Narrow gate

P 3350 Reality rush.

/ DVH

Boy, I had a reality rush this morning … And the Holy Spirit’s clarity helped me. I realised that when I can end up saying to myself: “What is good right and profitable often feels like I am lying, because my experiences don’t always back it up.” So I asked Him – why? 

This is what He told me: “Prior to being saved, you were raised with this world’s thinking, this world’s definition of truth. You learnt it from your parents, school, your peers, your job, whatever you read. You’ve carefully, and sometimes unwillingly, learnt the moral values of this world from everything around you. It seems like you are lying because MY TRUTH does not come from the same place that you have been taught. My truth is REAL truth, it comes from the Heart of the Father. For instance, if I say something is clean it is clean, that is what I taught Peter the fisherman. You cannot use this world as a reference point to ‘market’ or ‘modernise’ the gospel. Only My Word is truth.

The body of Christ needs to be diligent and read the bible, so they can see for themselves what real truth looks like, how it works, what it contains. The bible helps us to identify the true from the false. Human judgment leads to error. This world encourages people to have opinions, make their own judgments and to be selective about what they choose to believe. This is WHY Christians need to continually renew their minds to align with what I’ve said in My Word. They need to make My Word their yardstick – not this world’s fashions and opinions. 

Right now you need to know My Word and let it be alive in your day-to-day life, it will change what you do, who you do it with and where you go. There is none of man’s logic in the things of the Spirit, there is only the Father’s truth. When it comes to truth, this world wants to explain away sin, and present excuses. That’s what happened in the Garden of Eden – the woman and the man made excuses for their disobedience. Human beings are guilty of ignoring their Creator, and they have made gods in their own image. gods that allow them to live their lives far beneath their calling as My children. This world’s so-called ‘gods,’ legitimise sin, or excuse it.

The simple answer to sin is repentance, and it is yours for the taking. Acting on what I say in my Word, is obedience. And acknowledging that you are not wise enough to know what I know, is the beginning of wisdom …”

The thought that Christianity can often be a mixture of what we already know and approve of, as well as the truth of His Word, really impacted me. Jesus’ words are truth, and we dare not be dismissive of them because of circumstances, or prejudices. Or choose to let them be flavoured by this world’s trends. The real answer to sin is repentance – that leads right back to God Himself. Let’s daily learn to trust the Holy Spirit, He knows the Way each of us should go, and He longs to help us. 

I sat and thought about the kind of things that are now permissible today, and nobody even blinks anymore, we’ve been desensitised. As His kids we have His authority to speak His truth, in love. We can love the sinner but hate their sin. I also realised that if the truth is not setting us free, then somewhere, somehow we are believing a LIE! Let’s keep praying over the details of our lives. 

And if God says in His Word that we can do something, then we can do it and we need to locate the lie that has told us it is too hard, or ‘it really doesn’t matter because He understands.’ Maybe we have been taught something in our past that contradicts the Living Word of God – Jesus, Himself. Then as we carefully, prayerfully and actively look into His book, we will learn to separate ourselves, by clinging to what He said and repenting  from any missteps or lies we may have believed. We have been blessed with absolutes, not ambiguities, within the bible. 

Personally, I am confused and unhappy about the weird and sometime nasty things labelled ‘fair and right’ by this world today. Many times I have struggled to know how to handle things because I dearly want to walk toward the Narrow Gate — not the wide easy path that often runs willy-nilly beside it. I know that is your desire too. Some things are just wrong – the book says so! That is not said to condemn anyone. My question is: how can we know what God Himself has for us if we are walking down the wide road that leads to destruction? Deception will cloud our view.

Hubby gave me some great feedback today, he’s my editor and he helped me to clarify my own thoughts. “Our lives are a little like code for a computer program. We see the thoughts, the images and the user friendly icons that are displayed on our screen. However, right now – today – God is dealing with questionable inefficient code. We need His updating and reprogramming with HIS pure Heavenly code to fulfil our Heavenly calling. This world produces bad code, bad code can distort the output.“

Let’s choose to put Jesus in charge and obey the things He told us to obey – and leave our ideas about what we want behind us. And become like a little child, willing to be taught His Ways. Like I said at the top of the page, boy did I have a reality rush this morning! May God bless you with a day filled with His Presence and further knowledge of His Ways. Amen. Bye. 👋.

