People

P 2335 Some light-hearted suggestions for difficult people.

/ DVH

The ones you never seem deal with well, but can’t avoid, I mean? I’d say shoot ‘em … but I’m pretty sure God won’t like that! AND YES, I’M JOKING … well, sort of anyway. 😳 Just keeping it real here, folks. There are some people in my life I like a whole lot better …when they are far FAR away!

We all have people who can’t, or don’t, or maybe they even don’t want to, understand us. Some of those people  it seems, go out of their way to deliberately misunderstand us. Now if you only have one or two prickly people in your collection …count yourself blessed.

I have, BTW, met people who cheerfully tell me that they don’t struggle with anyone, because they l-o-v-e 💕everyone … really?! Well, I struggle with them, because I want to shout liar liar pants on fire at them! Why would Jesus talk so much about forgiving people, if it is so easy? So, then I repent, calm down and add those people to my list of human beings I just don’t get.. Sadly there’s a few people on that list too!

The bible tells us we will have trials, and sometimes those trials are people!  If we are lucky they move, or we move, and we don’t have to see them anymore. This means that we can join the ever rapidly growing list of people who don’t hate anyone. How cool is that? When people you don’t get on with move, it makes it that much harder to be reconciled. Now you gotta add travelling in as well!!  Meanwhile its hard to hate people you can’t remember … so do yourself a favour and don’t try!

And then I found this scripture – more’s the pity!: “Be free from pride-filled opinions, for they will only harm your cherished unity. Don’t allow self-promotion to hide in your hearts, but in authentic humility put others first and view others as more important than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3 TPT. So now I have to have yet another list, beside the list of people I do my best to try to avoid. I call this third list, scriptures I try to avoid. Howzat working for you babe! Not much. 

God loves to bring these people up with me, especially at a time when I’m feeling pretty good about myself, because I’ve been talking to someone else about Him. A-N-D … that scenario would be the ‘pride-filled opinions’ bit in that verse that I am starting to HATE. Well. Goodie. You’d think I would get a day-pass after all that free advertising for Him, but no… He and I are gunna look at it.

Right about now, that person I hoped was gone forever from my thoughts, is floating up from my subconscious and … looking at me. You know it would be so much easier to continue my you-are-not-a-person-I-really-like campaign if this difficult person looked grumpy. But that’s not gunna happen either, be-cau-se, something else is going on. 

Then the Holy Spirit says these perfect words … ‘What are WE going to do about this one?’ Conviction hits me between the eyes. Couldn’t you just love Him for those words alone? I sure do. That’s when I remember that Jesus totally identified with me, without sinning. That means HE KNOWS THE WAY THROUGH THIS. Now it’s up to me to follow the Holy Spirit’s prompts. I know He knows how to restore things for me, I just need to trust Him. I can be sure He will help me because Jesus is heaven’s answer to sin, works, and total restoration. 

I said all that stuff to say this – pretending we are OK, and making believe that the people who bother us don’t really bother us – all that guff is a waste of time and energy. It is better to be honest with ourselves and the Lord. So don’t just tell your spouse or a friend, how much this person drives you nuts …tell Jesus. Let’s trust His wisdom, His kindness, and lean on HIS understanding. 

Confessing our faults opens the doors of our hearts and minds to real renewal and a fresh start. God can give us a fresh perspective on those people we don’t understand or like. Jesus will provide all that for us from the book.There is no such thing as a vacuum spiritually, we either actively pursue the Lord, or our enemy will keep handing us loads of  reasons to stay mad. And those dumb people who drive us crazy will continue to compound the felony in our eyes.

Difficult people are a fact of life … the sooner we face ourselves, the sooner we will embrace change and usher in restoration. IT’S OUR JOB – we are the Grace-spreaders of this world.  👋🏻

P 2310 Mi casa, su casa …

/ DVH

… my house is your house. I love the inclusiveness of that beautiful Spanish statement. When we give our lives to Jesus this is what we are literally saying. “My heart, Lord, is now Your home…”  my house is now your house. 

The beauty of this type of commitment toward Him is this … He will remain faithful to us, even if – or when, we are unfaithful to Him. He cannot be any other way. Check it out for yourself, and don’t take my word for it.  It’s in the book. Our God is so faithful! FYI the word “faith” is mentioned 243 times in the bible, “faithful” 82 times, “faithfully” 8 times, “faithfulness” 19 times. Our only response to His incredible faithfulness is: MI CASA SU CASA.

Faithfulness is part of Who Almighty God is! Whatever He says, we can stand on it, with the Holy Spirit’s guidance- we can utterly trust Him. The Holy Spirit always knows what to say … and where to look for instructions too! He initiates, and we follow. We need to be oh, so very careful about how we treat the Precious Spirit of God, because He is the Father’s heart speaking to us, leading us into our destiny.

