Ministry

P 3345 Faith has works.

/ DVH

If I were to put my title another way, I would say that faith needs works! Faith is something that should cost us. Our faith needs to be visible to others. We just drove over 4,000 kms to give away 110 blankets, 70 packs of toiletries among a lot of other things. The people we met needed a hundred times that or more – it was simply all we could carry. The current state of our world means that hard-working people are falling off the grid. Homeless people aren’t people who don’t want to work, they are people who have lost everything – including hope.

In the past week we have had several conversations with others, not always Christians. They asked us how they could help us to continue what we are doing … and may God bless them for wanting to be involved! However, our intention was never to be another charitable organisation, nor are we affiliated with the government. Hubby and I are two very ordinary pensioners who have been motivated by the Lord to put our faith into action. Living day by day with many disabilities and difficulties has made doing this a challenge – it has figuratively and literally stretched our faith. We can’t go overseas and join a missionary group, and God has arranged for us to do His will where we live. 

This means we will travel vast distances on dodgy roads, because extreme weather produces extreme road surfaces!  At one stage in our recent trip, our car took off. It hit a huge bump and went airborne for a few seconds before it came down with a thud and then continued on. Now that was an experience! On our journey we passed many petrol stations in small towns with no petrol. The thing is, we can’t afford to get stuck in places like those, they have very limited medical facilities and we could need them.

In some places if we were stranded, we would have to call in the Flying Doctor! It kind of felt like we could have waved at the pilot when we were airborne in our car! Yet we stuff the car full of more things than you can imagine and set out for places we have never been. And in 20 years we’ve been to a lot of places. We don’t do this so others would admire us. We do it because God told us to go. We are not looking for a ministry either. We go because He asked us to go, and doing this stretches our faith in more ways than anyone could possibly imagine. Stuff happens!

You can’t just learn faith, you have to do it. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. This means if our faith doesn’t result in actions it has no substance! It will stay a theory and we will live our lives fighting doubt. Personally, our own faith has grown exponentially since we started taking risks and using it for things that don’t benefit us. Faith has to have works. This means we will step into the unknown believing He will catch us. And because Jesus is faithful, He will. 

Faith has been designed to stretch us, and glorify God to strangers in such a way that they will never see Him the same way again. We RE-present God to others when we use our faith. Going to church on Sunday, prayer group on Wednesday and Bible study on Saturday uses faith. But if what we are doing does not stretch our faith beyond our own little horizon, then it will comfortably stay in the realm of ‘knowledge’ and not end up in the realm of ‘experience.’ Acting on our faith ushers His presence into what we do. JESUS LOVES FAITH. “When the Son of man comes will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8.

Let’s look at Peter, who threw his legs over the edge of a perfectly good boat when Jesus said, “Come!” His fisherman’s mind knew it was impossible, but perhaps his faith in Jesus over-rode his knowledge of the ocean. The Lord did not let that man drown, and He won’t let us drown either. He is FOR US, He proved that at Calvary! Instead He turned Peter’s experience into a lesson. We all need to learn and change when we follow Him.

Matthew 14: 28-31“Lord, if it’s You,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to You on the water.”“Come,” He said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

You and I may never get to walk on water, but we need to stop living this life influenced by the appearance of things around us and start living by what Jesus said. Instead of just using our faith to pray for day-to-day hiccups, or difficulties that occur – like praying for Uncle Bob who is sick and he is now in the hospital. Our faith needs to be active! Go lay hands on Uncle Bob. We need to aggressively take back the ground the enemy has stolen from all around us. Prayer rallies our faith, but then faith needs actions – our actions will give it substance.

Faith is designed to have works. (Read James and watch the Lord Jesus!) Faith isn’t just a creed. A bunch of words we all agree with; it is a way to live. May God bless you as you step into a bigger world. Amen!  Bye. 👋  Daniel 11:32b “…but the people who do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” 

P 3274 We already picked a side.

/ DVH

A while ago, you and I decided to be on the Lord’s side and the following scriptures are about what that looks like. Our lives are not meant to be the same now. Our God is the God of the angel armies —— it says so in the bible. So, let’s look at what being on God’s side looks like! Get ready to chew on a heap of scripture:

Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings 13:18…  “Go, find out where he  (Elisha) is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.” Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city. When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike this army with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.”

