Peace

P 2963 Quick sand.

/ DVH

One of the quick sand traps we can fall into as we learn to walk with the Lord, is that we can get stuck regarding sin. We try to explain things away. When we focus on what we think happened and why — that’s when a ‘sin’ focus takes over and we stop thinking like we are children of the King. My advice is in all situations, focus on the Lord. Dismissing our sin is like stepping into quick sand.

What we intently look at, has a tendency to grow larger, and we need the Lord to be larger than the dumb stuff  other people do. Focussing on the cross and everything He chose to do for us, produces clear focus and gratitude. I’ve found that ‘self’ will lie to you. It is not interested in dying … because it is afraid it will cease to exist if it dies. But death to the ‘old’ self is always the desired outcome. We can only LIVE for Jesus to the extent that we are prepared to DIE to self.

Otherwise we will start explaining why we did this or that, trying to justify ourselves. Let’s just level the playing field shall we? “ALL have sinned!” This means we can’t possibly justify ourselves – all means all!  Don’t fight humility or give self any credence, confession is the answer to sin. Renewing – or changing your mind – means our focus will change as we focus on His thoughts not ours. Otherwise we are trapped, but the minute we confess our faults – that trap flies open. Sin is a deceiver. It wants us to identify with it instead of leaning on and relying upon what Jesus did for us. The reality is, sin can no longer hold us, it can only take hold when we believe its lies.

Trying to justify ourselves means that we have been tricked into giving away the ground that Jesus died to give us. The efficiency of our enemy’s trap depends upon the personality of the individual person. For many people, He can grab them because of an underlying sense of guilt or shame. This means that we haven’t yet totally grasped what we have been given. Jesus Christ gave us His justification, His stature before God. We have it credited to our account. God gave us something that we could never do for ourselves – for free. But it cost Him everything – that’s the kind of wonderful God we serve! 

This what what this incredible exchange was all about – Jesus took our sin and gave us His holiness, His righteousness. To walk in those things we need to treat other people the same way He treated us. We were His enemies! We were against everything He stood for. We need to do this generously. Unselfishly. Not just the people we like, but even our known enemies. Now we are free to choose to follow Him down the road of sacrificial love, compassion, kindness etc.

The Christian life is about choices. It is often about choices that need to be made under pressure. Jesus chose to be a servant. So we choose to follow Him and live the same way He did, with thanksgiving and obedience. Our day-to-day choices provide us with a mirror – they show us how much faith we are living in. When we choose to give into our flesh, ourselves, our old nature, we are empowering our old life. That old life no longer has any power over us – we can only enliven it by giving it our allegiance. It is a mirage, a memory, a shadow of what was. We will find the attitude or actions that seem to imprison us, actually cannot hold onto us when we begin to use our faith to walk away from them.

The more we have indulged our flesh the harder the enemy will fight for us to return to that life. he never stops tempting us, because Jesus Himself said: “… in this world you will have trials…” When we are tried, by self-interest or difficult circumstances, our true self comes to the surface where it can be identified and dealt with. Instead of excusing that behaviour as ‘only human’ or ‘normal under the circumstances’ — we need to own how we’ve reacted so we can walk away from it, back into the freedom Christ has given us.

Then with the Holy Spirit’s help, we begin to take our renewed mind’s faith-steps away from the things that drag us down and step into our new life, our new identity, in Christ. We are now who He says we are. This means instead of giving you a piece of my mind, I give away His PEACE to you instead. Instead of punishing you because you don’t suit me, I choose to love you. Loving you is not giving you permission to continue to hurt me, instead it gives YOU a chance to know what unconditional love looks like!

The reason I can forgive you or you can forgive me is because of what Jesus did for both of us. We are standing on the same ground. Our issues are not people, our issues are attitudes and subsequent actions.“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” Matthew 5:21-22a. See? Attitudes matter!! Anger is clearly out of God’s order. It’s not just a bad day, or a stinky attitude, or a suitable response to someone else’s sin, to warn them off.

We know something that the other person may not know – He died for their sin too. Sin, or holding onto resentment or bitterness, or shame or guilt, is like stepping into quick sand. We will drown and smother our burgeoning faith. Our best combat attitude is to continue to renew our mind, and act on what we read. Then we begin to think about this life like Jesus did. We ask for His help – and use our faith to be obedient. Bye 👋

P 2960 Are you ‘sanctified and enriched?’

/ DVH

“To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified (set apart, made holy) in Christ Jesus, who are selected and called as saints (God’s people), together with all those who in every place call on and honour the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace [inner calm and spiritual well-being] from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God always for you because of the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, so that in everything you were [exceedingly] enriched in Him, in all speech [empowered by the spiritual gifts] and in all knowledge [with insight into the faith].” 1 Corinthians 1:2-6.

You know, the first night someone eats great spaghetti bolognese it is yummy, everybody enjoys it. But if you leave some for another night, the left-overs will be enriched by time, and the melding together of the various flavours into something new and even more fabulous. Tickling our taste buds into a deeper experience. After we are saved, we learn to love like He did so that the flavour of our life is sweet, rich and good to those around us.