P 3213 Gird up yor girdle Gertie.

/ DVH

I try not to be negative on this page because, thanks to the Media – social or otherwise – there is enough negativity floating around. It is like some sort of malodorous stench that can saturate everything we see and hear. The thing I want to talk about today is that we seem to have forgotten that we were saved to serve others, no matter what creed, or religion they belong to.

Here’s a question – if someone else is from another faith, do we automatically limit our exposure to them, or discard their words as error – maybe because we are afraid? Isn’t that making our God too small? The Lord saved us and He can keep us. Are we comforting ourselves that we’ll be OK – after all we are in the ‘right group.’ Yet millions of people are tipping off the edge of this life going straight into hell. They are going there because they don’t know any better.

God is good to both believers and non-believers. He sends His rain on the just and the unjust, and we don’t get to decide who is who! Our job is very clear – we are to love the people around us with His love. We need to remember Jesus is always present to save, and those dear souls that seem to be the furthest way from Him, often turn around at the speed of light!

Hubby and I have had people in our lives that are absolutely not walking with Jesus, and they haven’t got a clue that He came to save them, but these people have blessed us. We have all kinds of friends who support us as we give away bibles, and help the poor, and they do not know the Lord – yet. I believe when this happens these people have been touched by God’s hand, so at the same time, they are not far from His kingdom. Many times someone like this has said or done something lovely, and I know it’s the Lord working in them, and through them.

I wouldn’t dream of following what my friends believe, because I know their beliefs are error, and some of them are from the pit. But how can they know any differently if I do not tell them? Ostracising people alienates them. We can call it respecting someone else’s space – but isn’t that just evasion? Doesn’t it justify our fear of being contaminated, and persuade us to ‘play it safe,’ and do whatever we do, within the boundaries of our own churches? 

This world has so many other faiths. Let’s choose to learn to love people who are of another faith, and not treat them any differently than we would treat our brother or sister at church. “… they will know we are Christians by our love…” That love needs to go outside of the church and reach out to everyone. The Lord Jesus is altogether lovely, and He can and will win anyone over.

At the same time, we are not only required to tell people the truth, we must demonstrate it to them. Sometimes over and over again. We cannot afford to throw people away because they don’t have the same beliefs we do – we are reinforcing false boundaries when we do that. It is time to stop dividing others into categories and deciding who is IN, and who is OUT. Speaking for myself, I have noticed that the Lord is not far away from anyone, so what is needed is prayer, not judgment! There are many people today – no matter what they seem to believe, who are not far away from His kingdom. If they have some other faith, it means they are spiritually minded. Maybe they just haven’t met the Truth yet.

There are two ways to approach life – the easy way and the hard way. Most people like the easy road, whether they are Christians or not! In Matthew 7:13-14 it says: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Only our Shepherd Jesus, is the true gate and at this moment in time, He is out there amongst ALL His sheep, calling to them to walk through that narrow gate, and follow Him. Peter once thought he knew who was what — and then Jesus straightened him out! Acts 10:9-16.

How anybody comes to know Jesus is His business, not mine. No matter what god they have worshipped in the past – we are all still HIS sheep and every single sheep counts. We are commanded to live a life of love, and speaking for myself, that’s plenty to go on with! Let’s jump in and watch His love win all kinds of people that we thought would never come – no matter what idol lives at their house. Many people follow idols because of family, or tradition, or nationality. However, the greater One lives in us. 

Here’s the way God approaches even the people who deliberately sin against Him. Isaiah 57:16-19. “For I will not fight against you forever, nor always show My wrath; if I did, all mankind would perish—the very souls that I have made. I was angry and smote these greedy men. But they went right on sinning, doing everything their evil hearts desired. I have seen what they do, but I will heal them anyway! I will lead them and comfort them, helping them to mourn and to confess their sins. Peace, peace to them, both near and far, for I will heal them all.”  Interesting verses eh? We must never forget our God is GOOD and MERCIFUL. 