If you ever went to Sunday School as a child, you would know this story. I taught SS for many years, the kids loved this one. I picked it today because it clearly shows what faith does. First of all — faith can see what is unseen by human eyes.That’s no small thing. Elisha’s servant was full of fear, but Elisha’s faith in God meant he was not ruled by fear, or even what he could see in the natural world around him. He saw the kingdom reality. We all need spiritual eyes. Ask for them. Spiritual sight will help us defeat our enemies instead of flailing about getting nowhere. 

Now, let’s look at David’s life, when he kills Goliath in 1 Samuel 17:37… “The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine…” on to 1 Samuel 17: 45-47… “David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” 

This is what great faith looks like. It draws on its previous experiences with God’s goodness and grace and aims that knowledge at the mountain in faith’s way. We can read these accounts of God in action and His men and their obedience…  and enjoy them and rejoice …OR, we can go much further, we can use them to edify and build up our faith in the God Who did them! I think we aim too low,  because we do not want to face disappointment if things don’t work out the way we hope they will. We need to read these stories to build our faith up. Holding fast to things like:  if the Lord did that then what will He do now?

We are not here merely to preach the gospel, we are here to dem-on-strate the gospel. And if we are bad at doing that then we need to get on our faces and ask the Lord where we are missing His will. The bible says: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My Name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”  Mark 16:17. 

Jesus Himself said this in John 14:12: “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in Me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” Please note, just because some stories are in the Old Testament that does not mean we should assume those miracles were only for then – our God, the God of the angel armies, is with us! 

Jesus Himself testified to His Father’s army of angels when He said in Matthew 26:53:  “Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”  That’s approximately 72,000 angels! Jesus also referred to His Heavenly Father as the “Lord of hosts!” And look at this scripture in James 5:4 …  “Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.” We have God’s ear, we need to pray for those who cannot pray for themselves.

Our God will fight for us even before we ask Him to do it. When what is coming against me is too much for me to cope with, I ask the Lord to fight for me. Sadly we can sometimes lack experience of God’s goodness because we have not purified our motives. Here’s James 4: 2&3. “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” 

James shows us what can be wrong with our motivation. Here’s a useful prayer: “Jesus, is this what YOU want or is it just something I think I need?” Amen. This scripture is a diagnostic tool. It explains where we can lose the blessing of progressively learning how good our God is! We shouldn’t give up or cede the ground to our enemy, our quest is to take back the ground from him. he has no right to stand anywhere in our lives. We need to pray, and check that our motives are pure. 

When we gave our lives to Christ – He took them. We’ve already picked a side! A position that we now stand in. The Lord God Almighty expects us to act like His kids and come confidently to the throne of Grace, to receive help in our time of need. That help is not just some sweet words we read in His book – that help is Divine Intervention into our circumstances. I pray for help all the time, because I need help … all the time! Bye. 👋

P 3218 I may fail – but God WILL not.

/ DVH

Those of you who read this blog regularly will already know that Cyclone Alfred (Feb2025) caused a flood in one of our lower rooms. It quite literally washed away some of the floor. Our house is like ‘The House that Jack built,”and I’m sad to say that in my opinion – Jack was a lousy builder! God bless Jack if he is still among us, but very little in our downstairs area has been built up to spec. Parts of it are not legal, including the height of the roof, but the council doesn’t care, because it was like that when we bought it. Which means it was not our fault. Thank the Lord for that!

While the many builders we hired were analysing what needed to be done — they kind of smiled — then they looked at us with dollar signs in their eyes! I assume that’s because we are their idea of a windfall, and their magical dream of an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas seemed much closer than it did before they met us! And then they announced that all our building problems are insurmountable and we should pull the entire downstairs area down and start again. I guess we will have to live in our mango tree while that happens.

Around about the same time, the insurers agreed with the builders, and announced that we were not covered by insurance, despite our copious, regular expensive payments, because of paragraph 390 subset 4,251. Yay!  We don’t have a money tree or bush in our yard, so we both got on our faces, and asked the Lord, what’s next? Ya have to seize the adventure before you, that’s what I say… I have also been known to say ‘well that sucks,’ but talking about ‘seizing the adventure’ sounds wa-ay more spiritual. 

So, after much prayer, with God leading us — we met Ali, a person of another faith, and a brand new unemployed immigrant who had just arrived from another state. His English was limited, but he assured us in sign language and broken English, that he knew all about tiling floors and fixing the concrete underneath. He originally came from Iraq so we figured he wasn’t exaggerating about that! 

Ali, it transpired, truly was God’s choice! BTW, we found him through a reputable agent. He worked like a beaver, kept us up to date with what was going on, and we had many opportunities to encourage him, and talk about our faith, as well as put it into action in his life. When we said goodbye to him, we hugged all round. Our floor in the meantime looks like a palace! 