People make walking with Him far too difficult. The secret is to love what HE loves. He loves the Father and the Son … and… … He loves people. He also adores a heart that loves to obey. Obedience to His Ways and directions show our commitment. We must learn to do whatever He asks us to do. – we need to make His priorities our priorities that is how you walk with Him. If He says don’t do it – then don’t do it! 

It only gets hard any time His will conflicts with ours. Here’s another clue regarding how to recognise Him from day to day— He is not a TA-DA kind of Person. He likes to work in secret.  The Holy Spirit reveals Himself to us as we deliberately choose to learn His ways.… so, in the face of this world’s ideas we will end up seeking out what He wants. That’s normal!

His very favourite thing is this:  He loves to help us carry out our daily life. Let Him IN! The Holy Spirit just loves to help. He teaches us, counsels us, leads us and guides us, as we go about our daily lives.  Ask Him. Ask and keep ON asking…  Plus He loves to help us to worship and praise God. Spontaneously, not just at church on Sunday. If you relegate His input to Sundays you will miss the biggest blessing. He gives us insight, revelation and wisdom in our day-to-day settings. Expect His input. 

Plus He facilitates all of God’s kids to live a life of loving joyful obedience and service to our King. Sometimes we may not even notice what the Holy Spirit is actually doing, unless we make His priorities our priorities. But at the same time He does not ever like to call attention to Himself. He adores to point out the things our Heavenly Father does on our behalf. The Holy Spirit’s gentle nature will help us take the lowest place, with Grace, if we let Him. 

We become His helpers as we learn to yield to His personality and plans. Friendship with the Holy Spirit is our greatest asset in this world – it is up to us to diligently discover what He wants done, and how He wants things done and then do it. He will take everything that is broken, false and ugly in our lives and work it all together for good for everyone – including US. And He does it so quietly we may not even notice what He is doing until it is done. He is simply that subtle. Our task to flow with Him, and when that is all boiled down, it means we die to our choices, often and joyfully.

Our house is His house, our bodies are His temple. That is for every day of the week not just Sundays. Our bodies are His home, please don’t leave Him homeless. 👋🏻

P 2279 Transformation sucks…until it doesn’t!

/ DVH

Loving other people,  especially difficult ones, is our biggest test. As we let the Holy Spirit touch our lives and hearts, the things that really annoy us about other people, start to quietly melt away. There was no one singular moment for me, personally— instead, there have been thousands of little choices – to shut up when I didn’t really want to – and to look for the good in situations when the bad was banging me on the head repeatedly. 

There is no specific secret – I just had to stop putting ME first. The more we can drag our unredeemed minds out of self-preservation and start actively renewing them, the more we start to understand that following Jesus really works. There are still times my mouth starts running without thinking, then irritation takes over, and I couldn’t care less how someone else feels, all I care about is some clown is standing on my foot, metaphorically speaking. 

Over the years I’ve learnt that the subject of love makes a magnificent theory, but it doesn’t always work out the way we hope it will IRL. People do stupid annoying stuff. It’s inevitable! The point, is whether they mean to hurt us or not, the result is we still have deal with it. That part IS our problem. This is one of the best reasons I know to take judgment right out of the picture. As soon as we go into judgment, we’ve run right past mercy and left faith behind, and skidded right on through to feeling entitled to getting a break in our adverse circumstances … Which hardly ever happens BTW.  

There is just no going around the fact that we need an external-soon-to-become-internal source of power – because we don’t have that kind of grace toward other people, in us. Speaking for myself, in the past 2 weeks, I have found any number of reasons to get irritated. Pain is a fantastic motivator – unfortunately it mostly motivates you in the wrong direction… and then you start to feel sorry for yourself. 😱

Loving other people the way He loves us is utterly impossible by ourselves. We have to put aside the habits and actions we’ve cultivated in a lifetime – and deliberately, as in on purpose, step into His never-ending stream of love. This also means that at the same time we will have to realistically face who we truly are – warts and all. Not fun. Realism is not always a major feature of our Western churches.

Eventually you and I are gonna have to put a whole lot of stuff down, and deliberately forgetaboudit! And begin to pick up His sacrificial love, ask for His help, and start to use our choices. We do that simply because of what Christ did for us. Love is a chosen sacrifice. The good news is we don’t have to like it, we just have to bite the bullet and do it anyway. But the more we make the choice to live this life cooperating with the Holy Spirit, and learning His ways, the easier it becomes. That is when we will start to see His fruit forming in our own lives. 

