Obedience

P 3177 God loves to play ‘peek-a-boo!”

/ DVH

In our daily lives we get glimpses of the Lord acting for us, and doing things around us. A glimpse by definition is a fleeting view, a passing glance, or a quick look into something briefly. This means that there are days that we pray for someone, like I did for my neighbour the other day, and she successfully dodged huge hailstones and part of someone else’s roof while she was driving. Whenever we hear a good report we know it is the Lord answering our prayers. Let’s acknowledge those moments, not just take them for granted.

We are, day by day, blessed and humbled by His loving care. So the idea of using Him for our own ends, is abhorrent. And it is definitely not the same as knowing Him! Using Him is about getting what I want, far more than it is about gaining knowledge of Who He is. We don’t need some snappy “twist God’s arm to get what I want” system – He loves us! These ‘peek-a-boo’ moments are meant to move us on into a lifestyle of gratitude. 

There are times when we’ve prayed for ourselves after a particularly difficult day and we find the rest of that day sort of, smooths itself out. And we know it is the Holy Spirit, doing what He does best, making our pathways straight and unhindered – He is helping us. Praise Him! On other not-so-fantastic days we pray and the same sort of junk plops on us, but it is a different day – and we are suddenly plunged into the land of worse. 

What changed? Why did He answer one prayer of escape and not the next one? I’m going to give you my little theory, but I want to stress that you should ask Him that question for yourself. When we pray for this and that, and the Lord graciously answers our prayers we are relegating Him into what I call the specialist category. When human beings have a need, and we can’t solve it, we go to a specialist. Whether it is about health, our car, or our house! 

It might seem very flattering to see the Lord as the kind of specialist we can consult with whenever we need help – but doing that will not form the kind of permanent on-going relationship that the bible talks about. Jesus wants to be our everything! If we are not grateful for we have been given, then I think we can end up relegating our Heavenly Father into a consultant category. SomeOne we call on because something or other isn’t working!

We need a much wider view – that is less about me and far more about seeing Him as Almighty God, Who rules heaven and earth! He loves us so much He has His eye on us! The bible tells us we are His people, so we do not ever have to suffer from an identity crisis. Jesus Himself knew He would always be heard. He died to give us the same privilege He had. However, the inner workings of our heart matters. Using God to make my life better is not “… the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.”(!!!) In spite of the terrible things He faced, Jesus knew His Father’s Way was the best way. So He actively chose to honour Father God’s will despite the pain it caused Him. 

When Christ became our sin, He was separated for the first time from His Father. I think that’s what killed Him – that relationship was so glorious the break in it was fatal to Him. It broke His heart. Oh, I pray that the people of God would be heartbroken over sin the way Jesus was! I believe He is our God-given illustration of how to be human, and walk with God Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit! 

The Lord Jesus’ teachings and parables are illustrations of what this life can look like when we follow Him wholeheartedly. We can see in the bible, for ourselves, that Jesus always chose His Father’s Way. So this is what we need to do … we need to understand that Father God is not merely our consultant – He is our GOD, first and foremost! He is in charge and we are not. We cannot afford to postpone obedience or ignore Him — because of the consequences. Ignoring Him means we miss out on knowing Him, as well as living our lives His way! The Way of the Cross.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:25,26 – “For whoever wishes to save his life [in this world] will [eventually] lose it [through death], but whoever loses his life [in this world] for My sake will find it [that is, life with Me for all eternity]. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world [wealth, fame, success], but forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” 

Our Heavenly Father is not a despot. In the Old Testament we can hear Him pleading with Israel — the way a parent would plead with a beloved child who is on the wrong path. He wants us to come to Him purely because we have a deep faith in His goodness. HE will not ever do us harm! Jesus Christ chose to come willingly under His Father’s Leadership and supervision at all times, and He taught us that we need to do the same. There is no such thing as part-time Christianity in God’s eyes. He bought and paid for us with the most precious thing this world has seen – His own Son’s blood.

Now He wants us to choose to live our lives, HIS WAY, and we will see Him everywhere. When we deliberately  make that choice and stick to it.  In other words He won’t just play peek-a-boo, He will manifest Himself among us and we will become His people, not just in name but in deeds! Bye. 👋 

P 3168 Things nobody wants to talk about.

/ DVH

I can’t count the number of times somebody I loved so dearly has wandered off into the darkness clinging ever-so-tightly to the words: ‘the Lord said to me…’  After a while, those words can become a torment and a dark confusing prison. This person doesn’t dare move away from what they think He said, in case they miss out on the promise they hope He gave them. That false leading has caused so many wonderful brothers and sisters to fall. And some, as Paul says …have even wandered away from the faith!

Over the years I have realised that an independent spirit can wreak havoc in our midst. Churches have fallen apart because of it. Truly lovely, God-fearing people won’t talk to others because they consider them to be going the wrong way, and they don’t want to be tainted. Sin is not contagious …but disobedience is! And we need to understand that love is not about obedience, it is about valuing people!

I’ve also watched suffering souls cling ever-so tightly to the promise of healing – well, who wouldn’t? – only to see these precious people of God disappointed or crushed because the promised healing has not come. We all need the mature, tried and tested saints among us for the Lord’s council – and those brothers and sisters don’t always have grey hair either! I mean the ones who pray for you and watch over your soul, often on their knees. God corrected me once, when a kid at church accidentally said something that poked me in the heart! 

