Patient

P 2836 Live under the canopy.

/ DVH

“Above all, constantly echo God’s intense love for one another, for love will be a canopy over a multitude of sins.”1 Peter 4:8 TPT. Let’s get down to business – love, the love of God that we give away … that reality that is described in the bible… is NOT a feeling. Feelings don’t come into it, except sometimes, later on.  Love is an action. Jesus Christ took that action on our behalf. That’s why 1 Corinthians 13 lists qualities we can expect to see in our lives when we walk with Him and exhibit His love. The truth is, I already have this love for you, it is mine, and it is just as real as this computer I am typing on.

Those verses mentioned above are also a promise from HIM toward us. He will be patient, kind, etc. etc. with us. That’s how we will know that whatever we receive, is from Him! If what we have been given doesn’t produce joy – it ain’t Him because God’s love has clothes that it wears! (Colossians 3:12) … Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience etc. If what you choose to wear for yourself – your behaviour, or what you hear or read does not sound like those things – it is not HIM! Christ is kindness and compassion etc. personified. 

Read the book. Then watch Him, in your mind’s eye, walk about amongst those large, never-ending unruly crowds … He never got impatient with them pressing in on Him, or getting in His way, or even when they interrupted Him as He was about to do something else. Kindness and compassion are the very scent of the Father that Jesus carried with Him.

Those people who truly hate God, don’t want to read His book. They don’t want to know Him. We give the bible away a lot, and some people refuse it. However, not all of those people actually hate Him, some are afraid of the book. They are afraid of conviction etc. that’s why they don’t want to read it. They think they can’t change their behaviour to suit Him.  Isn’t it tragic that some Christians think that way too? We have a powerful ally – a HELPER!!

On a happier note about giving away the bibles, we sometimes return to the same places on our many journeys, and we find we need to give out more bibles, even though we already gave away plenty the first time we passed by!  People have pinched them. It’s probably the only time I approve of thievery, because true conviction lies within that book. Over to You, Lord.

Living under His canopy means living this life the way Jesus would, as a fit Bride for the Lord Himself.  My Saviour had to leave this earth to validate His vow to me, and He poured His own blood all over the heavenly mercy seat. I needed that mercy so badly!!!  Praise God, that Christ’s blood was complete and final. No bull, sheep, dove would need to be sacrificed ever again. Almighty God has provided the perfect, finalised agreement between Him and mankind forever. In effect, when we stand under that canopy of what Jesus did for us, we are reminded of our pledge to marry Him. 

A canopy is a place of agreement. Two people vow to be true to each other, before God, under an object that covers them both. How fortunate are we to have the blood of Jesus Christ, as our canopy. His blood not only washes us, it covers us. When God looks at us He sees His dear Son’s blood. Now, we can stand firmly in our place under that costly canopy. I will not be excused from the practicalities of living a life on earth, instead now I can embrace them, knowing the One I love best, lived for God every second, of every minute, of every day. He did it  and now I know it can be done with the Holy Spirit’s constant help! 

If I hurt you, then part of my agreement with Jesus is that I will repair the damage, by asking for your forgiveness and changing my behaviour. I will probably need to spend my lifetime, changing my behaviour one way or another, but only with His active guidance and help. To do that I must choose to live in constant fellowship with Him, and obey whatever He tells me to do. I have found that sheer obedience has opened doors in my life and heart that were forever nailed shut in my eyes. I can take no credit for those things, He did it all. I just followed His prompts and along the way of obedience, my heart was changed. Boy was I surprised!

All the gold, precious jewels, and metals this world has ever seen cannot provide a better, more beautiful place to stand with our Beloved Saviour... than under that canopy of His sacrificial love. Jesus died to make us all like Him, so we can love God the way He loved His Father – by being obedient. The Lord was incredibly obedient …unto His death. All of the joyous, enthusiastic singing, praising, worship, and dancing we can do, does not substitute for the sheer gritted teeth “YES” of obedience that flows voluntarily from our hearts.

You and I now live under that canopy. Bye.👋 “He escorts me to the banquet hall; it’s obvious how much He loves me.”Song of Songs 2:4.

P 2774 It’s time we started …

/ DVH

… to hear His Voice in someone else’s voice. Someone prayed for this at church the other day and it impacted me. We need to find and see Jesus in each other. How? Well, to start with – He lives there! We said: “Come into my life Lord Jesus, and take over.” And He did. How we feel from day to day is irrelevant. Emotions are fickle they change with our circumstances.

However, sometimes what we are really saying is: “You can come into the lounge Lord. It’s nice and tidy in there, I cleaned that up the other day. But please don’t go into the bedroom, that’s a mess. And definitely stay away from the kitchen and the bathroom, You won’t like what You find in there!” A “Keep out” sign is a warning bell, clanging away trying to get our attention. It is not good to have keep out signs in our lives. It usually means something is badly amiss. Something we don’t want to fix or even pay attention to, because we like it, and we know full well … HE WON’T. It also contaminates our relationships with others.