All of this spells out the fact that just like Jesus Himself …“by myself I can do nothing.”  Human beings need restoration. Praise GOD He does that kind of thing, brilliantly. Loving others is always going to be hard, because in reality, I don’t always want to choose love – I want to choose comfort and convenience instead. However, change will never come unless we start to make hard, sacrificial choices. One of the most important choices we will ever make is to choose to believe the Lord Jesus is more important than how I feel or think, or anything awful you might do to me.

My final thought is this … we can follow Jesus to the cross and choose to die; and wait for Him to fulfil His promise to resurrect us – or we can put all our energies into self preservation. We can’t do both, not if you want to live in love the way He did. Bye 👋🏻.

P 2258 So many denominations

/ DVH

Yeah, let’s established first up, on this blog you have one older lady’s opinion … right? I’m not a theologian, I haven’t been to bible school, I simply met Jesus Christ eons ago, and I’ve been following Him ever since. IF I know anything at all – HE taught me. Sadly there were some times that I ignored Him in favour of what my denomination taught me,  and yes I’ve repented! My point is, my opinions are limited.

I saw the above cartoon and I loved it. It seemed to me that it was the best explanation for why there are so many Christian denominations in this world. We are all looking at the same thing, we are just standing in different places. Please forgive me for intimating our Heavenly Father is like an elephant, that is not what I am trying to say! I am commenting on the fact that we all have so many different doctrines.

Some denominations even have sub-denominations! 😳 It also seems if you are in a denomination and want to make a splash, then you can skive off and start your own. Especially if what you believe seems important enough. That’s like expecting our arm to work by itself. Can’t happen! The Body of Christ is fragmented by its belief systems.  

The best I can offer by way of explanation is this – even if you have only two people you will still have a whole heap of different opinions. BTW, that could be why some marriages don’t work – people fall in love, but they don’t share the same basic beliefs and opinions. It’s the nitty gritty stuff that divides us, and “true love” often blinds us all! Well that was free! Moo-ving on …

… The fact is Almighty God is too big, too wise, too wonderful to be explained by any, or all of us. He is so much bigger than we have allowed Him to be. We are not acquainted with the fact that we don’t have to understand Him to relate to Him. And we don’t have to think like Him to explain Him – I suggest we let Him explain Himself. He’s so big He can say one thing to one person and something else to someone else. And both things are true. We must return to the place of wonder. It’s OK to not know stuff – instead let’s just fall in love with the God Who made it all.

If we think we can explain Him, no matter how clever we are, or how many words we take to do it, we are fooling ourselves. A truly wise person lets God explain Himself. And that’s called revelation. “We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing Him directly just as He knows us!” 1 Corinthians 13:12.

We need to be in a relationship with Him, and treasure His Presence far more than we need to understand how He thinks. People grab at this thing and that thing and think … “Aha! I finally have the Answer.” Denominations occur when we start trying to explain God. Even though some of those explanations or revelations are fantastic … but those things are not all there is. As soon as we think we have some sort of basic idea that sums up Almighty God – we just limited Him. We keep trying to fit  Almighty God into our teeny tiny boxes, and because He truly IS God, He will burst out of them!

We don’t have to prove Him. Let Him prove Himself! I don’t have to prove the sun is out when it is daytime or nighttime. Even if it is raining or cloudy – the SUN is still there. I just need to position myself into a place where I can see beyond my earthly restrictions. Like board a plane, or climb up above the clouds. Our position before Him is what matters, and to stand in the right place we need to realise that He is God and we are not. It is OK to have a Daddy Who knows more than we do. 

God forgave us all. He does not see the restrictions and boundaries and doctrines the way we see them – He sees people. And He loves them. Read the book! It is all about God relating to His people. Because of Jesus Christ, we are all now His people. No matter what denomination we belong to. We waste our time on this earth fighting, or abusing one another over things that won’t last. Father God does not care what colour skin we have, what sort of accent we have, what we believe – or not, HE JUST LOVES HIS KIDS. It’s in the book.

He’s so glorious He loves the people who actively hate Him. Imagine that. Not just loving your enemies, but deliberately actioning a plan to save them from themselves and then sacrificing Your only Son to provide the way to do it. That blows my mind. Let’s just agree that we don’t have to understand Him to love Him back. They will know we are Christians by our love … not by our denomination. Bye. 👋🏻

P 2231 Encounters.

/ DVH

The blessing of being on the road for Jesus’ sake, is the terrific people we meet. The day before yesterday, we went to a look out (see above) in Nambucca Heads. The sun was out and it was so pretty. People came, admired the view and then went, and then an older lady came along. The Lord told us to give her a bookmark, so hubby did. She loved it so much, she came right over to the car to say thank you to me. 

