Patience

P 3342 HOW?

/ DVH

Philippians 1:9-11: “So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.”

I have come to understand that Paul’s prayers are not just in the Epistles for the churches he started and pastored – those prayers are for us too. It is good to read these things aloud and say Amen … I personalise the scriptures and pray them for myself. I’ve been praying for years that “the eyes of my heart would be enlightened” so I can see what He wants me to see. PS I also ask for wisdom. I don’t stop praying for that, because I don’t want to put a ceiling on what He wants to give me. And I thump the daylights out of Psalm 91, mainly because I need to remember every single day I’m only a spectator – participation is optional!!

Yesterday what I wrote was pretty intense. When I read things like yesterday’s blog, my first response is always: “That’s terrific, and I am all revved up and ready to go… but how?” … The secret is in the HOW …  BTW today’s blog is not comprehensive, however I have learnt it is good to make some sort of a beginning – and remember to be kind to yourself while you are learning – God is! Stay filled with the Spirit – if you mess up, repent, and refill. If you give out to others refresh yourself in His love for you.

The Apostle Paul tells us what love looks like over and over again in the scriptures. Part of HOW is this: Love looks like something. It looks like patience when you ran out an hour ago and you and the Holy Spirit are wading through the ghastly stuff of life and He’s holding you up!  I think any mother can tell you what patience looks like.

I think it looks like a two year old who wants to get dressed “all by myself” … and then go to church in any old jumper, especially if it is inside out, together with odd socks and shoes – I let the kid wear them BTW!  Kindness looks like your elderly parent who tells the same stories over and over again and you already know them word for word. Kindness understands they are really saying: “I’m still here, I had a life, things happened to me too.”

Love looks like not giving someone else – who often clearly deserves it – a piece of your mind. Instead, you tell that person how much you appreciate them and why! ‘But, but, but – that’s so-oo bad — aren’t you lying?’ OK. Let’s unpack this — are you saying that telling them what you really think about them isn’t bad? BTW, for your info, I’m not talking about lying – I’m talking about asking the Holy Spirit what HE sees in that person to love. The Holy Spirit knows everything and He will share those things with you. This means I’ve received, for free, a whole heap of insight into the person who is bugging the daylights out of me. 

One of the Holy Spirit’s Names is HELPER – why not allow Him to help you! We have a Resident Helper Who knows you, as well as that other person. As I was typing He reminded me about a person who is in my ‘difficult to relate to file.’ I prayed and asked for His help, and I saw them just yesterday – we got along so well. I think it was because I relinquished my own efforts and gave our future conversations to Him.

This is the biggest part of the secret of HOW. I urge you to pray over things, repent of your own bad attitudes – and don’t forget to let Him decide what a bad attitude is! … Then give it all to Him and leave it alone. He’s GOD, He can do anything! Sometimes we think we can see what that the other person needs, and we don’t even ask the Lord what He wants! Bad plan. Take the time to consult the Master Planner first. He knows it all. He’ll tell you what to do, He will give us useful stuff to help us love others .

Plan to live a life of love. That’s my next bit of advice. You have to plan it, and own it, day by day. A life of love cares about others. It is not absorbed in promoting itself, and it doesn’t emphasise ME being understood, instead it concentrates on love. The last suggestion about how to do it – is this: There are things we often say, and we say them because we are down, or someone has hurt us. But, if we are honest, they really don’t need to be said – I would like to suggest that it is better if they are not said.  

I don’t think we need to be paranoid about these things, because then they can become a task that needs to be done, instead of a way of thinking about others. Let’s revise our thinking prayerfully, repent wherever necessary, but be careful not to end up religious about it. Religion prospers, because it becomes a cultivated habit … it’s easier! But it doesn’t bring LIFE. Listening to the Holy Spirit means we’ve given up our agendas and we want to walk in His. So that’s the how, to yesterdays’ theme – “there is a bigger reality.” Bye. 👋 

P3333 There’s great value in resting.

/ DVH

We’ve been actively resting in the past four days. After the intense chaos of making many deliveries and having lots of positive interactions;  by God’s grace we found a quiet spot on a farm stay, and we’ve done nothing – apart from eat and sleep. We needed it. Neither of us are 23 anymore! There is one thing I’ve noticed about God’s kind of resting, the more you do it, the more you want to — plus you start to feel better.

Resting from our labours here, BTW, consists of me falling asleep several times during the day, as well as sleeping for 7 or 8 hours per night. Hubby nods off regularly and then quietly snores, and then … he wakes himself up with the snuffly noise. It really is better that he wakes himself up – the alternative is that I whack him on the arm and say “Honey you’re snoring again.” OK! You got me, I don’t whack him alright? But-I-do-sometimes-think-about-it!

Rest is something the bible tells us that we are to enter into. In other words, it’s a place where you leave everything else outside the door, take the Lord’s hand, and just be content with the fact that He is in charge. It is God’s gift to us, and He made it clear that rest is available any time, any place. It means that everything else fades into the background. When we are away on a trip, we even like to cut down on extraneous noise from the TV and stuff, and just sit. Sometimes we don’t even talk, or pray. We just let the quietness sink in. At the same time we do restful fun things — hubby trots about taking brilliant photos and I get to see them.