Moving on to December, 2025. This time the roof in our downstairs bedroom turned into a waterfall, and we had numerous tennis ball sized hail-strikes all over that part of the roof. It was leaking because the rain was so heavy and the hail broke the tin roof sheeting. So back we went to our insurers — however, we weren’t very surprised this time when we discovered that somehow paragraph 390 subset 4,251 also applied to leaking roofs! The insurers were polite … but because the downstairs does not conform to council standards they were not obligated to … blah blah blah blah. 

I tuned out. I had heard it all before. Naturally I responded with great Grace to the insurers. After HOURS of prayer and a whole lot of “gee I hope some tennis ball hail gets YOUR roof next time!” I eventually moved on. Yes, I repented! And right now I am laughing, but smiles were a bit thin on the ground back then! 

We had to move out of our bedroom, which was working on becoming an indoor lake, and jam ourselves back into a much smaller space upstairs. Not the best option given the daily disabilities we both face. Our family came to our rescue again, to help us move. In just a few months they had helped us move out of, and back into. our bedroom twice! That, BTW, includes the bed, wardrobes, etc. etc. More blah blah blah.

So we returned to our trusty agent again because Ali had been so brilliant last time, and this time we found a family of roofers. They too, were honest men who gave us a fair price, and they not only fixed the roof, they made it so it would not leak again. And then they gave us a written guarantee for 15 years!  As the Lord led us we were able to minister into their lives too. We paid for that privilege! Ministry will always cost you – it’s free to them.

I’ve written this today to assure others that they are not the only people whose lives sometimes are shaken by trouble and strife. Let’s look at Paul’s life. In the past Christians have tried to minimise trouble in our lives as if trouble is somehow a sign that we are not spiritual enough. However, Paul was somewhat of an expert about trouble. He shared some of it in: 2 Corinthians 6:4a-5:

“…in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; …” 2 Corinthians 11:25-26: “Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers …”

Our experiences at our house obviously do not compare with the Apostle Paul’s hardships! However, I’m not giving up on my own transformation – He’s doing something. Sometimes I may fail, but God will not! Hallelujah. Have a good one. Bye. 👋

P 3215 Eternity starts now.

/ DVH

“Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.” Romans 12:2 TPT.

What we think about affects how we handle our days, and so this transformation process is a progressive thing. The more we act on what we believe, the more our thoughts become tied into what the bible says. Eventually this process produces an automatic response in us, and in the end, transformation is seamless, and we don’t even notice it is happening – now we are too busy falling even more in love with Jesus. 

I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but the biggest problem many people have is that when they read what the bible says, they agree with it, maybe even smile because it is so accurate …but THEN –– they don’t take the time to find out how to apply what they’ve read, into their everyday life. Application is the key that opens the door so we can participate in His kingdom. Let me put it this way, the language of the Lord’s kingdom is faith – we don’t need faith to do what we can already do! We need it so we can participate in the impossible!! And change can seem impossible.

OK, let’s look at some verses. The bible says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit …” Matthew 5:3. In order to ask for help you need to know that you need help! We must recognise that knowing we are poor in spirit is not a bad thing! Doing nothing about it, however, is not good. God says we are blessed when we live aware of this reality. Poverty of spirit looks like this: you can see what is required is beyond your own ability to change yourself. We need His help – this is a good time to remember that we already have it! Just don’t wait to feel like you have it. Step out in faith.

Now, I want to look at another scripture and it’s about holiness. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8. This means we make a quality decision to choose to become aware of where we have not lived in purity of heart, and talk to the Lord about it. Then we repent and repair things. At the same time, we need to be real and aware of the kind of pressures we live under in today’s society — ghastly thoughts tormenting us don’t make us a bad Christian, it’s what we DO about the torment that matters. 

Part of transformation is the realisation that just because something exists in my life now, that does not mean God is not dealing with it. It also does not mean He likes it or wants it!  Timing is a key factor in God’s Ways. Let’s remember that Jesus never let what was going on around Him sway Him from His God-appointed ministry. I picked purity today to look at, because in today’s atmosphere it is impossible to remain pure without His help! 