Nancy is a delightful aboriginal lady, from the Gumbaynggirr people. She knew heaps about this area because she was born here. Nancy passed on a big secret! The best place to go fishing – only the local aboriginal people know it, so we wrote it down, memorised it … and then promptly chewed it up and swallowed it. I felt like James Bond! Well, not really … but you get the vibe. 😂 Meanwhile I’m incredibly sure Nancy would know where to fish!  After a lovely conversation we gave her a word of knowledge and she hugged us because she was so glad to meet us. And all we did was drive up to look at the pretty view!

After that we drove on to visit caravan parks. The first one was down below the above view, you can just see the edge of it in the picture … if you take a magnifying glass that is!  Nambucca Heads is such a pretty postcard place. The ladies behind the desk at the first cara park were Donna and Joanne. Hubby said they looked a bit fierce like Aussie country women do sometimes, tatts, bronzed and all! …. But they melted like butter when he gave them a couple of bookmarks. They took bibles for the cabins and hubby had a great time talking and sharing with them. 

As he came out of the office, he noticed an older man, Sean, sitting outside having a smoke. The Lord told hubby to talk to him – so, fishing being our new area of expertise – hubby asked Sean about fishing in that area. Meanwhile he didn’t mention the fishing spot our aboriginal friend mentioned, because it really IS a secret spot!!  Hubby ended up giving Sean one of his prophetic paintings and a word. The older man teared right up. Loving people, on purpose, is so precious when you are walking with Jesus.

Before we left for this trip, I made some bookmarks with some expoxy gummy bear charms on them for younger people. Boy are they chewy!! So, when we stopped at the next park,  hubby met another much younger girl and she was de-light-ed! Pink is her favourite colour – she loved the pink gummy bear one. You know, every place we took bibles the managers received them joyfully. “The fields are white …!!”  Everybody has room for more appreciation and love. 

We’ve given away 145 bibles so far, plus 12 bookmarks, 3 prophetic paintings, one prophetic letter, and 3 prophetic words. Counting everything, we’ve given away over 189 things. And we’ve only been on the road for three and a half days. Lastly, we also went to two places where we couldn’t find the owner – sometimes you drive miles and miles … a-n-d ….there ain’t nobody home!  

Yesterday, was a travelling day and we had to go past one of the parks where there was nobody home and lo and behold … somebody was in. Sharon, an ex-school teacher who loved her bookmark with a wise owl on it and she took bibles too. Isn’t the Lord amazing? An owl for a teacher?  Man He cracks me up!!

So here’s an inconsequential story for you – just for today! When we arrived where we are currently staying, here in Forster, we unpacked. Unpacking consists of hubby jumping about like an energiser bunny putting things in useful places, while I watch him and make unhelpful suggestions. (Unhelpful suggestions are in the wife’s manual of things to do that drive husbands crazy… FYI) 😱 

Any-w-a-ay … I took off my very pretty, and extremely precious earrings that hubby bought for me many years ago, and carefully put them together … and then …promptly lost them. We both searched high and low, down the back of the sofa, as you do … under the sofa … everywhere I had been, about four times. In the end, we prayed the help help prayer …a-n-d … nothing. My dear hubby looked places I’d already looked at, and I looked places he’d already looked as well. Nothing! When nothing happens … I “oh well” whatever it is and leave it with the Lord.

Hubby had to go shopping, and I kept periodically looking. The earrings had disappeared.  Eventually he arrived back at the unit and we both started looking again … and low and behold!! They were right in front of the place I was sitting – on the carpet! They were not there before – trust me! 😳 We’d both searched very thoroughly and they were not there before  –  but now they were. Unbelievable!!  Who knew the Lord cared about lost earrings? Lost people – YES! Lost earrings – NO!  I learn something new about the kindness of the Lord Jesus every single day. He is Lord of the little things. 🙌

“The Lord will work out His plans for my life—for your loving-kindness, Lord, continues forever…” 👋🏻

P 2220 Choose the things you want to be rich in, carefully.

/ DVH

Ephesians 2: 6-10 “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,  in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”Giving away Grace to the undeserving is part of our good works.

The first part of these verses above explain clearly how we can do whatever He wants us to do, using His Grace. But we also do whatever we do, from heavenly places (it’s in the book!) – not from earthly wisdom or effort. Father God did what He did for us all through Christ’s sacrifice, because now WE are designed to be part of His display of GRACE to the rulers of this world and the next! Not to mention satan and his cohorts! Our presence here in this world – our Grace-inspired faith-filled works – show this world and all that follows from here, what His GRACE looks like and how bountiful and glorious it is. That is what we do.  We are living illustrations of His GRACE in action. Ya might want to think long and hard on that one. 🧐

Now because it is GRACE … then people won’t deserve it.  We give Grace to others because that is part of the new way we have chosen to live. That means, sooner or later, that somebody is probably gunna get clobbered and treated badly. And then the clobber-ee will have to forgive the clobber-ER! That process is His GRACE on display, through us. At that moment HE gets all the glory. Grace is the coin of His kingdom.