Resting in the Lord, can get even deeper… it’s in the scripture. It’s a place where we leave the results and the work to God Himself. In my opinion this is one of the most challenging ways to use our faith. It’s not the Lord’s fault, it is just that we have spent our lives doing the next thing and the next, and then suddenly we realise we have stumbled back into trying harder and harder. Pushing ourselves to make things work. Meanwhile other people start to give you the pip, because you are tired of wrangling and managing stuff, and nothing is simple anymore. 

God’s rest is the place where you don’t have to make things happen. Here’s my point today — this kind of rest is part of our birthright. The secret is to live in the hustle and bustle of this life without constantly engaging our emotions and our minds. Step back into the Lord and breathe, and defer to His wisdom, simply because we love to walk with Him, even in ordinary things.

I can almost hear a mother somewhere yelling at me: “If I don’t make my kids get out of bed and go to school they won’t do it. They won’t do their homework either!” I really dislike those happy happy pictures of tidy little smiley kids smartly marching out of the door, dressed properly. It’s a wonder they don’t have sunbeams coming out of their ears! In most homes this time of the day is a bun fight – making sure this kid has this, and that kid has it’s socks on, plus leave the house yourself! This is not the kind of rest the Lord is talking about in the bible, His rest is internal. Your kids may not want to go to school, etc., but you can still be at rest in Him. He’s ultimately in charge of your well-being, and theirs. It’s the place to say: “HELP, LORD!”

You can choose to be upset with them, or cry out for His Grace and patience for those moments. We don’t have to lose our cool because the little darlings won’t co-operate. Often we willingly give up our internal rest and peace, because we are deceived into hoping and thinking, that worrying or shouting will work … because nothing else seems to! However, God’s idea of rest is stepping back momentarily and leaning on Him. When, and if you can – remember, humour helps. He organised a couple of million grumpy Jews to get up every morning to a ready-made breakfast … your kids are a piece of cake!

His rest inside of us flows out of us as His peace toward other people. Deal with you, and then deal with them. The whole gotta be, gotta do, gotta go, gotta get it right thing – falls away as we focus on His bigger picture. He’s God and He won’t let us down no matter how it looks, simply because He is so-o-o faithful. I call this stuff my faith work out. It’s the place where all the worst cases scenarios smack you in the head and you can’t think clearly anymore because your mind is filled with scenes and thoughts of “what if.” There are no “what ifs” in God’s rest – there is only the bigness of Who He is. 

We enter that rest by focussing on Him and deliberately choosing to momentarily lay everything else at His feet. I think this kind of incredible stillness was inside the Holy of Holies in the Temple. Any other noise stayed outside. So did agendas. You can be present with the Lord and still do the things that need to be done. It’s good to remember YOU and I are now the Holy of Holies. Father God produces the kind of quiet comfort that releases an atmosphere of safety. Nothing bad can happen in His Presence, He’s just too awesome. 

As we learn to cultivate the Holy Spirit’s Presence by living our lives His Way – we will find our confidence in Him grows. Jesus lived like this. He lived in God’s grace and assurance that He was at the right place at the right time — doing what His Father wanted Him to do. Jesus’ confidence in His Father’s Will allowed the people around Him to experience God’s loving kindness easily. This rest means we cease from our labours and lean on Him and there’s great value in it. Bye. 👋

P 3330 Jesus is the Hero not us!

/ DVH


2 Corinthians 3:4-5: “Such confidence we have through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Our life is now, today, not tomorrow. Tomorrow literally never comes. So, today our life is about relinquishing our own personal power, and gratefully receiving His power into our lives to help others and overcome sin. Now there’s a big thought! The Holy Spirit is our Resident Expert in all things spiritual, which is why we choose to defer to Him, even if at the time, it makes no sense to us. Obviously the bible is our yardstick in all things, but learning to practically trust the Holy Spirit is essential if we want to walk with Him.

In the Lord’s kingdom we are children, His children. He loves our obedience – especially in the face of our own logic. I’ve learnt over time, that things will eventually make sense, and we will learn patience in the process… bonus buy! I wish I had the space here to recount the times I have badly messed something or other up — and then, when I realise my sin, I repent, and ask Him to redeem the mess I made. Some of the most brilliant answers to prayer I have ever seen, come from those moments! Don’t be afraid of getting things wrong as you walk with Him – Jesus is a Redeemer.

The Lord’s wisdom and clarity are astonishing. When I am writing this blog I often can’t think of a good, clear, simple way to explain many concepts that seem exceedingly complicated to me. I don’t just want to write my ideas here, I like to do my best to write things that will give other people insight into Who the Lord is. So I pray, and He literally hands me the sentence I couldn’t find.

Often a particular sentence, a word, or a phrase pops up and I know it didn’t come from me. It suddenly drifts through my mind and as it does that it occurs to me that isn’t the kind of thought I would have. Even when I get stuck reading the bible, I ask Him to help: “I just don’t get that Lord. Would You mind explaining it to me please?” And He does.