I’ve agonised over how to say this so I wouldn’t hurt or mislead anyone who is currently stuck in ‘I’m standing on the promises of God-land!’  Because hearing from God personally is a blessing. But there are times when any of us can be sincerely, misled. If our enemy cannot get us passive and inactive, then his next ploy is to wind us up and send us off in the wrong direction. Here’s my point—Almighty God does not operate like that. We are in a Body because we need a Body around us, loving on us, knowing us, and speaking into our lives. 

We cannot afford to let our opinions about someone else’s spirituality spoil our own faith walk. Especially as  we’ve been designed to walk in relationship with each other. Anything less misses the mark of Christ’s all-encompassing love. Remember He had twelve very different opinions around Him!  People tend to congregate around others who have are like-minded. I think that’s dangerous. A bunch of people with the same ideas or gifts can end up saying and doing all sorts of things. We need everyone — the servers, the mercy givers, the teachers, the healers etc. – not just people who think like we do.

That’s because we can’t see ourselves properly. Those things that we can easily dismiss as little errors, could be gaping holes that will swallow us up. Let’s stop judging where other people are coming from and love them instead. You can learn a lot about yourself when you choose to submit..I know that it is easy to slip into a POV that says: ‘But the people I know are wrong, they say this and that, and that stuff is not in the bible.’  The bible and our brothers and sisters are our protection. BTW, there is only one truth – God’s truth. And it will take all of us to uncover it.

The biggest error I have ever seen, is one that operates almost universally – personal opinion. The same God who gave you those thoughts, can confirm what He said – through a leader. Our bible says: “Don’t think of yourself more highly than you should. Be reasonable when you think about yourself. Keep in mind the faith God has given to each of you.” Romans 12:3 NIV. Praise God He is always wa-ay bigger than our mistakes. He is bigger than anything and everything stupid we can fall into. We need to put our trust in the Lord, and embrace the Way of life Jesus spoke about in the gospels, like – ‘preferring one another.’ 

Ephesians 5:21: “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.” Why? Because none of us are all that – that’s why! Romans 12:3 says: “For by the grace (unmerited favour of God) given to me I warn everyone among you not to estimate and think of himself more highly than he ought [not to have an exaggerated opinion of his own importance], but to rate his ability with sober judgment, each according to the degree of faith apportioned by God to him.” All the nice words and the self-effacing attitudes in the world will not necessarily mean our hearts are right. Jeremiah 17:9: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceedingly corrupt: WHO CAN KNOW IT?” Well that kicks ‘trusting in my own understanding’ in the bin doesn’t it?

Pastors are often too intimidated to repeat verses like these, because they will be accused of being overbearing and controlling. When is the last time you read that particular scripture and … applied it to yourself? Our place of safety is in the Body, submitted to the leadership. And if you disagree with the leadership … now there’s a common theme (!!)… then get on your face and ask the Lord where you have gone off the rails! Don’t ever be so proud you can’t back up and turn around and go in the other direction. 

In the past, I have been in a Body where the pastor was controlling, and you know what? After I spat the dummy and complained to the Lord about it, and then HE disciplined me – for my own good. That’s when I learnt a lot about ME!! Everything, everything, everything is an opportunity for growth. If you are still here on earth, then you are not done yet. Even mature Christians have blind spots. We need each other, and the kind of care that says: “I have your back’ … but it is not afraid to tell us the truth when it is necessary. Let’s stop avoiding those things we don’t like to talk about. Bye 👋

P 3162 This is true worship!

/ DVH

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2. True and proper worship starts and ends with ME, voluntarily laying myself down on His altar, daily. All day, every single day. The secret to walking with the Holy Spirit is to deliberately surrender your life, even when things are good as well as when they are bad. Then I pray: “Your will, Your way Lord.”  I’ve found it is best to have no other agenda but His.

When we follow Jesus it means our lives change. It is our obedience to God’s Word that causes that transformation. As we read it, we begin to realise that worship from His POV, requires more from us than just happily singing songs of praise and worship … it is about giving Him the gift of YOU. Your time, your energy, your obedience, your love, your family, your sometimes-present difficulties. Our families are so much better off in His hands, no matter what is going on around us. We put them in His care – and we leave them there. Obviously I am not talking about whether the kids need a bath, or not, and Jesus won’t be cooking the dinner! Everything  we do we do in service to Him. “Whatsoever you do, do it with all your heart, as though you were doing it for Jesus!”

Realistically speaking, in today’s climate, we know that very few people have spare time! So the reality is like this — to honour Father God with our whole self, we will have to put something else aside. Those things we need to put aside are often important to us. And at the same time, we can have interruptions that need attention. Like, if your toddler falls on its head, that’s an important thing! But, the phone can wait. Leave that somewhere else, turned off. You can tell your pre-school child: “I’m reading the bible, I will be with you soon.” Showing little ones that we also need to pray and read the bible, is just as important, as doing it with them. 

