Patience

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 👋

P 3262 What language does God speak?

/ DVH

This could blow your mind, it blew mine. Just out of the blue this morning the Lord said to me: ”What language do I speak?” WOW! … I mean I wasn’t even praying or anything! We know that the Lord speaks every language of man but does HE also have a language?… I decided to go with what Ezekiel wisely said instead:“Only YOU know Lord.” Then He reminded me that He can speak every language on the planet and all the languages of angels. Plus the unutterable sighs and groaning of the human heart. WOW … again! 🤯 In fact, we don’t even have to speak, because the Lord already knows. (Psalm 139:4)

Over the years, I’ve learnt that when the Holy Spirit asks me a question, it’s time to be quiet and listen, He’s about to teach me something I don’t know. So I put a sock in it and listened. This is what He told me:“I speak faith,  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control..” Colour me flabbergasted. It took me ages to even comprehend what that means – I think of those things as actions.

First of all, it rocked my world to find out that these things we call spiritual gifts or traits, are languages! Then I realised that many people call ‘love’ a language. I know that Jesus is our perfect example of these things we call fruit… but are these things also God’s language? Off we go! In Psalm 139:6 it says:“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”  I’m so-o going to need His help!

I kept on praying about it, and then I read this:“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, the Word was God.” John 1:1. Our Lord Jesus, is His Father’s language in human form. 🤯 Jesus Christ is God’s living LANGUAGE. The more I prayed over this, with the Holy Spirit helping me, the more I started to remember other scriptures. God also speaks faith! He spoke this world into being when there was nothing – that’s faith! The Holy Spirit went off and did what Almighty God said, and that too was faith!!  Faith is a language – our universe and beyond were founded on His Words, and then Holy Spirit turned the language into an action. 

Adam and Eve blew it when they disobeyed and ate the fruit. They stopped speaking the languages God had given them, when the devil slithered in and taught them to speak doubt! A questioning perversion of the language of faith. Faith has a way to speak, and it originates in God, and freely obeys Him. Here’s an interesting thought for free: Moses lifted up his staff over the Red sea and Psalm 114:3 says: “The sea SAW it, and fled…”  The SEA saw WHAT? The staff of authority in Moses’ hand! There are many bigger ways to see and understand the things of God than we can imagine – sadly we’ve restricted ourselves to just MAN’s knowledge.

My hubby had this thought: “Jesus spoke PEACE to the sea when it was turbulent.” That rough sea obeyed the Lord immediately He spoke faith to it. When the Lord said “Peace be still,” He was speaking one of His Father’s languages. He told the disciples once in John 12:49 “For I have never spoken on My own initiative or authority, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment regarding what to say and what to speak.”

Let’s look at another one of the things that we call fruit, but God uses them as one of His languages. I picked patience. When someone is speaking to a little child and the little one doesn’t understand them, we will often say that the person is speaking patiently to the child. Patience has a tone, It is another kind of language. That language can speak to human beings as well as animals etc. and get the same response. It relaxes and soothes. God’s languages are spoken for the other person’s well-being. 

The kingdom of God down here on this earth has a voice. These kingdom languages help us to serve, know and honour the Lord, as we learn to speak them. He uses us to speak His language to others. We dare not waste our time speaking ‘man’ – we need to learn to speak His language everywhere we go – by believing and listening to what He says and acting on it. That’s how His Word begins to transform our language – when His Word becomes our language! We will learn how He speaks, when we stop predicting what we want to hear from the Lord, and take the time to wait for Him to speak to us.  

Like I said at the top of the page, the Holy Spirit shared this with me, but let’s be totally clear, my brain is not smart enough to come up with these thoughts! We need the Holy Spirit to teach us our Father’s native tongue … so we can be pure in our speech. Purity of speech isn’t about throwing out swear words, or criticism, or hate – it’s about learning to speak LOVE. The bible says: “That which is not faith is sin.”  We often go for avoiding the negative – instead of participating in the positive. 

We could be outwardly speaking well of others — but in our hearts, which are open to Him at all times, what do we really think? What are we projecting toward other people – His languages of faith, hope and love? Or are we speaking from the hurt of the past …and head knowledge… which can be a dead language. What language does our Father speak? – I think it is love. And you can be sure He speaks your language too. Bye. 👋

P 3260 Always our choice.