Jesus’ devotion to what His Father wanted was His priority – so we also need to continue to assess our priorities. Because we follow Him, purity needs to be our priority too. Jesus answered His enemy’s remarks with God’s Word, because He already knew what the bible said. The Lord has the right word to give us when we are attacked too. However, we can quote scripture up one side of the hill and down the other. Remember, we will always need His help! We need a specific word from Him, for us, at that moment … ‘an apple of gold in a setting of silver. ‘

When our aim is to hear from God about whatever He wants from us, sometimes we will have to wait. He is not at our beck and call, we are here for Him. Our Father knows what stretching does for our faith. He will never postpone His answer to hurt us, but He does want to see growth in our character and hearts. Often all we want is a short cut that shows us the way through these learning processes quickly. Most of us are ‘allergic” to difficulties – not hardened to them. (See Isaiah 42:10) 

Let’s look at another scripture that I think ties in well with the one above: Psalm 24:24:4-5: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”  So what do we ACT on? We need to watch what we say, and be careful to be truthful. 

Here’s another one: “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”  Philippians 1:9. Loving others has to be a tangible, seeable, thing – not just a theory. And our knowledge of what is excellent also requires our participation but the bible has lots of suggestions! So we need to step away from things that will contaminate a pure life. 

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8. Discipline in our thinking helps, and that part is up to us. Our Wonderful Father does not just say, ‘don’t do this,’ —instead He says: “DO, DO THIS.” 

He is always preparing us, helping us to live in His Presence. He is not just interested in us living with Him in eternity, down the road when we are dead. ETERNITY STARTS NOW.  We will all be pure of heart in heaven because we will be changed to be like Him. It’s what we do TODAY that’s important.. Bye.👋

P 3208 Does this stuff sound easy to you?

/ 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. Faithful is the Word, and everyone should accept Him! For the sake of this ministry, we toil tirelessly and are criticised continually, simply because our hope is in the living God. He is the wonderful life-giver of all the children of men, and even more so to those who believe. Instruct and teach the people all that I’ve taught you.” 1 Timothy 4:8-11 TPT.

Christianity is for the brave, for the persevering, for those who know the way to win is to keep on going. We know it is a life-style, not just a collection of nice thoughts. This is the kind of lifestyle that has been trained, and formed by His righteousness. Because of what Jesus has already done, we know that we can keep going, with Him helping us, in the face of difficulty, danger and fear. This is what it takes — so this is what we do. We have been given His ability, so we can get up one more time and go again. It is never a matter of can I keep on doing this – it is about – can I do this one more time?

Our God knows that within ourselves, we are weak creatures addicted to comfort. That’s why He has gone to great lengths to give us Christ’s strength in place of our weaknesses. This transfer of power takes place as we put our feelings aside and believe what the bible says using our faith in His goodness and walk like He did. We face things, including our own inadequacies, we don’t hide from them. When we enter into His righteousness, we enter into training. We volunteer to allow what He has given us to teach us His Way to live and love.

It is good to regularly review the way that Jesus faced life among us. He was human!  He got tired, hungry, thirsty. But what kept Him going was His knowledge of His Heavenly Father’s will. He endured everything like an elite athlete does, so He could complete His own race. He is our living illustration of what devotion to God looks like.The bible explains to us that what we have been given – and what we do with that gift – is like the kind of training that athletes do. 

An athlete who wants to win in the Olympic games, for instance — won’t have many days off. They get up at some ridiculous hour and train, practice and hone their skills, doing the same old, same old, repetitive exercises over and over again. Pushing their bodies and stretching their muscles, in order to increase their endurance. Some of them have to work for a living at the same time as they are training, because even elite athletes do not always have sponsors!

Living for Jesus is like that. Not every day is filled with raising the dead, or healing the sick, or witnessing. Paul had some places he went where people wouldn’t listen to him preach the Gospel. He nearly lost his life many times. Our desire to live for Jesus is going to take this kind of ongoing devotion, the kind that has nothing to do with feelings. It’s so much easier to jump in when the Spirit is flowing and the Lord is actively among us – but who are we when our lives are flat as a tack, and look like they are going nowhere? Who are we when no-one is looking? That’s often what decides the depth of our faith.

What the Lord is saying here through Paul to Timothy, is that religion will wear you out. Even athletes go past their prime or get injured. However, dedicatedly, doggedly, daily following Jesus will give us eternal life right here right now. This is a constant stream that has no end. No matter what our circumstances are, no matter how difficult this life becomes, we have instant access to the One Who made us and paid an incredible price to have us for His own. He’s always with us and He is the source of total reliability in this world. The bible says that God is so reliable He brings the sun up every day. Imagine that! 

