Nice

P 2591 My thoughts about mercy and grace.

/ DVH

“Overflow with mercy and compassion for others, just as your heavenly Father overflows with mercy and compassion for all.”” Luke 6:36 TPT. “Mercy is NOT getting what I deserve, and Grace is getting what I DON’T deserve…” Bill Johnson.

Personally, I’m not actually sure Christians have absorbed the fact that the undeserved mercy and/or compassion we have been given, has been given to us in over-abundant excess – so we have lots, and we can give it away! We need to be alert and become the people who can discern His mercy when it comes toward us…. instead of choosing to become debt collectors, who collect other people’s mistakes! A whole lot of people have actually been very good to us, when we were too dumb to know the way we were acting, was not Godly. Recognising you have been given undeserved mercy and compassion is the best way I know to abound in it … as well as overflow with it toward other people! 

Here’s a helpful hint – you and I have been given mercy because we NEED mercy!  And at the absolute bottom of that thought is the idea that you and I are not all that. Meanwhile, it does not look like we will end up being all that, any time soon either! 😂 Human beings can easily lack bigness of heart. But because we are following Jesus, and He allowed His big loving heart to be broken for our sakes, our only acceptable response to His bigness is to pass that mercy and grace we received ON to others who don’t deserve it either! We all need a whole of lot of mercy and compassion, all the time — particularly the overflowing kind. 

The problem with human beings is that we can think quite well of ourselves, and we can be ignorant of how incredibly costly the mercy we’ve freely received from others  – IS. Godly mercy is expensive to those amongst us who turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile … and patiently wait for you to find out you are not the nice person you think you are! I try to remember that the MERCY I have been given cost Jesus Christ His life. He has given us such amazing transforming benefits by releasing His grace and mercy upon us. But one of the biggest things I need to remember is that He actively encouraged me to pass what I GOT from Him, on to YOU. 

The best way to begin comprehend what mercy, compassion or grace really means, is to realise I don’t and will not ever deserve either one of them because of the sinful state He found me in. These graces are cultivated. God didn’t feel sorry for me – He forgave me! Therefore, I can’t brag about something I was given because the Giver is always the greater One. The truth is it doesn’t actually matter if you don’t deserve it either – you and I are in the same boat, and next time it will probably be my turn! We need to live this new life we were given remembering that we have nothing that was not given to us. (1 Corinthians 4:7)

Most people don’t understand how utterly rebellious we still are! Without daily recognition of God’s grace and His mercy that freely flowed out from the cross toward us … we can easily become a kind of penultimate narcissist with a complete self-interest that is totally pathological!  Sadly, there are people don’t even bother to hide that anymore. They wear their attitude with pride like a badge, and call it self-discovery!! To be merciful to difficult people in today’s world will take every bit of the mercy and grace Jesus has given us. We will have to go back to Calvary’s well over and over again. That’s what “leaning on Him” means. We are in a process, with His supervision, that will soften our hard hearts toward the world we live in, if we let it.

A hardened heart does not comprehend mercy, or grace. The more we allow the Lord to break our hearts with what breaks His heart, the softer our hearts will become. Human beings don’t want to live like that. So this means I will continually need to get these things from the Lord, to give to you! That takes humility. Very few of us know that we aren’t naturally humble. We’ve all learnt to make nice polite noises, and remain silent in the face of someone else’s bad attitude, and so we hope that will do. The wisdom to keep your mouth shut is not the same thing as deliberately loving the person who hurts you.

Here’s a thought that may save your life and sanity, as well as your often-broken heart  … people who lack these things, can’t give you what they haven’t got! They are childishly stuck in ‘me first’ and ‘my turn!’ These dear folk might understand these things in principle, but the reality is this, they are scared to face the revelation of who they actually are – inside. Christians are not nice. We are redeemed not nice!  When we face who we really are – in the light of His goodness and unconditional love – it stops being scary, and His grace and mercy get bigger.

Everything that we thought was good about ourselves DISSOLVES in the reality light of Christ’s own character and loving kindness toward us. We need to be progressively reshaped into His image one decision at a time. And learning to receive and give away grace and mercy empowers us to do it. 👋

P 2589 Don’t get caught up in the machinery …

/ DVH

… because the Lord is still talking to people! Just talk to Him. We have 4,998,214 books that have been written, by lovely people who want to help us learn how to pray … so it is extremely easy to get caught up in methods, not conversation, and hope that will do. Methods require remembering, but conversation allows you and I to be spontaneously ourselves, as well as honest with Him. It opens the door to further revelation about Who He is, as well as … who I am not!