We simply have to make reading the bible and praying, a priority, just like we make family times a priority. My hubby’s dear mother used to sit in the middle of chaos, people coming and going, the phone ringing off the hook, squabbling everywhere etc – and there she was, in the middle of it, bible in her lap, with her eyes closed because she was praying. Her alone time with God is sacrosanct. The things that dear lady has taught me without saying one word!!

We all know that God’s Word requires our obedience. We simply need to read it to find things to do, not just to tick off a daily quota. That translates into – read it, then do it! Or read until you find something to do. Actually I read until something stands out to me. This is part of putting our bodies on His altar. Don’t  dismiss these things because you haven’t got time to pay attention to them, instead make it a priority to act on them. It is a delusion to think: “I will get around to doing that.” Trust me, you won’t. We have an enemy who loves to distract and interrupt us. Make a plan to obey while you are with the Lord. Ask Him: “How do I do this Lord?” However, when it comes to repentance, do that right away, including fixing and repairing it with the other person if necessary. Never postpone repentance. Repentance blows away the cobwebs over our hearts. 

If we want to know God’s will, then we must align ourselves with Him. It’s simple. Most things about the Lord look like this… stay out of the stuff that is going to drag you down, and cling to what He has said instead – and don’t move from that place. We need to recognise some things are a distraction or temptation, and avoid them. Just because something is demanding, that does not mean we must give it our attention. Paul said: “…I die daily…”  That’s what laying our lives on the altar looks like. God’s great love and provision for mankind, has been clearly demonstrated to us, through watching how Jesus lived His life.

Jesus laid Himself on that altar by everything He did. We don’t even get a recording of the Lord’s private  thoughts or opinions in the Gospels! He didn’t even go on Israel’s got Talent! 🤣🤣 Instead, He validated God’s Words for our benefit by the Way He lived. He knew the Father so well, He could see what His Father was doing, and then He went and did it too. Ten lepers were healed once – Jesus saw His Father healing them before it happened! BTW, the Lord didn’t want the lepers to thank Him, Jesus wanted the lepers to thank Father God for what happened to them!“Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Luke 17:18.

If we want to see what Jesus saw, and do what He did, then we need to live like He did, and do whatever our Father tells us to do. Obedience is one of the growth factors for flourishing faith. Our true worship is to lay our lives down for His sake, even as we sing and praise Him in our hearts. We are to be continually filled with the Spirit. And! We should take care of widows and orphans … James chapter one. All those good things are set into motion when we choose to lay our lives down, daily, for His sake, Galatians 2:20. Bye 👋

P 3159 He will inhabit our lives.

/ DVH

“My beloved ones, just like you’ve always listened to everything I’ve taught you in the past, I’m asking you now to keep following My instructions as though I were right there with you. Now you must continue to make this new life fully manifested as you live in the holy awe of God—which brings you trembling into His Presence. God will continually revitalise you, implanting within you the passion to do what pleases Him.” Philippians 2:12-13 TPT.

We cannot afford to postpone following His instructions, they are life and health to our bones! (Proverbs 3:7-8.) This is not just about our bones, BTW, it is about us living daily in His standing-up-in-the-middle-of-difficulties strength! It is our responsibility to allow His life to be fully manifested in us. Jesus did not save us so we could hide away in religious activities and tell ourselves: “that will do.” He saved us to be His ambassadors to this world. To start with, we need to redefine what real love looks like, the people around us think love looks like getting my own way!

God Himself knows the best way for any of us to live our lives. We can think we know, but we cannot foresee the future –  it is outside our control. Even Christians rumble along, listening to this instruction the Lord has given us, and ignoring that one because it’s ‘too hard and God won’t mind.’ We cannot afford to cherry-pick the verses we want to obey and the ones we don’t. Jesus died for us, and we died with Him, and this new life we have now is His.

Jesus Himself knew the secret of being ‘in’ the world, but not ‘of’ the world. His FOCUS was always on His Father’s kingdom. He did not treat a KING any differently than a peasant! He simply spent His time ministering to  people, displaying His Father’s love to them, meeting their needs. The Lord Jesus lived to love others, and obey His Father in all things. He didn’t save His life – He spent it!

Jesus’ life and death shows us that living like He did can be done. But it is painfully obvious we will need help — our love is not as hot as it should be. When God is an add-on, or merely SomeOne we run to, to fix things, passion will not be a part of our love for Him. However, the Holy Spirit knows both passion and devotion. That’s why Jesus sent back Him back to us. The Spirit of God helps us see and live in God’s perspective about the things happening in our lives. Jesus does not have to prove He loves us by answering our prayers – His life, death and resurrection are all the proof we need.

And what’s more the Lord’s life shows us that there is a better life than we can ever imagine when we learn to walk with Him in His Ways!  We have been blessed, we can bring heaven here, right here, right now — when we live His Way for His purposes. Whether we can see or hear Him or not – we can live in joy, loving others the way He loved us. Obedience opens doors. Day after day I hear people talking about fulfilment in this life. Maybe they don’t feel fulfilled because they were made for a purpose, and believe it or not that purpose wasn’t just to live in comfort, or annoy the living daylights out of someone else! 

