Patience

P 2271 Our God does not say ‘WHOOPS.’

/ DVH

He doesn’t even think it. Let’s look in the book shall we? “He offers a resting place for me in His luxurious love. His tracks take me to an oasis of peace near the quiet brook of bliss. That’s where He restores and revives my life. He opens before me the right path and leads me along in His footsteps of righteousness so that I can bring honour to His name. 

Even when Your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for You already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of Your love takes away my fear. I’ll never be lonely, for You are near. You become my delicious feast even when my enemies dare to fight.

You anoint me with the fragrance of Your Holy Spirit; You give me all I can drink of You until my cup overflows. So why would I fear the future? Only goodness and tender love pursue me all the days of my life. Then afterward, when my life is through, I’ll return to Your glorious Presence to be forever with You!” Psalms 23:2-6 TPT 

I suggest that we put aside whether the Passion Translation is a proper translation or not… and just jump into these words, and sit in them like it’s a nice hot bath tub full of bubbles. 🛁 We dare not look at the Bible just for instructions or correction – there are times when we need to soak in the meaning of His words.  So here’s what I think, jump on in today and enjoy. 

Our Heavenly Father’s words toward mankind are thoughts and plans to give us hope and a future. The most important thing we can do is to remember, God has a purpose in everything. However every time we see a negative purpose in what the Lord is doing, we are taking a club and battering our faith all around the edges. Our Heavenly Father is where all goodness comes from, He doesn’t do bad. Right now, this particular plump chicken is in a meadow of His choosing, sitting down. He led me here via my recent staircase accident. Sometimes I get so busy trying to make my life have meaning, I forgot my life already has meaning … I AM HIS! 

It is important that some facts about our Heavenly Father’s personage and character are clearly established in our minds. God is good and He is for us. There is no ‘but’ in that sentence! Jesus Christ came and died to give us a place in His Father’s heart, His love is toward mankind – there is no race, colour, creed, or age, or state of health that will exempt us from the blessing of enjoying His love – only our own choices nullify that.            

“He offers a resting place for me in His luxurious love…. That’s where He restores and revives my life…” When we forget how kind the Lord, we end up doing the next thing, one foot after the other, and we can easily lose our focus on His everlasting goodness. If our enemy cannot get us to sin, and focus on that, creating distance from God – then he will do his best to distract us with circumstances. The thing to do is to hold fast to His goodness – it is almost like a central pole in a giant marquee that holds everything up.

The Lord does not ever say, “Whoops”, because unlike you or I, He doesn’t make mistakes. People are God’s crowning achievement … you are not a mistake. Every single aspect of our lives is under His gaze. If we sin, He knows the way out. If we get lost we just have to yell ‘help’ and He will come and find us. Remember that story about the lost sheep? He only means us good. So we can say with confidence, no matter how it ‘looks’ – His love, His patience and all those other wonderful things described in 1 Corinthians 13 are always coming toward us like waves on a seashore. 

Sometimes the very best thing we can do is to rest in those words. Nothing in our lives is meaningless. If we continually keep ourselves too busy, then we will miss out on the little wells of silence and comfort that are given to us so we can face the next barrage that comes at us. He does not say ‘Whoops’ because everything about us is under His jurisdiction, protection and gaze. Bye 👋🏻.

P 2249 A gift must be received.

/ DVH

“Every good gift and every perfect (free, large, full) gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of all [that gives] light, in [the shining of] Whom there can be no variation [rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [as in an eclipse].” James 1:17. Sadly, Love is often simply a word to us, or a feeling, that can sometimes lead to actions. God’s love is ACTION – first. He came toward us before we knew He existed. In order to receive His love we must understand the gift. His love has been personified, and given to us in a form we can understand. Jesus Christ. A gift must be received.

God’s love is not just received through our senses, and our minds, because they are limited. When we receive His love that way – our senses or minds will begin to automatically define love for us. Our reception of His Love pivots on us understanding His love is an undeserved gift. Sadly, to some people any kind of love means you cannot say NO to them, and still tell them you love them. To others, love means strict rules to follow, and they cannot comprehend a love that needs no works. To others it means you live in some sort of euphoric state which can eventually fade. God’s love is not anything like that.

It is important to me today, that you understand my little scribblings here are totally inadequate for the subject I am tackling. I have never, and probably never will comprehend how incredible His love is. I am limited by my personal experiences and how much I can actually take in about this subject. However, I am doing my best here, to describe what I’ve seen through His book. 

So what is His love like and how do we receive it? I want to answer the second part of that question first, I believe when our heart says yes to Jesus: through prayer, through reading His book, or through something someone else says to us – we begin a process that never ever ends. It is similar to the conception of a child – there is a moment of conception. At that moment we say yes to the One Who chases each one of us through time … playfully, relentlessly, and with great passion and loving purpose.