We reach into the eternal, when we choose to live out this new life we have been given, using our faith that God will not lie to us. This kind of faith teaches us His ways. Unlike ordinary athletes being trained in righteousness it does not have a shelf-life. Our new life has been given to us freely, in a never-ending stream because of what Jesus did. That’s why the knowledge of what we have been given empowers us to continue. 

Because of this gift we can count on the Lord always being the same toward us, no matter what we did or didn’t do. This righteousness empowers us to be lovers of Jesus, followers of Him, and loyal to our death. Because of Jesus and His power in me, I have said and done things I would never even consider doing if I was left to my own devices. This means I have seen the miraculous on many occasions. I’ve been all over the globe and all around my own country. Praise God because of Jesus, every day is a brand new day. 

However, to live in His righteousness I must give up my own. I can no longer rely upon sounding right, or looking right – I have to cast everything about my life upon the cross and tell myself –  He died for that too. This means I cannot afford to think about entering into presumption. All that I will ever need is mine, but it is always a gift. Meanwhile, I am way too busy being grateful to presume upon His Grace.. 

My fav verse says: “I know in Whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able…”(That’s in 2 Timothy 1:12)  I know, from experience, that living this kind of life will not be easy, it costs my Lord everything, so it will cost me too, because I am following Him. I’ve been persuaded by what the book says. Jesus gave us everything He had –He left it all out on the field. Plus He overpaid! None of life’s stuff seems easy to me … but like you, I am learning to value the treasure I have been given. Bye. 👋

P 3175 Piece of cake!

/ DVH

“Christ is our message! We preach to awaken hearts and bring every person into the full understanding of truth. It has become my inspiration and passion in ministry to labor with a tireless intensity, with His power flowing through me, to present to every believer the revelation of being His perfect one in Jesus Christ.” Colossians 1:28-29 TPT. 

“Christ’s resurrection is your 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, honor, and authority! Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm.” Colossians 3:1-2 TPT.

We can waste a lot of our God-given time reflecting on where we’ve missed it, and end up living in the land of regret. It is good to be aware of where you’ve fallen short of the mark, but not to the point where you can’t even see the mark anymore! That mark is this – Jesus’ sacrifice and His wonderful love for mankind. We have all been given a priceless gift …total reconciliation with God. Yes, He knows what we are like;  yes He knows we fail;  but our wonderful Father, God, is far greater than we can ever imagine. Right here. Right now. He sees us complete in Christ. That’s because of Who He is, His nature – not our spirituality.   

The best news ever, is this… Jesus did not fail. He was tempted in every aspect of this life, just like we are, He got tired, just like we do, He had responsibilities, just like we do. Listen to this particular responsibility!  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” Luke 4:18&19. Howzat for hard? 

Yet Jesus quite naturally walked and lived with SomeOne that we need to learn to walk with, minute by minute, day by day — the precious Holy Spirit.The good news is this – I don’t have to be all that – Jesus already did it for me. Our hearts need to be awakened all the time, to the reality of His truth – by reading and acting on the stuff that is written down in His book.

For instance, the bible says: ‘agree with your adversary quickly.’  Matthew 5:25. We’ve been lied to by our enemy who told us: ‘There is no way you can ever be like Jesus. After all, you did this and that. And something much worse, yesterday!!’ So I agree with the enemy when he accuses me, but then I refer him to the bible, because that is what Jesus did when He was tempted.  I point to the cross because I know I have nothing else but His Grace to commend me.

Sometimes I think we’d rather hide in the wine press, like Gideon did, than be seen! The bible says the people recorded in the Old Testament are there ‘…as an example to us.’ 1 Corinthians 10:11. Let’s not hide like that young man did. Instead let’s remember God has a plan and we are already in it! Our problem is we need to maintain our faith in His goodness, His promises … not just focus on our sins. We have weak wobbly faith in a tiger-pouncing world! It’s time to get up off the mat and get back into doing what we’ve been destined to do …telling and showing everyone around us how much Jesus loves them! 

A lady came here yesterday and in the course of our conversation she mentioned that she didn’t go to church but she did talk to God. She said this like she thought it was a bad thing. Like somehow she was sneaking into a rock concert without a ticket! We assured her she didn’t need a ticket, because God heard every word she said. Then we went on to reassure her that Christianity is not a club you join, it’s a Person you meet, so we don’t have to shout out our number as we go through the door! She laughed, and said: “You should tell people that more often!”  We need to remember …’it is the kindness of God that leads people into repentance.’  Romans 2:4. The-people-who-haven’t-met-Him-yet are often more happy to hear the truth than we are to give it to them!