Christians are destined to do more than give mental assent to the truths in the bible – we are destined, right here, and right now, today, to mirror the love and life of Christ to everyone we meet and know. God’s sanctification and richness are meant to flow through us, so He can touch the lives of everyone around us. These holy things, the qualities that are in Christ Jesus, need to soak into our lives and join together to produce a brand  new sanctified, greatly enriched SELF! 

God didn’t just re-vamp us when Jesus saved us, or even update us with some sort of fantastic, whizz-bang upgrade. He totally transformed our lives with His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control as we practice yielding and co-operating with Him. We are permanently changed and … wait for it … ENRICHED and made HOLY.  We are destined to become what He planned for us from the very beginning of time.  Because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we can be bigger and sweeter, and more loving than we can comprehend.

Sadly it is too easy to be the product of this fallen world all around us. We’ve been influenced, battered and blasted by other imperfect people, who are just like us. Living within relationships and situations beyond our control. Those things have shaped us into the kind of people who live to hide to protect ourselves against the ugly things of this world. There is healing in the blood of Jesus. God planned for His kids, to volunteer to exhibit the same qualities that Jesus Himself had from the beginning of time. And this process is not about what we can do by ourselves. Just like the spaghetti gets better from soaking in its own flavours, we get better and richer by soaking in His love for us and spreading that flavour around.

Christ opened something that can never be closed again when He died in our place. He tore open in this world the forces that imprisoned all of mankind to sin, death and destruction. He flung opened the door to the possibility of change! We have been given the power to choose to be transformed under the Holy Spirit’s influence. Now, if you are happy with who you are right now, then perhaps that is not going to seem like such a wonderful gift. BUT! If being like He was, in this world, seems like a dream to you, cheer up! It’s now a reality.

How do we get there? We go through the same door of death Jesus went through, and we choose to die to what we want, like He did, minute by minute. By the way, I don’t mean you literally kill yourself!  We are to die to self, by giving up our right to live this life the way we want to, the way we planned for ourselves. And instead we deliberately choose to lay our lives down for His sake, just like the Lord did for us – using our faith to do it.

Then you and I will come out the other side of those everyday, deliberately made choices transformed. Selfishness, spite, anger, lying, murder – all those things that have held us captive to our own personal circumstances – even the choices we have made so far –  melt away under the power of what Christ did for us. The way to be transformed, is to choose to yield our will to His will. 

And that is not a part-time job, it is a life-time of day-by-day specifically chosen decisions to live this life Christ’s way. Jim Elliot, the modern martyr, said this better than I can: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain that which he cannot lose.” And the bible itself says that like this: “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.” Matthew 16:25.

We will all die eventually, but it is how we choose to live from day to day that matters. We can live this life grabbing at all we can, to meet whatever needs we’ve picked up along the way. Constantly angry with others because they are trapped as much as we are … or we can choose to live His Way. Having a servant’s heart and loving those people around us this world pronounces unloveable. BTW, we are ALL unloveable!! And we all have our own nifty little devices to hide that fact from the world around us.

To live like Christ did, we learn from the Holy Spirit Himself, to be the change we want to see. We too can be sanctified and enriched and be like the Lord in every circumstance, as we choose to die to our old way of thinking and start to embrace and act on His ways. He died to give us the power to change and live a brand new life. What are we doing with that power? Bye. 👋

P 2953 Peace.

/ DVH

In some versions of the bible, Colossians 3 says: “let peace be your umpire…”  However, I like the translation in Colossians 3:15 Amplified bible: “Let the peace of Christ [the inner calm of one who walks daily with Him] be the controlling factor in your hearts [deciding and settling questions that arise]. To this peace indeed you were called as members in one body [of believers]. And be thankful [to God always].”

I’ve learnt a lot about peace in the past few years. I don’t honestly know why it has taken me so long to learn this truth, because it is one of those foundational factors that hold everything else in place! Maybe some things are harder to grasp than others, I guess. Today I want to share a bit about what I’ve learnt — bearing in mind that God’s word is multi-faceted and I only have one tiny view!

Peace can be a glorious feeling, but the idea of nice, juicy, happy and content feelings should not govern us – the Word of God does that. Sometimes, if I am upset, I read the Psalms until He speaks to me, and my busy mind and frantic feelings quiet down. That’s what listening to our Heavenly Umpire looks like. Getting this right is not the point … sinking into His peace is what is desired, so avoid pressure because doing that is the antithesis of what you want! Try not to second-guess yourself, instead give it to Jesus, and leave it with Him.

Peace is also not the absence of conflict. I think in our busy, sometimes frantic and frenetic lives we live today, true peace – His peace, has become scarce. We get glimpses of it, only to have it snatched away by some crises or other. Those things that regularly turn up, right outside of our ability to affect them. But in our day to day walk with Him, because of His purposes and plans for us, we need to know that we know, that certain basic facts that have been written down and are absolutely established. The minute I know I’ve lost my peace I know I can start restoring it by praying: “I want whatever You want Jesus, Your ways are much better than mine, I yield to Your better judgment, please help me I need Your peace.” Amen.