Look, if you belong to a prayer group and you feel better praying ‘proper’ prayers there, then do it. But in your alone time with the Lord, just talk to Him. Jesus Himself talked to His Father like this … look at how personal He is!“Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that You sent Me.” John 11:41b-42. That’s what personal looks like. It shows the breadth of Their relationship. 

Our God is not a slot machine where you put in your $5 — (well, the price of everything has gone up nowadays) — and … out comes the answer. He is a Person. With feelings and passion. He loves, He hates, He is disappointed, He watches over us, etc. Does any of that sound impersonal to you?  We dare not reduce Almighty God to our way of thinking, or even some sort of a system. He wants us to love Him from a sincere heart, not just placating Him with trite sayings. What I mean is this, there are plenty of systems in place that indicate we HOW we should pray … if you want this, then you need to pray that. Jesus Himself gave us clues on how to pray, but don’t be so rigid about prayer that it becomes utterly formal and has no life in it. He’s our Father. Be real with Him.

If it appeals to you, you could take some time to study the kind of prayers Moses, Gideon, Jonah, Job, Ezekiel, Jeremiah etc. prayed. Pick a bible person for yourself and look at how they talked to God in the book. Jonah got cranky at Him and said so – but God did not smite that man mightily! Instead He conversed with Jonah, and reasoned with him. When you are reading the bible, take the time to look at the WAY these men of God related to Him. I want you to see, for yourself, that Almighty God wants you to be you, with Him.

Why? Why should I be myself? Here’s my little theory … there has never been, nor will there ever be someone else like you. Who you are, is a unique expression of our God’s creativity. He enjoys you, your company — the way any parent enjoys a beloved child’s presence. Following someone else’s prayer methods may feel safer, but in the long run, it is limiting … mainly because you are not them! Our God is bigger than our fears. Mightier than our mistakes, and more loving than we can ever imagine! Don’t worry about stumbling over words, or getting it wrong. The reality is prayer is about your heart talking to His heart. 

Our human relationships are often limited by a lack of communication. We don’t want to tell people that they are hurting us, because we want to be seen to be ‘nice,’ and ‘a good Christian.’  But when we act like that, eventually one of three things will happen — we will distance ourselves from the person who is hurting us and that means a severed relationship… Or we will tell the person exactly how we feel in no uncertain terms, because we’ve allowed a head of steam and anger to build up inside! That’s when we introduce the possibility of a worse, severed, irreparable relationship. OR we decide to talk honestly and openly about what is wrong and introduce the possibility of real restoration. 

Almighty God deliberately became a man, Jesus Christ – and that gives Him incredible insight into how people feel and act. Anybody who has read the Old Testament can tell you that real people wrangle with God. They don’t put on religious faces, or trot out religious rituals to take care of their relationship with Him. These people understand that they are dealing with Almighty God and being human is not a sin. Getting angry is not a sin. Being grief stricken and or even disappointed is not a sin – but we can’t fix something we won’t acknowledge.  He wants to become THE SAFE PLACE we take our burdens to. 

Please don’t let the machinery of prayer take the place of real relationship. Many times, I ask Him questions … then I open my bible and the answer to those questions is staring at me right where I am about to read!  Don’t pray AT Him, TALK to Him. Bye. 👋

P 2587 Why am I here?

/ DVH

I dunno! Ask the Lord! You and I both know that only He knows that stuff. I’m just the peanut writing this blog. Meanwhile, let me try to give a hopefully wise answer to that ‘why am I here’ question …  “to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbour as yourself.”  Hah! You didn’t expect that one did you? 

A Godly response to this scripture may sound easy …but it certainly isn’t a picnic, that’s because it’s a choice not a feeling – and sadly …other people do the darndest things!! The trouble is, those words are actually in His book! 

People sometimes can get fixated on trying to figure out why we are here, or what is the meaning of life (?)… But the truth is what Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-39. ‘Love God, love others.‘ I think I could teach that to a 2 year old! Did you ever ask yourself ‘how on earth do I love God with all of me, as well as loving YOU?’ Especially if you, my actual neighbour, are VERY far from nice! I suspect most of us have asked that question at some time or other, especially when actual reality replaced carefully crafted Christian concepts.← See that? That’s alliteration. 🤪 

Moving on! It would be so much easier to love God and others, if life just bubbled along like a telemovie, and we were all happy little Vegemites singing and dancing together … but we ain’t! And humanity is rapidly getting less and less nice as the years go by. Once we hit the 21st Century, then good manners and polite went rapidly downhill. Without a Saviour we are all doomed. I love that word doom.