Reading the bible without the Holy Spirit is tedious and boring, reading it with Him is like slowly unveiling a puzzle as it fits together. “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.” Ephesians 1:17. We will never understand His Word with our hearts, if we simply analyse it with our heads.

I’ve been reading the bible for over 50 years so I guess I am familiar with the overall gist of it. But I still need the index every now and then to find stuff! I know what I am looking for is in there, somewhere, but I often dunno where! Thanks Google. However, I also know it is His thought when it simplifies something that seemed so complicated that I couldn’t understand it at all …

One of the most frequent things the Lord says to me as I read His Word is this: “What doesn’t it say?” Here’s another one: “What would it look like if i did what it says here?” Man I love/hate that last one. I love it because He is going to show me something about Himself I haven’t seen yet, and I hate it because I know that somewhere, somehow, I’m going to end up taking a risk. Believe it or not I am not a risk taker by nature. 

I once went to Niagara Falls, but I skipped going over them in a barrel, the second I looked at them! Man that’s a whole lot of water!!  No risks for me! I am often aware that I’m not other people’s taste when it comes to speaking – because I’m too blunt, but I don’t much care if I hurt your feelings to reach your heart. Yeah I hear the irony!! I totally love the Body of Christ, but my first priority is that I want Jesus to have the  reward of all His suffering. We can be part of that reward for Him when we value what He says above what we think and act on it.

I have definitely fallen in love with the way Jesus thinks about people. When I have trouble with someone I ask Him to help me to see them through His eyes. People are His favourite subject, no matter how they look, or what we think is wrong with them. He doesn’t SEE race or creed, He sees people who need His love. Our Western selfishness and sense of entitlement is tragic. We scrimp and save and work so hard for the things that do not last. And we can easily ignore the eternal because it doesn’t jump up and down and demand our attention.

Paul says this kind of stuff so beautifully in Philippians 4:12&13: “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I’m still learning … especially not to complain when things aren’t easy.

As I am typing this today, I know He has something for you to do, that no-one else can. That’s why you are here. Please don’t let searching for fame and recognition take up your precious time. Be you, and let Him have His way in your life, you will fall in love with how gentle and kind He is. We need to quit hero-worshipping anyone else but Him!

Once when I was back-slidden I ended up talking to a junkie about the Lord Jesus. He said: “I know you love Jesus because I can see Him all over you.” This dear muddled up young man was wrong. The Holy Spirit was all over me because He loves that man and He quite simply can’t help Himself – He will use a donkey if that is all that is available. Jesus is the Hero, not us. Bye. 👋

P 3321 Fashion shmashion!   

/ DVH

“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.” (Colossians 3:12.) We have God-given, Holy Spirit activated clothing. It’s heavenly clothing – let’s choose to put it on! Our outer garments are not a reflection of our inner selves, our actions are.

These spiritual things are more lasting than spending money on Christian louboutin, Chanel, Kenji, Connor, Yves Saint Laurent or Myer doesn’t it? Why do we need to be careful what we wear? “All things are legitimate (permissible-and we are free to do anything we please) but not all things are HELPFUL (expedient, profitable and wholesome). All things are legitimate, but not all things are constructive (to character) and edifying (to spiritual life.)” 1 Corinthians 10:23 AMP.

People tell themselves that it is OK to wear this and that, it’s part of our freedom. But Paul says if my freedom makes YOU stumble I should voluntarily give it up. (1 Corinthians 8:9; Romans 14:13-23.) We have been exhorted to live for the Lord and other people – not ourselves. This world’s stuff can so easily take over our thinking and our lives. Our biblical focus, however, is to look like Jesus, and He cared about people. He wasn’t politically correct (PC) – He was Almighty God correct. (AMC) Let’s choose to take into account the fact that we can make other people stumble with what we wear, say, or do.

We live in this current society – we work, play, and interact with others – BUT —WE live by a totally different value system. Simply because we follow Jesus. Jesus Himself spoke about worrying about what we wear or eat, and He clearly made this whole subject about FAITH – not polyester, cotton or pure wool! Father God looks after lilies and daisies, so this means we can be sure that looking after US is one of His priorities. That’s where our faith needs to be. These things are not about legislating rules – instead we are to treat them as God’s loving council over our lives, so we can stay in step with what the Spirit is doing.

The Israelites walked about in the desert for 40 years and their shoes and their clothes did not wear out! Selah!  Father God has proved He knows how to look after clothes better than we do! People who worry about having the proper clothes, or fashion’s latest supposedly, cool clothing etc. are being distracted from the main objective – Christ’s likeness. We can choose to reflect Him, or we can reflect the current trend. That choice is always ours. Our primary aim is to wear things that don’t cause others to sin, but at the same time, let’s deliberately choose to ‘wear’ qualities that are rarely seen in this world.  

Like Paul says in Colossians, our garments are about loving others – and they describe spiritual things, not clothing labels. The things we concern ourselves with, matter – however this does not mean we have to dress like a rag bag. It means specific clothes and foods can drag us away from our main purpose … loving Him and others. God cares about those things. Plus – He promises He will provide for us.

