Peter

P 3287 The past.

/ DVH

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:19. Here is another good reason to leave the past behind us, it’s in Galatians 2:20. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” AND 2 Corinthians 55:17. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” Living in the past robs us of who we are in Christ, now. 

I think the above verses are a catalyst for any of our thoughts about our own personal sin. In the Message bible it says this: “So roll up your sleeves, get your head in the game, be totally ready to receive the gift that’s coming when Jesus arrives. Don’t lazily slip back into those old grooves of evil, doing just what you feel like doing. You didn’t know any better then; you do now. As obedient children, let yourselves be pulled into a way of life shaped by God’s life, a life energetic and blazing with holiness. God said, “I am holy; you be holy.”

I seem to recall a line from some dumb movie I have watched: “The past is so-o-o ov-er!”  Have you ever been on a merry-go-round? You aren’t actually going anywhere at all. But the sensation of movement, the colour, the music, the excitement make it seem like fun. Unless you suffer from vertigo, then I’d give it a swerve. We need to take the time to escape from the kind of mental merry-go-round that holds us captive to the past and robs us of everything that Jesus died to give us. Human beings can easily get stuck in the land of remorse and regret. That can take us off the playing field, with our head in our hands. Vanquished.  

Let’s get free from the web of our past deeds, even if what happened was only yesterday! Move on with Him into Grace. Count your blessings that you have a Saviour Who loves you. At the same time, presumption is not the answer either. Simply accept responsibility for what you did, and grieve over your sin, then repent and repair things and re-establish relationships where necessary. Then …Let. It. Go. Jesus died for that too. It wasn’t someone else’s fault, it was yours … so do whatever you can to fix it, then put it behind you. 

Peter tells us to be holy. Now there’s a tall order if ever there was one. To start with we would never turn the TV on again, because even the ads are offensive — they are definitely not holy! But one of the ways to live in the peace that holiness produces, is to leave your past behind you. I’ve had to do that, and it is not easy. The past is like a familiar itch that creeps up on you, and pounces when you least expect it. Then you scratch at it to make it go away, and that always makes the stupid itch worse!  It could be a sight, a sound, a feeling, and suddenly you are back down the same old hole, feeling guilty again – as well as hoping the Lord doesn’t remember what you did.  He doesn’t.  Your problem is YOU do. 

This is where the bible is a sword, and remorse and regret are our enemies. Those things distract us from the brand new, bright roads that lead us to know more about Him. Never discount what Almighty God can do in us and through us, simply because we are His. Majoring on the past is a bad plan, it’s flawed. That’s because we are minimising the Lord’s power in us to overcome – sin, the world, the devil. 

Overcoming is not like getting zapped into some super hero’s suit and suddenly having powers! Overcoming happens one step at a time. But it can’t start or go anywhere from what we’ve done, it starts and ends with what Jesus already did!! The real question is this —-is what the Lord Jesus did at calvary complete? Or can what you’ve done somehow cancel that? 

We have God’s Word, which is our sure foundation. That’s the firmest ground this world has ever seen. We can stand confidently on what He did. Accessing our feelings won’t help. They will lie to us and dig up a thousand reasons why our particular sin is the worst one ever. We need to read the bible, then make a list of scriptures that clearly show us that what Christ did. Don’t skip repentance!  Make the time … you’ll thank me later!  Calvary was complete. There are no codicils, no add ons. He died once for all.  

These verses tell us that even more grace is coming toward us when Jesus appears again. Our sin cannot possibly stand in the face of the incredible, momentous GRACE Christ released on our behalf. What God has done is fool-proof, even if you or I are the fools involved! Deal with the past, then leave it alone and let it be. Fight the urge to try and figure out how you could have done stuff better. Make things right, then move on. Bye. 👋

P 3283 This is our destiny …

/ DVH

“Now, this is the goal: to live in harmony with one another and demonstrate affectionate love, sympathy, and kindness toward other believers. Let humility describe who you are as you dearly love one another. Never retaliate when someone treats you wrongly, nor insult those who insult you, but instead, respond by speaking a blessing over them—because a blessing is what God promised to give you. For the Scriptures tell us: Whoever wants to embrace true life and find beauty in each day must stop speaking evil, hurtful words and never deceive in what they say. Always turn from what is wrong and cultivate what is good; eagerly pursue peace in every relationship, making it your prize.” 1 Peter 3:8-11 TPT.