/ 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. Amazing isn’t it? Here it talks about the clear reality that God has given us so much Grace that now we have more than enough to give away. It’s in writing, in Jesus Christ’s WILL and WE benefit. 

Everybody likes abundance. I do too! But I wonder how often we are tested on that particular concept … ?? It feels to me like I’m tested daily to be honest! If you are tired, ill, young, old, especially or you don’t have what everybody else appears to have… all that stuff we think we need. Those things we seem to be missing out onwill come and sit on us and camp there. Removing our God-given view of the eternal. The problem is, for years we have thought that Almighty God is here to indulge US! 

Look, I’m very happy for the Lord to ‘supply all my needs according to His riches in glory‘ … Whoo-pp-eee!! Yes, please! But IS THAT what this verse is actually about? Hmmm. Please note it says… ‘according to HIS riches in glory.’  Our Heavenly Father’s idea of riches is totally different than ours! Jesus is rich in all of the Graces that this life needs… and… I am not … a-n-d … neither are you. Not unless we start to use our faith. 

He has infinitely more Grace than I can ever imagine, and He won’t run OUT… e-v-e-r.  So, because I am now in Christ Jesus — I don’t have to run out either! That’s what Calvary did for all of us. When we choose to follow the Lord and obey Him, we are potentially rich in the things that last. The thing we need to ask ourselves is this, are we appropriating what we have been given? Or do we bleat ‘it’s too hard ‘ like a lost sheep waiting for the Shepherd to come and rescue us all the time.

Have we become so busy with earthly riches we’ve forgotten all of His benefits for us? “Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [ONE OF] all His benefits” – Psalm 103:2 AMPC. It’s all a done deal! He has already given us His Grace, now we can’t afford to let our hearts forget what He did! The Lord could care less about worldly wealth. He knows it can disappear in a heartbeat. Let’s list some of His real benefits. 

1. He forgives our sins. (Matthew 6:12)

2. He heals our diseases. (Exodus 15:26)

3. He redeems our life from destruction. (Psalm 34:22)

4. He crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies (Luke 15:11-24)

5. He satisfies us with good things (James 1:17)

6. He renews our youth like the eagles. (Isaiah 40:31)

7. He executes righteousness and judgment for all the oppressed. (Matthew 11:38-30).

8. He makes His ways and His acts known to us.

Stop for a minute and just breathe. You and I, right here, right now, have access to Jesus’ own unlimited supply of His Father’s Love, the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, salvation, redemption, a brand new heart, plus a new way to live. And… AND!! … HEAVEN IS OURS!  Are these benefits or what? Let’s not ever forget that we have Grace, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control … These things now belong to us. Why on earth should we worry about money, etc. when heaven belongs to us? Jesus died so we can have all this heavenly stuff that changes our lives, here and now. 

So how do I get it? Glad you asked me that!  “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. ASK for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?” Matthew 7:7-11.

A.S.K… Ask, and then A.C.T. — it’s a piece of cake. We’ve all been given faith – now we need to use it to enter into the riches Jesus won on our behalf at Calvary. Does anybody out there think that they will need love, joy, peace, patience, etc. IN HEAVEN?? Me neither. We need it down here! What the heck are we waiting for? We cannot afford to have His heavenly riches as an add-on to earthly ones. The earthly riches will distract us, and cause us to forget the heavenly ones. And, before you know it, how we feel becomes more important than loving others. 

We need to use our faith not our feelings. We can lose our peace because we are struggling with, and for, the things that do not last. Bad move. I’m with Joshua — smart guy Joshua! … He stayed behind in the tent of meeting and learnt stuff from God Himself, personally. He received wisdom and heavenly priorities in that tent! “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:25. Joshua made a personal CHOICE. He chose to do things God’s Way. It was permanent and irrevocable – he didn’t forget God’s benefits. 

We can continue to scramble around in the dust like a chicken looking for worms, and forget to use our God-given blood-bought ability to fly high — OR we can fly like eagles and renew our strength. It’s always our choice. Bye. 👋

P 3242 Let’s go swimming.