However, we all know that sometimes witnesses can be quite reluctant. Cop shows on TV taught me that!! There is no such thing as getting it right, there is only obeying Him, or not. He’s a Redeemer! He can take the mess we’ve made of our lives, and turn it into something more wonderful than we can imagine. At the same time the Holy Spirit knows our frame. He also knows our weaknesses …but when we give them to Him, He will give us His strength in exchange. We don’t have to give someone else a 20 course dinner about what the bible says, in our testimony – we just give them the fresh bread He gave us this morning when we read the bible! 

There is the saddest parable told by Jesus Himself, about a rich man and a beggar. Luke 16:19-31. As the beggar talks to the rich man he says: “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.” Let’s choose to take the time to tell others that–SomeOne, God Himself!–came here and made Himself that bridge between what people think they know about Him and Who He really is. Tell them Jesus is everyone’s bridge back to God.  Our testimonies are powerful, because the Holy Spirit handpicks the people He sends us to.

Revelation 12:11 –“And they overcame him (satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”  You and I don’t have to be the whole band – but … you can be the banjo Jesus plays on… OK!… Let’s not be picky … you can be the flute instead! Piece of cake. Bye.👋

P 3018 The Dove.

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“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them:  if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our faith; or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching;  he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness.” Romans 12:3-8.

It is the Grace of God that gives us the ability to flow with the Holy Spirit – and the best place to stay is in that Grace. Nothing can, or will stay the same in His Presence! Unfortunately, that is also when it becomes easy to believe a LIE. That lie is that someone has somehow become some sort of expert, a special spiritual person. This thought causes us to elevate some people above others.

My point today is this, we are so badly acquainted with the Holy Spirit’s gifts, the person sitting next to us in church may also have gifts — but their faith has not been activated to even begin to try to follow His instructions! Or even worse, they tried and fell on their head … so now they sit silently by. Feeling like a failure.

So, let’s look at the disciples — those guys who walked around with Jesus every day for three and a half years. Boy was that some intensive conference!! There was a time when they started thinking that they were pretty special and they could use the power of God to get rid of people that ignored or annoyed them. Jesus immediately made Himself really clear. “You don’t know what spirit you are in!” 😱These men even fought over who should have the best seat in heaven. The only human being who ever was all that, is Jesus. The rest of us are in boot camp and ignorance is not bliss.

I want to really stress how important it is to know the Holy Spirit, and watch Him at work in our own lives, as well as in the bible. You won’t see Him capitalised or underlined – but you can see where He has been and what He does – if you choose to look carefully. The Holy Spirit is not some sort of lesser Person that Jesus sent back to help us. He is called our Helper, Counsellor, the One Who comes alongside of us etc., but His beauty, truth, and devotion to Almighty God is beyond comparison. He doesn’t appear to care if He is seen or worshipped or adored. Instead He wants to teach US, and help US to learn to worship and adore the Father and the Son with every part of who we are. 

Let us always remember the Holy Spirit is gentle, kind, and easily grieved by our careless behaviour, so we need to treat Him and His Ways with reverence. Because He will not defend Himself – He will simply GO AWAY. Trust me, we don’t want to find out what kind of stuff we are capable of, if He is not guiding and directing us! He is the source of all Wisdom. And here is the best and biggest clue to His seeing Him at work  — He loves to be around loving people. Whenever He comes, He brings with Him peace, joy, long-suffering, self-control etc. BTW, that’s not just a description of what He does — those things are Who He is!! 

If we ignore the supernatural effects of being around such a glorious, often unobtrusive Person, we are ignoring the very essence of Almighty God Himself. The Holy Spirit at work within each one of us, is why Godly people voluntarily choose to die to self. It’s an incredible honour. We cannot afford to put our focus on the gifts He brings, and ignore the Giver of the gifts! He must not be ‘used’ to bring about what we want. Human beings are so innately stupid we will start to think the marvellous things He does are because of us, and these miracles are happening because of the way we behave.

You and I are destined to be God’s gifts to Jesus’ bride – the Church.  While we are here, our task is to build one another up, stimulate each other’s faith and live a life of love. We are to be good bridesmaids, keep our lamps trimmed, and make sure the entire bride is ready for this unimaginable honour God has given us. It is not about “me” having a big ministry – it is about helping you find yours! That cannot happen without the Holy Spirit’s input. He is our “Resident Expert” on what love looks like, and how we, in turn, can be loving. 