Yes, it’s the same scripture again! More to think on. First point to remember … um… not sure how to say this nicely, so I will just say it!  Watch what you say. This is hard for me, mainly because I find out what I’m thinking by talking! However I found a way to do it – I let the Holy Spirit help me – and I’ve learnt to give up quickly, and repent a lot. Boy that last one smarts! I’m pretty sure I haven’t hit humility yet. I think Peter has a wonderful way of describing how to walk in the Spirit. Especially the bit about pursuing peace in every relationship. Pursue BTW, means: go after it …like… chase it!

…And this is how Jesus makes it possible for anyone of us to live like this:  ““And I will send you the Divine Encourager from the very presence of My Father. He will come to you, the Spirit of Truth, emanating from the Father, and He will speak to you about Me. And you will tell everyone the truth about Me, for you have walked with Me from the start.””John 15:26-27. The Holy Spirit has already been sent to us! One of His Names is ‘the One called alongside us to help us!’ … He came to earth at Pentecost and He never left! Now let me list His other qualities. Hang on to your socks it’s a big list.  

Helper / Comforter / Advocate (Paraclete): (John 14:16, 15:26, 16:7);  Spirit of Truth: (John 14:17, 16:13); Spirit of Christ / Spirit of Jesus: (Romans 8:9, 1 Peter 1:11);  Holy Spirit / Holy Ghost: (Matthew 1:18, Psalm 51:11);  Breath of the Almighty / Breath of God: (Job 33:4, Genesis 1:2);  Spirit of Adoption: (Romans 8:15);  Spirit of Grace: (Hebrews 10:29); Spirit of Wisdom/Understanding/Counsel/Might/Knowledge/Fear of the Lord: (Isaiah 11:2);  Eternal Spirit: (Hebrews 9:14);  Spirit of Glory: (1 Peter 4:14);  Spirit of Life: (Romans 8:2);  Spirit of Burning / Judgment: (Isaiah 4:4);  The Promise of the Father: (Acts 1:4);  The Anointing: (1 John 2:27);  Intercessor: (Romans 8:26,27).

You can take a breath now!  Yeah. And He is here with us, right here, right now as you are reading this — and He walks with us to help us be all that God designed us to be. We simply cannot transform ourselves, it doesn’t work! Human beings become proud because we are doing it right, or lose hope because we are lousy at it! We need His transformation – WE NEED A HELPER. And this beautiful Person is here to assist us at any time, in any place, anywhere. Ya might want to just meditate on that!

We can short-circuit His help etc. by choosing to stay in and cultivate, sinful attitudes. The fear of the Lord is with those who are humble. They weep at the very thought of losing His sweet Presence. He has a way of looking at this tattered and torn old world that is beyond our imagination. He sees hope in hopelessness, freedom in captivity, beauty in heartache. He knows the way through anything that is plaguing you. And He will show us God’s way, one step at a time. Why one step at a time? Because He LOVES to walk with us. We are His passion and He is the same Person Who helped Jesus complete His mission … He saw every pain, all the suffering, all the hopelessness, and yet He flowed out through Christ to the needy – endlessly. 

He was so present with Jesus, one woman just touched the Lord’s clothes and she was healed of an ailment she had had for twelve years! He loves 💕TOGETHER — it is His greatest joy, to be one with us. When we begin to function as a Body under His guidance, we will also begin to understand a little bit of what it is like for the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit’s union and unity. They simply never disagree because They all have the same goal.

Jesus clearly told us we were better off with the Holy Spirit, when He left here and went back home to the Father, because the Holy Spirit can be everywhere. We are better off because the One Who lived within Christ, in Him and through Him, can be IN us, and work THROUGH us to bring forth the Father’s will for others.This is why we are called sons and daughters, we now have our Father’s DNA and that DNA brings forth fruit that is good and sweet – it will bring life all around it. This is our destiny, to learn to walk with the Holy Spirit, all the time, everywhere we go. Bye. 👋

P 3280 It seems like the ‘impossible dream.’