As we choose to love one another… in spite of the circumstances and obstacles that this life can put in our way — that will also help us to focus on the things that last forever. When we choose LOVE instead of our own justification, we pull focus into the things of God. Then we progressively lay aside all the worldly things we’ve used in the past to help us deal with the difficult times that come at us. Those external things that have previously helped us cope. And we deliberately remind ourselves of what He has already said. Our human resources need to be put down in order to lean on Him in faith, and grab hold of His peace. This new way to live is part of our God-given inheritance. 

As I said before, I like the idea that God’s peace is like an umpire, because an umpire is a pretty good illustration of how it works. We could say that sentence like this — God’s peace in our hearts, needs to be the deciding factor in how and when and why we move forward. So if we haven’t got His peace then we are not going anywhere until we have it!  Expedience is a poor motivator! We need to learn to wait for Him to show us any impediments to living in peace that we have picked up along the way. I ASK for it. It is covered by the “ask and keep on asking..” verse.

At the same time we can still have multiple problems to the right and left of us. Stop. Breathe. Tell yourself “God is bigger than this!” Even though disaster is thumping on the front door and chaos is trying to sneak in the back one. That noise is trying to distract you from your goal – glorifying Jesus with your obedience. We are standing on something that is far bigger than the intrusive things that demand our attention and try to thrust their way into our lives and hearts. 

We are standing on what Christ has already done and what He has promised us, in His Word. If we have no peace, then we should stop every bit of self effort, and ask the Lord to help us! Losing our peace means we have somehow lost track of the things in this life that are most important. So we stop, repent and wait. At the same time there is always a chance that we’ve actually given our peace away trying to figure things out with our own understanding. Whatever has happened a simple “help help, please Lord” will focus us again. He.Will.Help.Us. That’s in the book too!

Peace with God, has been given to us by what Jesus did. It’s ours! Just like salvation is ours – so is peace.  Let go and leave whatever it is with Him.  Walking with the Holy Spirit is part of our birthright, and it is not an insurmountable task. Jesus has already done all the work to make living with His peace ruling our hearts possible. We simply need to use our faith to believe what He said is truer than our day to day upsets, circumstances or feelings. Faith is the Way into Peace. 

Often, if we are busy we can end up settling for the absence of conflict … instead of seeking out His peace. I’ve found if I do that, then I need to repent and turn around and go back to what is “good, right and profitable”  and start  “letting my mind focus/dwell on Him.” This is how we become acquainted with HIS PEACE, because Jesus is the Prince of Peace!! So we live in an incredible kingdom! Then we begin to know what peace is, and what it isn’t! Plus you get to know what it looks like when you have it. Bye. 🕊️

P 2931 Sometimes life is awful …

/ DVH

…and there ain’t nuthin’ I can do about it, except pray that everything that is going badly will be redeemed by the One Who redeemed me! 

I had a tooth filled yesterday. The whole thing was an unexpected miracle. The tooth broke once, so we had to quickly make an appointment … then it, like … really broke and the appointment was already in place. 🙌 Let me tell you that poor tooth was basically non-existent. I shan’t bore you with details except to say that my marvellous dentist from Venezuela, totally fixed it. He has mega skills! All I knew was my gnasher was in a terrible way and when he took out the old filling, what was left was ridiculous… What tooth!? Meanwhile, I’m immune-suppressed and I thought I heard the Holy Spirit whisper: “ …take antibiotics.” So I did.

Well, goodie! Now I have oesophageal spasms, because the antibiotics can bring them on. Ho-hum. My inner PH goes wild and gets cranky, and basically I don’t cope much. Plus I get candidiasis in a whole lot of places nobody wants it. Sigh. And now here’s the clincher … the electricity at my house, has been turned off for 8 hours. No feet up in my reclining chair when I feel awful, no power for computers, no lights, no kettle, … and suddenly I can feel myself slip-sliding away down the down-a-later of …“poor me.” 

You know it sure is good to sing songs of victory when everything is great, but I gotta say, it definitely improves my prayer life when they are not! Sadly, I had an actual plan for today — I was going to see my mum after our trip. Well, that’s off. People groaning in pain are a bit off-putting. So what am I on about by writing all this dismal stuff? Well, I’m just trying to keep it real. The bible says clearly that we will all have these days, however, nobody in their right mind seeks them out! They just land on us and then we can be stuck under a mountain of disappointment and have to pray our way out.

Of course, when circumstances get bad, it is also easy to blame everyone else around us for what has happened, and make them miserable too – OR – we can draw near to God because He has promised He will draw near to us. At that point I just have to wrangle my feelings and tell them they are not the boss of me! The marvellous thing about loving and knowing Jesus is that the Lord totally understands how human beings feel — I just love Him even more for that!  Let’s look in Hebrews 4:15

“Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers.We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to Him and get what He is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.”Yes please!! 

Isn’t that verse just incredible? Maybe you didn’t get it … it often takes me a while … it said mercy, God’s mercy and help is always available to us. Never undervalue the privilege of mercy! How amazing that God Himself would choose to come here, into this world that is plagued by our own greed, torment and anger, plus satan’s nasty little surprises, and He deliberately chose to identify with us, personally. This day is already looking up! ‘Dear Lord please keep the guys up working on the light poles safe, thank You,’ Amen… and God bless my super-skilled dentist too!  