Father God’s love is sacrificial as well as unmerited. It doesn’t wait for the ‘other person’ to love first. His love doesn’t depend on us or our behaviour. It is altruistic. God loves mankind both corporately and individually – the good, the bad, and the ugly. This is because His love depends on Himself, not who we are. He does not simply love responsively. He initiates love, even into a loveless vacuum. It is His very nature to love, so He doesn’t fall in love with people – because falling in love implies you can fall out! He is not irrational or whimsical about love. Our universe keeps expanding because His love keeps expanding!

Our God is where love comes from. He is the source of all that is loving, pure and holy. And so He defines love in ways we barely comprehend. To Him patience is not what we think it is  – it is an aspect of love. Whereas we think patience means sometimes we barely put up with one another – or we are stretched unfairly. But His kind of patience does not depend on the other’s actions, it does not fluctuate according to the other person’s attitude. His love is more like the sun, than the moon. Always there.

His love is expressed through kindness, it thinks the best, sees the best, and speaks the best to the other person and none of that is for personal gain. Nor is it deceitful. It is filled with hope instead. Yet our God is the ultimate realist – He sees us as we are and yet He still loves us. He came after us. And His love lacks any kind of jealousy which is possessive and controlling. Instead it throbs with a kind of jealousy that is beyond our tiny minds. Our God is so passionate about us – that even the idea that we would spend our life and energy on anything that cannot help us, and will not bring us closer to Him – those things stir Him with a passion to fight for us and win us back. He wants His beloved safe, with Him.

Think about the Eternal God in the garden – when He banned Adam and Eve, after they had sinned, and drove them away, He did so because they could easily have eaten from that second tree. That would have separated mankind from Him forever, because the fruit of eternal life was on that second tree. Eternal life filled with death was on that second tree because they had disobeyed.

But because His love is so patient, we have had thousands of years of history to see, over and over again, what WE are really like without Him. Any virtues we manage to produce are finite. His are totally endless. When a gift is given, a gift must be received. The key to understanding His love is to receive Christ into every single part of our lives, our thoughts and actions. This is why Jesus cannot be an add-on to whatever we want. When we do that we are treating the love the Father shows us with disrespect and contempt. That is the ultimate failure to appreciate and receive what we have been given. Bye 👋🏻

“But as many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God, to them that believe in His name. …”

P 2239 The peril of ignoring our faults…

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P 2224 Growing fruit.

/ DVH

Today, I want to use the fruit of patience purely as an illustration for growing the Lord’s kind of fruit. People say all the time, ‘have patience’ – like it is something that we can conjure up all by ourselves. I just want to say – if we already have it, then the Lord wouldn’t need to give it to us. Duh! 🙄 It is so obvious that our human patience and His spiritual patience, are two different things! His fruit and our ‘try harder’ are not the same! Godly patience endures all things and it grows inside our hearts like everything else He gives us – by investing in it. It involves my desire to co-operate with Him as well as being prepared to change and challenge my own mindset, at inopportune times.

In my opinion we only know we need His fruit, when we can see with our own eyes that we don’t have it!  Spiritual poverty is a great diagnostic tool of the stuff we lack. Don’t let pride, lukewarmness, or even feelings of inadequacy, fool you into missing out on the blessing of being transformed. Transformation starts in our minds, first. We need to change the way we think. Spiritual patience is one of those things that flow out from His Love in us. But the human version of patience consists of stretching ourselves beyond where we think we can go – and then announcing to the world that: “I ran out of patience, I don’t have any left.” That usually happens when we think someone else has gone too far! The fruit of the Spirit cannot run out. It is eternal. 🧐

If we already think we are quite spiritual enough, then that can cause all kinds of other problems … mainly for everyone else who happens to live around us! Under-developed unripe spiritual fruit tastes terrible – just like normal under-developed etc. etc. fruit does! 😖 I’ve found the best way to handle my own inadequacies in a whole lot of spiritual areas – is to treat this life as an ongoing learning experience. I have settled in my heart that I have not, and will not arrive, all done, all perfect, until I see Him face to face. I have chosen patience as my illustration today, because we can easily see we haven’t got it.

At the same time the best thing is to refuse to make excuses for our own bad or unwise behaviour. We are aiming at fruit, not just flowers, and that involves engaging with the process. Jesus death and resurrection has already empowered Christians to live a totally changed life – right here, right now. Recognising our humanity without excusing it, immediately releases us from the pressure to try to BE what the book says we already ARE. We rely on the power of HIS WORD. We live our lives co-operating with the Holy Spirit – today – this minute! And we are learning to live by His Grace alone. Let’s all leave ‘trying harder’ behind! Speaking for myself, I was awful at it – I don’t have the stamina for it.