I had keep out signs practically everywhere, when I first started to follow Him. Life had greatly shattered my trust in humanity. I was afraid I might lose something I cared about. Like my snarky attitudes that I had previously cultivated before I met Him, so I could protect myself. Did you know that keeping a bad attitude toward someone else is like SUPER GLUE? We have the power to stick them there, right in a place where we don’t like them! Read the book. We have the power to forgive people … or not!  A bad attitude is like wearing coloured glasses.

The Lord is far more patient with any of us than we will ever deserve. Praise God, Jesus came here as a human being, so He gets … PEOPLE. If you don’t believe me then read the way He relates to the disciples when they’d lost their brain. Or they didn’t want to change their minds because they couldn’t see anything wrong with their thinking! Those keep out signs stop US from changing too. Meanwhile it’s a wonder, at the beginning of my relationship with the Lord that He had somewhere, at all, to put a toe on. 

But after it took me awhile to realise my error, here’s what I did instead. I’ve pulled out all the keep out signs, because they limit God and I don’t want to limit the Answer! And instead I put up a “proceed with caution, please Lord” one. That sign is for my benefit, not His. He has more loving kindness than I will ever experience anywhere else, but I need to say it, and He listens to me so patiently. I love Him for that.

I think this is part of the problem with our fellowship within the church. Some of us have been so badly bruised by the very people we thought were perfect when we were growing up spiritually, that we put up keep out signs everywhere. On the chimney, on the lawn, in the window, by the front gate… you name it! Now we are just plain scared of other people’s faces and responses, so we live guarded lives. Lives peppered with plastic fruit. Other people could hurt us … BUT …we won’t tell them about it, because that would give them an advantage over us. No faith there.

Here’s a not-so-wonderful revelation — keeping His kids out, limits our growth. The Lord will not limit His right leg, His elbow or His kidneys by seeing them as separate to Him. We are all part of His body. We do whatever we do on His behalf. Jesus has owned us, and become engaged to us, by choice. And He will do everything He can, without violating anyone’s free will, to keep us safe with Him.

Accepting any difficult or nasty people at church is part of loving Him… it’s in the book. Actually it’s often in the part of the book, we don’t much like reading so we avoid it. But the Lord is so gracious, and spiritually attuned, that He can look after us and our overwhelming feelings of fear and doubt, and still not hurt someone else who scares the life out of us. Boy is that a skill I really want!

So, here’s the answer to the church-is-the-place-where-everybody-pretends-to-love-everybody problem. I look for Jesus in that other person. Sometimes  we may need the Lord to install a huge love filter.  My filter is in Colossians 3:14: “Together with these things, the most important part of your new life is to love each other. Love is what holds everything together in perfect unity.“Let the Holy Spirit do this whole relationship thing between each of us – He’s brilliant at it… At the same time we need to prayerfully insist that now, today, we want to accept and love other people. The real deal can take time to grow .. keep pressing on. 

We may have to throw out a whole heap of our own prejudices and smelly attitudes to get there – but embracing love helps us all grow beyond platitudes. Honesty is great, but please don’t tell the other poor sod that you’ve always hated them – that’s counterproductive. Seeing love through His eyes, means we develop spiritual sight, which goes right along with spiritual hearing. We need to turn off that snarky voice inside our head that comments about other people’s sincerity – and aim at love.

My last clue to solving the problem of loving the brethren is pray. Pray, pray, pray pray pray. Then do something nice, like ask them about themselves. You can get a whole lot of insight into someone else’s attitudes by simply listening, it’s a greatly underestimated skill. It is time we started to hear His voice within other people’s voices. The spirit of isolation leads to error. Bye. 👋

P 2767 God’s incredible faithfulness.

/ DVH

Nehemiah 9 some excerpts from Verses 18-23, 26-31— this was read aloud by a group of Levites after the wall around Jerusalem was rebuilt and the conviction of the Holy Spirit fell upon them.

“… And You, a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, Incredibly patient, with tons of love—You didn’t dump them. Yes, even when they cast a sculpted calf and said, “This is your god who brought you out of Egypt,” and continued from bad to worse, You in your amazing compassion didn’t walk off and leave them in the desert. The Pillar of Cloud didn’t leave them;  daily it continued to show them their route; The Pillar of Fire did the same by night, showed them the right way to go.You gave them Your good Spirit to teach them to live wisely…”

“…They cried out to You again; in Your great compassion You heard and helped them again. This went on over and over and over…” “…Still, because of Your great compassion, You didn’t make a total end to them. You didn’t walk out and leave them for good;  yes, You are a God of grace and compassion…” “…You are not to blame for all that has come down on us; You did everything right we did everything wrong.”

Romans 8:32 “He Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.”

You and I are a part of God’s story on this earth. We have been chosen to show others His heart toward mankind.Because our lives are limited, time-wise, it is extremely tempting to think more about our own story, than His story. But God’s story is the one we will sing about one day in heaven. When we understand that our lives are part of that story – we will begin to live in God’s bigger picture. Christ died to give us the power to live free of the junk that this world chucks at us.

Those people who have already gone on before us are cheering us on. You and I are now the ones writing His story today –  right here, right now – everywhere we go. Almighty God is so faithful to mankind, His book glows with His faithfulness and compassion toward all of us. We have been so blessed, everything we have is a gift from Him – all of it is so undeserved. Our only response is to give Him our lives, and live this life as living worship for His glory.