Like I said, ‘gird up your girdle, Gertie,’ we are in for a bumpy ride. You and I could end up talking to strangers at the shops! Father God has hungry people everywhere, even in the enemy’s camp. Bye. 👋.

P 2693 A new perspective on Giving.

/ DVH

“Give generously and generous gifts will be given back to you, shaken down to make room for more. Abundant gifts will pour out upon you with such an overflowing measure that it will run over the top! The measurement of your generosity becomes the measurement of your return.”” Luke 6:38 TPT.

Hubby and I have seen the truth in this verse, personally. The more we give away stuff – time, money, kindness, love – the more we are given back by God Himself. Then that interaction psychologically helps replenish our potential supply of stuff to give away next time. Meanwhile, we get our motivation to give from the Bible as well as the Holy Spirit. After a while, giving becomes a way of life. The thing is, we need those enlightened eyes I talked about yesterday, so we can notice the return waves of blessings from the Lord. Otherwise it can be too easy to miss whatever He is doing, because we are distracted by the busyness of this life. 

Here is what I’ve learnt over the years, which might help you: God does not always reciprocate in kind. In other words, perhaps you gave away apples, but the Lord may simply give you the strength to be kind in the face of someone else’s nasty disposition. The return wave of blessing, won’t necessarily contain the same thing you sent out. This is yet another opportunity to get to know His Ways even more. We can learn a lot about the Lord by the way He meets our needs, as well as the way He blesses us.

Which is why we need those enlightened eyes! Otherwise we won’t relate one thing to the other and we will miss what He is doing entirely. God gives us what He values, that’s how we get to know His Way of doing things – by taking note of what He values. This works when we are reading the bible, or we are using our enlightened eyes. It’s our generosity toward others that opens that particular flood-gate. He is such a giving God and it makes sense to me that the Lord would want His kids – who are re-presenting HIM – to be that way too. Encouragement is a great form of giving.

We can partially hinder the ever-expanding floodgates of His loving kindness toward us, by missing the blessing of giving. Giving is not just about things or money. He is always giving. In my limited opinion, God’s nature is so beautiful, He cannot help Himself! He gives because it is Who He is. Stepping into living a giving kind of life is one the ways I have found that we can ’taste and see that the Lord is good.” Many times we can pin our thoughts and hopes on Him answering our prayers. We think those things  are the only kind of blessing, but He has a myriad ways to give us Himself – I have even seen Him stretch time.

TIME is the most valuable thing we have …You and I woke up this morning, but some people didn’t!  This means our God has given us another day. Praise Him! That day is filled to the brim with opportunities and possibilities for change. We can choose to fix the things in our lives that are broken — EG:  we can choose to be reconciled, no matter who did what! And we can start dying to self, one step at a time. Dying to self is a process — it starts with taking one deliberate step after another. When our time runs out we won’t be able to do that, anymore. Today, I want to call our attention to the fact that there are so many places we can be generous to others.

So we choose not to give an angry answer – and instead we take charge, and take personal responsibility for a moment – instead of retaliating badly. We choose to say nothing, or give a soft answer instead. I have found nothing diffuses somebody else’s grumpy attitude better than apologising, even if you don’t think whatever it is was your fault! And yes, that means with some people you are always going to be the one who apologises, but this life is not a competition – we lose when we live that way. This life we now lead we lead by faith. We walk in another realm, a realm where giving away undeserved GRACE away flourishes.

Christians are not meant to walk around dishing out judgment. We died with Him, and we are now living a new life, filled with His power to overcome the old ways. When we get into how right we think we are and how wrong the other person is … even if that stuff is only going on in our thoughts, then sadly, we just hit judgment! That junk is going to come out of our mouth, today, tomorrow, a year from now. Judgment, when it is not dealt with, does not have a shelf life – it will pop out of our mouths at the darndest times. But blessing others becomes a way of life.

