonely people do daft things to fit in. And … sometimes these things are also the cumulative result of cultivating rotten attitudes and activities.

Following Jesus means we leave that proud judgmental lifestyle behind us. We call our SIN – SIN. Not whoopsies. We don’t blame our parents for our unloving ways, because we have and regularly read HIS BOOK and understand that our parents probably did the best they could based what this life shoved at them! We look at the next guy and think: ‘that could have been me, God have mercy on us both!’

Jesus touched the unclean. He interacted with two thieves – Judas and Zacchaeus – one repented and turned his life around and the other didn’t. He even dealt kindly with promiscuous women, and spoke into their hearts instead of condemning them. The only language we’ve been licensed to speak now, is LOVE. Christians fall down when we use the bible as a club to punish, damage, judge and banish people – when in truth the bible is that glorious balm in Gilead that will save the sin-sick, wounded soul.

We need to remember where we were when He found us and called us. We have been GIVEN the greater portion, so let’s use that for everyone’s good and find His better ways to reach out to the lost – ‘cos they ain’t called that for nothing! 💕

P 2305 HE is our hope. Not our circumstances.

/ DVH

Exodus 33:12b,13a.”You have said, ‘I know you by name and you have found favour with me.’ If You are pleased with me, teach me Your ways so I may know You and continue to find favour with You.”

This is a fantastic prayer. We simply must put to one side any self-serving, ‘placing our order’ prayers like: “I’m praying for this,” or “You need to do this Lord,” or “could You please do this Lord?”  In favour of prayers like this one Moses prayed. Moses’ prayer puts Almighty God back in His rightful place – IN CHARGE. Remember …”Seek the kingdom first … then the stuff we need gets added.”

Human beings can struggle with biblical concepts. We love the idea, those concepts are exciting … it’s the practical everyday, minute by minute outworking of it that gets on top of us! Having our faith run our lives seems so extreme. Actually that very thought shows us how far we’ve drifted away from His plan. The kingdom life is a totally committed life. Think about your faith life like this … how would you cope if God changed your plans?

You see the reality of our new life is that “the Lord will have His way…” He wants to be with us and be a part of our lives. I cannot comprehend why people leave Him out. Why leave out the One Who made penguins, dragonflies, and platypuses?? People say things like, ‘why did God give me a brain if He didn’t want me to use it?’ He gave us a brain to use it in His service, and in our service for others. Not to swell up our own sense of self-importance.

We constantly need to refresh and remind ourselves as well as reinforce our personal desire to: “…proclaim the Name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God! “The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is He.”  Deuteronomy 32:34. He is perfect and … we ain’t!! 

We cannot be trusted by ourselves to ‘do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.’ Sooner or later we will all start blaming and shouting at each other and that is followed by all sorts of division, plus a whole lot of … wandering vaguely off into la-la land. And I don’t mean Los Angeles! We need the Holy Spirit’s input in our everyday lives – HE IS OUR STABILISING FORCE.

Moses understood the fact that sooner or later, without the Holy Spirit’s guidance, people stumble off into a wilderness and then they will turn around and blame GOD – and their leaders – even though they consensually walked off! I know we’ve all been transformed, washed by Jesus’ blood, but …at the same time we still are, present tense, being transformed and daily being washed! 

Without the Holy Spirit’s input, human beings can easily get arrogant and lose the desire to change. People enjoy being comfortable and feeling safe. We only like the kind of ‘adventures’ we plan. Being a Christian takes enormous courage, personal motivation, loads of action, and the sort of flexibility that is always prepared and willing to make personal sacrifices and life-style changes. You know, very few people just walk away from Christ – they slide away – one seemingly innocent bad choice at a time.

The thief’s greatest ploy is to steal away our confidence in our Father’s trustworthiness, love for us, and His goodness. It is incredibly important that we stop majoring on the loss or gain of material things, and start to realise the incomparably true value of our faith. Our personal faith and our corporate faith mean so much to Christ – He gave His life to buy it back from the enemy. Jesus has given us an opportunity to develop HIS kind of faith – the stuff that brings heaven to earth. And MOSES knew all about that! That man had a wife, a job, a home, relatives that respected him, as well as kids – and God asked Moses to give all that normal stuff up and go and save a nation!

Our circumstances can change in a heartbeat when God is our hope. Following Jesus is not meant to be boring! He turned fishermen into Apostles. 👋🏻

P 2279 Transformation sucks…until it doesn’t!

/ DVH

Loving other people,  especially difficult ones, is our biggest test. As we let the Holy Spirit touch our lives and hearts, the things that really annoy us about other people, start to quietly melt away. There was no one singular moment for me, personally— instead, there have been thousands of little choices – to shut up when I didn’t really want to – and to look for the good in situations when the bad was banging me on the head repeatedly. 

There is no specific secret – I just had to stop putting ME first. The more we can drag our unredeemed minds out of self-preservation and start actively renewing them, the more we start to understand that following Jesus really works. There are still times my mouth starts running without thinking, then irritation takes over, and I couldn’t care less how someone else feels, all I care about is some clown is standing on my foot, metaphorically speaking. 

Over the years I’ve learnt that the subject of love makes a magnificent theory, but it doesn’t always work out the way we hope it will IRL. People do stupid annoying stuff. It’s inevitable! The point, is whether they mean to hurt us or not, the result is we still have deal with it. That part IS our problem. This is one of the best reasons I know to take judgment right out of the picture. As soon as we go into judgment, we’ve run right past mercy and left faith behind, and skidded right on through to feeling entitled to getting a break in our adverse circumstances … Which hardly ever happens BTW.  