/ DVH

Have you ever watched people as they enter the water to swim? Some jump in …Cowabunga! Some throw themselves in from a standing position. There are others who use a rope or a diving board – but either way, it all ends up in a big splash. Yet others e-a-s-e themselves in, bit by bit, they usually end up in the water up to their waist, but … just don’t splash them…  they are not ready for all-over water yet! Then they slowly descend, inch by inch, into water like a sinking city being overtaken by the ocean.  

I’m a descender…and I don’t go any deeper than my knees nowadays, because this old body can’t fight with moving water anymore. And don’t you dare splash me – because we will cease to be friends if you splash me! My dear hubby dives in, head first, then he comes up grinning like there is a magical secret on the bottom that I am missing out on. ‘But I don’t care. This is as far as I go!’ 

So what’s with the water allegory? Today I want to talk  about the River of God. This river is our spiritual life blood, it is our multi-directional ride further and further into His kingdom. Some people choose to jump into that river, or … maybe Jesus gives them a bit of a nudge … either way they are ruined for life! They took a risk, and  went out the front, and now they keep splashing and moving along in their little plastic brightly coloured lifebuoys. They are the noisy fun-makers. Others of us quietly ease ourselves into it, we don’t want to get out of our depth too quickly. Some of us opt to jump — but the splash never-sort-of-kind-of happens. I call that faith-stretching.

Father God doesn’t give tuppence about how we choose to get into the River, He just wants us all in it! We are safer in the Living Water of the Holy Spirit, than we are on dry land. On dry land we will become exhausted more easily, and we can forget that we belong in the river of life. We can also forget to drink! In the river of God the waves may splash you in the face and you end up with water on the inside as well as the outside… However, the Holy Spirit can’t carry us through life’s rapids if we choose to stay out of the river … and let’s not even mention negotiating waterfalls! 

The saddest thing of all, is that fear can stop us from moving forward. I’ve been scared of any body of water except the stuff that comes out of the tap! I nearly physically drowned once as a very young child, and it put me off the deeper channels where carefreeness adds to the person’s enjoyment. I’d love to ride down the river on a rubber ring, but that bad experience has diminished and drowned my desire to try. 

Maybe a lot of people are little like me when it comes to the River of God. Once, long ago, they bravely plucked up their courage and stuck their toe in, or maybe they even went in up to their knees — but then a speed boat rushed by knocking them off their feet and sending them under. Under is not good. Ask a surfer. Under means you may not know where UP is. This person’s trust has been damaged. 

Our God is so faithful. He will repair our trust in Him, even though we may secretly blame Him for whatever happened to us, He patiently waits for us to realise we were born for the River. ‘HELP!’ Is such a useful word. It applies to drowning, as well as the fear of losing control. I probably overuse that word a lot!  But I know that the Lord wants to help each one of us with those things that have frightened us, so that we can learn to trust Him. 

When I feel like I am drowning, even a little bit! – I call out to Him. Just like Peter in the next scripture. Then peace slowly descends upon my soul, and I can move on. Most of what I’ve managed to learn about the Lord, came this way – through His quiet, gentle and thorough patience with me. I’ve learnt if I let Him help me calm the storm inside, I can more easily walk through the storm raging on the outside. Jesus called to Peter to come and walk on the water with Him, but the Lord was already there, ON the water – He won’t make us do this alone! Matthew 4:25-32.

“Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw Him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s You,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to You on the water.”“Come,” He said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” He said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.”

Jesus can stand with us in any circumstance – I don’t care how stormy or windy it looks – He’s there! He is saying: “Come to ME.” We know that Peter faltered, but our Lord is so faithful – He did not let Him drown. God will not take His Word back. When He says “Come,” we are not walking toward our doom, we are walking toward Life Himself. Walking toward Him helps us trust Him. The secret is to get off the banks of the river and start to get into the water! Trust will grow as we keep our eyes on Him.

That other guy may send speed boats, or crocodiles or alligators by to scare us, but they can’t stop us. The next step is to begin to enter the water — Jesus is right there with you … you will hear Him calling you. “COME!!”Now throw your legs out of the boat and trust Him – you are about to have an adventure. Let’s go swimming.   Bye  🏊🏼‍♀️!

P 3241 God’s Inexhaustible riches.