Trust me, it is actually easier to learn to love others like Jesus does, than it is to wear a pair of Christian louboutin $4,000+ shoes or a haute couture dress! When we become slaves to our appearance, we are not choosing to reflect Christ-like qualities into this world. It is now about who the other person can see when they look at you. Can they see Him, or a fashion label? His clothing brings life and more life — that other stuff is designed to be instantly obsolete.

As we “consider the lilies’ we need to remember that we too, like those lilies are here one day and gone the next. Are you cheered up yet? Let’s choose to make our first thought about His legacy. God’s wardrobe for us reflects His beauty, and love toward others. Ours can be merely a reflection of how much available cash we have! 

It is too easy to be distracted into caring about dressing to please, or attract others. Mainly because we’ve left behind what Jesus told us we are here to do, and perhaps we think we need other people’s adulation and approval – because it provides instant gratification. When we choose to live in His love, our whole perspective changes. ‘Things” don’t matter – anything we have is a blessing from Him.

Dressing decently is a deliberately chosen act of love toward other people. It seems to me that the less material that is used to make a garment, means whatever you bought is immediately more expensive. I can appreciate that we are all not the same, and part of that self-expression is how we dress. Remember the first thing that Adam and Eve did after they disobeyed was try to cover themselves, because they realised they were naked in God’s sight? The next time you have to have these shoes or that dress, consider the lilies. And remind yourself ‘fashion-schmashion!’ Blessings 👋.

P 3308 Living for Jesus, daily.

/ DVH

Colossians 3:12-17: “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

These few verses give a comprehensive overview of what our new life in Christ looks like, every single day. To be honest, we can’t say Almighty God hasn’t told us what He expects – He has told us right here! If you like memorising verses, I’d like to suggest that these five verses are worthy of any effort you might make. This new life must be embraced personally —using our individual faith. By engaging with the Holy Spirit. 

He will help us to follow the Lord’s instructions, and at the same time He will expose all the damaging, misleading, useless things we have embraced. None of us in the Body of Christ can do these things alone! Let’s thank the good Lord He has given us SomeOne Who is so personal – He lives inside us. Learning to listen and obey Him is essential. We need to learn how to host Him, in our lives. That means somebody will have to change. He’s holy, and we aren’t — so you do the math! I know I can easily be polluted and distracted by the things of this world and arrogantly dismiss the Holy Spirit’s promptings as “something I made up.” 

So my responsibility is to check the thing I think I have heard from Him, as I am reading the bible. I read carefully, and then I jump in and obey. Some things are obvious. We know what God thinks about generosity, or forgiveness, or helping others. We ask for Him for a scripture and then go and do those things. I have many times when I need to pray and ask Him to redeem any mess I made. Then I choose to embrace the bible’s idea of what faith is, and how it works. I’m personally grateful that Jonah ended up in the bible. He shows me my ideas and thoughts are much too small. He ended up whale mail. In the end he still did what the Lord told him to do – grumbling all the way. Haven’t we all been there?

In the course of writing this blog I have written many pages that I have subsequently deleted because the Holy Spirit didn’t like them. I wrote them in faith and He told me to throw it out. Plus I cannot remember how much re-writing I have had to do along the way! I’ve given groceries to ungrateful people who didn’t need them, spoken to people about Jesus who promptly showed me the door — but the amount of individuals impacted by God Himself far outweighed the risk of me looking like an idiot! I will be a fool for Christ, even though I probably won’t much like it! But I will do it, because for me, taking risks is part of the cost. If I already know that something will turn out alright at the beginning, then I am not exercising my faith.

The bible clearly tells us that we need to change. (Malachi 3:6) Almighty God won’t ever change because He is already perfectly holy and wise. Jesus said this to help us:“And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in Me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in Me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!”” John 16:33 TPT. 

God’s peace inside us, is our pathway into confidence in Him and His Ways. If the Holy Spirit says ‘repent’ and we don’t – then our peace will slowly disappear. We will get caught up in the very thing we can’t seem to let go of.  The Holy Spirit Himself IS our peace, and because He is perfect love, He and fear can’t occupy the same space.  So fear has to go, as we make room for more of His perfect love to be shed abroad into our hearts. It isn’t about getting this stuff right, it is about being willing to enter His processes, and co-operating with Him. To do that we   believe what He has already said, in the book. We show Him we are willing to change by operating in things like repentance— not by what we say … but by what we do! “You must prove your repentance by a changed life.” Matthew 3:8.

All this teaching and preaching we have today, isn’t about gaining more knowledge —it is about the speaker prayerfully allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to the listeners. Boredom is irrelevant. Just because a speaker may be boring, that does not mean we cannot be changed. We need to listen to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying to ME. Pressing in despite how we feel about things, shows God we are serious about change, we are willing to pay the cost. Not everything that is said from a book, pulpit, podcast etc. is a pearl from God for you. But we can enter God’s processes by voluntarily co-operating with what we hear and read, and then applying it into our lives, daily. If something seems hard to do, then it is probably right! 

BTW, I am as prone to panic as anybody else is, and if the ceiling falls in I can easily fall apart without His Grace helping me. The great part about that, is that over time, I have learnt to recognise His Grace in action. Walking with Jesus daily, is allowing Him to lead and guide me. This means I am prepared to step into the unknown when it is convenient, and when it is not. We can’t fail, He’s holding us tightly. Bye. 👋

P 3302 Sin.