The Lord may be temporarily absent from us, but He is oh so close and present, in the bible. We can always find Him in His book. Jesus Himself is called the LIVING WORD! And I need a living word every single day. I am daily learning to put my feelings to one side. Now the only thing I care about is His peace in me. When I have His peace, I can do anything. Believe it or not I am as scared of other people as you are!  But …the Holy Spirit is so faithful. He can’t help Himself – it’s His nature.

“Let’s not get weary in the well doing…”  Galatians 6:9. Pressing in and on, can seem daunting. As you get older, like I have, you just want to sit down somewhere comfy, with a cup of tea, and watch the world go by. I like life in the slow-lane. But I love to see the faces of the people who have no idea how much they are loved by God Himself so much MORE than my own comfort. This life is a series of choices. It is not so much about making good or bad choices, as it is about making ‘A’ choice, any choice. It is very hard to move a stationary vehicle. 

My advice is to do something… anything. Be generous, share with others, mow someone’s lawn, talk to some elderly shut-in. And watch the Lord turn up and love on people just because you reached out to them. They will be attracted to Jesus-in-you. It’s not us – it’s never us! It’s because HE is altogether lovely!! We don’t have to market Him, advertise Him, or explain Him — we just turn up with Him … with the King in residence here → ❤️ in our hearts. He promised to never leave us or forsake us or give us up – so He’s with us, whether we feel Him or not. Why not just believe Him? 

The way to fill up your heart is in Matthew 7:7-8, and Jeremiah 29:13 – look it up. Choose to believe what He says and not your feelings.“Here’s what Yahweh says to you: “I know all about the marvellous destiny I have in store for you, a future planned out in detail. My intention is not to harm you but to surround you with peace and prosperity and to give you a beautiful future, glistening with hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 TPT. Jesus will inhabit our lives as we step out and use our faith that what He said, He meant. Bye. 👋

PS. Don’t wait for a sign! Do it anyway… faith ACTS.

P 3158 Red and yellow flags.

/ DVH

Sometimes in my daily life, I notice the same or similar situations, happening over and over again — so I asked the Lord to show me what and why. He explained to me that we need to stay on the alert for things that seem out of place, when they happen repeatedly. Especially if each time they are about about a similar subject. This repetition can indicate we are ignoring something important. For instance, if you suddenly get a whole lot of people who are rude to you, we can easily think it is enemy attack, but there are times when Lord allows these things because we need to practise forgiving those who trespass against us!

It is like the Holy Spirit is our lifeguard and we have wandered off and we are now swimming outside the flags. Things get difficult when you swim outside the red and yellow flags. Those flags, those interruptions to His flow in our lives, are there for a purpose. Father God loves us – He doesn’t want any of us to drown! Meanwhile if you ever see a double RED flag, then stay out of the water! That’s some useful free lifesaver advice. Even if whatever it is you are doing seems harmless, take notice of the Holy Spirit’s absence, or His kiss upon your day, and stop and ask Him why. When He isn’t kissing something we need to stop moving ahead.

We must recognise, with His help and guidance, to learn to value the kind of obedience through the suffering that denies itself. We deny ourselves, pick up our cross and keep right on following Him no matter how we feel! Father God has a reason for His discipline and chastening, and it is not about punishment. It is about His loving provision for whatever is coming next. He is training us. We need to yield and allow His fruit to grow in the middle of that difficulty. This is clearly spelled out in Hebrews 12:6-11.

“For whom the Lord loves He chastens, And scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness. Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” 

Correction to any course of action is present in our lives to train us. I’ve found, in those times, that things seem to  go on repeat – because we haven’t fully embraced obedience yet. Our God is good He will not let us move on into the next part of our growth, unprepared. Meanwhile, even these things are not always about us, sometimes it is about the damage we will do to someone else if we continue down the wrong road. The Lord forgives us whenever we ask Him to, but we are not on a desert island, other people live around us! We must never forget we are His agents of unconditional love and peace to this crazy world. That means we will be tested on what we think we know, because other lives are tied to ours!

Testing times are about testing our faith in His goodness and compassion and care for us, despite our circumstances. 1 Corinthians 10:13&14 says this in the Passion translation: “We all experience times of testing, which is normal for every human being. But God will be faithful to you. He will screen and filter the severity, nature and timing of every test or trial you face that you can bear it. And each test is an opportunity to trust Him more, for along with every trial God has provided for you a way of escape that will bring you out of it victoriously.” Our way through any test is to believe in His goodness, His personal oversight, no matter what is going on! And then we need to keep on thanking Him for loving us so much that He is teaching us with His eye on us.

I haven’t lost my mind, it’s in the book. Father God is not against us having a life, but He is against us wasting it on the stuff that will not last … and there are times when we all do that! If you read the story of Jonah you will see that God led that man step by step to the place of obedience – Jonah’s feelings about the subject did not matter. Father God had His own agenda – He wanted to save Nineveh! We must rest in the fact that He is wisdom itself, and we are just like Ruth, gleaning whatever wisdom we can around the edge of our own little paddock – looking at our circumstances without complete clarity. But if our purposes and sensibilities cross what He wants done, then I’ve learnt, our purposes and sensibilities will go straight out of the window!