Instead of asking Him for stupid worldly stuff like – should we go to Bali for a holiday, or save for a new car, or send our kids to this or that school?  We need to change our prayers from ‘Please fix this or that’ or “please heal this or that’ or ‘please oversee this or that” …OR even ….dare I say it … “please help me to find a car park!” TO this—- “What can I do for the Kingdom of God today, Holy Spirit, as I am going about my everyday life. I want to please my Heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus and You. Please lead me into the places You want me to be, and help me to say the things You want me to say.” Amen. 

Jesus thought the Holy Spirit’s Presence was so important, His arrival on the earth was the reason the Lord went away! Let’s remain awake and aware of His enormous role in what God is doing and value the gentle wise Dove for all He is. Bye.🕊️

P 3017 Priorities.

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““But whether I live or die is not important, for I don’t esteem my life as indispensable. It’s more important for me to fulfil my destiny and to finish the ministry my Lord Jesus has assigned to me, which is to faithfully preach the wonderful news of God’s grace.” Acts 20:24 TPT.“And yet I will show you the most excellent way.” 1 Corinthians 12:28-31… That way is LOVE! Don’t let how you feel about someone else’s behaviour steal away the joy of serving Him.

There is no point trotting about advertising fabulous spiritual gifts if we do not have love. Love for the Lord, love for our brothers and sisters, and love for the lost. Love is a VERB not a noun. It is an action, not a perception or a feeling. For example … “God so loved the WORLD that He GAVE…”  If we want to be like Jesus then there’s the starting point. Love is not enthusiasm, which runs out at the first sign of pressure. Or even charisma – which falls on its head if someone peeks behind your bullet-proof curtain and finds the real OZ. 

Love is not a feeling, it is the way we deliberately regard and treat others. Many people in the body of Christ do not develop their ministry gift because they get stuck in the enemy’s sticky mire of: “I can’t ever love this or that person. I hate them. I hate what they say, I hate what they do. I even hate what they stand for! If you wait a minute, then I will tell you why I hate them, and then you will hate them too!” That boggy mess is worse than quicksand. It is endlessly self-suffocating.

What if someone looked at YOUR life under the kind of microscope you are applying to others – how would you do? “But but but … you don’t get it, they really are evil and they keep on hurting me.” Actually, I DO get it! I have hard-to- love people in my life too! But I gave up keeping score up of other people’s nasty ways. I gave it up because I decided that I love Jesus far more than I hate them! You can always tell when someone else is stuck in their feelings, reasonability goes right out of the window. They simply must vomit all their yuk over you – because it is so poisonous, even THEY can’t keep it down! 

That stuff will drown you quicker than an anvil tied to your ankle when you have fallen into deep water. It will keep you so busy focussing on the other person’s faults, you cannot even begin to see your own. You’ll hear every sermon wishing they were there because …‘they need to hear this!’ Regularly rehearsing other people’s faults in your head – and even out loud – can easily lead to telling them about what you think you can see. It creates anger, and it’s called … judgment. Nobody needs to go down that nasty little rabbit hole trust me!

The only Person who had a total right to judge each one of us — let us go free. Is this a good time to mention He expects us to do the same for other people? Otherwise we will end up their captives!  Who do we want to serve? The person we hate, who probably hates us, or they are too dumb to know differently – or the Lord Jesus?  It takes a great deal of energy to maintain that kind of hatred and anger. The worst bit about this kind of scenario is that good people get hog-tied into hate, bitterness, resentment, and anger etc. and they can’t even conceive of an exit, because their beloved granddaddy hated those guys too! Now we have a new kind of inheritance – hate and revenge! 

As long as we keep score of the bad things that person does, it will disturb our peace, and we become the other person’s prisoner. Keeping lists is hard work! Chuck that junk in the sea of forgetfulness, where your sins are, and let’s look at what Jesus came to do for us, and in us, and through us instead. He came to set captives free, and give us all life in abundance. That means when we put our dear little head on our pillow we will have a clear conscience. 

Now we are destined to leave behind the sweet smell of Christ – healing, forgiveness and acceptance. We were given that for free from Jesus’ sacrifice, and now we have so much of it, we can give it away. I’ve looked at some people that I quite literally used to run away from, and thought: “You poor schmuck, you can’t help it can you?” I recognised the trap they were stuck in. They think that nasty, ugly person is who they really are! Finding our best selves with His help is a joy-filled way to use our time. Loving someone does not mean you approve of their behaviour. It simply means you are His obedient kid!

I enjoyed the original cartoon movie ‘Mulan,’ where Mulan is fighting the bad guy on the roof and has set him up to get a rocket in his underpants and she says this to herself as she runs away…”get off the roof, get off the roof, get off the roof!”  