/ DVH

Today is the day, we remember that our sin has been conquered and permanently defeated by the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for us. Praise Him! I pray this Good Friday that we will be enabled by the precious Holy Spirit to understand, how wide, how high, how deep His love is for each one of us. However, we dare not take sin lightly. Any kind of sin when it is tolerated, produces fruit. Bad fruit. Sin separates us from God and others.

Let’s be clear, our devotion toward the Lord, must extend to being open and honest, acknowledging the true state of our own hearts. Poverty of Spirit brings its own blessing. (Matthew 5) Despite our best intentions, other people have been affected by our actions – or lack of them – and we can cause them to stumble. Sin affects everyone around it. The bible tells us this: “Or do you have no regard for the wealth of His kindness and tolerance and patience [in withholding His wrath]? Are you [actually] unaware or ignorant [of the fact] that God’s kindness leads you to repentance [that is, to change your inner self, your old way of thinking—seek His purpose for your life]?” Romans 2:4. We cannot afford to esteem what Jesus has done for us, lightly.

The purpose of repentance is change. Not evasion, or punishment, or explanations, excuses, or tears … or even self-flagellation! Repentance means acknowledging or confessing our sin, and active participation in reparation. Then we experience transformation facilitated by the Holy Spirit’s guidance. God is so kind! His Grace lifts us up, into a brand new life. Now, because of what Jesus did for us, we can look at who we really are, without any shame or fear. But the crux of the matter is this — our engagement and co-operation in these matters is essential. Prayer without repentance and appropriate actions, is just hot air. Let’s learn daily to rely on His redeeming Grace, and never abuse that grace or replace it with casual carelessness. Repentance is a serious business. 

Here is a truth about a scripture in Hebrews 4:12. Our intentions matter. But we cannot discern those intentions without the Holy Spirit’s help – He’s the One with the sword! This means our intention is not an escape clause either. Let’s choose to examine our hearts and deliberately repair things, so we can openly and honestly participate in our relationship with the Holy Spirit and others. God’s Word is our scalpel, and the Holy Spirit is the one and only extraordinarily proficient and accurate Surgeon. His Word cuts between our soulish, sinful and sometimes childish attitudes and responses, plus any desire for revenge or self-defence, to the heart of the matter. The bible indicates a clear path between our intention to harm, and our ever-present desire to avoid the truth about our motivations.

“For the word of God is living and active and full of power [making it operative, energising, and effective]. It is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating as far as the division of the soul and spirit [the completeness of a person], and of both joints and marrow [the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and judging the very thoughts and intentions of the heart.”  Hebrews 4:12.

We need His wisdom to show us what our intentions really are! Is our attitude spite, or hurt? Regret or Godly sorrow? This work the Holy Spirit does is so fine, so careful, so intricate—He can lovingly expose the very things we do not want to face about ourselves. I believe we need the deepest parts of our nature exposed, because we often settle for less than God’s glorious ideal as our standard. His standard is His Son, Jesus. I’ve found it useful to prayerfully look at the things I have done, or the things I am still doing! … and then I ask the Holy Spirit for His help. He also helps me to repair things.

Let’s remember that the Lord does not divide our thoughts from our intentions, to make us feel guilty, or stumble, or fall away. His incredible kindness wants us to be free to become more acquainted with Who He is – because in that knowledge lies our total transformation. Sometimes, we may need to know why we did what we did, so that His Spirit can transform our hearts at the cellular level. That’s when we begin to want and long for what He wants. After that we can quite easily identify within ourselves, any malicious judgment and intent to harm, and separate it from just plain carelessness and a lack of awareness of others and their lives. 

King Herod finagled a way to kill the infant Jesus – He killed all the baby boys in Bethlehem! “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” Matthew 2:16. This is an example of a wrong heart attitude. Another one appears in Acts, with Ananias and Sapphira, who were strategising about cheating the Lord, and their brothers and sisters. This matter was dealt with swiftly and thoroughly because it happened in front of the entire fledgling church. This couple’s plan abused God’s Grace! It was not about money – it was about the intention of their hearts. 

Sin occurs when we dismiss the intention of our heart to harm, callously calling it — “only natural under the circumstances.”  Let’s call sin, ‘sin’ and repent from it. Our focus in this matter is coveting a closer relationship with the Lord Himself. No amount of pretty words can cover up sin. It is poisonous to all of us. Bye. 👋

P 3301 Our love of God = love of others.

/ DVH

“This is how we can be sure that we love the children of God: by having a passionate love for God and by obedience to His commands. True love for God means obeying His commands, and His commands don’t weigh us down as heavy burdens. You see, every child of God overcomes the world, for our faith is the victorious power that triumphs over the world. So who are the world conquerors, defeating its power? Those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.” 1 John 5:2-5 TPT.

Do you see that? We don’t obey because we must — we obey because we want His goodness, mercy and love to win! I love the bit that says we can overcome the world simply because we believe the gospel. Our belief in Jesus, as God’s Son, is our victory. Plus our chosen obedience is another outward illustration of how much we love our brothers and sisters. We are not just a clump of disconnected people who happen to worship together Sunday by Sunday. We are the living breathing Bride of Christ Himself. 