I know, personally, that this kind of stuff has nothing whatsoever to do with who I am – and everything to do with His power at work in me. I don’t have the desire in me to be that altruistic and forgiving about some of the stuff that went down in my life! How about you? We cannot live our lives for His sake and not live supernatural Grace-filled lives – otherwise we are open to deception from the other guy. Living in His Grace is not optional – it is essential. I talked about His fruit a few blogs ago – Grace sets the fruit in our lives. Blossom trees get lots of flowers but many of those flowers are fruitless.

The thing is, these riches in Ephesians are a testimony to what our Heavenly Father did and how God’s Ways work. The word Grace means – (my translation) – ‘nobody deserves it!’ That includes you, or I, or the person who hurt us! Humanity has a distinct lack of deserving Grace in common – we ALL NEED IT. Sin is sin and His Grace levels the playing field. The only Person Who ever deserved these kind of riches is Christ, and Jesus left everything behind in heaven, to come here and pay for our sins so we can have these Godly traits as part of our inheritance and witness!! So let’s not hold grudges – let’s go after reconciliation!

The amazing thing is, God is rich in things that human beings don’t value much. Think about it. In the main people value material things – food, comfort, safety, somewhere warm and dry to sleep  … material things. Father God regards the things mankind goes to war about, as our needs. He promises to supply them, but the non-material things, that last eternally, matter more to Him. He used things like gold, jewels etc as building materials. (Read Revelation – the streets are paved with gold – not to mention the gates and walls!) WOW!! 

Here’s a fun thing to do while reading the Word. Go through your bible and highlight, or select all the things it says God is RICH in. It will blow your mind. And there is not a diamond, or a ruby, or even piles of gold on that list! That’s because He doesn’t value what we value. He knows we all need stuff … but we need Him more. It seems to me to be the spirit of stupid on steroids, to want to serve and follow Him, and not use our faith to ask for those non-material things, we actually desperately need every single day. Who doesn’t need patience, or kindness, or love, or long-suffering every single day? I know I do!

Now, to my final point: these eternal non-material things are the essence of Who Father God is. When we love and embrace those qualities, we are loving Him. We dare not say we truly love Him, if we do not value what He values. And boy, does HE value PEOPLE! There is no need to ask Him for the material practical things we need down here, because He has already promised “to supply every need according to His riches in Christ Jesus.” We need to learn to ask, and keep on asking, for all of the eternal things we lack. Let’s choose our riches carefully. 👋🏻

P 2143 He is always faithful – a testimony.

/ DVH

“I am convinced that my God will fully satisfy every need you have, for I have seen the abundant riches of glory revealed to me through Jesus Christ!” Philippians 4:19 TPT

Hubby and I have travelled all over this country in the past seventeen and a half years, mainly because Australia is an unreached people group! People may know about religion, but they haven’t met His love yet. In all that time we have given away, thousands of bibles, testimonies, bookmarks, calendars, children’s bibles, and short books – as well as – postcards, pens, photo books, pass-it-on cards, kid’s DVDs. Plus thousands of New Testaments, pamphlets, supermarket vouchers, boxes of chocolates … that list of stuff goes on and on.  We’d use a chicken if He told us too! 🤣 My point today is about seeing for ourselves how God has supplied our needs – and I don’t mean a new iphone! 

These things we have given away opened up opportunities for prayer, conversations and testimonies with dear Aussies who had never ever heard the Gospel before. The miracle was that we have not had to pay for any of these things, although many items were handmade so they took time. Father God provided for these “seeds” through many, many, many generous Christians – some of whom we have never ever met. It is simply incredible to watch what the Lord will do to provide for the things we do in His Name. Hubby and I are pensioners and we scrape by financially a lot – we don’t have spare money – so this is not a hobby. My desire today, is to give testimony about the glorious provision we have experienced. We have personally seen God do amazing things when we obeyed Him. The way to see a miracle is to step out of the comfort of safety, into the potential of risk.

The Lord has woken up strangers in the middle of the night and told them to send us money – using our names!  Money sometimes comes to us for our trips in small amounts, sometimes in larger ones. This means that the people who received these bibles etc. do not have to pay a cent. But many recipients have asked us if we wanted payment for what we gave them. We operate on the principle of “freely you have received, freely give..” So we said: “No, we need no payment thank you. There are people who care about you and your life, that is why we are here.”  And that becomes part of our testimony when we are talking to people-who-do-not-know-Him yet.