/ DVH

“To me, [though I am] the very least of all the saints (God’s people), this grace [which is undeserved] was graciously given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the good news of the incomprehensible riches of Christ [that spiritual wealth which no one can fully understand],…”  Ephesians 3:8. My topic today is spiritual wealth. Jesus died to make us so rich spiritually, and now we need to give those riches away.  

Meanwhile, watch out for lukewarmness – that misses the blessing of spiritual riches because it cannot see spiritually. This trait, mentioned in Revelation 3:8, has nothing to do with feelings, it has to do with inaction.Anyone who does what the Lord says ends up crazy about Him, because they see His Personhood. How rich He is in the things that last. We can’t afford to ignore what we’ve been given, at great personal cost to Himself. 

These things that flourish in His kingdom – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These spiritual traits are a part of His incredible wealth. But let’s not forget that we must not gloss over the cost of the cross, ever. The cross is the reason we can belong to Him.

BTW, being ‘lukewarm’ means I choose to look after ME. It thinks what Jesus said is nice, but unattainable, so it reverts to a default position of doing nothing. I want to ask you to think about this question for a few moments – is it in Jesus’ Character to ask us to do something we can’t do? Sometimes, He does ask us to do things we can’t do without His help… but as He has promised to always be with us, we can be totally assured that He will give us His input! 

Obedience isn’t an option – it’s a KEY. What is stopping us from being obedient? How did we get to be lukewarm? These kind of questions help us clarify our motivations. Deep down, when we truly love the Lord, we all know if we are fudging our answers. Are we hoping that if we say something enough that will make it true? The thing is — you might fool me —- but there’s no chance on God’s green earth that anyone is going to fool Him. Why not? 

Hang on to your hat Henry … JESUS IS TRUTH! He is not ‘a truth’- He is the One and only form of truth we can trust! In the book of John, we are told Jesus was here from the beginning, and He is called the Word of God. So here’s our first treasure – Christ Himself. The One Who lived and died for us is our Greatest Treasure. Jesus was equal with God but He did not use that equality to exult Himself, instead… He humbled Himself and became one of us. 

However, none of this could have happened without the Presence and power of the Holy Spirit. He, together with Christ, is our Primary Treasure. The Holy Spirit intimately knows the heart of the Father toward us. He longs to help us to daily bless our Father’s heart. In the past we have tried to use the Holy Spirit, but He is not a commodity – He is our treasure! 

The second treasure is: the bible.If you read it asking God to reveal Himself to you, you will find Him within its pages, unexpectedly. It has treasure troves in it stored up for us. Those things that we need to pay close attention to, and dig out. Any other book I have read, may have insight, but the bible contains and reveals God’s truth. We cannot say we love the bible without being obedient to what it says. Our calling is to be God’s obedient children. 

The bible is a word picture of the heart of God and His dealings with mankind. Our Father’s “unsearchable riches,” refer to His limitless, and inexhaustible spiritual blessings of grace, love, faith and hope. They include forgiveness, eternal life, our adoption as His children, and total salvation. He is daily offering us treasures too vast to fully measure or ever exhaust.. His love for us is so passionate it is inexhaustible! 

But as Revelation 3:8 says: the day will come for His judgment. Right now we are in the time of His Mercy. His mercy is another Inexhaustible treasure. It is essential that we understand this fact, His mercy is not just toward US! It is incredibly patient and long suffering toward everybody else on this earth. He is so rich in Mercy!

Next I want to talk about Grace, which is another incredible treasure of God. Grace is the vehicle we get into when we deal with other people and speak to the Lord Himself. Grace is the oil of God, given freely to us so we can distribute it toward other people. The body of Christ has been anointed with GRACE! It smooths the pathway that we travel on when we interact with people who have none. However, Grace is never permission to do whatever I want!

Lastly, we are told in 1 Corinthians 14 to chase love, to pursue it. WE are the object of HIS love and He constantly pursues us. God’s love is another  treasure we have been undeservedly given. Let’s give it away to those people around us who don’t deserve it either! When we choose to live in, and value these treasures … and there are lots more so check it out for yourself — then they become the tools we use. On ourselves, and everyone else. Our God is inexhaustibly rich in the things this world does not value. This means we can be rich in these things too. Bye. 👋 

P 3232 We are never alone.