Do you think you are faithful to Him? I know He sees the way we treat others … but before either one of us hangs our head in shame about our failures … here’s an incredible scripture to also think about.  Many people have failed Him throughout time, however — “If we are faithless [do not believe and are untrue to Him], HE REMAINS TRUE (faithful to His Word and His righteous character), for HE cannot deny Himself.” 2 Timothy 2:13. We are standing, now, today, on what Jesus did. That cannot change. What He did will never change. It is more stable than the ground under our feet. This world may shake and tremble but the Lord said this: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.”

Because we count on Jesus, and Him alone to save us, we can have enormous security. Alive or dead – His words are so firm, so strong, so true, we can stand without fear upon them, because we know He is faithful. That’s why we need to choose to live by faith in this life. When we live by faith we are simply responding to His faithfulness. We are responding to a debt that we owe, that we can never repay but we can enjoy it, day after day after day!

God is so incredibly faithful He will not give up on even one of His kids. I’ve been praying for three prodigals in our family to come home to Jesus. But it won’t be my prayers that change their minds! My intercession is valuable, it helps me stay in love and not judgment – but Christ’s death and intercession changed eternity … for everyone, now and forever!! I exhort you to stand on that and pray from that place! I hold His faithfulness up to Him like a banner and remind Him about the things I have learnt about Him. Christ died for what He believed. Now I live for Him in response to what He already did.

I put the above excerpt from Nehemiah in the blog today because it shows the incredible, over-the-top kind of commitment Father God has toward His kids. It blew my mind! The Israelites were so terribly unfaithful, but our God stands by His word. And He doesn’t just sort-of-kind-of put-up with all us now either  — He totally removed the sin barrier between us and Himself, at incredible personal cost. Now we can get to know Him, personally, intimately even though we will never deserve it. He wants to be near us.

That’s why we no longer live this life as the unwise do. Instead we’ve learnt to cherish what we have been given. Christians seek to treat other people like they are Jesus, whether they are nice or not …it’s part of the life of God we inherited. And when we don’t or feel we can’t live that way – we repent!  We treat reconciliation the same way Christ treated it – He did not come to earth and pretend to take our sins away – He simply prayed like mad and went and did it.

Because He chose to do that, God’s power to overcome evil in this life has been released into the earth to save all mankind. We cannot afford to keep other people captive by pretending to be nice, or smiling with plastic smiles and fake attitudes, or insisting that we are OK, when we know, deep inside, we are not! That’s not faithfulness toward Him, that’s called self-preservation.

You and I have the power to live sacrificially, as a son or daughter of the Most High God. He is worthy of any sacrifices we might make along the way. His compassion, and reliability, His goodness, His trustworthy heart are so patient and kind. We are the ones who know, firsthand, that we don’t deserve any of it. Jesus continually stands faithfully beside His Father praying for each one of us, because He knows what it is like to be human.

We live this life choosing to tell other people about God’s faithfulness in a world that is overflowing with disobedient, imperfect, unkind, unloving people – even greedy, grabby, deceitful, murderous ones. His faithfulness is our great blessing.  Bye 👋

P 2760 Don’t let a ceiling stop you!

/ DVH

Our pastor recently preached about moving mountains the other day, it made me think. Those kinds of thoughts have been bubbling about inside me ever since I heard it. Then this morning hubby and I were sharing about things we’ve seen when we are on the road, giving away bibles etc. and one thing led to another, and then the Lord chimed in with this: “Be like those men in the bible, tear off the roof if you have to.“ (That’s in Mark, Matthew and Luke.) Boy did we get happy!  What a word! Let’s all pray: ‘Dear Lord help us to tear off spiritual ceilings whenever they prevent people from getting to YOU –  You are their Answer.’ Amen!

Meanwhile, here’s the story in Luke 5:17-20:“On one of the days while Jesus was teaching, some proud religious law-keepers and teachers of the Law were sitting by Him. They had come from every town in the countries of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was there to heal them.  Some men took a man who was not able to move his body to Jesus. He was carried on a bed. They looked for a way to take the man into the house where Jesus was.  But they could not find a way to take him in because of so many people. They made a hole in the roof over where Jesus stood. Then they let the bed with the sick man on it down before Jesus. When Jesus saw THEIR faith, He said to the man, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

As I read it, I began to see that scene with fresh eyes. These men who brought the paralysed man to Jesus were full of faith – they knew if they could get him to Jesus he would be well. But the house was filled up with many people and a bunch of religious leaders. The leaders were all listening to Jesus, and if you keep on reading you will find that these religious men probably weren’t there to cheer! Instead they stumbled over Jesus telling the man his sins were forgiven. They took umbrage, because they did not recognise that GOD was in the house. ‘Oh Lord, please save us all from not recognising when YOU are IN the house!’ Amen!

These religious leaders loved to debate the law and they knew it like the back of their hands. They instantly picked Jesus up on what He said, because they knew from their studies that only God Himself can forgive our sins. After all this was what they did day by day –  sins were forgiven with offerings on an altar. The scholars had invested so deeply in their own knowledge that they had restricted their faith. Even worse – perhaps they thought knowledge WAS faith.