Just like when we swim at the beach — there are yellow and red flags in this new life in the Holy Spirit, they are not threatening flags, they are protective flags. They tell you where it is safe to move forward. When we ignore the Holy Spirit’s red flags in our own individual lives, we are deliberately stepping out and away from His protection. He will wait for us to wake up to our error, repent and turn around. The Holy Spirit has been given to us to help us do everything the Lord brought us into this world to do. It’s incredibly dumb to step away from SomeOne Who only wants our good!

Our God disciplines and tests the people He loves, for their benefit. He wants us to share in His holiness. Those God-sent ‘flags’ are in our lives for a purpose. Things only get harder if we ignore them. The secret is to stop, wait, consult the Holy Spirit, and don’t proceed until the sea is calm again and the flags are green. Bye.👋

P 3155 “Behold the NEW has come.”

/ DVH

“My OLD identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this NEW life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives His life through me—we live in union as one! My NEW life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God Who loves me so much that He gave Himself for me, dispensing His life into mine!” Galatians 2:20 TPT.

Right here, in this scripture, we can see the benefit of living that new life we have been given – ‘in Christ.” IN CHRIST always means He is IN CHARGE. It also means because it is IN Him – then it is NOT in us. However, we can get the benefit, by simply acting on what He says. Despite our unrealistic hopes and expectations, this is not an automatic thing!  It will not fall on us, the Lord wants our ongoing permission, so we must choose His Way, every single time.

Our free will needs to be yielded to the Lord out of love and trust in what He has already done for us. This our gift to Him. It consists of daily, progressive choices, to yield and die to self, and live for Him instead. “In Christ”  means His Grace is in action in our lives and the lives of others around us. We are learning, first-hand, from Jesus things like ‘how to stop judging others from our flesh.’ At the same time we also realise this world hasn’t got anything lasting to offer. But now we can start seeing others through the Holy Spirit’s eyes. We are honouring the consistent pursuit of what Jesus calls “good.”

Let’s be clear, everything we need in this life to walk with Jesus, is already in our “heavenly account.” It was deposited there 2,000+ years ago. Now we simply exercise our faith to step into what is already OURS. We quite literally go into our heavenly bank account and make withdrawals over and over again — using that faith He already gave us. Because God says I can love the unlovely, that means I can step out and ask the Holy Spirit to show me how to love the person in front of me. I simply follow His instructions using my faith.

In our past, these blessings were presented with trying harder as a subtitle. And so we did our best to try to be nicer. We’d try to be the kind of person Jesus would be proud of, and we would try to persevere, etc. but in the end our soft, flabby flesh, outweighed our ability to try to push through. We need ongoing daily faith. In the try harder system, we learnt to give up, and go back to hating ourselves for getting it wrong, or we became proud and superior, because we think we got it right! God never meant for us to be frustrated by a system. Instead we are to be drawn into an incredible relationship where we follow HIM, step-by-step into a new way of living this life. 

We cannot continue to use the systems of the past to usher in whatever our God wants to do next. Jeremiah tells us that any system we can devise will spring a leak! “For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned (rejected) Me, The fountain of living water, And they have carved out their own cisterns, Broken cisterns That cannot hold water.”Jeremiah 2:13. This scripture shows us, that Almighty God requires our loyalty … not just our lip-service. Our hearts need to change and when we obey His will, His way, the Holy Spirit writes that onto our hearts. You don’t forget those lessons!  Jesus came here to be an illustration of how God’s Way works. He even modelled dying to self right up to the end of His earthly life. His kind of faith moves away mountains of doubt and unbelief. 

In the past, the church centred itself around men and women who we saw as ‘specialists.’ They were God-gifted, and God-appointed, and they seemed to have a better hold on how to operate in the Holy Spirit than most lay-people did. They grabbed hold of His promises and operated in their gift by using their faith. But our God did not mean for His promises to be relegated only to specialists – He wants us ALL to walk in faith. The Holy Spirit is here to lead us into this kind of obedience.

When the bible says we are dead to the things of this world, it is not just a hope-filled saying … that saying has a whole lot of power attached to it! It is an absolute concrete reality. But living in that reality is not something the average church goer understands. We have no idea, that despite our age, or injuries, we are all elite runners who are spiritually fit for the journey ahead of us. What Jesus did for us, made us fit. Now we need to believe and ACT on whatever He says in the bible.

We have accidentally accepted a level of unbelief that is not biblical! We need to know His voice because Jesus Himself said: “My sheep know My voice and they follow Me.” John 10:17. In some versions it says:“My sheep LISTEN to My voice …”  Listening is every bit as important as hearing – we have to give HIS truth our attention!

“Since we are now joined to Christ, we have been given the treasures of redemption by His blood—the total cancellation of our sins—all because of the cascading riches of His grace.” Ephesians 1:7 TPT.

We were given something of incredible value and it is now up to us to choose to enter into it. Let’s take the time to comprehend what we have been given, so we can co-operate with the Holy Spirit, and give it away to others. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, the new has come into being.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. The new is already here, because the old has been gone for 2,000+ years! Bye👋.

P 3153 Hope is a process.

/ DVH

Romans 5:3-5: “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, HOPE. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us.” Learning to walk in HIS hope is a process which is girded and birthed by character, perseverance, and suffering. I want to break it down further today so we can all begin to understand a little bit about the process. 