/ DVH

“Now, this is the goal: to live in harmony with one another and demonstrate affectionate love, sympathy, and kindness toward other believers. Let humility describe who you are as you dearly love one another. Never retaliate when someone treats you wrongly, nor insult those who insult you, but instead, respond by speaking a blessing over them—because a blessing is what God promised to give you. For the Scriptures tell us: Whoever wants to embrace true life and find beauty in each day must stop speaking evil, hurtful words and never deceive in what they say. Always turn from what is wrong and cultivate what is good; eagerly pursue peace in every relationship, making it your prize.” 1 Peter 3:8-11 TPT.

Don’t worry, I am not about to break into a chorus from the musical: “Man from La Mancha.” Even though the above verses from Peter seem like the impossible dream! Here, briefly, is the story from that musical: ’It is a funny story of mad but kind and chivalrous elderly nobleman Don Quixote who, aided by his squire Sancho Panza, fights windmills that are seen as dragons to save prostitute Dulcinea who is seen as a noblewoman.’ 

I chose this musical as an illustration today, because we can miss out on God’s blessings, when we discount some tasks as not worthy of our attention. Who would treat a prostitute like a noblewoman? Jesus did on a couple of occasions! And Don Quixote, the addle-pated fictional old guy did too. Many people thought his character was delusional, but others saw it as an illustration of complete saneness in a mad world. You decide. 

We can all have false value systems that are nothing like the Lord’s. It’s important to remind ourselves, that Jesus loved sinners. He loved the people, not what they did! Those people who “fessed up” to their failings out of love, respect and honour for the Lord’s holiness. All of us have sinned, and one sin is not worse than another. Anything that offends God’s holiness is sin. Plus anything that doesn’t come from faith is also sin. (Romans 14:23). 

At one time, Jesus went to a tax collector’s house for dinner and many people were really angry with Him for doing it. Yet the Lord said on another occasion: “I did not come to call the [self-proclaimed] righteous [who see no need to repent], but sinners to repentance [to change their old way of thinking, to turn from sin and to seek God and HIS righteousness].” Luke 5:32. God’s ways are not like ours. His Grace and Righteousness have been given to us purely through His Son’s death. Given for free, but at immeasurable cost.

Here is the point I want to make today – we can sin with our mouths far more than most people do with their actions! We need to remember that our mouths follow our inner attitudes.“Whoever wants to embrace true life and find beauty in each day must stop speaking evil, hurtful words and never deceive in what they say.”  The thing about God’s Word is that it couldn’t be clearer. There is no wiggle room. Anything else is disobedience. We’ve all mouthed off at one time or another, and, hopefully, repented from it. What Peter is saying is this:  if you can control your mouth, your whole body will follow along behind it. It seems to me like James said that too! 

Two things help in this deceitful, sometimes hypocritical battle we all experience. First of all: Renewing our minds. Our thinking needs to change. However, please don’t feel condemned about it. That’s an endless way of thinking that is hard to escape from. Condemnation is not like conviction. Conviction leads to fresh life — condemnation leads to fruitless, self-flagellation. Jesus paid for all our sins. Repent, and then deliberately repair things, and then move on. 

Here’s something that helps me …I do this out of obedience and reverence for Him, feelings don’t come into it.

That is the first step in a process that changes the way we think about other people, ourselves and sin. ‘…repentance is a profound, inward change of mind and attitude toward sin, resulting in a 180-degree turn in direction—away from wrong doing and toward God. It involves sincere remorse (godly sorrow), confession, and an inward commitment to change actions and behaviours.’ 

Secondly: “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.”  Ephesians 4:29. That little word “let” shows us that we actually are able to monitor what we say, and edit out inappropriate responses. We will need the Holy Spirit’s help, but this gets easier with practice. However, I think that the ‘monitoring’ process starts with what we take in. If we put garbage in, then garbage will come out. For example: I’ve noticed that if I am around someone who swears a lot, my first thought when something goes wrong is not a good one! This is not that  other person’s fault – I didn’t take the time to rewire my brain with what God says.