Leaving judgment to the Lord is another form of giving. We are giving away what He freely gave us. We have a personal responsibility to live like Christ did, and He lived a giving life. If we think about giving as simply sending out money or things, we’ve missed the greater revelation. JESUS LOVED, HE GAVE. Then giving becomes our way of life. Now we love, and we give – no matter what comes back at us. It’s His way to live. I think it is also part of that narrow gate, Jesus mentioned  – be warned …. few find it. 👋

P 2602 The learning curve increases!

/ DVH

One of the things I have been learning during this time on the road, is that things can get uncomfortable – even when you are doing what God has asked you to do! It’s a funny thing – it is easy to think that when the Lord asks you to do something it will all just flow along sweetly, kind of like a river. But the reality is that all rivers have snags and dry spots, they sometimes race along and other times they seem like they are hardly moving at all! 

We have a number of criteria for travel etc. that we need to meet, so that hubby is free to do what he does. He’s brilliant with people, and he doesn’t need to be concerned about my well-being while I am alone. This time I managed to do some dumb thing to one of my knees … old age and I are never gunna be friends! … so I have had to sit about a lot more than usual. The joy in this situation is that I have had the privilege of looking at some things that are very different than my own four walls at home. What a blessing it is to change my view! I’ll skip the not-so–nice parts OK?

So here’s my own personal lesson for today, it may or may not apply to you. I have found that allowing a grumpy, picky, intolerant attitude to remain in me, stops the flow of the Holy Spirit’s river in my own life. When we go on the road, there are just so many more things to get grumpy about. At home at my house, in my own comfort zone, I don’t get irritable much because … everything suits me. Believe me, it would be so easy, and soooooo nice to think that that content happy person is who I am now! It would be great to start kidding myself that I’ve been really changed… thank you Jesus! Whoop-de-doo! (Sigh!)

Hmmm. Here’s a verse I’m not thrilled about, but Jesus said it so I’d better listen.“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13-14. What these verses mean to me is that if I find myself getting all comfy, cosy, spiritually speaking … I’m on the wrong road! The right road will start to narrow as I grow up in Christ. And I’m pretty sure that if I feel I have loads of room and I can do whatever I like … that means I’ve wandered off that narrow way again! Not the most user-friendly verses are they? Meanwhile, I don’t think the Lord cares about that.

Here’s how this grand revelation came about for me.  Hubby and I decided to change direction on the home-ward bound journey. This is a stretch for both of us, my dear hubby likes things nailed down and settled, and I like physical comfort. The more I focussed on getting what I want, what I think I need, the deafer I got, spiritually speaking. I was like those guys standing by while Almighty God spoke to Jesus, some heard Him speak something, some heard rumblings, and others heard nothing. There’s a whole blog in there!!

Moving on …  tuning into what the Holy Spirit wants, takes time and honesty with yourself, even more than others!! We need to cultivate the desire to want what HE wants, more than staying comfortable. God wants us all out of our comfort zones, because doing what He wants is not supposed to be comfortable. It will test us. Unfortunately, trouble brings the junk to the surface. It is a mistake to think everybody we meet is just going to fall into the kingdom, some of those people have to be rounded up and turned toward home and they won’t be NICE about it!

My spiritual hearing is dependent upon my willingness to change …  to be changed by His love, as well as my circumstances. I don’t need to adapt – I need to be transformed by His Grace. There is no spirit of adaptation in spiritual fruit! But there is self-control, patience, goodness … I have said this before but it bears repeating, we need to learn to trust the Person Who died for our sake. So if we do get stuck, then we go back to Jesus, and watch and ask Him how to move forward. Jesus treated God’s will as His food!  John 4:34.

As a part of His ministry, the Lord Jesus slept by a road. He talked to people who didn’t want to hear Him. He walked so far He got tired and thirsty. His feet were dirty. Some days He had nothing to eat but raw wheat. And His companions on the journey were not always spiritually tuned in and at optimum performance levels. His accommodation and provisions were definitely way under par most days. If I think like that, then my learning curve begins to increase, and so, hopefully, does my hearing! 👋