Now to some more good things to think on. Did you know that my hubby is not just an excellent seed-sower, he also looks after me? He cooks, he cleans, he makes beds, he helps me shower, dresses me, keeps track of all my medicines, and he is emotionally supportive on hard days. Yeah I know, how DID I get that blessed, right?

On our last trip, a two and half feet long sofa jumped up and attacked him, right on the top of the middle finger and he broke it, very badly. I shan’t go into how the whole “sofa fell on his finger” thing happened, but he soldiered-on still taking care of all this day-to-day stuff. He also doesn’t complain much. And for the past two days he has been helping our single-mother daughter and her son move house. Our son has been there helping her pack for weeks – thank you God for such a thoughtful, helpful son too.  

So what on earth am I doing? As I am sitting in my dark house with spasms that fold me up like a deck chair… but … I’m counting my blessings. When I’m not coping I need to look at the precious things God has given me in my life. Depending on the level of discouragement that came and sat on me, I might need to press in while I am doing it! Otherwise those things start to set-up camp in my brain and I can end up going over and over all the stuff I can’t cope with! And before I know it, I’ve forgotten that I am redeemed and I’ve started acting like the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet!

Our greatest strength is not in us, no matter how resilient we are — it lies in what Jesus has already done for us before we were ever born. Because of Him we have a chance to experience the supernatural. As we ask Him to help us to cope;  and He takes the pain away;  or He reveals more of Himself;  or He brings His peace with Him;  we will enter even more deeply into our own personal relationship with Him. Now it is based upon our own private revelation of how much He loves us … and that’s priceless. 

Sometimes life is awful. ← That’s a full stop right there. Bye. 👋

P 2913 Latest news anyone?

/ DVH

Isaiah 3:1-7 “The Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies, is emptying Jerusalem and Judah of all the basic necessities, plain bread and water to begin with. He’s withdrawing police and protection, judges and courts, pastors and teachers, captains and generals, doctors and nurses, and, yes, even the repairmen and jacks-of-all-trades.
He says, “I’ll put little kids in charge of the city. Schoolboys and schoolgirls will order everyone around. People will be at each other’s throats, stabbing one another in the back: Neighbour against neighbour, young against old, the no-account against the well-respected. One brother will grab another and say,‘You look like you’ve got a head on your shoulders.Do something! Get us out of this mess.’ And he’ll say, ‘Me? Not me! I don’t have a clue. Don’t put me in charge of anything.’”

Verses 8-12: “Jerusalem’s on its last legs. Judah is soon down for the count. Everything people say and do is at cross-purposes with God, a slap in My face. Brazen in their depravity, they flaunt their sins like degenerate Sodom. Doom to their eternal souls! They’ve made their bed; now they’ll sleep in it. “Reassure the righteous that their good living will pay off. But doom to the wicked! Disaster! Everything they did will be done to them.“Skinny kids terrorise My people. Silly girls bully them around. My dear people! Your leaders are taking you down a blind alley.They’re sending you off on a wild-goose chase.”

I read this passage today and I was astonished! It reads like the current news services – particularly the people who overemphasise the bad! My first thought was — so sin really IS common to mankind! (1 Corinthians 10:13)  The accuracy of what was written by Isaiah, 2,711 years ago. blew me away. Secondly I also realised that means that God is no stranger to the squirrelled-up lives we live, and the stupid decisions we make. I keep saying this stuff is in the book … and look at that – it really is in the book! Wow. If that doesn’t give us confidence that our God has already ‘bin there and dun that’ then what will?

As Christians we serve such a powerful Shepherd, He will fight every battle to protect us, as well as free us from fear. He wants to train our hands for war. However, in the west we have the luxury of thinking most of the poverty and war are ‘over there’  — as in, somewhere else! But many, many people get no relief from this kind of turmoil. Here’s another little eye-opener. This one is from Jeremiah 6:13&14 – 2,595 years ago: “For from the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have healed the wound of my people lightly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”

We misrepresent the power of God when we minimise the depth of the trouble and sorrow and suffering all around us. The power of God is always present to deliver, heal and usher people into His kingdom and it has no limitations! However, our fake cheery positive attitudes, the ones unsupported by the Spirit of God, are a knife into the heart of those who really live under all kinds of pain and persecution. We must never change Who Jesus Christ is to serve our theology. And we cannot change reality to elevate Him either. Other people will see straight through the lies and half-truths.

The church has developed an attitude like David’s brothers did when Goliath was challenging the army of Israel. I call it the: “If I can’t see it then it is not really there,’ attitude! Our job is to bring the kingdom of God with us wherever we go, not just hide from the bad stuff with over-emphasised prosperity and happiness doctrines. Our happiness is in Christ not in this world. We are strangers, simply passing through, plus we are His ambassadors while we are here. We cannot hide from reality by putting huge rocks of these badly formed theories between us, and the giants of this world. We need to do every bit of our hiding in His shadow!