You know there were only two possible answers for what Jesus did. Either He  blasphemed, OR … Jesus Christ IS God – and not just another prophet –  and He could and did forgive sins – as well as personally pay for them!! And aren’t you and I incredibly blessed to know that answer?!

Did you get the part where the sick guy couldn’t get IN to the Lord’s Presence? Sick people need help to get to God. That house was filled up with religious leaders, watching and waiting for Jesus to make a mistake. Isn’t that a terrifying sentence?! These scholarly men were in the same room as the God they cherished and studied, and …they utterly missed Him! And yet, Jesus was so incredibly patient and kind, both to the man on the bed, and his faithful friends, plus the people who were there to prove Him wrong. He healed the man, and explained Himself, then left His critics dumbfounded. 

This story made me wonder … How many times have I left off praying because it seemed as if there was something in my way? Maybe a mountain? Or a ceiling?? It all seems a bit incredible when we look at what it took to bring that ailing man to Jesus’ feet. How much love and faith, in and through his friends, was expressed just for the invalid’s sake? Without an apology, or even a … do you mind? — They actually wrecked some guy’s house! Put yourself there for a minute – maybe at the minute that the roof starts to fall on the floor. I wonder what was going through the owner’s mind in those few seconds? 😶 I’d really like to think that that person thought it was worth a busted ceiling for someone to get thoroughly well.

Now to my question:  how many ceilings has this life put on all of us? How much stuff — like good manners, or respect for other people’s property, wrong theology, or avoiding doing the unpopular thing in front of everyone, has come between us and God’s will in our lives? Yeah. That’s not the most cheery thought. Maybe we have lived our lives so far, scared of what the so-called experts will say – because they supposedly know, and we don’t? The men in that house all experienced God in a remarkable way, which had nothing to do with knowledge.“Knowledge puffs up…”

All I know for sure, is that mere knowledge is no longer good enough for me. I want to tear up some hypothetical roofs and see people set free, and healed, and praising God for His goodness! And most of all I don’t want to care anymore what anybody else thinks about it! As His church, we must not let the spiritual ceilings in our lives stop us from being the kind of people who want to get someone else to Jesus, simply because they need His help. No matter what that costs. That’s called unconditional LOVE!  And …’We will always need Your help with that Lord,’ Amen. Bye 👋

P 2702 Christians are no fun …

/ DVH

…and we should be! …  Proverbs 17:22: “A joyful cheerful heart brings healing to both body and soul…“I’m not talking about frivolity or carelessness with our faith, but honestly … sometimes we can be no fun at all, and at other times we are just plain too earnest. I know this is obvious so please pardon me for saying it, again! … but as Christians we should be the happiest people on earth! We are not meant to be the fun police, because we have the joy of the Lord as our strength! When I look at church people sometimes I think boy do we all need to do some joy/strength training! When was the last time you had a good falling-on-the-floor-belly-laugh? 

No, I have not suddenly lost my mind – I can prove it.  I can still spell antidisestablishmentarianism backwards, so yup! … my mind is still working. OK! OK! I actually can’t spell that stupid word backwards but I know someone who can … does that count? We can all do with a large case of the sillies. As Christians we are meant to be the most optimistic people on the planet! We know the Saviour, personally, and whether you or I woke up with more pain than we care to admit, or our spouse was even more grumpy than usual – we have His joy inside us. Guess what? HE’S NOT SAD like … EVER. He won! We are now on the winning side.

We went away for a little holiday recently and we took bubble guns with us. That’s bubble guns not bubble gum OK? Bubble gum is nasty stuff, you can’t get it out of your hair! Have you ever had a bubble duel? I mean right in your face, loads of bubbles everywhere — hundreds of them? I double-dare anyone not to laugh at so many bubbles you can’t count them. Do you know how much it cost us to have a bubble duel? We got change from $15. Priceless. Look let’s get rid of our serious dignified faces and have fun. Remember fun? Last week part of our family stood on our balcony and watched bubbles go everywhere, and the next day – we did it again and we fell about laughing again.

It is my 97 year old mother’s birthday today. We took balloons and presents and … bubbles to her party. There they were, the oldies in the old folk’s home, lined up like life was already over, and we brought out the bubble guns and fired away. Bubbles everywhere. We took a fantastic photo of my mum looking like Popeye with one eye shut and bubbles all over her – but I can’t put it here because she just might kill me. She doesn’t read my blog, but she’s my mum – she will know!!  Mothers always do.

All those old people, who had been plopped in front of the TV for the day, plus the staff came clustering around her chair and us, and we gave away chocolates. Everyone was smiling. Some came out of their rooms and joined in. I imagine most days are pretty much the same in the old folk’s home. Well yesterday wasn’t. Our mob arrived and took over. I have never been more proud of our family. 

All my life I have done my best to do the right thing – so I wouldn’t get into trouble. Hah! Now I give my Mum cheek all the time, and she can’t do anything about it! She’s stuck in a wheel chair from old age, and she can’t run after me anymore. Talk about healing!! 😂  Do you know the really interesting bit? She laughs her head off now, instead of getting furious with me. Sometimes we can be restrained by our own inner caveats. If you get whacked round the ear-hole enough times you learn “don’t do that,” and something inside gets stuck and you leave important parts of your self behind. 