/ DVH

Despite how we might feel – we are NEVER alone. When we give our lives to the Lord, He comes to live IN us and WITH us, in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Right after Jesus told the disciples that He had to leave them – He explained the Holy Spirit will be with them instead. Let’s start chewing on these verses, because Jesus said them, and this stuff is the very substance of comfort when our world blows up! God is always with us.

Both Philip and Thomas ask the Lord questions that show they have no clue what is going on. But the Lord Jesus is extraordinarily patient with them, and He further explains Himself in John 14:15-17. “If you love Me, keep My commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to HELP you and BE WITH you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.”  He didn’t say they would ‘feel’ the Holy Spirit, instead Jesus said He would be with them. This is a faith matter.

During this conversation Philip and Thomas have taken what the Lord is saying to them literally. Our own thoughts, unless we ask the Holy Spirit to help us, will just confuse us, and we need His input. Jesus is explaining to His disciples that He has to leave, but the Holy Spirit is coming to help all of them after He is gone. The Lord is introducing them to the One called Comforter. He is already resident in Jesus, and BECAUSE we know Jesus – we know Him!

These two disciples have their humanity showing, they want to know what comes next and they think they need proof. Our inadequacies don’t bother the Lord, at all. What we see here shows us that even our earthly way of thinking can draw Him into revealing deeper truths. These two conversations teach me about the Way God responds to our honest, if not sometimes misguided, questions. He responds with enduring, endless patience and kindness, and imparts to us the potential to see deeper. I urge you to be like Joshua! Don’t run out of His Presence when God gives you an answer, stay a while, and wait for what He will say NEXT. Meanwhile, if we feel condemned in any way, that’s not the Lord we are talking to! 

Jesus does not do what you or I might do, and call these men idiots because they weren’t paying attention to this or that sermon. He is incredibly generous with both of them. They are His beloved disciples and friends, and He knows that the thought of Him leaving is scary. I am greatly comforted by the fact that this shows me that no question is too dumb! These men teach us it is better to ask a dumb question than it is to remain silent.

Jesus tells His disciples they are to wait for the Holy Spirit to come, because He is going to return to heaven. Do you see that? The Greater revelation is coming, they just have to wait for HIM. The Father will personally send the Holy Spirit back to them to be their comforter, teacher, guide, counsellor, the One Who would be there beside them and IN them. All of these verses show us the Lord is focussed on US…His disciples. Jesus isn’t expounding theology, He is revealing truth – even though these men don’t get it yet. 

Meanwhile, disobedience, not stupidity, or silly questions, can get in the way of us hearing and obeying Him. Humility is needed, otherwise we will have blocked our own ears. However, just because we don’t understand what He says to us, that does not mean we’ve done something wrong. The Holy Spirit loves to help us understand – His aim is communication, not information! His ability to be everywhere with everyone, all at the same time is to our advantage. We simply need to remember that we can’t put a timer on God’s answers. He will answer us, in the fullness of HIS time. 

Because of these verses we can see that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are ALL engaged on our behalf to help us and comfort us whenever we feel lost and alone. Even if we have sinned, or done, or said something dumb, They are there for us, to walk us to a new place where we can understand. Just don’t give up when you don’t get it. Wait! Press in, keep asking the Holy Spirit for His help.

Jesus teaches us that we can recognise the Holy Spirit because the Spirit of God will make Himself real to us.He will say the things we daily read in His book..“ALL Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honourably with personal integrity and moral courage];…” 2 Timothy 3:16.

If we need His comfort, we can read from anywhere in the bible and the Holy Spirit will reveal God’s comfort to us. It doesn’t matter where we read, just press in and wait. We will discover His comfort. It’s all over His book, but we won’t see it if all we want is answers. God is not Google – Google is just a servant of our times! The Holy Spirit is God sent to us to help us understand. What is under the microscope is that God Himself has given us His Word. WE can be faithless, but He is always faithful, God speaks faith – we will always be learning.  Please remember, we are never alone – He’s always there. Bye. 👋

P 3230 Active faith is essential.

/ DVH

The Lord Himself chose the Israelites to be His own people, and He chose Israel as the place for His precious Son to be born. When you read the book, it is incredibly obvious that the Jewish people were not perfect. Ps neither are we!!… The entire bible is a demonstration of how people related to Almighty God and the way He responded to them.  Jesus Christ, God wrapped in human flesh, is our revealed illustration of our Father’s will and love for ALL mankind. 