We’ve had many Aussies break down and cry because someone cared enough to come where they live and spend time with them, in out of the way places where tourists never go. Tough working men in blue singlets, work shorts and Akubra hats have brushed away tears. We all know just Who can do stuff like that easily – Jesus can! 🤗 This has meant that people who have never ever read a bible in their lives before, were reading it out loud as we were leaving. We’ve gone out of our way to speak to just one person, because the Lord said: “Go to that place for this person for Me please.” Several times we’ve had to turn around and go back in the middle of a lo-ng journey because we misheard Him, and we missed someone! That shows us how much individual people matter to Him. Walking with Him in faith like this is another way to get to know Him intimately.

I am talking about these things because we all need to stop and remember how incredibly faithful our God is. Hubby and I have come to know that He will supply our needs, because we’ve watched Him do it, over and over again. In the most extraordinary ways. Does He use these times to stretch our faith? YES! There were times when we had no money and He said: “Off you go…” So with shaking knees, off we went! The finances that time actually came in after we were on the road. We are just ordinary people but we’ve tasted and seen how good He is! We are off again in April, God willing. So why am I telling you this? Because sometimes Christians often want to feel faith first, or have proof first. But the Lord Jesus wants us to swing our legs over the side of the boat and step onto the water … in sheer obedience to what He said. 

Jesus told Peter to: “Come,” and that’s what that seasoned knowledgable fisherman did. He did the impossible on the Word of the Lord, and went against his personal instincts and walked toward Jesus. We know that Jesus rebuked Peter because he sank, the man was scared that he might have drowned. But the point was – he was the only man in twelve men who dared to even try. This world needs seeds sown in faith if we want to see a harvest. We always have to be prepared to be tested, and sometimes we will even fail;  because we are imperfect people following the PERFECT ONE. The thing is, time after time, even when we’ve missed it – we have personally watched the Lord redeem situations that seemed to be totally unredeemable. He’s a Redeemer by NATURE.

Is it a difficult way to live? Yes. You only have to look at Jesus’ own life to see how much opposition there is to the gospel. Despite many rumours to the contrary, He did not promise us an easy ride while we are serving Him in this life.(Matthew 5:10-12;  2 Corinthians 12:10; Acts 5:41; Acts 8:1-4 to name a few scriptures.) Instead He promised to be with us in every trouble. We cannot know what it is like to have the Lord deliver us, if we do not experience troubles! Our faith needs to be stretched, and it will not be stretched when we keep doing what we’ve always done. That scenario just leads into complacency. 

It is a wonderful thing to minister to each other in our churches, to build up the Body of Christ, please do it. But also don’t ever forget the responsibility we all have to be His witnesses. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”  Acts: 1:8. Ask the Holy Spirit to come with you to the supermarket, or your kid’s school, or your place of employment. He will inspire and empower all of us to step out in faith and sow seeds for a harvest. 👋🏻

P 2135 Wake up! This is no time to sleep in the light.

/ DVH

As the Body of Christ in this world, we must stop trying to pray away the kind of stuff we need to fight our way through, and start using our faith to tell those mountains to MOVE. The power we use to get free, is the power we have at hand to prevail on the battlefield. That battlefield is right outside our doors, and sometimes sadly, even inside them. Only a bad, uncaring commander would send untrained, inexperienced soldiers out into the field, to fight a rampant, cunning, and deceitful enemy. The Lord Jesus is not that sort of commander! However, do not fall into the trap of dismissing satan lightly. We know our side HAS already won, but, sadly, the other guy’s biggest strategies have been entrenched inside our gates. The Body has gone to sleep, in the light.

The Captain of the hosts is Jesus Christ and He is the most brilliant leader ever, because He leads by example. He does not simply issue instructions and sit back and wait for us to follow them – He faced humanity’s battles daily, like we do. He showed us how to continually walk in love. Jesus Christ did not live a separate and aloof life, instead He lived with ordinary people every single day and He constantly demonstrated God’s power everywhere He went. Plus He personally illustrated and taught people Who Our Heavenly Father really is. The biggest battle we will ever face is to remove the enemy’s lies from within our own thinking.