Hubby contributes to our hilarity all the time. He tells blooming terrible awful Dad jokes. Man those jokes are on the nose. They are corny and not funny but everyone groans, and … then they laugh, but sometimes that comes out as a large sigh. You know Jesus never once said: “Go and preach the gospel, but don’t you have any fun doing it!” We treat this world like it is hostile to the gospel and His love. I’ve been out there – it isn’t! Most people aren’t anti-God, they just haven’t met Him yet! Maybe we have failed Him as His representatives by walking about with serious faces and the idea that what we believe is made of glass. Love may be patient and kind, etc etc. but it can also be FUN. Remember fun? Remember when you favourite thought wasn’t watching TV, or playing video games? Live like that.

Everywhere we go, we have been commissioned to take LOVE with us. And let’s remember that Jesus Himself is JOY personified – so, as His family we will represent Him badly if we have no joy. It’s time to show the world that loving God is the most fun thing ever. Christians should be lots of fun … not black holes of disapproval. Of all the people on this earth, we are the ones who don’t have to be plastic. We can be ourselves and we can be fun! 🤪 👋

P 2701 ‘You’ve got mail!’

/ DVH

“So, dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape your notice: a single day counts like a thousand years to the Lord Yahweh, and a thousand years counts as one day. This means that, contrary to man’s perspective, the Lord is not late with His promise to return, as some measure lateness. But rather, His “delay” simply reveals His loving patience toward you, because He does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance.”2 Peter 3:8-9 TPT.

Scriptures like this one reveal the Lord’s heart and they explain His timing.These are the kind of things we need to watch out for as we read our fresh mail, every day. At the same time we are always looking for things we can apply into our own lives. I ask myself, all the time, what does this teach me about Him? What am I doing or not doing that needs to change? I’m not simply looking for answers to prayer to make my life easier –  I want HIM – I want to know Him. Reading the above verse immediately shows me that He is patient and compassionate because He is merciful. 

When I go out into this world to speak to the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet I have verses like these in my thoughts. At the same time, when bad things happen at our house, I have also hidden these things in the inner chamber of my heart. I hide His word in my heart, so He can speak to me. We hide His Word by acting on what it says!  His timing is absolutely perfect – He daily gives me‘apples of gold in settings of silver’all the time! This life is not about our comfort, or human knowledge —  we can miss what He is actually doing at any given moment, when we seek those things. We seek His kingdom FIRST. Our God made this world out of nothing – imagine what He can do with your little life!

I love verses like the ones in 1 Peter, because they clearly say that He doesn’t want anyone to perish! Just let that sink in. Your worst enemy, or mine – the Lord does not want them to perish.… Those people who are persecuting you – He doesn’t want them to perish. He loves them just as much as He loves us. I’ve discovered that our responses to various situations, like the immediate one from our heart, can tell us a lot about how much we trust Him. That’s a good thing! If my boat is leaking it’s going to help to know where the holes are! So, if you are afraid … “What time I am afraid I will trust in Thee.” Psalm 56:3-4. These things aren’t feeling issues – they are choice issues. The bible is a book of instructions and insight – the more it is applied the more we will know Him.

Only God knows why some people act the way they do. Whenever we are hurting we have to stop and go into the inner sanctuary in our heart, and wait there for His insight.  “I would not have been true to Your children if I had spoken this way. It was too hard for me when I tried to understand this, until I went into the holy place of God. Then I understood their end.”  Psalm 73:16-17: We will gain real understanding in the Presence of God. Not by going round and round the issues, desperately looking for an answer. However we all need to go after love “… love builds things up!” Walking in love takes us out of the realm of our thinking and brings us into His realm of influence. 

Our answers and reassurance lie in His realm. Love is not a feeling it’s always a choice. Remember that the next time you have an argument with someone. Our only real choice is to believe in the One that we know, He cannot lie or fail us. We cannot afford to pin our hopes on what we think we know, instead we must go to the Friend Who sticks closer than a brother, and then we firmly attach our hopes to Him and what He says in His book. We’ve always got MAIL! And then we stay there – holding fast to His faithfulness. 

It is essential that we read His Word as Him speaking to us, not superstitiously –  trying to divine this or that situation -, but rather to reinforce our personal knowledge of Him so we have something we can obey!A bigger view of God will boost our faith. Reading His Word is designed to increase our faith in Who He is, as well as what we believe. Those things are the most valuable things we have. The more we understand His Ways from His Word, the more we can hold fast when everything is sliding up and down and it looks like the sky is falling. And we can make adjustments by repenting when we are being faithless.

Our faith has substance. It can stop our little boat from sinking because we continually look to Him to calm our inner storms of dismay and fear. His book spells out what we are to believe. It gives us pictures from the past of how other people got it right or wrong and the consequences of their actions. We must always remember that Christ changed everything. However, if Christ had not died and gone away, we would not have the Holy Spirit NOW. He is our comforter, counsellor, encourager, helper, teacher, guide to holiness, and the spirit of all truth. He is also our Friend that sticks closer than a brother – He’s everything we will ever need to get us through this life.