The story of God Himself and His Ways with men, is a two-part story, lovingly and truthfully disclosed by the Holy Spirit. The New Testament does not replace the Old, it completes it! In the New Testament, at the beginning of the Lord’s ministry, Jesus’ mother told the servants who came to serve fresh wine this: the wine that Jesus miraculously transformed – “WHATEVER HE SAYS TO YOU, DO IT.” That’s our mandate. Obedient actions, made and acted upon in faith, as we follow the Holy Spirit, will transform our minds and soften our hearts. 

“This is why the Holy Spirit says, “If only you would LISTEN to His voice this day! Don’t make Him angry by hardening your hearts, like your ancestors did during the days of their rebellion, when they were tested in the wilderness. There your fathers tested Me and tried My patience even though they saw My miracles for forty years they still doubted Me! This ignited My anger with that generation and I said about them, ‘They wander in their hearts just like they do with their feet, and they refuse to learn My ways.’ My heart grieved over them so I decreed: ‘They will not enter into My rest!’ ”  Hebrews 3:7-11. 

What did the Jewish people do that made God angry? They ignored Him, rejected His Ways, and hardened their hearts with disobedience. They chose to indulge and control their own destiny, and make themselves at home with other more controllable gods. We can’t afford to follow their example. Almighty God has incredible plans for each one of us to make all our lives better in ways we cannot imagine. Why am I saying this? Because the bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:9: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love Him—“

We definitely cannot imagine what kind of life we would have if only every time somebody raised their voice or were spiteful to us, we chose to give away His love instead! If you add to that, the fact that He never responds the same way twice, we cannot live without the Holy Spirit to leading us! Sadly our negative experiences often take over and poison our thinking against change. We need His power to open our eyes to understand exactly what His Love, in us, for us, and through us … will actually DO TO US. And that’s where Jesus becomes the very best illustration we can ever have! His Presence on this earth transformed other people’s lives forever. 

Most of us have experienced the worst of mankind’s attitudes and actions, and that negative stuff has so seared into our brains and emotions, we can’t even begin to imagine God’s kind of goodness. Many times we think we already know the outcome to things that we have not yet experienced, personally. Let’s not follow the Israelites down that dead end road of unbelief in His goodness – let’s simply choose to believe and live and act on what Jesus taught us! 

The Jewish people themselves continually experienced so much goodness – God’s deliverance, His provision, but they couldn’t see the bigger picture – because they hardened their hearts against Him, and willingly applied their own view. They were slaves to their immediate position. Their fear of change negated the possibilities of new revelations. We need to allow the Lord to continually deal with our own hearts, so our receiver works! 

Having said all that, I want to quickly look at something that illustrates the incredible generosity of God and what the possibility of change looked like in the life of Abraham. Abraham gives us a brilliant example of what obedience means to God. He gave this man righteousness, because of Abraham’s active faith – he was an old man, old people like comfort. What did he do? He followed God and took the Lord at His Word! This man’s faith changed his life choices, and he became the father of our faith. You can read it about in Genesis 15. 

In Romans 4, we can also read that God Himself declared Abraham in right standing with Himself not because of perfect deeds, but because of his complete trust in GOD HIMSELF. As Christians we don’t just want the appearance of goodness in our hearts, we want the kind of transformation that has His power in it! Genuine faith leads to obedient actions – and Abraham clearly shows us how powerfully an ordinary life can change. Then Jesus came along and illustrated His own perfect obedience, unto death. Death is also a needed part of obedience.

The bible teaches us that in order to please God we must die to the kind of life we want, in order for Him to progressively enliven us into His purposes. It is not enough to say, “I will die for you Lord,” and then turn around and go away from that moment, and continue to live this life, our only life here, doing whatever WE want. That’s called paying lip service.  We ALL need active faith – like Jesus Himself had and only the Holy Spirit knows what that will mean in our daily lives. Bye. 👋

P 3228 Let’s not miss our highest calling.