The way the world is lately, it has become very easy to forget about love, and to spend our time concentrating on our own survival instead. But we have the Holy Spirit to help us and He is the most incredible strategist this world will ever know! We must understand God’s ways far better than the stuff going on around us so we can discern what is good right and just, and what is hot air and a waste of our time. We are stronger than we realise – because “greater is He within us .”… 

God does not set us up to be defeated by our difficulties. Instead those things that assault us have been allowed, to train us in righteousness. The bible needs to so penetrate our souls right down  “into the joints and marrow,” that our first response is to trust Him. That’s intimacy! We have SomeOne Who knows about the good the bad and the ugly around us – as well as within us – and yet He loves and will NOT leave us! He won’t indulge us, but He will lead, protect, guide and shelter us and ‘train our hands for war…”. This is our time to  learn how to march behind Jesus in our appointed place in His body.

God is looking for our obedience to His already revealed ways in His book. It’s not like we have to guess, anything we ever need to know is in the bible. Our biggest problem is we want to pre-design the answers to our prayers. If we read the bible carefully, we will soon see, particularly in the Old Testament, that God’s answers to prayer did not look the way His people thought they would. He can get us through the maze of our own thoughts, wishes, hopes and dreams into a much, much wider place than we have ever dreamt about. BUT … we simply must stop trying to program what we think His responses will look like. Our minds are limited, because we are finite, so when we submit, obey and follow the limitless One, our whole perspective changes. 

“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20 NIV)

This Scripture holds a huge importance to us as His Body.  It is the basis for any evangelism and missions, plus it is a call to our own personal responsibility. It is a command to go forth to all nations and spread the gospel. How? Fearlessly – because we know He will be with us.  Our job is to…’triumph over our enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony.’ (Revelation 12:11). That’s what a witness does, they testify. Death is no longer our enemy. Like Esther said to Mordecai : “If I die, I die! … WIN WIN!” OK. we both know she didn’t say that, like that, but she lived thousands of years ago. Boy has our language changed since Esther.

Our Church cultures have become careless, now we think going to church Sunday by Sunday, or whatever day you go on, is doing our bit.  We want the benefits of knowing Him, but not the sacrifices.  Plus we have been deceived in our thinking that living for Christ only is for ‘special’ people … famous ones. The Western Body of Christ has been lulled into thinking it is OK for us to live in safety and comfort, because we are not meant to suffer for the Gospel’s sake – we’ll just pray for the ones who ARE suffering – that’s our job. Sadly, we pray and give and live removed lives. Discomfort is meant to tell us something – we must listen, pay attention, and wake up! Our enemy is upon us and we’ve been lulled asleep in the light. It’s time to take back what the enemy has stolen from us …PEOPLE! 👋🏻

“So then, surrender to God. Stand up to the devil and resist him and he will flee in agony.”James 4:7 TPT

P 2105 Merry Christmas – and yeah, I know it’s early!

/ DVH

In the past, I have spoken with some highly intelligent people, who told me that I came from a kind of an amoebic bird-fish that crawled out of some sort of primordial mud. Meanwhile, if you think about it, the scientists who think they have proved their point, actually agree with God Himself! The bible says we came from mud they have just missed seeing God Himself in the process.

Here’s an FYI, Genesis says that man was made from mud, but then God breathed HIS LIFE into that pile of dirt!  (Genesis 2:7) And Adam became a living breathing being – filled with the same life that IS in God Himself! It took 930 years for Adam to die, he had so much eternal life in Him, even though he gave it up when he disobeyed. Some other clever people have devoted their lives trying to create Artificial Intelligence, but the truth is that God put more intelligence and potential inside a little baby’s brain than we can ever duplicate!  Even I can sculpt a passable frog out of clay but I cannot make it LIVE. Jesus Christ has life in HIM – He came to give that life that we threw away, back to us.Here’s a fun thing – Jesus once gave a blind guy a brand new eyeball by spitting into the dirty and He made it from… wait for it … MUD! (John 9:6) Ya might want to read that and think on it! 🤔

Our God came here to earth, in Person – this is what Christmas is about. It is about heaven touching earth in such an incredible way that every single thing changed. And for some people, all around the world, this the true meaning of Christmas. Jesus Christ is our living hope. He came to earth for all of us, but we really do need to remember, that we all inhabit the same planet. However, we can’t possibly share the good news in the way it was written, when we are so utterly determined to keep our lives separate from the other people world-wide who are suffering! Christ identified with us deliberately. Why do you think God chose a cowshed as a shelter to bring His precious Son into this world? He wants everyone to know that they matter to Him. Poverty, sin, and sickness are not some sort of punishment from the Lord, instead this stuff is an opportunity for those who have plenty – to share.

People matter so much to our Heavenly Father – not our own comfort, or even our expensive Christmas gifts. We’ve become so obsessed with our OWN personal happiness, we’ve forgotten Who we are here for! Jesus included everyone – refugees, poor people, smart people, people who didn’t believe in Him  …plus … the people who knew they were sinful and … the ones who didn’t like Him at all. Christ didn’t see any human barriers, because they only exist because we’ve let them be there.Sadly we’ve even managed to take something God did that was so incredible, so profound, and we made it ALL ABOUT US. Yeah. Merry Christmas! 