First of all, here comes everyone’s fav subject …Suffering: ‘the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship‘. This stuff happens to everyone. For most of us the trial begins when we are still tiny, while we are being born. Giving birth is no fun for the mother, but it certainly isn’t too much fun for the infant either! Just imagine, if you will, what it would be like if your nice comfy house starts to shrink, and the goal of that shrinkage is to squ-ee-ze you out! Just like toothpaste out of a toothpaste tube. Eventually, you arrive at the exit only to find you barely fit through it, head first. No fun there!

Actually, suffering is not a fun word – at all. It brings up images we want to quickly forget. People daily suffer in many ways – mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. But right now, I want to be clear …this is also the God-kissed place where our journey into hope begins! Jesus started there! If you are suffering at this very moment, I want you to know that I am deeply sorry terrible things are happening to you. But please, do your best to remember you are on a personal journey into HOPE. Suffering is part of a process, it is not the end result of your journey. 

It is important that we understand that we are going to need character development to get through this process, otherwise we will soon get to disappointment and despair! Just like our mythical infant, that exit seems to get smaller. Good time to stop and remind ourselves that the Lord knows what we can, or can’t do. It’s a trust issue. It has taken me a while to learn that you can suffer and still live a joyful life!

This next step is part of moving on through this process — it’s a time of squeezing called perseverance. We get perseverance when we believe God is good, no matter what is going on around us and IN us and we choose to keep right on going with Him. Whether things change immediately or not. Perseverance means:  persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

Let’s look at prayer as an example …“Then Jesus told His disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” Luke 18:1. Why must we persist? Because God is not a vending machine, that’s why. Our interaction with Him IS part of this process. We need His help, to cope with birthing His hope into our lives. That whole process changes us. It means we choose to stop to pray, and we will learn humility as we do it. Bonus buy. Perhaps you are starting to catch on to the fact that this particular assembly line includes some pretty harsh realities. YES. But having Jesus’ hope IN us will not disappoint us!

The word character means — the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. After we’ve decided to follow Jesus, we will learn to pray that our character will become like His character.  Perseverance produces character, which is the ability to “hold please,” in the middle of chaos. Cultivating hope in God’s goodness leads us into taking bigger faith steps.

This life is not meant be easy, and by now we have caught on that we are going somewhere, and that somewhere is going to be so much better than the place we started — or even the place we are squished into right now. We will begin to understand that HOPE is worth having! The light at the end of the tunnel is no longer an oncoming train, instead it is the end of a production line that brings us closer to Jesus and our God-chosen purpose in this life. 

“During the days of Jesus’ earthly life, He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the One who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from what He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him…” Hebrews 5:7-9. Did you get that? I bet you missed it! Jesus was heard by His heavenly Father – but the answer was NO! This is an important factor in our journey toward hope, when we learn that we don’t know the BEST answer, we only want the immediate one. 

God has a different end-game from what is! His end-game benefits everyone, not just ME. Christ’s life and death shows us God’s ways clearly, and we need to remember that the cross seemed to make no earthly sense, it only made sense on the other side of it. To the disciples the cross was the end of the world but in God’s way, it was the beginning of a glorious new way to live.  Our plans are not even remotely like His plans, because our ways of thinking, doing and being, are not yet His ways. However, the point is — this journey into hope helps us to cultivate His ways. In God’s plan —suffering leads us into HOPE. In our world, suffering leads to despair. 

We cannot arrive at hope when we only have an earthly investment – gaining hope is a transformational process. Today, we are being birthed, by the Holy Spirit, into a whole other reality … Heaven’s reality. It can be painful sometimes, but this pain has a purpose–our transformation! Because we know JESUS we can always get to HOPE, and it will not disappoint us — because JESUS IS our hope! Bye. 👋

P 3149 Fight the good fight, your faith is worth it.

/ DVH

“Keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honourable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising Him always.” Philippians 4:8 TPT. When I read that scripture, I can look at the magnitude of the task of keeping my thoughts fixed on Him, and fixing them to everything wonderful that He does … a-n-d… I could easily feel like Don Quixote … in Man of La Mancha. Tilting at windmills, and dreaming the impossible dream! 

We often ruminate over the wrong task. It is easy to think that verses like this one only apply to the bad thoughts that flit through our brains like greedy moths. But the real thought I need to deal with here isn’t those incidental distractions. The actual real thought that demands my attention is … wait for it .. “I can’t possibly do that! I can’t meet that standard. No matter how hard I try – I know I will fail.” When I sink into that state I am sinking into a lake of despair, and I begin to slowly relinquish my faith, bit by bit. Right now, I need to remember I have a Lifeguard and He’s already right there, with me, ready to help me, and He wants me to win!

Let’s be clear – I cannot possibly meet that standard in Philippians in my own strength, I never could! However, that thought means I can get discouraged and give up too quickly. I continually need to remind myself that I have SomeOne else’s strength that is made perfect in weak people like me! It’s time to talk to Jesus, Who promised to be always with me. Meanwhile that standard in my mind that I am missing, is not actually the point. The real point is I’ve stopped looking at Him. Now I am looking at my failure, my performance. But IF I stop to  consult Him, then I am fixing my mind on Him!