/ DVH

Instead of blaming another human being for our behaviour, and holding our own desire to change hostage to someone else’s desire to change – why don’t we pull up our grown up pants and deal with ourselves at the source of our own anger and need? We cannot afford to let anybody but the Lord Himself to be in charge of our feelings, because He’s the only Person we can truly trust. Our highest calling is to believe He is good, when everything around us and attacking us, is bad! It’s time we realised complaining, or boo-hooing doesn’t work.

The Israelites got into all kinds of trouble when they accused the Lord of treating them badly. They said He wasn’t doing things the way they thought a god should. BTW, that happened right after the Lord had just walked them all safely through the bottom of an ocean, killed all their enemies, brought water out of a rock, fed them angel food, plus nobody got sick, and their clothes didn’t wear out!! It’s a bad move to be an ungrateful, critical child of God. It shows a distinct lack of knowledge of Who He is, and it is incredibly important for us to know and trust Who He is.

Meanwhile, because of His love for His Father and humanity, Jesus deliberately ‘put skin on’ and came here and made Himself vulnerable to us. He had human needs, yet He ended up with a bunch of disciples who also totally missed the point of why He was sent here in the first place! Nobody else understood His mission. A wicked king beheaded the only person who understood living His kind of life. Things were so bad for Jesus that when Peter said: “Truly, You are the Son of the Living God,” the Lord knew that it had to be the Holy Spirit speaking through Peter, because Peter was just plain clueless.

Jesus had to rely upon His Father guiding Him internally, just like we do. Everyone else around Him was too busy with their own needs and wants. Why do you think — at the end of an already-busy-filled-with-people-grabbing-at-Him day – Jesus then went out and climbed up a mountain? Maybe He simply wanted to worship God, and have some real spiritual input and company … and we think we are lonely! Imagine being absolute purity and innocence, and having to deal with all kinds of people by choosing to live in never-ending Grace. The Lord did not spend one second in His Father’s Presence complaining about anything. Let’s thank Him for His self-control and patience.

.Here’s another dumb thing we can sometimes do. We dash about with hurt squirting out in every direction like a ruptured aorta, but at the same time we start recruiting other people to agree with us that our troubles are not right, and we shouldn’t have to put up with it! We grab at man’s sympathy over God’s love. There’s another bad idea! The Israelites did a whole of of mumbling and complaining … look where it got them. It is better to go to your Heavenly Father, and ask Him for the Grace to bear with whatever it is going on in you, or around you. Doing this stuff on our own is sheer lunacy. Human beings are not equipped to “love their enemies and do good to those who despitefully use us…” we will always need His HELP.

It seems to me when we were in Christian nursery school  learning the truths of God, we skipped right by, ‘please help me” into … “ME DO IT!” His Grace is our spiritual air, just like thankfulness is part of our worship. Here’s a prayer that I pray often, “Lord please help me because that person is driving me crazy! I desperately need your Mercy and Grace.” Amen. There is no shame in asking! God has provided, and we praise Him for His Grace!  If we need food or water or somewhere to live, we ask Him for that. We also need a constant flow of His Grace and Mercy to survive in a time like ours. There are a million self-help books to prove to us that we are in the right, but only the Lord’s Good Book to convict us of our own sin!

In my opinion this is why so many Christians are living mediocre lives. They try so hard to be faithful to God, but what they have been taught does not line up with their own personal experiences and failure gets to them. They don’t love Him any less – that’s still faith! In the middle of some of the worst trials any of us will ever see, they dearly love Jesus, and they do their best to do what He says. Amazing! But why work at it when the work has already been done! Let’s all make sure that we put our faith in His goodness, not in happy results. That’s where the Israelites missed it.

The truth is we don’t always need Him to change our circumstances, but we do need Him to change us. When our theology doesn’t match up with His Word, then our theology needs to change. Without our passionate devotion to obedience, we are doomed to live in disappointment when that lands on us. Following Him includes dying to self, and putting our own personal comfort behind us. Let’s shake off all the snares that so easily entangle us and move on past the first floor. He has work for all of us to do. Trusting Him despite the circumstances is our highest calling. Bye. 👋 

“Carefully consider all that I’ve taught you, and may our Lord inspire you with wisdom and revelation in everything you say and do. But make Jesus, the Anointed One, your focus in life and ministry. For He came to earth as the descendant of David and rose from the dead, according to the revelation of the gospel that God has given me.” 2 Timothy 2:7-8 TPT