“When you abide under the shadow of Shaddai, you are hidden in the strength of God Most High. He’s the hope that holds me and the stronghold to shelter me, the only God for me, and my great confidence.” Psalms 91:1-2 TPT

Always remember, Jesus was willing to pay the incredible  price to transform our lives so His Presence can go  with us wherever we go. We are not the whole ballgame – we are merely the ticket sellers and food vendors to the main event! JESUS IS ALWAYS THE MAIN EVENT!! Instead of making our own personal kingdoms comfortable and filled up with stuff, we are here now to make His Name famous. They will know we are Christians by our love, not our ten cars and fourteen overseas trips!

The daily news will probably continue to be bad, because Jesus Christ is not necessarily enthroned in the hearts of the press or most of the people around us, either. The press just want a good story and $$$$$!  But we have the real steadfast, eternal good news, inside US. We are carriers of His kingdom, filled with the love of God and the good news about forgiveness of sins, no matter what other people have done.← That’s a full stop right there. Bye. 👋

P 2910 What’s NEXT?

/ DVH

When God kisses whatever is currently going on with His peace and power, maybe we would like to look like the guy in Psalm 18 who said:“For by You I can run through a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall. As for God, His way is perfect! The Word of the Lord is tested and tried; He is a shield to all those who take refuge and put their trust in Him. For who is God except the Lord? Or Who is the Rock save our God,

The God Who girds me with strength and makes my way perfect? He makes my feet like hinds’ feet [able to stand firmly or make progress on the dangerous heights of testing and trouble]; He sets me securely upon my high places. He teaches my hands to war, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You have also given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand has held me up; Your gentleness and condescension have made me great. You have given plenty of room for my steps under me, that my feet would not slip.” (verses 29-36.) 

I know this mythical guy talking here is actually King David — but I call him leaping Larry! You’ve met someone like this too. They pirouette around other people like Nijinsky. They have a perfect spiritual life, and while you are slogging away fighting off stuff on every side, spiritually speaking — they dance all around you telling you about how yesterday they defeated 45 demons, healed 19 sick people and reorganised their closet all on the same day … And they still had time to cook a three course dinner! …I’m not jealous or anything…😳

There are things that we do and say to each other  😱 … without even a thought for where the other person is. When we leave our humanity and faults out of our testimonies, we instantly eliminate most of His army from identifying with us. His army consists of people who continue to get it wrong as well as the broken, the down-trodden, the outcasts. Even Paul told us once he almost despaired of life itself!

We need to stop inflating our spiritual image so we can feel like we belong to His kingdom. I know that God can win anything with just a few people, but … He wants us ALL to live in the blessing of doing the work of the kingdom together!  And sometimes the guy we need the most is on the floor with his marriage in tatters, and his kids have walked away from all things spiritual..

We cannot afford to stand about simply observing the half-dead person walking next to us, even though we can see that they are staggering. Maybe that person is carrying more stuff than 12 people could. Of course we pray for them, but unfortunately, we are often spectators, instead of participants in whatever is happening around others. And we optimistically call that fellowship!

If your brother is up to his neck in deep trouble and he is not coping, then we need to take that suffering human being by the arm to a quieter place, and ask if we can pray for them. Then ask if there is anyway we can be of help … AND THEN, we need to start suggesting, and doing, helpful stuff!! Privacy can sometimes be overrated. Meanwhile when someone is overloaded, and burdened — trying to think up what someone else can do to help you, ends up overtaxing your brain, emotions, energy and time! Love carries people. It recognises difficulties and the weight of sin upon an individual’s life, without judgment, and it HELPS others.

True fellowship is far more than tea or coffee and cake at interval at church. Here’s a fantastic scripture to chew on …“He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.” Isaiah 53:3. This is what happened to Jesus – people hid from His suffering and pain too! This fatal flaw has become almost normal behaviour in today’s world. We think support means throw money at it, but we are His servants, so we need to actively accept and adopt an attitude that says: “I will not let you suffer alone, I’m standing with you. SomeBody Else already did the work for both of us.” 

I am not saying we should take over someone else’s life, or leave our own lives endlessly dangling over an abyss while we are ‘helping.’ But at the same time we need to do something concrete, that makes our love for others something they can stand on. Love is an action that can be seen.  God’s Love, the love we are all aiming at … covers sin, plus it has a strong belief for good when the other party can’t find any! It hopes for everyone’s future. It puts up with all kinds of rubbish, and stuff simply rolls off a God-prompted person like water off a duck’s back! We can’t fail each other when we participate in His kind of love. 

Waiting for that kind of love to fall on us is folly. We get this kind of all-purpose, all-encompassing love for others, by being obedient … doing whatever He tells us to do in the bible. This means that we don’t sit around waiting for a “voice” to tell us to help people. Instead we’ve read the book, on purpose, and we know how to obey what it says. We don’t excuse ourselves, or hide away from reality. Our true spiritual life is all about growth, so we don’t pretend we have arrived! 