We are interconnected, as well as dependent upon each other – what happens to one, happens to all. Just try hitting your finger with a hammer and wait for the rest of your body to explain to you how it doesn’t like that very much!  Plus, this thought is also a good thing to remember, the next time the lady next to you is a bit pitchy in her singing, and her kid has the fidgets. 

“Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.”  Colossians 2:18,19. “He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” Ephesians 4:16. 

To be healthy as a Christian we need to be connected to Him and that leads to interconnection. When there are disruptions or difficulties – we need to realise that in the body of Christ, I could be an eyelash and you could be a toe, or even maybe something internal. So we will see this world from a very different POV! When I discovered this verse … I understood that JESUS makes the body fit together and my job is to support and help the other parts to do what they are here to do, with His help. 

I don’t have to make sense of other people’s rationale, I simply need to pray for them, and love them. I read another verse that says: “Above all, have fervent and unfailing love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins [it overlooks unkindness and unselfishly seeks the best for others].” 1 Peter 4:8. Simply put, that verse means the kind of love that is ‘a deep, and fervent love. Together with the kind of forgiveness that will overlook faults, reduce conflict, and promote healing in our relationships — rather than amplifying mistakes.’

What we lack most of the time, isn’t about exercising patience, restraint or perseverance, it is God’s love flourishing in us, expressed through us. That kind of unconditional, always patient and kind love, has the power to change someone else’s life, without even speaking a word. And if we do speak, because of His love whatever we say, will be one of those “apples of gold in settings of silver” I am always rattling on about. (Proverbs 25:11) Instead of out and out correction, let’s focus on what the other person does that is praiseworthy, full of grace, and positive and uplifting. And tackle the sin, not the person. Focussing on what’s wrong pulls anybody down into a defensive position. But God’s Word enables, it lifts up! People are happy to stand up in the light of His love, because His love won’t ever lead to despair. 

We can miss out on His wisdom and benefits, when we use the word of God like a hammer instead of a sword. A sword can cut people free of restraints. A hammer does damage. This is why our meetings together are always incredibly important, because then we have a chance to build up each other’s faith. We can exhort each other into the greatness of Who He is – rather than stare at ‘what a failure I think I am.’ Our commonality is in Jesus. If I love Him and you love Him, then we have that in common. But our primary goal is to love Him first. 

When we love each other, we are loving Him. Each person in front of us has been made in His image  “… Let us make man in Our image…” Genesis 1:26. I may need to pray and look carefully at the other person, yet even though His image is there, sin may cloud it. But when we choose to live our lives belonging to Him, His image is there. Living in Love is not just a theme, it becomes everything we do, simply because we want to stay close to Him and each other. I try to focus first on the Lord, on what He says, not just on the other person. When He is in the place that belongs to Him, everything else falls in behind that. 

We can sadly, quite easily forgo loving each other, staying with ‘like’ instead of ‘choice.’ But when we find the Lord in that other person, and focus on Him, then we can love them. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, …” Matthew 6:33. These other things will follow. Bye 👋

P 3290 Choose your weapons.

/ DVH

2 Corinthians 10:3-5  “For though we live in the world, WE DO NOT WAGE WAR AS THE WORLD DOES. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  This scripture always evokes the same thought in me, ‘so why on earth are WE acting like everyone else does?’ Like brother James says: “this ought not to be so…”

We quite simply can’t use this world’s weapons in our daily ongoing battles that we fight. Let’s always remember we aren’t fighting people – we are fighting those things, spiritual forces, that people have embraced to protect themselves and often they are deceived. BTW, this immediately makes me wonder why we think talking aboutstuff will fix it!  2 Corinthians tells us His Word is meant to demolish arguments and pretensions. We definitely need to know what that looks like. To me: it looks like knowing God is always good. Plus we live this life knowing our side WON … but sometimes, we have momentary afflictions. However, our Saviour and our Comforter will never leave us. 

We need DIVINE weapons. The armour of God, the fruit of the Spirit, plus His Wisdom and spiritual gifts to combat whatever comes at us. Let’s look at that statement for a minute  …  because our weapons are divine, then they are weapons from the Lord. So our next question is – what do they look like? Do some research in Ephesians 4&6, or 1 Corinthians 12&13, or Romans 12. But let’s start with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control those are Jesus’ kind of weapons. I recommend using them liberally under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Start by showing the Lord you love Him … by LOVING AND OBEYING HIS WORD.

Here’s something that could raise your hair and your eyebrows! Almighty God used the weapon of His own Son’s obedient death, to defeat sin and death. We don’t use normal weapons, we don’t have to … HE WON! Hmmm. Those particular weapons don’t look like the stuff you buy in your local gun-shop. You will probably hardly ever see a bible lying side by side with a gun. Why not? Be-ca-use … Jesus said: “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].” John 10:10. We simply can’t get to abundant life using carnal weapons! Those things diminish and destroy it. Carnal weapons are motivated by “look after me and mine.” Abundant life is motivated by “what did Jesus say?” 