There’s a scene with Tae-Kwon-Dodos in Ice Age Mark 1. (I think the film makers are up to Ice Age Mark 74, or thereabouts … whatever will still make the producers money!) These weird looking birds march around together chanting …”Doom on you. Doom on you. Doom on you …”  Then they fall down a hole into extinction. Now that’s not nice – it’s funny and ironic, but … hardly nice!

Back to my point …we seem to be overjoyed to blame our mother/father/uncle/cousin/teacher/boss for our very own ugliness and WE … as in – me, myself and I – allow awful attitudes to overwhelm us. They eclipse our concern for God’s opinion, as well as our fellow man’s well being. Nowadays we can end up holding onto grudges like they are special floatation devices, not stinking heavy rocks sent by the enemy to drown us. We measure everything by how it affects ME – not by its overall benefit to mankind.

It seems “not nice” or SIN …whatever you like to call it,  is firmly embedded into the heart of man.  And we have no hope of fixing it unless we follow God’s Ways. I think right now, not nice is in plague proportions. But I have found it is not good for my own mental and emotional well-being, to over analyse stuff and impute attitudes to other people’s actions.  

Maybe that guy in the supermarket who just ran over my toe with his trolley was distracted and careless… maybe he isn’t a homicidal maniac who makes himself feel better by running over other people’s feet! When did this world lose the kind of rightness of heart that gives others the benefit of the doubt? And what about me making an effort to apologise for something I did to someone else, no matter what my motive was. When did we lose the words (?) … “I am so sorry, I was wrong.” ← That’s a full stop right there. 

So, here is today’s point … yeah … I know, it took a while! We can’t follow Jesus and hate others. Listen to John he’s going to explain it better than I can.“If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love BOTH.”1 John 4:20.

Personally, I think we are here in this world, to contribute, not consume. We are not designed to be greedy-give-me-that, OR … I-want-it-now-passengers… but participators. If we allow anyone else to rob us of our contribution because of what they have said or done to us, we are letting our enemy – WIN. Dumb move. The way to win is in 1 Corinthians 13:8: “Love never fails.” When everything else has folded up its little tent and departed, or crumbled into dust … LOVE WILL WIN … be-ca-us-e … IT SAYS IN THE BOOK … love never fails. 

So, why do I think I am here? To love God first, then you … but if you really are truly dreadful, well … He is always there to help me! Bye.👋

P 2546 We will sometimes suffer wrong.

/ DVH

I Samuel 24:1-12 “After Saul returned … …set out to look for David and his men near the Crags of the Wild Goats.He came to the sheep pens along the way; a cave was there, and Saul went in to relieve himself. David and his men were far back in the cave. The men said, “This is the day the Lord spoke of when He said to you, ‘I will give your enemy into your hands for you to deal with as you wish.’” Then David crept up unnoticed and cut off a corner of Saul’s robe. Afterward, David was conscience-stricken for having cut off a corner of his robe. He said to his men, “The Lord forbid that I should do such a thing to my master, the Lord’s anointed, or lay my hand on him; for he is the anointed of the Lord.” With these words David sharply rebuked his men and did not allow them to attack Saul. And Saul left the cave and went his way.

Then David went out of the cave and called out to Saul, “My lord the king!” When Saul looked behind him, David bowed down and prostrated himself with his face to the ground. He said to Saul, “Why do you listen when men say, ‘David is bent on harming you’? This day you have seen with your own eyes how the Lord delivered you into my hands in the cave. Some urged me to kill you, but I spared you; I said, ‘I will not lay my hand on my lord, because he is the Lord’s anointed.’ See, my father, look at this piece of your robe in my hand! I cut off the corner of your robe but did not kill you. See that there is nothing in my hand to indicate that I am guilty of wrongdoing or rebellion. I have not wronged you, but you are hunting me down to take my life.  May the Lord judge between you and me. And may the Lord avenge the wrongs you have done to me, but my hand will not touch you.”

Every time I read this scripture I am extremely impressed by David’s integrity. He had totally committed himself to living His life Almighty God’s way. But at the same time, King Saul was constantly attempting to kill him. Saul was the legitimate king, appointed by God, but he was threatened by David and he had been chasing this young man here there and everywhere for years. Jealousy and spite drove that older man along. But David’s conscience was so soft before God, it smacked him upside-of-his-head when he cut off a piece of Saul’s robe.

We may not like it but submission is in the book. We are not submitted to God if we are not prepared to submit to the person who is the leader. In our homes, at our office, in the government or our churches. Just because it is not cultural to submit, that does not make it wrong. Submission is not meant to be fashionable, fun or enjoyable! It’s hard work and sometimes even dangerous – as David found out! Particularly if you happen to disagree with the person you are submitted to or they have a bone to pick with you! 