My friend. My very dear, dear friend, brother or sister:  “GET OFF THE ROOF!” Any minute now there will be a giant explosion and you will be caught up in it. God is telling you today, you have better priorities. You have places to go, people to meet, things only you can do for His kingdom. And glories to tell about His love and forgiveness … don’t get bogged down in the mud of intolerance and hate. We need your gifts.  Bye. 👋

P 2979 Saturated.

/ DVH

To be saturated means that when life squeezes the daylights out of you — all that comes out is love! The Holy Spirit’s Presence in us, transforms us, and touches everyone around us. He attracts people, and He knows exactly what every heart we meet needs to hear. We are not called to pat down or pacify other people’s sin – we are called to shine HIS light into sin, without destroying the person captured by it. Love shines into the darkness with such a brilliance that even grumpy people are surprised.

We don’t seem to understand that He is now in all of us, and it is our joy to co-operate with Him. We make our hearts, His home, with the Holy Spirit’s help, otherwise we will get progressively deaf. That’s what disobedience, and carelessness does. Because He is now our dearest, most trusted Friend, the Holy Spirit can put His finger on anything He sees that is clogging up our flow of His love, in us and for others. As He flows through us that is the normal Christian life. 

Peter told the lame man in the book of Acts: “I don’t have money but what I do have I will give you.” He knew the Holy Spirit was in him and with him. Peter’s focus was on walking with God not ministry, or avoiding sin. The secret to flowing with the Holy Spirit is to allow Him to lead you. He is not some kind of emergency spare Friend sent to bail us out of trouble or make us look good! Life is so much easier, when He is in charge. Meanwhile, I can guarantee you that whatever He wants us to do, we will need to use our faith to do it. 

I find it incredibly interesting that Jesus Himself did not teach the disciples about what we call “the anointing.” He did not speak about God’s Presence with these men as a method—because the Holy Spirit is a PERSON, not a method! He simply taught these men God’s ways, then He demonstrated them, and then He told them to go and do it! 

The Lord’s importance and proximity in their lives had an overflowing effect – they were able to do what He did because they were living in His Presence. Ya might want to stop and think about that one! 🤔 Yet these men, who walked with Jesus, weren’t perfected in their personal faith – until their spiritual debt had been paid, and the Holy Spirit came to each one of them at Pentecost. After the Spirit’s arrival, they would’ve gladly died for what they believed instead of running away, as they had previously done.

The bible tells us that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. We already have it, so we must stop checking out our feelings and instead follow His prompts. God loves it when we do what we do prompted by faith – every single day. Including TODAY! … “Today when you hear His voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.” Hebrews 3:15. When you hear Him—obey Him. If He says you should apologise and fix things, then that other person’s response has nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome… even if they snarl at you! We are here to please Him, other people may be touched by Him as we obey, but that is not our priority. Our obedience releases our faith.

The source of His life in us is never US—it is His Presence IN us. “Christ in you the hope of glory..”  As we daily choose to use our faith to allow God to redeem our lives from fleshly habits—like holding apathy, offences,  bitterness, bad attitudes, wrong relationships and carelessness, we will become increasingly more free. Even seemingly unimportant things, that can trip us up — things like lying to save someone else’s feelings must go.

The love of God needs to fill us daily with the purposes and things of God. We can’t just pray: “Fill me now please Lord” and then walk out of the door and get grumpy because somebody parked across the driveway. And we don’t just go to work to do a job – now we work for Him! As we walk with Him we will move away from those things that are distracting us from our true calling and purpose. 

At the same time, the love of God captures our hearts. We begin to see Him do things through us that we cannot do ourselves. And I’m not just talking about walking on water! I’m talking about a bad tempered person finding that as they yield to the Holy Spirit’s promptings, and obey Him in faith, they are transformed. They experience the growth of the  fruit of self-control. Because of their obedience, they are choosing to remain in the vine.This love lifestyle doesn’t just work on things like a bad temper, it works on anything that keeps you and I from being distracted by this life. We remember how much God loves us! 

Our proximity to Jesus minute by minute, grows exponentially as we live aware of Him. The Holy Spirit is with us to remind us we are not guided by our flesh anymore.“Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ.” Philippians 4:6-7 TPT.

As you can see, God’s peace is the final umpire. Our task is follow His peace. We have to protect our peace and be guided by it.  Living this life saturated with His love is not a pipe dream – it is our new way to live.

Bye. 👋