Let’s treat the people we know, and even those we don’t, the same way we would treat our own family – simply because everybody is valuable to Him. In these troubled times, my prayer often consists of ‘what’s next?’ That way I can’t easily miss anything. Bye 👋

P 2905 What will you leave behind for His sake?

/ DVH

Luke 18:22-30: “When Jesus heard this, He said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?”Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”Peter said to Him, “We have left all we had to follow you!”“Truly I tell you,” Jesus said to them, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or sisters or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”A kingdom life is not always meant to be easy!

We all need to take the time to carefully consider and discern what is keeping us from total surrender. Sometimes it can be people, or things, or even places. I try not to say: “I’ll never go to that place again” because IF I believed in gambling … and I don’t! — then the next trip is definitely going to be about going back to the place I just disavowed! Ages ago, I told hubby that we could not go on a plane anymore. Hah! I think I might have control issues – I’m still checking that out with the King. A-ny-wa-ay… next week we are flying off interstate, 2 hours each way. Never say never.

Father God loves to knock down man-made sandcastles. Why not? He’s God, He’s in charge of our lives. To my total astonishment – every single time, no matter what He does, it is always good! It hardly ever turns out the way I thought it would, because what He does is always better than I can think or imagine. I think this is why God allows us to be tested, He wants us to know that we know – from our own personal experience with Him – that He will always be there, helping us, guiding us, loving us. When you decide to trust Him, no matter how it looks – things may go more slowly – but in my experience, what God does, cannot be undone.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you will not be scorched, Nor will the flame burn you.”  That’s from Isaiah 43, verse 2. Our faith needs to learn to watch for, and expect His input – always remembering that Almighty God doesn’t do things the way we would do them!  By the way I like that word WHEN. Trouble is not optional, actually it seems to be quite normal as you follow Jesus and want to serve Him!

Just recently our daughter and her son were told that they would have to move. I actually spent sooooo much time thinking about how we could build something for them to live in our backyard, as well as repeatedly going on line to look up cheaper rentals … and then she came to me about a month ago with this huge testimony that had nothing whatsoever to do with all my efforts.

Father God had found the two of them somewhere marvellous, and she can afford the rent. It is so close to work she could walk there if she wanted to. Guess what? I wasted all that time trying to solve a problem, that was not mine. Our daughter gave it all to the Lord the minute she heard that their old house was going to be sold, and she left the whole thing with Him for Him to solve. Someone came to her about this other house… imagine that! I am learning that we need to leave the people we dearly love in His hands. Meanwhile, when you put whatever is disturbing your peace down you have to walk away at the same time.

The body of Christ has often been fascinated with the idea that brilliant preaching, miracles, supernatural happenings and healings somehow prove that whatever they are doing must be ‘right.’ It seems we think it means we definitely have God’s approval and, bonus buy, we are proving to other people that He exists. Well I believe, first of all, that we already have God’s favour because His Son died in our place! He chose us.  Miracles are a sign and a wonder, but they are not the point – Jesus is the point! 

A life laid down for His sake, makes itself available for whatever God Himself wants, whenever He says. If He says we are to love our enemies – that means we can do it! It is easy to feel like we can’t, but maybe we are bumping into fear or pride or ‘I don’t want to!’  However, bravely stepping out into the path of whatever Goliath is challenging us, while we are trusting in God’s guidance, means we’ve put the Lord in charge of whatever we are facing. Our faith is far away from any problems, because instead we believe in His goodness and we cling to our faith in HIM like a limpet to a rock. We literally shall not be moved.  

We need to give the Lord everything – our lives, our livelihoods, our kids, our health, our self-worth, our family and stuff etc to Him, and leave it all there – because  “… I (we) know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that Day.”2 Timothy 1:12. Maybe today is a good day to ask ourselves, what will we leave behind – for His sake? May God bless you, 👋.

P 2904 New way of life.

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“Keep turning your back on every sin, and make “peace” your life motto. Practice being at peace with everyone.”Psalms 34:14 TPT. This psalmist says that we need to practice maintaining peace, because that will be always needed, so in every interaction with the Lord, or someone else, we will need to use our faith. I ask for His help a lot! You can tell I am very literal about what the bible says – I use it diagnostically. I find that this helps me focus on Him and not get overwhelmed by the ‘stuff’ that keeps coming at me.

Isaiah 26:3 says: “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in YOU.” This new life we have been given, is about continually, steadily, believing we are who the Lord says we are. We need to fix our minds and hearts on His goodness. The fruit of the Spirit will come alive in us when we believe the work has already been done, and act accordingly, using our faith. “We cast our cares on the Lord, and He will sustain us, He will never let the righteous be shaken.” Psalm 55:22.

I think we often look at many verses in an unhelpful way – we look at them as a rule to be kept, and when we fail, we blame ourselves. That’s a vicious circle produced by our enemy to keep our hearts and minds off how good God is! The bible has within its pages a description, as well as God’s MODEL, (Jesus!), of our vibrant ongoing faith. I don’t have to listen to what I feel, I am guided by what He said.

In the above verses the writers are teaching us about who we are now – they are telling us how to bring God’s peace into our daily lives. We do that by refusing to invest our time, energy, angst –  in anything that is not God’s will, and focussing on what He says about everything. Peace thrives when we live according to His purposes, remembering that God saved us to faithfully serve Him.