I can’t help wondering about what the Lord would like for HIS birthday? Any thoughts?? Like maybe we can eat less and use the money to share with those who have NONE? Ask yourself, who did the Lord spend the most time with? If these people are His priority then they should be ours as well. When we tell people that Jesus loves them so much, they may or may not hear us –  but that bit is not our responsibility. Our bit is to demonstrate His word in our actions, prompted by His love, and His power. God is looking for empty vessels to fill. Vessels that will overflow with concern and compassion for those to whom Christmas is just another dreadful day spent looking for food, shelter, and warmth – for them and for their families. There are times when I think the Western world is so FULL we’ve become utterly side-tracked. Riches and comfort are like an opiate, they lull us off to sleep. 

Jesus said: ’GO! And tell them I love them – help them…” Merry Christmas… early.

P 2102 What kind of soil are we working with?

/ DVH

Mark 5:4-17 “Those tending the pigs, scared to death, bolted and told their story in town and country. Everyone wanted to see what had happened. They came up to Jesus and saw the madman sitting there wearing decent clothes and making sense, no longer a walking madhouse of a man. Those who had seen it told the others what had happened to the demon-possessed man and the pigs. At first they were in awe—and then they were upset, upset over the drowned pigs. They demanded that Jesus leave and not come back. …”

The people in this story were so ticked off about losing their pigs they sent the Lord Jesus Himself away! Imagine what they missed out on!!?? They could have had a revival on the spot! Isn’t it kind of sad, that the pigs mattered to the townspeople more than the actual person who needed deliverance? If that thought doesn’t convict us about missing the mark somewhere, then nothing will! 

Some times the lessons we need to learn from the Lord are about the way we view this life.It is not what you see, it is the WAY you see it. That frames everything. What that means is this, if whatever is going on, good or bad, is not important to us, then it is dismissed by us, because it won’t improve OUR lives. We end up tolerating or ignoring things, because we’ve rationalised what we believe, to suit our own world-view. Jesus was pretty clear about what His Heavenly Father’s world view was. People. People. People!! He didn’t seem to care much about personal happiness, instead He spent much more time preaching about personal sacrifice, love and faith. When we presume that our own ideas about comfort is all there is in this world – that hardly ever works out well for other people! 

When I think about this time we are living in – practically everything around us is more important than people! Obscure insects, sharks, koalas, plants, aeroplanes, electric cars, the environment, or even the need for a new road or tunnel – to mention a few things  – these things are regarded as being more essential than human beings! We conveniently forget about the people that Jesus died for, even while we are merrily celebrating HIS birthday. We have also forgotten the people who at this moment are being bombed, starved, frozen to death, tormented, ripped from their homes and families, as well as sold into slavery – world-wide. But that’s OK because we are supposed to be comfy in our own little lives! 😱 It’s time to start weeding and getting rid of rocks.

This life has been reduced to its supposed monetary value, and if you have no value, then apparently this world is better off without you. Unfortunately this kind of stuff has come from the sort of selfishness that has been allowed to reign everywhere. Selfishness produces lousy soil. Spiritual stuff will not grow in it. Human selfishness includes: “my own health and comfort, followed by my family, my friends and my job and my house and my car.” And we get quickly incensed if someone even implies we might sort-of-kind-of be selfish. 

SELFLESSNESS is so rare today, that it is reported by and commented on by the media! Like it is some kind of happy accident. We don’t expect people to be the best version of themselves any more.

As Christians we need to pray, read and DO the bible, and deliberately cultivate good soil in our lives so the weeds and rocks won’t choke the life out of God’s Word and His purposes. Those pig owners had terrible priorities… instead of rejoicing that a human being had been utterly restored, they got ticked off because they lost their livelihood. And yet Jesus sent this very man back to preach to the people who were angry about the drowned pigs! Sometimes I think that our view of the Lord’s kingdom is very badly skewed, especially by our own needs and preferences.

The type of ground or soil, in our hearts, is actually formed by our own choices. Listen to the Lord Jesus talk about the results of bad soil: “…some seed fell on stony ground .. some was choked by the cares of this world.” We simply can’t grow good stuff in bad soil. Any place we have not relinquished to the Lord, is a place where the enemy of our souls can stick his big toe on. And the other guy wants domination! The safest place for us to live is in the place of total relinquishment – then me, myself and I, fall off the list of priorities and we live to serve Him and do what He wants.

Our primary passion needs to be the will of God – that will give us good soil for His word to be planted in. 👋🏻