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8. And that brings me to this conclusion:  I will always need to find what’s good in the things that happen to me. God’s good, and He’s in charge of me, so GOOD will be there. I can always ask Him to help me see it because anger, frustration, self-pity etc. can get in the way. Living like this isn’t an ‘impossible dream’ and I am not “tilting at windmills…!” Jesus also once said this: “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26. Bye 👋.

P 3256 Make a decision to be thankful.

/ DVH

Obviously after yesterday, you can see I have so much to be thankful for! But I want to talk about the reason I   made this decision… Life has a way of whizzing by us, day by day by day. In fact, bad things or good things are often an interruption to the ordinariness of life. The problem with living an ordinary life is that you think you are ordinary, and you don’t matter… we become passive, not active.

Almighty God has made us His house! Whether we feel like it or not. That’s not ordinary. It seems to me that we think like this because we have come to believe there is another breed of Christians, a special, elite, gifted group. Super saints, people who have ministries and gifts and hoopla surrounding them. Spiritual gifts are not just for a selective group. We all have them!  Maybe you just haven’t found yours yet? 

In Ephesians 4:8: “Therefore it says,“When HE ascended on high, HE led captivity captive, And HE bestowed gifts on men.” and in Ephesians 4:11-13: “Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.”

Spiritual gifts are given to build up the body. We have often put an emphasis on this kind of verse in the wrong place. GOD has given gifts to men, so we will become mature in Christ. It is the Giver that matters, not the gifts or the men or women! These gifts have His purposes on them. It is never good to elevate the people God has given them to. Because of these gifts in our own lives, we can see the Lord’s incredible generosity toward all of us and be thankful!.He knows maturity is beyond human beings, so He has given people all over the Body of Christ supernatural gifts to help us move from the natural, to the supernatural, and from the mundane, into the heavenly realms.

Almighty God gave and we receive. Who is greater? The Giver or the receiver? You do the sum. The Body of Christ seems firmly stuck on the gifts, or the ‘ministry.’ He gives gifts to ordinary people to showcase His own extraordinariness! Once He made a donkey talk, and the donkey made good sense! We are not all that — HE is all that! That’s the POV we need to cling to. Mankind is not equipped to handle the kind of fame that can be slathered all over those who are famous. 

By elevating the gift over the Lord, we have put undue attention and pressure on those people who do have a gift. All Peter did when he prayed for the lame man was give what he had, He didn’t say “I have the gift of healing and a word of knowledge for you” He gave what he already had. It came from His relationship with Jesus! When we give thanks we put God back into His rightful place in our lives. He’s our King, brother, Saviour. (James 1:17)

It’’s the Lord that we need to thank, not the men and women who He has gifted! When I hear someone or other did something incredibly dumb, and they are famous, I feel compassion and pity for them. Fame goes to people’s heads – only God can bear it. That’s why the bible tells us: “to make HIS Name famous!” (Psalm 45:17) Anything else can cause chaos, God is always our first thought, not man. Thank HIM for HIS gift, and praise Him for helping us through others.

Thankfulness is a way of life – we can learn it. Step by step. The way into that life is to acknowledge that “without Him we can do nothing permanent.” (John 15:5)  Jesus Himself said that! At the same time we need to live with the reality that we too have been given gifts to benefit the Body, so whatever happens to us has His hand on it. We know we have been blessed because He is a generous God. Giving up the right to approval by man, comes under the heading of complete submission to God, and it won’t always give us a happy ride. There are so many things we can learn through difficulties and hardship, including the fact that the Lord Himself is not fazed by them! That’s why we give thanks.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” We are told to give thanks in every thing…if we want to know God’s will for us, here is a big fat clue… GIVE THANKS to Him, no matter what happens. Yeah, I know, it sounds upside down, but ‘God’s ways aren’t our ways…’  (Isaiah 55:8-9.) And faith would not be faith if it was something we could be certain about! Giving thanks changes gears. We stop looking at the problem, and start wondering how the Lord is going to get us out of this one! Sometimes hard things just fade away … sometimes we see a clear solution … that bit doesn’t matter. Giving thanks for all He is and what He is doing right now … changes gears.