This is not wish thinking, or even … ‘I-will-obey-God-about-that-someday’ thinking! Instead, this is now what we need to invest our God-given time in. We choose to step into our new life in Him by standing on what He has done for us. He saved us, delivered us, empowered us to overcome this world, sin and the devil, and our emotions are secondary. Jesus did more than die for us, so we can go to heaven one day, He died, to get heaven into us, here and now. He died to give us the power to have a different relationship with Father God — as His precious child. Now we live a life that begins to resemble the way Jesus lived. 

Peace is a Person. So we need to learn to protect our peace, and keep our eyes on the bigger prize which is walking with Christ, because He’s the Prince of Peace! We daily read the bible to become familiar with what He thought was important. You know whatever we focus on will become bigger – so it is best to aim at focussing on Him, and then after that, other people. Our prize, right here and right now, is that we will get to know Him better. Particularly as we practice keeping our eyes on Him, and His Ways. 

Following ‘do this, don’t do that rules’ can lead to failure, disappointment with ourselves and others, and discouragement. However, when we trust that God knows what we need and when we need it, we are investing in our faith life. Following Jesus by being obedient, taking that step by step, leads to His new life flourishing in us. As we live like this, what He wants becomes more important than any superficial gratification here and now. 

Instead of getting mad and distracted with ourselves or others because we’ve missed the mark, now our focus is is to be about – who or what He says we are. What He has already said about us in the bible, already has the power of transformation in it, as we use our faith and act on it. So we leave behind what we were before. Mark 9:23 says:“IF you can?” said Jesus.Everything is possible for the one who believes.”How can we believe Him for miracles if we cannot believe He can transform us, minute by minute?

Turn your faith eyes toward following Him, looking at what He would do. I’ve noticed that there are times when we try to use prayer as a way out of the very thing God wants us to learn from! Here’s a good question: “What’s Your will in this Father God?” The power to overcome is in doggedly, unemotionally, choosing to follow Him, by obeying Him, loving Him, enjoying Him, and preferring Him. At all times we must keep our eyes on the prize — His Presence is our Prize.

In a nutshell, when we read the bible, we obey what it says, believing that the power to obey comes from the fact that Jesus Himself said it – not from how we feel about it! From now on we ignore those parts of us that are clamouring for pity or relief because it all seems too hard. Of course it is hard, we are dying to our own will, by choosing to believe and honour the exchange we made when we said yes to Him! 

Faith has a ‘way’ to approach this life. Jesus began our faith, and He has already finished the job – 2,000+ years ago! In this life, we simply use our faith to access what has already been done for us. Sin has no longer power over us, because we died when He died. We simply choose to be obedient to what He has already told us in the book. The more we do that, the easier it becomes to hear His voice. My advice? Tackle the hard stuff first!  Let’s live in freedom in spite of the devil’s harassment and enjoy this new way of faith. Bye. 👋

P 2902 Give yourself a break OK?

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The Lord knows we all need a break sometimes, so God has been incredibly generous to mankind, He has given us gifts to help us. When you read His book you might easily notice that Almighty God often picks the oddest people to represent Him, I think it is because His goodness shines very brightly in needy people. 1 Peter 4:10-11 says:  “God has given each of you a gift from His great variety of spiritual gifts. Use them well to serve one another. Do you have the gift of speaking? Then speak as though God Himself were speaking through you. Do you have the gift of helping others? Do it with all the strength and energy that God supplies. Then everything you do will bring glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to Him forever and ever! Amen.”

We can sometimes overestimate and esteem human beings, because they have been anointed by God to deliver His Grace to His people. Then we face disappointment and a further battle for our peace. However, it is God Himself Who deserves the glory and honour. Those people who represent Him are a gift from Him. With things like teaching, writing, sermons etc. we need to remember as we listen, that the person communicating is His Grace in action. If it touches our heart, that’s our Father, kissing us, hugging us — those things that bless us have been inspired by God for our benefit. 

I believe we desperately need to pray for our leaders – not occasionally, but all the time! Leadership is not only a gift of spiritual stamina, it is a gift of His Grace. These people are out in front of us, right in the firing line of our common enemy. They need our prayers. And we need to consistently elevate and thank the Lord because He gave us those who lead, they are His gifts to the church. Yes His gifts are precious, but that’s because they came from Him! So the glory belongs to Him. Everything He does is worthy of our praise – we simply need to wake up enough to notice what He is doing, all the time, every day.

If any one of us fail, or give up temporarily, or get discouraged or even lose heart — let’s remember that we have SomeOne praying for us, 24/7. Jesus and the Holy Spirit take our walk with our Heavenly Father, personally! Father God could care less if we are successful – He is looking for us to be His own submitted obedient kids, following His Son’s example. Jesus Christ was not successful by today’s standards – yet everything He achieved will one day be revealed in heaven. For now, WE HAVE HIS BOOK! 