God breathes His fruit into our own tree of His life in us, as we co-operate with Him. Co-operation with the Holy Spirit is like following a guide through a maze – you never know what is going to come around the corner, but our daily experiences with Him remind us that He knows where it is safe to put our feet etc. Impatient people … OR people who rely upon human patience … and then call it spirituality … get cranky at you. They often get cranky at you quite quickly. Now there’s a diagnostic tool! The result is, you feel like a dunce, a failure. Anybody who robs you of the fact that you are accepted by the Lord Jesus, is stealing your birthright, whether it is accidental, or not. Forgive them, pray for them, and then go back to leaning on Him.

When we feel inadequate – and I often do – my first port-of-call is to go to the Lord and ask where I have given my enemy, satan .. ground in my life. There is some place I am believing a lie, either because I was lied to, or I chose the lie over what God says in the book! Repentance is the answer to that one! I am allowed to learn. But, sadly, continually postponing change is a sign of rebellion. It simply means I have given rebellion a much nicer name to help ME to feel better… I called it hurt feelings, or other people’s provocation. 

Nobody can keep us from the love of God, but sometimes we need a larger revelation of His love than the one we currently have. Ask for it! The fruit of the Spirit grows from His flowing sap of love in my life – whether it is patience, kindness or long- suffering etc. I exhort you to actively ask for a greater revelation of His love, because we all need it. And He promises, in the book, to supply OUR needs. 👋🏻

P 2167 Forget power dressing – practice ‘HEAT OF THE MOMENT’ dressing.

/ DVH

Colossians 3:12-14: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe YOURSELVES with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” PS: did you notice that LOVE is our ‘over’-coat? Actually, I think having a grievance against somebody else could easily be called a heat-of-the-moment-need-new-clothes opportunity!  So today, I want to talk briefly about spiritual clothes.  This is not about using our will-power it is about accessing HIS power to overcome.

There is a kind of a rumour within Christian ranks that says that once we’ve prayed about changing some unscriptural behaviour or other in ourselves, that’s all we need to do – God will do the rest. 😳 Somehow, magically, these abhorrent traits will just evaporate over time. And if those things don’t disappear then, ergo – the Lord is not unhappy about them so we don’t have to worry about them any more! Rhubarb. That’s not scriptural. Change is normal in the Christian life!

I urge you to read Colossians 3 again. ‘You do it’ is implied in the text. God Himself is not going to come to our house and spiritually dress us. And it does not matter how long we’ve laid on the floor at church, or cried our eyes out over our sin! He has already told us what He expects from His kids, and we have to choose to participate in this process as a matter of obedience to Him. The entire bible has instructions that tell us how to know Him, and how to follow His ways. It even describes in detail what His new clothes look like so we can’t claim a lack of knowledge. We cannot remove our obedient effort from His processes. 

Before you throw up your hands and tell me ‘that’s works’ – works and faith go hand in hand. Read James 2:18. The method looks like this – we pray.  And we ask the Holy Spirit to help us. ‘Help help Lord!’  “Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee.” (James 4:7) So we deliberately, on purpose, pull up our big grown-up pants and choose to be kind etc. and we do it simply because Jesus said so!  We ask for His help, then we yield to His will, His way. Obedience and faith go together. When we act in faith, we are not pretending – our focus is on obeying what Jesus said in the book.

Faith primes the pump and obedience provides the action. That sequence is all over the bible. Samson prayed for help, then he pushed on the pillars he was chained to and he pushed them down. His faith was demonstrated by what he did. This is true for all of us. Who we are, as well as who we are becoming is ruled by our choices. Our choices become extremely important. I have found that the Lord does this work in me progressively and steadily. “He tells us everything over and over— one line at a time, one line at a time, a little here, and a little there!” Isaiah 28:10. The Holy Spirit allows what I call ‘opportunities to change.’

I have to be honest with you, His opportunities are not always opportune! In other words I get opportunities to control my motor mouth, or temper, or lack of patience at a time, or temptation to lie, when it is definitely NOT easy, desirable, or convenient. I might even have been sorely provoked by the circumstances or someone else’s behaviour… but their behaviour is not my business. However, my response is. Those inconvenient moments are my opportunities to clothe myself in the things that God values – instead of the automatic, or even polite responses this world looks for. I am very wary of polite responses because they are often a covering for an alternative inner attitude – which can be far less than polite! We don’t pretend, we draw on His strength using our faith.

The plus side of wearing the Lord’s clothes is that when we have submitted ourselves to His will, His way;  our character begins to change, because now our faith is in operation.“Whatsoever you do, do it with all of your heart, as though you were doing it for the Lord.” (Colossians 3:23) It is as if a new strength to overcome my flaws comes upon me. But first I have to consent … and then I step out in faith. That usually involves me shutting my trap when angry words are bubbling and fermenting away on the tip of my tongue. And that’s precisely when I need His heat-of-the-moment clothing. 👋🏻