Paid in full

P 3411 Our hearts are so important…

/ DVH

… they show us what’s inside us. Our lives today seem to be all about experiences, good and bad ones. We are raising an instant gratification kind of generation. The result is many people have become cautious about using their faith — yet we are told very clearly that we cannot please God without using it. The glory of Jesus Christ is that He has already walked this earth with the same kinds of stubborn, decadent and hard hearted people that are alive right now.

The Lord deliberately walked through His life, with Love, Grace and Truth all over Him, and the men who walked with Him, wrote it all down. At any given moment you and I can read about what Almighty God wants from His kids, because now we have a physical illustration, of God’s will for mankind, Christ Himself. As well as a signed document — the bible. 

This book is a serious eternal document.The Lord Jesus signed the New Covenant in His own blood! “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Matthew 26:28. The proof of what Jesus did is not only written down. It is signed. When we come to Jesus to save us, we sign our part of that document with our faith, that’s why we are baptised. We are choosing to give Him our lives so that we can live for Him.

“For this reason He (Jesus) is the Mediator and Negotiator of a new covenant [that is, an entirely new agreement uniting God and man], so that those who have been called [by God] may receive [the fulfilment of] the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has taken place [as the payment] which redeems them from the sins committed under the obsolete first covenant.” Hebrews 9:15-18. Like I said, this new covenant is a serious thing not lightly entered into.

Our faith when it is in action looks like this: I do what the bible says, based upon the fact that I believe the bible is God Himself speaking to me. This means I choose to add my life (substance), to those words … those things that were only words before I acted on them. I started my new life by being baptised, (an action), and I continue to live in it by obeying His Word. I can’t trust my feelings, they will tell me it’s too hard and I can’t do this or that. So I need to use my faith to obey. He has promised to help me. I give time from my life to do whatever He asks me to do, and when I do that I am putting His new life in me, into whatever I am doing. 

My actions prove my faith is real whether I get to see the results I want or not. When I choose to live using my faith, I am investing my own here-and-now life into what I’ve read, and Almighty God promises I will see results. If not here, then I will in heaven. What I do daily, shows the world that what Jesus asks me to do, is worthy of everyone’s attention, because my faith in Who said it, has motivated me into acting on it. There can be no faith without accompanying actions. We don’t pick and choose what we will obey — the Holy Spirit chooses those things for us. 

Many people feel around trying to find faith, when their faith  actually becomes evident by the way we respond to God and each other. Faith is not a feeling, it is a way to live. Just like being a business person or a doctor is a way to live. Jesus Christ lived by using His faith, and then His disciples chose to live and die for it, and so have many others.

Like you, I’ve set my heart on being obedient with the Holy Spirit helping me. That’s what faith looks like, it is always on standby, ready to do whatever He tells me to do. I am prepared to look like a goose and to have other people question everything I say or do. I know that every time I obey, I will get another glimpse into the One I have chosen to follow. Jesus walked this way when He walked the earth. “This is because I have never spoken on My own authority or of My own accord or as self-appointed, but the Father Who sent Me has Himself given Me orders [concerning] what to say and what to tell.” John 12:49.

People often say to me that they do not hear God’s voice. Today, I don’t want to go into impressions etc. or thoughts that stand out in our mind. My point today is that we have a BOOK FULL of things God told us to do. I tell people to begin with the Beatitudes, but the gospels have loads of instructions. Find something you don’t do and do that! Ask the Lord to help you and then just go and do it. Let God Himself tackle how the other person responds. Obedience to His word releases heaven. We are literally becoming a part of “… on earth, as it is in heaven.” 

Many hurt people don’t want to forgive, because it seems like they are giving someone else a licence to do whatever they did in the first place, all over again! That bit is not ours, we are forgetting God inhabits GRACE. Proverbs 4:23 tells us that He’s interested in our hearts not our feelings. “Guard your heart above all else, for it is the source of life.” Our part is to guard our hearts. Faith is not just about results, it is far more about a freely given life of sacrificial obedience to Jesus. 