Despite the lack of snail mail nowadays — you and I have always got mail – it’s in the book! And the Holy Spirit loves to breathe His life into whatever we read, today. Bye  👋

P 2689 We gotta get in the flow and go, go, GO.

/ DVH

Today I thought it could be useful to follow up yesterday’s blog and revise what unending love looks like: It is clearly explained in I Corinthians 13:1-8. We can’t know if we have it, or even if we are pursing the right thing, if we can’t recognise it!!  First of all, unending love is a love that just won’t quit!  Look we can analyse the word love, by saying this means this type of love, and this one means that …until the cows come home … but His love is experienced as we further His kingdom.

The point is for us to operate in the flow of His Love, and until we start stepping out in faith and practicing that, we will only know Him with limitations. When we act on our faith we step into the flow. Our God is a God of action. Read the book! To serve Jesus and others, we must take risks – on purpose. Every risk we take won’t always produce fruit, or a happy experience. But when we walk with the Holy Spirit, walking the way Jesus Himself walked – we are totally relying upon the Holy Spirit to take us through. As we do that we will get to know Almighty God in a unique way. Intimately. We literally walk a mile in Christ’s shoes!

Now let’s look at what His unending love IS NOT. It is not a tool to showcase our spiritual abilities. As our precious sister Heidi Baker often says: “the way UP is DOWN.” I pray ‘lower still Lord’ as often as I remember to do it. I realise that I must willingly humble myself, and understand that any enemy attack is an opportunity to take me to a lower place. A place where if He doesn’t help me I’m sunk. We all need to be stretched to become bigger.

Meanwhile, it goes without saying that I tell satan to take a hike, but in front of our Holy God I humble myself. Like Paul said: “not that I have already accomplished that but I press ON!”  In my mind this means that maybe I’m not good at it but I’m not going to stop my pursuit of Him. I want to know Him. Not just in the “gee I feel blessed today” moments, but to know Him so well that I will always rely upon Him.

Over to the verses above:“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship THAT I MAY BOAST, but do not have love, I gain nothing…”

We need to know His love to practically combat the temptation to become important in this world’s eyes – that temptation comes because we want to feel good about ourselves. But the above Graces are His gifts, they are given freely to us, for us to freely bless others. Without His active Love these wonderful gifts can be corrupted by our own needs to be seen and appreciated. Next the Apostle Paul tells us exactly what God’s love looks like:

“…Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails …”

If we want His kind of love we are going to have to put away this world’s self-centred idea of love.The sad truth is, the world’s way of thinking means I need everything working out for my own benefit, to prove to myself that He loves me. Instead the Lord and I get to share an experience of His love in action upon someone else’s life. We are the designated pipeline that delivers the Holy Spirit’s grace, and grace and love flow as we draw on those things to further His kingdom. Love takes risks, grace facilitates it. The more you go the more it flows.

That stuff we call love down here on earth, doesn’t have the substance or the stickability to survive this world’s despicable onslaughts. But His love is unstoppable! Unfortunately my human love falls in a heap most of the time when someone hurts me or life gets hard. That’s how I know I need to keep pressing toward the mark. I will have to pursue this kind of love, and repent when I miss it!

Colossians 3 also has a fantastic love description of His love in verses12-14 “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.”

This scripture shows me that I must PUT these things ON by choosing to actively use my faith. Just like Peter did when he stepped out of the boat, onto the water! Faith is an action word. It exhibits God’s glorious qualities in places that have never experienced them. Living like Jesus did means taking risks for other people’s sake, using my faith to rely upon the Holy Spirit to help me. We gotta get in the flow and go, go, GO! Bye 🥰

P 2686 The way we see others …

/ DVH

makes all the difference!! 

For years I had quite strong expectations regarding the people who are close to me – people like family, friends and relatives …I hoped they would be nice to me because I had a broken-heart because of a difficult early life. That’s what you call an unwise expectation!  I was very immature and quite dependant on other people’s approval. My time recently has been spent growing UP!

I think I kind of expected other people to be nice to me because I was abused as a child. And those people who hurt me, were still in my life. Some of their personal faults and proclivities meant they actually formed my world-view in the first place!  But I’ve learnt over time, that unless Jesus is in charge we all remain the same, and sometimes … we can get worse! Putting the key to our happiness in someone else’s pocket is a very dumb idea.

This was kind of like a giant chip on my shoulder, but I didn’t know it was there, I thought how I felt was normal because of my greatly disrupted early life. I saw myself as broken and it was someone else’s fault, not mine, so I couldn’t help it. Meanwhile I totally ignored the fact that as an adult I now had the power to change! Everyone else seemed so normal, and it often looked to me like I was the odd man out. I did not make allowances for the fact that others are as broken, if not more so, than I am. We are all broken in different ways.