I believe we are to be a people who press forward toward the goal, and live every single day, with the knowledge of an  astonishing revelation — we know that our God is always for us! Nothing else can prevail against us because He is on our side. He’s with us when we get it right, He’s with us when we get it wrong. Now here’s 2 Peter 1:3:“Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.”

The ones Jesus loves (Zach Williams):

It may be that this life has become so difficult we have begun to give up on ourselves, because our situation seems so dire we cannot see any answer. In hard times it is so easy to forget Jesus is the answer… to anything. One of the most passionate, desperate prayers was prayed by a little lady who crawled through the dirt unseen to get to Him. Luke 8:43-48. God knows when we get stuck and He runs to the aid of one of His little ones. If He seems to be absent, don’t be afraid – He is confident you will get through this. Incredibly, even at the same time as our troubles, we actually need more than a resolution of our pain and hard situations, even though those things are merciless — we need to be reminded that Jesus is filled with mercy. Pressed down and running over. He won’t leave us or forsake us.

These are the times that I need to remind myself how very much God loves me. How much He understands my pain and loss and sorrow, personally. Jesus didn’t pick out an easy escape route when His life got hard for Him. He totally understands what severe testing is like! He came to this earth, by His own choice, to live this life the way we do. Praise God the Lord Jesus has personal experience, He understands where we are. He will hold us up, relieve our suffering and sorrow and set us free to live in His love despite our circumstances. He has promised to walk with us through our deepest valleys.

Last scripture here! Matthew 11:28-30.“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to ME. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

Give yourself a break and remember that it is not the end of the world to be human. God honoured mankind by sending His only Son to become one of us. What a wonder that is! And oh how very much He loves us! May He shower you with His peace and love, and help you to see those things today, Amen. Bless you, bye. 👋.

P 2900 We pray from a kingdom perspective.

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“Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm.” Colossians 3:2 TPT. There are so many instructional verses in the bible, just like this one, that we could apply one of them every single day and still not get through the book even once in this lifetime! So how do we feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm while we are still on earth? We live like heaven is our home, not this world.

It’s all about focus. Most people today are focussed on me, myself, and I. My family, and my relatives, and my goods and possessions, my country, and my job or lack of one! In order to have a heavenly point of view we need to focus on what God wants – and fortunately He has told us what He wants – in writing! 

Jesus came here and He actively taught us what a heavenly perspective looks like. Our Father always has a greater plan than we can imagine — praise Him! Jesus was a walking, talking, teaching, healing illustration of God’s plan and His love for each one of us. Then He died to seal the deal, to give us our opportunity to live the way He did. Sacrificially. He didn’t just die to get us into heaven – He died to get heaven into, and flowing out of, US!

Jesus Christ is Father God’s faith in action be-ca-u-se … ‘faith without works is dead!’ Faith has substance – Jesus Christ is the substance of His Father’s faith. This is why without faith we cannot please God – our God is faith-filled! He has invested His Son’s life in each one of us. His kingdom is not just a place, somewhere ‘up there’ — it is a new way to live. The miracles Jesus did were secondary to the carrying out of His Father’s plan.

People could say: “Well being a Christian doesn’t sound like much fun, if God gave me a life  I want to live it, my own way.” And so the Lord steps back and says: “Have at it!” This means right here, right now, surprise, surprise, we are living in a world filled with people who want their own way. Even if what they actually want is a peaceful life, that is still what that person chooses for themselves! We should never be surprised at the mess this world is in, because human beings are in charge. And human beings, without Christ, are susceptible to demonic influences!

I think we all do our best to pray for good things, Godly things, things inspired by the Holy Spirit … but many times we pray for change or healing of things on this earth. Please Lord, heal this. Please Lord, change that. Please Lord, help those people etc. We are praying for the things that will one day pass away. Jesus Himself told us what to pray for: “Our Father, Who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name; THY KINGDOM COME; THY WILL BE DONE; on EARTH as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.”

In this new reality, we pray for His kingdom, His will to be done, first.. In this prayer that Jesus gave us as an example – God is the centre. Yes we can pray to be delivered from sickness, sin and evil, let’s do it! We sure need it!! But the point of being born again is to live in His new kingdom with His oversight. He tells us how to do that in the book. He even tells us what the fruit of that kingdom looks like … in the book! No fruit – no kingdom!  

Our new life means we have chosen to live in His kingdom, and we are to manifest that kingdom in this life down here …in the middle of wars, trouble, strife, evil, compromise, hatred, murder, lust, lies. That’s why Jesus said “don’t be surprised when bad things happen.” Those things are the fruit of this world!  We are to walk within this world’s worst nightmares, shining with the light of Jesus’ love for every single human being, always praying people will be saved by the truth of what we believe, as it is acted out right in front of them! 

“God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.” 1 John 4:17.

Now we pray from our new heavenly position within Christ. ‘Lord I want what You want.” I’ve learnt, from experience, that what HE wants is so much better than anything I can think of or dream about! We have given our lives to Him so He can live through us – we are blessed to be able to release His point of view, His healing, His love, peace, joy, into the darkness. That is not a part-time job, it is a kingdom lifestyle.  We need to learn to pray from a kingdom perspective.Bye. 👋