When we pray and want to be like Jesus, we will end up walking the same roads He walked. We will have to forgive people who are not sorry. Sometimes it seems like they will never ever acknowledge what they’ve done, and most of the time they think they are right and you are wrong! But that bit is out of our control. This life is about the state of our own heart. The Lord cares about that, because our responses show what is inside us. Just keep presenting your “paid in full” cheque, signed by Jesus Himself.  The Lord paid for them. He paid for you. Guard your heart and walk on. Bye. 👋

P 3124 Accessing His power to change.

/ DVH

Each one of us needs to choose to grab hold of the power Jesus died to give us to change the way we live in this world. It is always available. We do that by using our faith that what Almighty God has said in His book, the bible, is true. I will not lie to you – living like this is costly at first. We have to give up our right of reply, self-defence, or vindication and trust God Himself to vindicate us. And that whole scene usually happens when you feel extremely provoked and you want to zap a zinger back at the other person! 

But we have to choose to be finished with our old life when we said yes to Jesus. Then we choose to enter this new life to learn how to walk by faith. Sometimes by taking baby steps, or by making big strides. Almighty God loves faith. “…It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that He exists and that He cares enough to respond to those who seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6b MSG.

Here’s an illustration that might help make this ‘faith’ thing clear. Let us say, I have $1000 in the bank, I can’t see that money, it’s just a number on a bank statement. It won’t become viable until I use it, or collect it. I can even  give you $500 of that thousand dollars, and no physical money needs to change hands. All that will happen is that the numbers being recorded will change on both sides – yours and mine. I’ll now have $500 and so will you. With regard to using our faith – the power for transformation Jesus gave us is limitless, it cannot and will not run out until time itself ceases.

Back to my illustration. For you to get the money I’ve given you, you will have to spend it, or somehow use it, and you do that by using your faith that the money is actually there, even though nothing visible needs to change hands! Our God loves it when we use our faith – our belief that He is Who He says He is, and He Has done what He said He has done, is His pleasure. We can do whatever He says we can, it is all written on His bank statement in the New Testament and He has given it to us. When He says we can do it – then we can do it – feelings don’t come into it. We defer to the Holy Spirit’s goodness and wisdom:  then we obey and trust in the Person Who gave you His Word. 

The day we said ‘yes’ to Jesus, we were given Christ’s power to overcome. To use my illustration, that power was ‘deposited’ in our account. It came when the Holy Spirit convicted us and we responded with joy and repentance. While He was on earth, the Lord Jesus overcame sin, this world and the devil. Because of that He has imparted that power to us as His legacy. Just like someone might leave you money in their will – in Jesus’ will, we inherited many blessings including total transformation into His likeness!“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,…” Romans 14:17. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me…” Acts 1:8. Do some research for yourself in the book, and start obeying what you find. 

Even though we may not see anything or feel anything our inheritance is still there. It is a reality. Hebrews 8:12: “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”When Jesus took His own blood and poured it all over the heavenly Mercy seat, He washed away all our sins. and now God has no record of them. They are like a bill you’ve paid – stamped “PAID IN FULL” However, I may not feel any difference, because I’m still living in this world which is anti-God. Now I will have to take the Lord God Almighty at His Word. 

Everything we have been given comes from Calvary, and it was carefully written down in the bible, by the Holy Spirit. These things have been credited to our account, but we will need to access them by using our faith. We don’t need to make big one-off withdrawals, rather we can access the kingdom of God step by step as we ask for His help to obey Him, and then step out and act on what the bible says. That help is with us, right now, from the moment we gave our lives to Him. We began by using our faith and we continue by using it.

This means we can with His help – love the unlovely. We can, with His help …”do good to those who despitefully use us.”We can overcome personal sin, this world, and our enemy because Jesus gave us His power to do it. At the same time, each deliberate act of obedience transforms the way we think. Daily we use our faith to access the Holy Spirit, our personal Coach and Helper. As we learn to walk with Him using our faith, His Way of living becomes more and more natural to us. We’ve stopped looking for our own advantage and started doing what He wants. Jesus began our faith, and He always finishes what He starts!

One of the difficulties of this transformation is that faith is not feelings. It is a deliberately chosen act of obedience responding to what God has already said in His book! The feelings, if they come, come much later. Accessing His power to change our old ways of thinking, doing and being, will now become our new way to live. We live for whatever Jesus wants, and follow His ways. Bye. 👋

P 2885 Grace is our teacher.