It shifts our perspective from earth to heaven because the bible says: “we are seated in heavenly places with Christ.” Ephesians 2:6. Again, this scripture is something the Body of Christ has seen as a bragging point, rather than seeing it as a gift! When what Jesus did for us, was so complete, it seated us with Him! We didn’t climb up there, or earn that place, it was given to us, no matter how spiritual we seem to others. If we continue to read the bible with the accent only on what’s in it to benefit me – we won’t comprehend what He has given us, that we don’t deserve.  We will overlook the opportunity we have to make a decision to be thankful. Bye. 👋

P 3242 Let’s go swimming.

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P 3228 Let’s not miss our highest calling.

/ DVH

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

P 3216 Obedience is not an optional extra.

/ DVH

Being obedient is the best way I know to walk with the Lord, and it can prevent a whole lot of confusion. I discovered that I needed to purpose in my heart to simply choose to be obedient. I’ve learnt to read the bible, pray and meditate on it and — do what it says. At the same time, I’ve found as I focus on loving other people, suddenly a whole lot of stuff that I needed, was added unto me along the way. “We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.” 1 John 4:16.

I believe that the depth and purpose we desire to love the Lord, appears when we intentionally, continually apply our dedicated obedience to His Word. Father God doesn’t need our mental agreement with whatever He has said, Jesus and the Holy Spirit agree with Him and that’s a majority right there!! This is what Jesus said about obedience in John 14:15-17. “If you love Me, you will obey My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper Who will be with you forever. That Helper is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it doesn’t see or know Him. You know Him, because He lives with you and will be in you.”

The Holy Spirit is our Helper, and Jesus specifically asked the Father to send Him to us – to help us to obey the Father. At the same time, the Lord expects us to treat the Holy Spirit with reverence and respect. The Spirit of God is gentle in His heart, like Jesus is, and we need to respect that He will not cannonball all over the place, or even push us along. He clearly knows what truth is, and it is unfortunately quite evident from the above scripture, that a lot of the time, we do not! 

My favourite times with the Holy Spirit happen when He shows me what the truth is, in whatever scripture I am reading. It’s like someone turns the light on when I’ve been sitting in the dark trying to puzzle out what God wants to say TO ME.The precious Holy Spirit will not show us His heart, or what He wants from us, or even share His secrets with us, if we have no desire to be obedient. What would be the point? 

Let’s look at Jesus’ own personal lament over man’s lack of willingness to live their lives close to God. It is recorded in Matthew 23:37, where He says to Jerusalem:“How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Have you ever tried to cuddle a child that didn’t want to be cuddled? They are all wiggles, arms and legs and cranky with it. That’s what I think about when I read Matthew 23. God wants to love on us, but we want to hold ourselves far enough away from Him so we still have a say. Or we try to wrestle ourselves out of His grasp, as we go as close as we dare to — but no further.

Here are some more specific scriptures about being obedient: 1 Peter 1:14 “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,…” Acts 5:29: “But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” Psalm 1:1–2: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.”  What we think about matters. The problem seems to be this — when we think about obedience long enough — if the change in our life is going to be hard, we postpone it, or try to go around it. 

Human beings keep their minds busy, trying to figure out this life so we feel more comfortable. So we problem-solve. Many times our minds will keep on returning to the difficulty, trying to figure out another answer, because we don’t like the one we have! The Lord has taught me to give things to Him. He told me to put every problem down, at His feet, and refuse to pick it up again. I give my problems to Him and He carries them for me. 

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” That burden we worry about all night might never happen, and even if it did, what can we do about it? Our King promises to intervene and teach us how to get through things, AS we learn to rest in Him.

Years ago, I kept getting stuck on the way other people I knew were living. What I thought they should do. All that stuff meant I was not meditating on God’s goodness to me! Instead I was whining, grumbling and complaining because my feelings were engaged in things that weren’t anything to do with me. At other times I wanted someone to help me, but I wanted them to do it my way. I didn’t want to consider God’s answers in case I was convicted of sin and I needed to change my attitude. I blamed those other people, because they wouldn’t change their way of doing things, and … make my life easier for me!  Yeah, you heard me! Oy vey!

Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”  I kind of think I might know why we do this… we want all the lovely benefits—but not the training in righteousness. We want a maid, or a butler, or a personal trainer following us about doing the hard yards for us. Jesus did all those the hard yards for us, long, long ago. But now, today, we must enter into the battle of all battles with our old self! The battle to think like He does! 