However, real submission is a tool to facilitate transformation in us, not make us comfortable. After all the Lord Jesus was utterly submitted to His Heavenly Father, but He also submitted to all the religious leaders of the day. The King of all glory was standing right in front of these experts, and they didn’t know Who He was! But Jesus chose to submit to them, anyway. God’s way is not always about us enjoying the process, it is about obedience. ‘Rebellion is as witchcraft in the eyes of the Lord.’ 1 Samuel 15:23.

David understood this truth and he respected God’s order. He understood the Lord lifts up one, and pulls down another. So David left Saul to God, so the Lord could deal with him … for twenty-five years. Did you get that? Twenty five YEARS!  This young man had been anointed by Samuel and he knew he was to be the next king, yet he let the Lord God build His own house. He did not try to wrestle the kingdom from Saul. Instead he lived honourably, and learnt from God how to respect His enemy. And at the same time he honoured God by his diligent obedience.

You know in my denomination, sometimes there are things that happen that I don’t understand. People move around between churches like ice cubes in a water pitcher. These people are often here one week, and gone the next. It seems to be that they think the preacher is not spiritual enough, or they don’t like what he says, or he doesn’t come to visit them, or they already know all that stuff they want something different. Why this world doesn’t already know all there is to know about the Lord Jesus because of these gifted people, who apparently know everything there is to know … escapes me! 🙄

Human beings disagree, mainly because we prefer to hold onto our own rights. But it is not a matter of compatibility. It is a matter of learning how to love those who cruelly use us. Meanwhile, some days, nobody can annoy us better than a spouse! LOVE CONQUERS ALL … not war of the words! None of us are nice – that’s a rumour started by people who want their own way. Without the Holy Spirit in charge, we can all be mean. Look at Adam and Eve. God came to be with them in their garden every evening and yet they still disobeyed … then they blamed each other. Before we make important decisions we should try looking in the mirror, strangely enough, the person at fault is often in the mirror!

King David knew all about facing his weaknesses, and through God’s processes he was transformed by them – but he  still suffered. Suffering wrong is one of the greatest keys in our spiritual keyring. It hurts like mad, but carries with it the incredible honour of sharing in the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. 👋

P 2315 The Way ahead, is dead.

/ DVH

If we want to see God’s way ahead of us in this life then loving the people who hate us – is actually the way to go.  Meanwhile we are going to need His ‘eyes of faith’ to see that pathway. And I don’t care if those mean, unpleasant people are Christians or not. If we want God permanently making His home in us, instead of Him just being a Sunday visitor, then we need to make the Holy Spirit our new BFF and let Him change our lives accordingly. 

The bible tells me that I have been saved, delivered, and changed, but unfortunately … none of that can show up in who I am, without me choosing to change. Long ago, I had a huge expectation of what Christians should be like. Now that was a crushing blow. In the church I met people who were supposed to be nice … but … actually they hadn’t got that memo yet, so they were sometimes nice and most times NOT! Some of them were meaner than the people out in the streets..

Meanwhile the difference between who the bible said I was supposed to be, and who I still was, was wider than Bass Strait! These new lovely people of God stuffed me full of information, bible studies, prayer groups, conferences, but the gap between what I read about who I was in the book, and who I really was IRL, or even who I was supposed to be, was ginormous …to say the least.

Eventually I actually realised I was never going to fit in, because the Lord made me into the kind of person who wanted to know … why not? If it was in the book, then why weren’t we doing it? Why did we not make the poor a priority when Jesus clearly told us to? Why didn’t we pray for the sick? How could Christians live a life of pretending to be nice – when they could be mean etc. at the drop of a hat, and then smile at you next time …without ever asking for forgiveness?!  

Disappointment and discouragement dogged my footsteps for years. I would try my best, get provoked by circumstances, then fall flat on my face, cry for a bit, get up and … try again.  … I had no idea that Christianity was to be gloriously lived by totally transformed people –  not just better actors than me! Also I was ignorant of the fact that I now had my own personal Guide, Helper and bible translator … If I just paid attention to what He said instead of merely reading the bits in the book that made me feel good!

I did not understand that transformation is not just about trying harder.  Or even about praying about stuff and if God did not answer my prayer to be a sweeter Christian, then that was not my fault. That was on HIM. AFTER ALL I HAD PRAYED, I had asked … and if He didn’t answer me, then maybe my behaviour didn’t bother Him, or He just hadn’t gotten around to that stuff yet. Fat chance. 