/ DVH

“God’s marvellous grace has manifested in Person, bringing salvation for everyone. This same grace teaches us how to live each day as we turn our backs on ungodliness and indulgent lifestyles, and it equips us to live self-controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age.” Titus 2:11-12 TPT.

I don’t know about you, but I was almost glad to leave school behind me. I never did seem to fit in there. I certainly wasn’t clever enough for the smart people, plus I was born with two left feet, and two vastly uncoordinated arms …so that eliminated the sporty ones. And I wasn’t creative enough for the arty ones. Not to mention the fact that our resident Queen Bee thought I was some kind of a joke, and she laughed every time I walked by.

Then, in my early twenties, Jesus saved me. It was unexpected, and totally undeserved. And a whole new way of life opened up in front of me. He accepted who I was. My life to this point, has had its ups and downs, like yours, but I can say with total assurance that our God has used everything, good and bad, and He worked every single bit of it together for my good according to His purposes  … and I ain’t just whistling ‘Dixie.’ (Cos I can’t whistle either!) 

In Romans 8:28 it says:“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” This is a reality in my life, I’ve experienced it over and over again…  God really does know how to take our muddled-up lives, deliberate sins, errors in judgment, stinky rotten attitudes and weave them all together, and then somehow(?) He uses those things to reveal His incredible love toward us. All because Jesus perfectly pleased our Father, then our Lord picked up our sins which were bigger-than-any-nation’s national debt — an enormous bill, and stamped PAID IN FULL on it – just before He left.

God’s love for us is so much greater than we can imagine. Which is why I ramble on so much about being honest about our sins – we need to be reminded, and alerted to the benefits of His Grace. Grace not only teaches us how utterly broken we are, it shows us how much we need Him. If we were to ask our Heavenly Father to show us the results of our sin, I think He would point to Jesus’ broken, bloodied body on that tree, and then … Jesus will smile at us, and say these incredible words:  “You. Were. Worth. It. All.” That thought cracks me up every single time.

This is what repentance is for – we need to be constantly restored into the realisation that Grace was free but it was also costly. Grace is not a rule or a formality, it is an acknowledgment that Jesus Christ is God’s standard and we’ve failed. We need His help, all the time. The above verse from Titus explains His Grace doesn’t just save us, His Grace is now our teacher. Grace teaches us about the enormity of God’s totally undeserved Love for us. Let’s not let those lessons fly over the top of our heads, because we are too busy to learn, or too proud to change our ways.

The Lord has asked us to forgive others, whether they deserve it or not. That kind of unilateral, unconditional forgiveness, has a personal cost, so it reminds us how much it cost Jesus to forgive US!  The payment Christ chose to make for us, was far far more than we can ever understand this side of heaven — it totally outweighed our debts, their debts, anyone’s debts! Grace teaches us, firsthand, that we owe Him our lives.

As we live this life acknowledging what we’ve been given, we will be reminded how incredible the gift is! It is no small thing. What Jesus did for us, can make our lives into a wonderful testimony to His Grace. Let’s surrender and yield to His will and learn to be obedient. Our refusal to change, slows up this process. Like many parents say to their teenagers as they go out of the door every day — we need to “Make good choices!”

Human beings can see love as rampant permissiveness – God’s love is not like that! His Love wants the very best for the one it loves, and if that involves sacrifice or even hardship, then so be it. If it involves difficult circumstances, that is OK too. He won’t cause those things, but He will use them. The trouble is we do our best to avoid, or pray our way out of hard things, rather than face them with Him. I’m not saying we shouldn’t pray, by the way, I am saying that the very best response is not to head for the nearest exit, but to ask the Lord: “What would You like me to learn here?” We need to let His Grace teach us.

His Grace defines ungodliness to us, just like a strong  microscope reveals hidden germs. Most people like to go for the obvious, but the Lord focuses on far more than that. He will show us why we do what we do — and then He will heal that why! And while His Grace is teaching us, He provides us with a safe place to stand, right next to Him.  When we understand the power of Grace, then we can begin to comprehend what we’ve received for free. We benefit when we let His Grace in our lives teach us gratefulness. Bye. 👋