Prayer is another one of God’s most potent weapons. It takes you and I out of the equation, and puts the Holy Spirit in charge. Ain’t nobody out there that wants to mess with Him! He made the world and everything in it!  Do that stuff at your own peril. The Spirit of God will love us and help us, until we feel so-oo-oo full, we will wonder why any of us went the wrong way in the first place! This is why Jesus said: “Love your enemies!”  He inhabits that kind of outwardly looking passion. Jesus has passionate eyes of fire in the book of Revelation.

Love will set captives free, and do even more things that we haven’t personally discovered, yet.  When it is carefully uncovered and digested, loving people is a revelation of Universal proportions and a weapon of mass destruction! It destroys the work of the evil one. If we try to use our own love, we will probably run out fairly quickly and come up short. But God’s love is endless. It is shameless in its passion. It smashes any stronghold of unbelief, fear, mortification, spite, anger etc. and restores and heals everything it touches. This is why love is the best weapon ever – it simply can’t be defeated. You can stuff love into a tomb, and 3 days later it will come bursting out, destroying every one of your theories and theologies!                                                                     

We need to cultivate love in even the smallest things, because it doesn’t come naturally to us. We are far more used to self-preservation. We often end up using our tongues like swords and knives and cut people up into little bits because they have somehow threatened us “…These things, my brothers, should not be this way [for we have a moral obligation to speak in a manner that reflects our fear of God and profound respect for His precepts]. James 3:10 sure has a handle on humanity and the way it thinks and acts!

Let’s choose our weapons carefully – we can’t possibly live this new life well, unless the Holy Spirit helps us. He is pure love in action. And He can love both sides!  We need His weapons that cut people free, not maim them.  I think we should always start by applying love first. When love is uppermost, there is no room for hatred.   Learning to love others transforms our minds. Bye 👋

P 3276 Jesus is our life now.

/ DVH

We live “… in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;  through glory and dishonour, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors;  known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” 1 Corinthians 6:6-10.

Paul carefully describes the way we are to live …from our core … out. I know the immediate response to reading something like this is to distance ourselves from it, by making excuses for our private, secret personhood, or past  circumstances. But our lack of obedience, cannot excuse us — nor does our inbuilt ineptitude for spiritual things. That’s because all transformation takes, is surrender. This is a quality decision you refuse to back out of. The thing is we can’t keep any sin like a pet, feeding it, sheltering it, and making room for it. 

We have given the Lord our lives, so we don’t belong to us now. We died! So we do not have to have those things imprisoning us anymore. We have gained His life and it has been designed to flourish in us. No matter what mess we have made of our lives – nothing is too difficult for Him. Meanwhile it is dangerous to project how we feel NOW, into the future …because feelings shift and change. God Himself and His Ways are the only certain things we can afford to embrace, because they are written down in His book!

We can try to live in both worlds but that pathway of self-control is an illusion. The truth is everybody is “fine” until something incredibly hard happens. We simply can’t hold onto the things Christ is offering us, and still have this world at the centre of our attention. We need empty hands! Grace is free but it was incredibly costly. Our love for the One Who paid such a price, demands a response — and our response needs to be total surrender. Partial surrender does not work. Trust me, I’ve tried it. You will make yourself a target with so much time-wasting guff, you can barely keep your head up above water.

Jesus has taken every single sin and burden off us, when He embraced those things upon Himself on the cross and took our punishment for them. We cannot atone for our own sin, now we live as grateful recipients of His Grace. Praise Him over and over again for the incredible Grace His death released that day. It was over abundantly more than we could ever hope or dream. Yet we cannot begin to attain anything like 1 Corinthians 6 without the Grace of God thundering through our lives, transforming the way we think, act, and speak. And we need to allow Him to do it.

Let’s choose to be all in, now and forever. That’s a quality decision that we will choose to honour for His sake. Not because Christ will reject us – He won’t – this side of judgment day. But because sin is slippery, uncontrollable stuff that seeps into our very thinking. It will come out of our mouths when life squeezes us tightly. It will slowly but surely lead us away from the very Person Who saved us.  The bible says in Galatians 2:20:“I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

The reality is, we simply must choose to become alive to Father God’s Ways. And then start by using our faith  and acting on those choices. It’s a done deal —Jesus took us all to the cross with Him. Now we choose to live — daily, minute by minute, honouring that decision by following His Ways with all of our substance. If He wants us to give, then we give. If He wants us to pray for others, then we pray for them. If He wants us to go live somewhere else, then we do that. If He wants us to speak, we speak. And if He wants us to be silent, then we are silent. His Grace is available to those who want Him to help them. We are ruled by what we embrace.

Our God promises to meet all our needs … so we don’t want to go about demanding our rights. We gave them away when we said ‘yes’ to Jesus! Now, we choose to submit to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ God’s Holy Son. And WE CAN TRUST HIM. We will never ever deserve what He did for us, even for a nano-second. Our grateful, obedient response means that we choose to follow His instructions in the Bible, because we have ingested the way He thinks, rather than the way this world does. 