In a nutshell I pushed away my own personal responsibility to co-operate with the Lord and humble myself enough to tell others that I did not know how to live the kind of life Jesus did. Privately I was of the opinion, given my current circumstances – that I probably never would make it.  Nobody told me that in order to be changed I would have to give up my right to live my life my way and do it HIS way instead. When I finally realised this truth, I hit another snag. I HAD NO POWER TO CHANGE because I had been feeding my flesh for wa-a-ay too long.

The way through stinky attitudes is death! Death hurts. We cannot bury these things and hope no-one will notice. GUESS WHAT? They will notice!  Christians can’t come out of following Christ alive. We need to get honest and admit we are not special spiritual people, but human beings who have cultivated wrong attitudes and habits that need to be killed off with His help. Jesus suffered and struggled with this truth and we do too. WE MUST DIE!

The way ahead is death to self, and living for Him and others. “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And your neighbour as yourself.”  Good luck with living that way by pretence and effort. Good luck with praying it falls on any of us out of the sky. WE DIE DAILY, or we ain’t dead at all. Read the book. 👋🏻

P 2239 The peril of ignoring our faults…

/ DVH

“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time? It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns. Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 

But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’ and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards. The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 24:45-51.

‘If Jesus came back today would you repent or worship?’ Someone asked me that question once, and … big spiritual giant that I am … I said: “… um … probably … BOTH!” It may now be obvious to you that I like to cover all my bases. 😶 Time and apathy are forces that can wear away most good intentions. This means we desperately need the Holy Spirit, not just good intentions! I know many people make resolutions every New Year but I gave that up decades ago. I found I couldn’t make it past a week before I fell over and became disappointed in myself.

When there is no active revival around us, our impetus to remain focussed and in love with Jesus – and what He wants – becomes down-right cloudy … with a chance of extreme coldness … bordering on self-centredness. We could easily revert to the same old same old – and hope that will do. It will take the ripe fruits of faithfulness, and self-control … plus we might need to throw in a few boxes of patience … to keep us … keeping on. Otherwise we can easily give up too quickly – like the guy in the parable. 

Pressure, boredom, and a distinct lack of visible supervision is the thing our enemy employs to distract us from where we want to be. I strongly suspect the master in this parable was angry because he trusted that servant to do the right thing. AHA! That means we can’t blame our poor old pastor then doesn’t it? After all we are responsible for our own spiritual well-being and choices.

You know, this little story is so accurate, it hurts to read it. I find myself avoiding parables like this one in the same way I avoid mirrors. Mainly because I don’t like what I see … but … way up in the back of my mind … I kid myself that I would ne-v-er do that! The thing about Jesus is that through these stories, He exposes what is really in our hearts. So instead of dismissing the possibility that I might behave as badly as that servant did – I’ve learnt to ask the Lord to: ‘please show me where I fall into that exact same hole.’ 

That’s the kind of prayer that always gets answered … trust me! Instead of acquitting myself of any possibility of blame, I’ve learnt that I have no idea what I will do when the ‘nice’ wears off, and I am shoved against the wall by adverse circumstances. However, I must admit, I also have no immediate plans to bash up anyone who lives at my house and looks after me. The other person who lives here makes my meals etc! My mother didn’t raise no stupid children!! 

However, the guy in this parable proves my often stated point – none of us know what is INSIDE us – until the passing of time, and life itself, or a lack of visible supervision, puts our lives under pressure and we get distracted from our original goal. Then watch out! All kinds of ugly leaks out around the edges. Nobody plans to live like that guy did, it just kind of crept up on him because time passed and his supervisor was missing.

Our Master lives inside us – our biggest problem is, He’s so gentle, He is easy to ignore. But the rewards for faithfulness and wisdom are much better traits. Living for Jesus means active participation in His processes. Meanwhile, when was the last time you heard someone talk about this particular parable? Yeah, we both know what that means, the pastor doesn’t like it much either. It’s not easy to get a positive message out of this one!

The Lord highlighted two words to me today when I read it – faithful and wise. Meanwhile the opposite of that is pretty much unreliable and stupid – I really don’t want to come into that category. What to do? Well, I believe in honest maintenance. You see, we have a beloved Redeemer, so there is no need to hide from myself anymore. It’s time to own up and repent, and ask for His Grace to change my behaviour. That’s when I decide to make faith-filed, bible inspired, choices. Right at the point when I want to do the opposite, or even pretend … I’m ‘all good” really ...😳 

I think we have to monitor our own spiritual lives day by day, sometimes second by second! It is so easy to judge this guy who behaved so badly, without stopping to look in the mirror – but we will do that at our own peril. Who knows what might creep up on us one day to tempt us to behave the same way? Finally, here’s a great deliverance prayer: “…and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil …” Amen. 👋🏻 “It’s the little foxes that spoil the vines.” Song of songs.