When we choose to view life through pain, sorrow and suffering, it can result in a distorted view. I was a very disappointed, broken-hearted, and sometimes angry child – now walking about in an adult body, with a warped view of others. Sadly that meant at that time I was making a choice to go round and round in a little whirlpool, instead of advancing up the river, under the Lord’s loving Eye. Meanwhile, if these people happened to hurt me again, then that was often the final straw. That action meant that they would never change, they would never be nice to me! And despair joined the party.

I wish I could say that Christianity totally healed me from any of those thoughts and ideas, but it didn’t. It sort of kind of fed them, by telling me over and over that I was fine, God loved me, but I was definitely broken, it was not my fault and I desperately needed healing! I was one of those people who were never going to triumph in adversity purely because of my back ground. That meant that I chased healing up one hill and down the other, using pretty messed up faith. Unfortunately what I believed at that time actually cemented me into the very place I wanted to escape from!

That’s when the Lord began to deal with me. He was gentle and kind, but firm and unrelenting. He made it clear that I could no longer go forward excusing my behaviour whilst I was holding other people to account for theirs!  I love these words from the bible  “…but God …” because HE is always the real reason we keep moving on. He is so patient, and many times I’ve clung tightly to the words in Matthew 12:20, that say this about Jesus:“He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. Finally He will cause justice to be victorious.”

I started to understand just how broken everyone else is. We all need healing, and the people I was interacting with didn’t know Him at all. That meant if I wanted to see real change then someone was going to have to co-operate with Him! He gave me this strategy: “What if you choose to see those people as human beings – not as someone who owes you something?” That meant viewing them as lost, broken, damaged human beings, just like me..

You know in all those years in the wilderness wandering around desperately looking for someone who could heal my broken heart, it never occurred to me that I had the power for change already …but I wasn’t using it. I could choose to forget the past and simply love the people I was avoiding or I disliked. He gave all of us that power at Calvary. He chose, and now I can too. So I did. I chose to believe Him and not how I felt. I let go of any expectations that the other people would EVER change and grabbed hold of His hand – because HE will never change. Now He’s teaching me to love the unlovely, the people who persecuted me, and those who were supposed to love me but they didn’t or couldn’t.

When I made that choice, it opened my eyes. I already knew lots of scriptures about forgiveness. The reality was I read them, and I prayed and I meant it. However, I got disappointed over and over again because forgiveness didn’t seem to help me with how I felt – and the other person did not change. It was then that  I saw that my forgiveness was conditional, it relied upon the other person changing.

Praise God my feelings eventually caught up with His reality. The way we see others, makes all the difference.  God  is gently teaching me His Way to love, how to look and see others the Way He sees them. If I don’t expect things from others then I won’t be disappointed if they lack the ability to love. I have to see everyone through His eyes and leave my expectations with Him. This life is about learning to love, even those people who don’t love us. When we live that way – we are truly free.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” 1 Corinthians 13:11.👋

P 2620 Our choices to change matters …

/ DVH

… and we will always need the Holy Spirit’s help.“Now may the Lord Jesus Christ and our Father God, Who loved us and in His wonderful grace gave us eternal comfort and a beautiful hope that cannot fail, encourage your hearts and inspire you with strength to always do and speak what is good and beautiful in His eyes.” 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17.

Our personal choice to be obedient, in spite of our circumstances, is incredibly valuable. Those things matter more than we can ever imagine. Choosing to love like the Lord loves, as well as making reconciliatory choices, and remaining humble … those things are our way forward. We need to let the blood of Jesus cover your faults AND my faults, no matter how often either of us falls over!

Let’s be inspired by what Christ willingly chose to do for us, so that living this life, His Way every single day, becomes our first and primary choice. Without the Holy Spirit’s help, 24/7, we cannot live a supernatural life.  Human beings have been trying and failing to overcome their own faults for centuries. In the end, many simply decided to give in to temptation, do their best, and walk on regardless of the consequences. Christians have thrown themselves against the wall of their own personal penchant toward sinfulness – hoping somehow, some way to impress God enough, simply because ‘they tried.’ ˆHowzatworkin’forya??” Me neither.

However, in contrast, the Holy Spirit is always in the here and now. The glorious thing is, He is with you reading this blog, and He is with me while I am writing it! His longing for our total transformation is far greater than we can ever imagine, and He will use any and all circumstances, as we yield them to Him, to transform our lives. His end game is LOVE. The kind that is patient, kind, suffers long, hopes all things, believes all things …  

Those things are part of our destiny, not just for other special anointed people. We simply believe we can change and live our lives the way the bible says, with His help. Prayerfully. Then, from day to ordinary day, we will end up destroying the enemy’s works in our lives and in the lives of others. Growth equals faith in action. Faith that continually stretches and is stretched. Faith that makes room for more.

“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.] Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”1 John 3:8. 

When we give our lives to Christ, He takes them! God’s seed is sown into our heart and lives. Now, we have the potential within us to grow into Christ’s likeness. It is up to us, how quickly, and how strongly that spiritual seed will flourish inside us. If we treat Christianity like a club, then His seed will mostly lie dormant. Instead we must water and fertilise His seed in us, with our faith and obedience. Taking deliberate faith steps, and putting what Christ wants, first. 