Obedience is not an optional extra, it’s the narrow way mentioned in Matthew 7! It is designed to reveal His heart to us, and our hearts toward Him. Living for His sake is always a choice, but it is also part of our ongoing salvation. Bye. 👋 

P 3137 We all like the ‘nice’ verses.

/ DVH

I have been reading in Acts 5:1-11, and it seems to me that nobody much likes this particular story… they certainly don’t let you teach the whole ‘you-will-drop-dead-if-you-lie-to-God’ story at Sunday School, or even from the pulpit. The thing is, that story is in the bible for a reason, so we need to take it seriously. Let’s just pause and think a minute …I mean, what kind of Christian does stuff like this? Can I just squeeze in a thought here – the one that says: “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom?” That kind of fear sounds like a good kind of fear. Off we go … to a funeral — well … two actually!

“Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.”

I think it was the lack of Godly reverence that ended this man — not just the fact that he lied, or even the money he hid. It was the fact that Ananias thought he could fudge the truth when he was facing God Himself. Let’s be clear. This man knew exactly what He was doing. He wasn’t someone who just happened by, he was part of the group that had seen the Holy Spirit at work in incredible ways. In the bible, right after this particular incident, a whole lotta people suddenly became very respectful, and responded to the Lord, and each other, with much greater reverence. As it should be! Here’s- V’s 7-11. This is called a conspiracy, by the way!

“About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.” Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.” At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.”

Everybody loves the ‘nice’ God pictures. Sweet pictures in our minds about Jesus loving people, healing them, redeeming their lives – but nobody likes this picture very much. Yet having respect for Who He is, and all the blessings we don’t deserve, bestowed upon us,  is essential. We don’t actually deserve anything He has given us. It is all grace! We all deserve hell! And I really don’t care how nice or saved you think you are!  I believe that at this moment in time, Almighty God is dealing with His people, He is calling us to come home and start behaving like HIS kids.“Why do you call me Lord, Lord and you don’t do the things I say?” Luke 6:46.

The fact that He is so loving and generous toward us all, does not mean we can presume upon Him or His Grace. Meanwhile, every word that comes out of God’s mouth is worthy of far more than just our attention —those words require our willing obedience! Not just the ones that say the things we think we want to hear. Acts 5:1-11 shows us why we need to be honest with Him and ourselves. Disobeying what God has told us is a minefield, if we are unsure, then we need to check up on what we’ve heard in the bible. 

These two people, Ananias and Sapphira, were Christians! So we can’t hide behind the idea that this story is under the Old Covenant. Meanwhile, it seems to me that they were also serious Christians because they were willing, to a degree, to participate in the whole sharing everything idea that had overtaken the entire body at that time. My point is – there was no need to lie!  There was room for the truth. And “I can’t do this, my faith isn’t big enough” must be said. Almighty God knows we are dust, we don’t have to pretend to be somebody we are not!

Let’s also take note of how protective Peter was of the Holy Spirit’s ministry in their midst. Man, this thought is so important – His Will, His Way!  The Holy Spirit is the gentle, loving, generous, beating Heart of God Himself. Lying to Him for our own benefit, hurts Him. Don’t hurt Him! That’s dumb! He will leave and He’s our Helper! That’s like sending away the fire department, the ambulance, and the police when your house is under siege and on fire, and you can’t get out. This passage is one of the best examples of lying to God and the consequences of doing it, in the whole bible. And the Lord’s response to this situation was to cut it all out, like a surgeon cuts out a cancer…thoroughly. 

Please don’t succumb to the pressure of pretending you are something that you are not. We cannot afford to leave the King of all Glory standing there waiting for us to decide if it is worth our reputation to be truthful with Him and others – or not! I urge everyone reading this to value the Holy Spirit, and His input with everything you have, and everything you do. He wants to be made welcome in our lives, not just by what we say or sing – but by the honourable way we choose to live. Bye. 👋

P 3120 Know what you believe.