There is just no going around the fact that we need an external-soon-to-become-internal source of power – because we don’t have that kind of grace toward other people, in us. Speaking for myself, in the past 2 weeks, I have found any number of reasons to get irritated. Pain is a fantastic motivator – unfortunately it mostly motivates you in the wrong direction… and then you start to feel sorry for yourself. 😱

Loving other people the way He loves us is utterly impossible by ourselves. We have to put aside the habits and actions we’ve cultivated in a lifetime – and deliberately, as in on purpose, step into His never-ending stream of love. This also means that at the same time we will have to realistically face who we truly are – warts and all. Not fun. Realism is not always a major feature of our Western churches.

Eventually you and I are gonna have to put a whole lot of stuff down, and deliberately forgetaboudit! And begin to pick up His sacrificial love, ask for His help, and start to use our choices. We do that simply because of what Christ did for us. Love is a chosen sacrifice. The good news is we don’t have to like it, we just have to bite the bullet and do it anyway. But the more we make the choice to live this life cooperating with the Holy Spirit, and learning His ways, the easier it becomes. That is when we will start to see His fruit forming in our own lives. 

All of this spells out the fact that just like Jesus Himself …“by myself I can do nothing.”  Human beings need restoration. Praise GOD He does that kind of thing, brilliantly. Loving others is always going to be hard, because in reality, I don’t always want to choose love – I want to choose comfort and convenience instead. However, change will never come unless we start to make hard, sacrificial choices. One of the most important choices we will ever make is to choose to believe the Lord Jesus is more important than how I feel or think, or anything awful you might do to me.

My final thought is this … we can follow Jesus to the cross and choose to die; and wait for Him to fulfil His promise to resurrect us – or we can put all our energies into self preservation. We can’t do both, not if you want to live in love the way He did. Bye 👋🏻.

P 2276 Mercy starts with US.

/ DVH

Mercy is like a well, sometimes we can run dry, and at that moment …we often let fly!  When that happens, repent quickly, fix it, and go and get alone with Jesus as soon as you can. Then ask for a fresh infilling of His love and grace. We extend mercy to ourselves when we do that instead of beating up on ourselves. However, at the same time, we are not absolving ourselves of the need to repair, and re-connect with the other person. 

Self flagellation and self accusation is not profitable, we need His grace first before we can begin to analyse what happened, and we need to look through His eyes at the current event, and not ours. We need to choose to look at whatever happened from His POV and not the world’s. His POV of restoration is far more important than us yelling at ourselves for getting it wrong.

We need to rush to our mercy seat, Christ, and sit down with Him. The bible tells us when we run toward Him, He runs toward us. Just stop and think on that. The God of the Universe rushes toward us and the Holy Spirit is on point and totally engaged on our behalf as well. He is ever-listening and ever-present to carry out Father God’s wishes. This is the exact moment that we need to remember Whose child we are. 

There is also no room for shame either! Jesus took our shame, sin, guilt and blame with Him to the cross.  “There is …no condemnation etc . etc.”  We need to get to Him as fast as we can. Then we prayerfully override our feelings of despair about what we did or said, and start reminding ourselves of how much we are loved by Him. He is the source of healing. Healing is not just about bodily ailments, our souls can be sick …it’s in the book.

I am not talking about ignoring our own personal responsibility to fix things with other people. Father God is the place where we get the grace to forgive others. The way to get a clear conscience is to deal with the matter. Don’t get tied up in who is to blame, or who said what. The point is we have to get back to Jesus, throw ourselves on the mercy seat, acknowledge our own fault, and don’t just start raving on about what the other guy did or said and  how much it hurt you. There is no value in that. It’s like yelling at the bus when it’s already gone, all the yelling in the world won’t bring the bus back.

Condemning yourself is a bit like adding fuel to the fire of your own hurt. Take a breath. Remind yourself that our precious Father loves you no matter what and He doesn’t change … “in Him there is no shadow or turning…” Now turn and look at the cross! It’s empty!! We live in the other side of the resurrection there is hope there! The Holy Spirit knows how to turn that mess we are in around.

Don’t try to fix something while your own emotions are in turmoil. Just breathe slowly, tell the Lord you’re sorry, ask Him to forgive you. Wait for Him to speak. You need instructions. If your toaster is malfunctioning then you will probably need to look at the instructions or check out the guarantee. The bible is God’s personal instruction manual for human beings. It is His guarantee IN WRITING! So when we are malfunctioning we need to go back to the word of God, and start reading. 

When I’m in a tizzy emotionally, or in in my mind, OR both! I find reading a Psalm calms me down. I rediscover my humanity by reading about what the psalmist said.- I like to go to one of the Psalms David wrote. Pick one where David is cranky at somebody or other, so he wants to kill them, and tell God they died. And I keep reading because I know that by the end, he will have calmed down and started turning his thoughts back to God. And that’s what we need to do too.

If you need to cry, cry. BUT – our God does not take sides. He only has one side – HIS! Remember the angel asked Joshua ‘who is on the Lord’s side?’ There are no winners or losers in Father God’s plans because when the Lord is in charge …everybody wins!  He loves us all. His aim is for every single human being to know Him and trust Him. We need to actively learn to have mercy toward ourselves. However that does not mean we are right or wrong, or that He favours us over someone else. Everything hinges on us treating the other person with His grace because our relationship with Him cannot go forward without active grace. Grace for us and grace for them. 

The Lord has already forgiven mankind – as His family we operate by His agenda now. Forgiveness is the hallmark of Who He is, and now, it has to be the hallmark of who we are. Focussing on our flaws magnifies them – this is why it is destructive to our faith to focus on someone else’s flaws. Our focus is always on the Answer – JESUS. 👋🏻