Personally, I think we all experience moments of what I call “growth spurts” and at other times there seems to be no activity whatsoever! That’s a good time to remember that in any plant, the root systems form underground, where we can’t see them. In these seemingly empty moments we need to just keep on obeying and practising the things we have already learnt. Things like reading the Word, praying over everything, and keeping all our relationships covered by love. Not just in word, or agreement, but in our daily actions – we choose to love. 

His kingdom comes out of us and is manifested, when we choose to make hard choices. Particularly in those moments when those things are the very last thing we want to do! That’s what dying to self is. It hurts. And most of the time, we want the other person to make that choice … not me!  Selfishness flourishes in the absence of our commitment to obey Christ. Many people think obedience is about doing something extreme, like standing on a street corner to preach the gospel. Actually, I think obedience is far more about saying no to me, and what I think I want and need, and yes to God! It is about choosing His Word, His way, over my feelings.

Very few people leave this world like my step-pop did. Painlessly! He was dancing away one minute and gone the next. In contrast, a person’s normal death process is usually a long messy thing that nobody wants to go through. Death to self is a series of deliberate, hard, unpleasant choices and then we hold fast to what is good, right and lovely. It is not something we would ordinarily want to volunteer for — which makes what Christ deliberately did for us even more remarkable!  We owe Him everything, including our choice to change. Bye 👋

P 2518 Faith says I need HIM more than stuff!

/ DVH

“Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head, Doesn’t force itself on others, Isn’t always “me first,” Doesn’t fly off the handle, Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, Doesn’t revel when others grovel, Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth, Puts up with anything, Trusts God always, Always looks for the best, Never looks back, But keeps going to the end.”1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

The difficulty we face with verses like these, as I see it, is that we can read them and say to ourselves: “Oh, dear, I’m not like that. That means that I am failing God. I don’t see how I can ever be like that, I’m too bad tempered, too selfish, etc.” Hmm. There is no faith needed to diagnose what everyone else around us can already see! However, these verses are about faith, they are not there to diagnose lack. They are a description of what the Lord’s love does, and His design and purpose for our lives. They show us what we are aiming at! We can have anything on that list IF we are prepared to die to self!

Using our faith to act on what He says is the key to giving these things substance —  BUT — telling ourselves that we already have them, without using our faith, is not scriptural! Be-cau-se  “FAITH is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not yet seen.” Hebrews 11:1. Faith is not just claiming stuff — it is love in action so others can then see our faith! Ya might want to think on that the next time you are shouting at someone. It will be hard for them to believe you have faith to overcome sin when all the evidence they have to hand is to the contrary! It will hurt to deny ourselves take up our cross … (that cross is often people who just don’t get us!)… and follow Jesus.

These things already exist in Christ, and HE is now our new home. In Christ we have all these glorious qualities – Jesus died to give us all this, and more. Jesus didn’t just say He died – HE DIED! We cannot pretend to have this stuff and hope He is fooled. These things are precious Holy Spirit qualities, and they are real tangible things, not wish-thinking. They are the language of love between the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ died to give us what He already has with the Father. “In this [union and fellowship with Him], love is completed and perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment [with assurance and boldness to face Him]; because as He is, so are we in this world.”1 John 4:17. We are destined to look like Him, and we get there by our obedience, one step at a time. Which includes shutting our mouths when we want to let fly, or by curbing our ungodly desires etc., and asking the Holy Spirit to do what He does best. HELP US.

Those qualities written down in 1 Corinthians are a check list, but they are not there to condemn us. They are there to help us recognise that when we deliberately choose not to keep score of someone else’s sins – we are manifesting His love toward that person. When we choose to be satisfied with what we have, then we are manifesting His love! Practically speaking … when we are supernaturally patient, using our faith, when we are dealing with a two year old who wants what he wants – we are manifesting God’s love toward that child!

But if and when, we miss the mark, then we confess our faults, to the other person, and repent and restore relationships as needed.Repentance is now a part of our way of life because we are be-i-ng perfected … but we ain’t there yet! Right now we are all learning to walk in the WAY … “I walk in the way of righteousness, along the paths of justice, bestowing a rich inheritance on those who love me and making their treasuries full.” Proverbs 8:20,21. See?! We are to be a source of great blessing to many … and I’ve always started with my family! Here’s an example of what that looks like from the book —“Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her …” Proverbs 31:28. This is a way of life, not a book of nice theories. It is a faith book.

Unfortunately, many of us have misinterpreted scriptures as a free for all to ‘ask and you shall receive,’  and think that means that we can have whatever we want if we just ask for it in His Name. 😱 Jesus Christ lived a life full of LOVE from God — to manifest GOD — here on earth as it is in heaven! Not a new yacht or a diamond ring or a McDonald’s cheese burger!  He will supply all our needs and this is a huge gift to us, because Jesus Christ is rich in glory with every heavenly blessing, but those things are not necessarily material! They are kingdom things.

However, because God is a loving Father we can always ask Him. And we can always ask Him for help. But our very real need is transformation, not material things! Priorities matter.  We can have the kingdom of this world, but it is far better to chase after the kingdom of our God! So now we use our faith to access His Presence. His fruit. His incredible love for us, that other stuff will follow along … or not!  Bye. 👋