This means I will begin to think about good things – like what Jesus means to me! Otherwise, day by day, I get busy in normal life-land, having a shower, eating my breakfast, making the bed etc. and I am totally unaware that a negative attitude toward my own faith is running along like a silent script in the background. We are not performers, we are followers.

The verse needs to be digested, and that means I need another scripture! (This BTW is why people memorise scriptures … to help them out when they are under attack!) “…[Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One),…” 2 Corinthians 10:5. The true knowledge of God is that He unequivocally, without reserve, LOVES ME, and that has nothing to do with His feelings – it’s His choice! And at the same time He wants to help me out of that hole of despair and dumb theories I’ve fallen into.

I’m going to need to make a decision to capture those dratted moths, that keep trying to eat away at my faith in His goodness and everything He has done for me. The above verse in Corinthians is a good one. It contains instructions. So, first of all, I humble myself and ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. Now it’s no longer me, all by myself wrangling those thoughts of “what a failure I am.” Because I have THE penultimate Helper. Whether I feel like it or not. Obedience is never about feelings. 

This negative argument I’ve come up against is a ‘works’ argument  … the argument goes like this…I must try harder to rid of my negative faith thoughts. But what if — instead of trying harder — I give up? And then I follow and trust by obeying His instructions. I fix whatever needs fixing in my heart, and follow through by doing whatever He tells me to do about it. ‘Works’ wants me to believe I have to be all that, because I gave my life to Jesus. But Jesus already DID ALL THAT WORK FOR ME, 2,000 years go.

It works like this:  I remind myself that that work is already done, there is no longer any need for me to try to achieve it. Instead, my task is to repent and release my fear of failure, grab hold of the Lord, and humble myself. After doing whatever He says I should do, then I jump straight into REST. If I mess this up while I am learning, then I tell the Lord, and anybody else I may have accidentally trodden on, that I’m sorry — and, I go right back into expecting Him to help me with the situation. That’s what faith is. It’s not IN my performance but IN a Person.

It’s in Him. I don’t have it but He already gave it to me.  I will keep failing Him in my own mind while my focus is on MY failure. But when I begin to rejoice, and give thanks for Who He is and What He did for me – that means I am fastening my mind to: “…all that is authentic and real, honourable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind.”And He IS those things. I am practising what the verse says I should do. I have taken my thoughts captive and fixed them, using my faith, on the One Person Who is all that and more.

“Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses].” Hebrews 11:1. Our faith in His ability to save us is ongoing. Jesus cannot and will not fail us – we give up and give in too quickly! We simply need to do our part, because He has already done His. And our enemy has already lost, because we have chosen to focus on the Lord. This is how we fight the good fight and boy is it worth it! Bye. 👋

P 3149 Strongholds.

/ DVH

My first thought is this … never ever forget the prince of the power of the air … that guy is still around!  On to my subject for today… It is not comprehensive … this is about awareness.

It seems to me that we all have habitual attitudes that we have cultivated over the years. They profit us, as well as help us get our own way.  So when you keep coming up against the same ungodly attitude in yourself, it shows that there is a stronghold in your life. In my opinion, strongholds are sins that have dug in – something has dug itself into our roots in childhood, OR this captivity has taken advantage of our willing participation. We can, and must walk away from anything that drags us along.

Here’s my next point – people who have a stronghold don’t necessarily yell – they can also become pathetic on cue. Neither of these attitudes agree with what God says. Sadly rotten attitudes are often profitable – people get tired of the same fight over and over and give up! An immature personality often makes decisions about life and how to get what they want. They dig a familiar rut into the essence of who they think they are, and they march up and down in it, guns drawn, knives out – hankies and tissues by the score and … off they go! A stronghold is a collection of self-supporting thoughts that always have an answer, but it’s not what JESUS said in the book.

This is a diagnostic verse about strongholds: 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 “For though we walk (live) in the flesh, we are not carrying on our warfare according to the flesh and using mere human weapons. For the weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood], but they are mighty before God for the overthrow and destruction of strongholds, [Inasmuch as we] refute arguments and theories and reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God; and we lead every thought and purpose away captive into the obedience of Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) …” In other words, watch your thought life!

Many things roll about in our heads in thought patterns, or unsolicited emotional reactions, or even lies and deceptions we have believed about ourselves, and/or other people. We may have picked up judgmental attitudes from parental oversight, and now we are trapped inside those things – thinking: this is who I am – I can’t help it! When God’s Word plainly says we can! These deceptions can hold us captive. This stuff denies the power of God to transform us. It makes God less powerful in our eyes, because we are virtually saying – ‘He can’t fix me.’ I call this stronghold ‘internal deception.’

Some of us have been taught that the attitudes we have are the right ones, and anything else is wrong. Those things are roadblocks to change, because they get us stuck in man’s own version of reality. Often people’s decisions are based on the thought that their actions or reactions, are a human response or normal attitude. It stinks of pride. I call this one ‘the alternate reality’ stronghold. It’s not real.