He has becomes our reference point — not our own comfort. How can we do this? We choose to live with forever in mind, as we honour God Himself with our obedience. Jesus is our life now. We are still in this world, but we are no longer a product of what this world thinks and does. Now we follow the One Who produced life, life, and more life. Bye. 👋 

“So then, prepare your hearts and minds for action! Stay alert and fix your hope firmly on the marvellous grace that is coming to you. For when Jesus Christ is unveiled, a greater measure of grace will be released to you. As God’s obedient children, never again shape your lives by the desires that you followed when you didn’t know better. Instead, shape your lives to become like the Holy One who called you. For Scripture says: “You are to be holy, because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:13-16 TPT.

P 3264 Running over.

/ DVH

“Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything —every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.”       2 Corinthians 9:8 TPT.

Grace is a precious gift from our Heavenly Father given to us, to reconcile mankind to Himself. This Grace was given to us, for us, and for others. It was unbelievably expensive. Jesus came to earth and died to provide us all with an unlimited supply, forever. It is good to remember that Grace goes hand in hand with MERCY. It doesn’t matter who we are, or where we come from, or what someone else has done, or left undone, God’s Grace is freely available to every man, woman, or child ever born, it begins to transform lives around us as it flows through us.

God’s Grace is like a river in full flood, it refreshes every dry thing around it for miles! Here are some ways God’s Grace will transform us in our day to day lives. Saving Grace… the Grace that washes us clean from all our sins;  operational Grace  … the Grace we need to accomplish something He has asked us to do;  forbearing Grace … that’s the kind we need when someone else is driving us up a wall;  enabling Grace, the kind we need when we are overwhelmed by our circumstances;  plus extraordinary Grace… the Grace we have been given to  believe what Jesus said, when everything coming at us tells us it can’t happen. This Grace leads us into more faith. BTW, this is not by any means, a comprehensive list of the attributes of Grace!

Grace is the vehicle we deliberately climb inside when we accept the fact that Jesus died for my sin. My point today is — don’t ever step out of the vehicle!  Stay inside Grace!  I am going to need Grace all the time, for me and for you. Almighty God Himself, in the Person of Christ, has freely supplied it. I can’t trust myself because my old nature will rear its ugly head when I least expect it, and I will hurt someone. Praise God! He is not stingy. He showed us that when He gave this world His only Son to heal, deliver, transform and save us all. 

Jesus didn’t just sort of, kind of, only just scrape through overcoming the evil that we have participated in. No! He triumphantly overpaid. Our God has so much Grace, the bible describes Him as being rich in it! It is important that we realise that we cannot afford to entertain any idea that who we are, or what we’ve done, could ever even make a dent on the incredible deluge He poured out on all of us. Our reconciliation with our Father and each other is a direct result of Jesus’ actions.

Ephesians 2:4-10. “But God’s mercy is so abundant, and His love for us is so great,  that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience He brought us to life with Christ. It is by God’s grace that you have been saved.  In our union with Christ Jesus He raised us up with Him to rule with Him in the heavenly world. He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of His grace in the love He showed us in Christ Jesus.  For it is by God’s grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God’s gift, so that no one can boast about it. God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus He has created us for a life of good deeds, which He has already prepared for us to do.”

We can easily lose sight of the power of Grace when we aimlessly wander over into our own strength. Speaking for myself it can be much too easy to think: ”Oh, now I know what the Lord wants,” and toddle off and do it by myself. However, I discovered that the bible says: ‘His strength is made perfect in weak people,’ so my own strength is no longer an asset. Especially if I want to enjoy the fullness of His Grace! Grace is as tangible in this world, as heaven is. Let’s cherish what we’ve been given as the best thing we have, use it, and be thankful for it. 

There are times that when we want or need His overflowing Grace, but we discover we must wait for it. Waiting on the Lord renews our strength, stretches our faith, and thankfully it reminds us we can’t do anything without Him!  This position is not about just sitting around staring at the ceiling waiting for something to happen. Waiting for Grace is an active thing, that involves the faith we already have in Who He is. We deliberately invest and fix our heart into and on Jesus’ character. 

I’ve found that knowing what I can’t do is an enormous blessing. Asking for His help with anything and everything is not a sign of weakness – it is a sign of respect for what He has said and done, as well as what we have already seen Him do. When we ask for more of His Grace we are honouring Him, because we are asking for more of Jesus’ love, life, kindness, patience etc. to manifest itself in our lives toward others. This means we see Him as the Answer — to everything.

Our earthly limitations are just opportunities for God to make Himself real to us in a way we haven’t seen before. We have no comprehension about what the Lord can do with an ordinary life — one that is totally surrendered to Him and His Ways. I have experienced this in a small way, personally. When I refuse to listen to my hurt feelings, and indignation about how someone else treated me, and instead I choose to ask for and extend Grace to them, with the Lord’s direction and help — that’s when everything changes – especially my stinky attitudes. 

Grace is powerful. It is a mistake to reduce the meaning of it to something that HAS saved us. It did. Grace is a powerful weapon to overcome our inner and outer enemies when we rely upon it the WAY Jesus did. When we choose to embrace what the Lord means by Grace, it is life-changing. Grace is like a river in full-flood when the banks of that river start running over, affecting everything else around it. Bless you. Bye 👋