However, the hardest mind-pattern to overcome is the one that says: ‘This is just who I am and you are rejecting who I am!’  These people use their stronghold to attack you for the very thing they are doing themselves. Many people don’t like anyone disagreeing with them and their ideas. When we hit that kind of wall, we are hitting a stronghold. We can’t argue others out of strongholds, that stuff needs repentance, and the person’s agreement that what they are doing is not profitable. They need to choose to believe this life can be better. I call it the unwilling to learn and change stronghold. To combat that, I throw His unconditional love at it. It is ‘the kindness of God that leads us into repentance.’

Strongholds are way beyond our ability of persuasion. Start releasing God’s Grace, Love, Joy, Peace etc. You can’t sin when you aim at these God-given Graces and give them away. The bible tells us ‘there is no law against those things.’ We are to live our lives so that others can be built up to embrace their godly purpose. Judgment has to go out of the window, it just muddies the water. Even if you have doubts about any stuff that you might be doing without even thinking about it – run your attitudes by your pastor, and the Holy Spirit, prayerfully. Ask the Lord to correct you with His eye on you, then deliberately take the time to listen. God’s power inhabits His Grace.

Here’s a couple of tips if you discover a stronghold in your life … Joshua and Co. walked around Jericho for 7 days – the Lord used obedience and praise to pull that stronghold down. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and Almighty God used that time to deal with their religious, idolatrous, gimme gimme attitudes. Sadly they all died off!  Lastly, I think that if we are provoked by what someone else is doing, then we are staring at a stronghold of our own. At the bottom of our annoyance is the reality that we don’t want to be inconvenienced by someone else’s learning curve!

And BTW, I’m not talking about this today so you can figure out what’s wrong with your spouse … we all need to be transformed. You’ll never know what else will change, when YOU change and start dealing with your own strongholds. You could end up being His catalyst. Bye 👋.

P 3145 Who Am I now?

/ DVH

Our identity is IN CHRIST. So if I want to find the real me, I can’t look in the mirror, or even at what our society says about who we are, or what we think we are. We will need to look into the mirror of His Word. Unfortunately, that’s also the place where we will discover the places where we are unlike Him as well! And our destiny lies in what we choose to do about those things. When we brush His Word aside, we can end up going round and round chasing the things of this world.. 

Romans 6:6-14 (bits of it) “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, [that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin… …In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

What Paul is saying here, is that the way we regard ourselves now we are alive in Christ, matters. We have not been set free to please ourselves, we have been set free specifically so we can choose to obey Him. At the same time we no longer have to sin – those desires and their accompanying actions went to the cross with Jesus so we don’t have to live with them anymore. When we choose to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him, every day, we are choosing God’s way over our own. 

Then we have put away the immediate gratification of indulging our feelings, or what we think we want, in favour of giving God what He wants.That’s when we act like His kids and begin to become more than conquerors. The biggest enemy in our lives for us to conquer, is the enemy of SELF, not somebody else. We must put away our old attitudes, hurts, actions, and the past, and begin to renew our minds by reading and obeying the Word.

The Lord Jesus was motivated and activated by what His Father wanted. Did He feel like it? We certainly know of one occasion when He didn’t!  But we are clearly told that Jesus was mirroring our Father’s attitude toward us and sin, and that helps us to see Father God more clearly. When our desire to please our Heavenly Father overcomes what we imagine that we want, we will begin to walk like Christ did. His Grace, and the power of God is there with us to undergird us, as we step forward into a brand new way of thinking about this life. This process is not a happy walk in the park! Each one of us still has some sort of wilfulness and a desire to get our own way, inside us. 

The Lord wants us to choose to do what He has said in His book, simply because we love Him and want to be with Him. Personally I am learning that I want the Holy Spirit’s guidance in my life – more than I want my own way. But it still can end up in a real wrestling match, especially in these dark times when everything we see around us is about self-gratification! Also we can each have a poor perception of what we can really accomplish –  mainly because we’ve been acting a certain way all our lives, and it seems insurmountable to us to act differently.

The point is what Joshua said: “Choose this day Who you will serve … as for me and my household we will serve the Lord!” Our obedience comes down to our choices. And when we choose His way, we will die a little. Personally, I have found that being dead looks much better than having my own way! Yes really!! Father God can do a great deal with even one ordinary person who is happy to stop living for themselves and start living for Jesus’ sake.

We simply don’t have to be slaves to sin anymore. Jesus Himself personally showed us the way through that trap – obedience to God’s Word works! Romans 6:17-18 “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” When we see something in the book that the Lord told us to do, that’s when we pray, ask for His help and go out and co-operate with Him.

It is good to ask the Holy Spirit if we are a slave to anything other than Jesus’ righteousness. There is no shame in discovering places inside your life where we’ve been trapped by our own dumb choices. But because we can see it, that means we need to pray over whatever it is, repent, and ask Him to show us the way through it. Then we go out and live differently. So, instead of saying something inflammatory, now we deliberately choose to go with love, kindness and patience etc …

Here’s a tiny clue that helps me: Pray first. Secondly, don’t expect happy feelings to overcome you, this is about stretching your faith. It hurts – just like stretching out a calf muscle will hurt! Find out what the Lord thinks in the bible, and do that. Things can seem to be very entrenched into our personalities – so repetition also helps! That’s how I learn who I am. I am His child, learning His Ways, because He chose to love me first. Bye. 👋