/ DVH

“Christ’s resurrection is (y)OUR resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour, and authority!” Colossians 3:1 TPT. My first question—do you often during your day, reflect on what Jesus did for YOU? Are your thoughts on His kingdom, or yours? I thank Him when blessings come, and pray ‘help,’ when stuff is difficult. Whatever we mull over and meditate on influences our daily walk of faith. Don’t beat yourself up if you forget or overlook His new way to live. Just remember, that  faith, and our awareness of His love for us, will simply melt away IF we lose focus;  or we choose to live in the dark and pasty, unhealthy light of this world’s rejection, ideas, schemes and plans.

Meanwhile, even though we may not actually say – ”I choose this” – we can end up choosing to stew on bad stuff by default. A lack of a positive God-breathed choice will leave a vacuum that satan would be delighted to fill! That guy will get us going round and round and round:  worrying about this, thinking about how to fix that, and concentrating on the lacks we all have … Until we have wasted away our precious time. Time is a gift. And we don’t have to live that way anymore. Just as surely as Peter, (who was in prison at the time), looked up and saw his jail door open – and walked out a free man!  Our jail door is also OPEN. Look up!! Revise your circumstances. We need to walk out of sin’s prison using our faith. 

At the same time we can concentrate all our thoughts and efforts on dying to self, but in the end that will just make us SIN conscious. We want to be Him-conscious, so I pray He will reveal Himself to me during my day. We need to add to our life with Him, by seeing Him at work in our lives, not just concentrate on getting rid of our sin or adverse circumstances. Jesus Christ has already done that for us! Because God’s unrelenting, always available, never-ending kingdom power was released at Calvary – we can NOW live in this world absolutely devoted to Him.  He has a much better plan for your life and mine than either of us can imagine!

“For we know that our old self WAS crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—…” Romans 6:6. Sin, regret, anxiety does not have to be in charge of our lives anymore! Our minds, our emotions will help us when they are fixed on Him;  to do that is not difficult, we meditate on His never-ending love.  We can’t afford to give up our precious time stewing over former things, turn your worry into prayers of thanksgiving for Who He is and what He did for you.

Worry is a habit – habits can be changed. When we gave our lives to Jesus, we put Him in charge. And His response 2000+years ago, was to take our sin with Him to the cross and nail it there in HIS OWN BODY. The urge, desire, and the will to sin has been dealt with, we are now free to choose.“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live IN THE BODY, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20. 

That’s how we walk out our Promised land of becoming a new creation. I don’t ignore sin, or gloss it over, or pretend it didn’t happen, instead I acknowledge it on the spot, and repent and repair things. Why? There is incredible power in redemption! satan can’t make us do anything anymore because of what Jesus did for us. But unlike satan – the Lord will not coerce us or make us do anything. He loves our freely-made choices!!  We were not saved just so we can go to heaven and be with Him one day in the future… He saved us for here and now, today—from this world, the devil and ourselves —so we can live our earthly lives, like He would. 

It was a transaction. An exchange, His life, freely laid down, bought us a new way to live and the power to do it. It was the greatest LOVE GIFT EVER GIVEN. Our sin has been exchanged for His new life overflowing in us, we take on His obedience, His passionate desire to please His Father. It was not God’s plan just to kill off sin!… Instead, Christ defeated its power over mankind! Our Father’s plan was to give us back what Adam and Eve had in the garden … the greatest inheritance ever – Emmanuel, God-with-us. The freedom to choose what is good right and profitable, AND THE POWER TO DO IT.

Acts 1:8:“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”The Holy Spirit fell on mankind at Pentecost and HE DIDN’T LEAVE. He is still here, to help, counsel, transform, and motivate us into our new life in Christ. He didn’t give us  power just so we can raise the dead, heal the sick etc! Those blessings are a by-product of our redemption.We should all live like that. But that is not God’s primary AIM. 

The Holy Spirit came to help us, and live inside us, so we can live a victorious, overcoming life, in a world that is going to hell in a hand basket. The person I was 52 years ago, died the minute I asked Jesus to come into my life. That is also true for you. If you dearly love and want Him — He will be yours, forever. His love is so great He chose to die for the whole world, even those people who refuse to accept Him. Imagine that. We have been bought with an unbelievable price.

Daily, with His help, we identify and guerrilla fight all the stubborn stuff we’ve cultivated over the previous years before we met Him. Those things that keep pretending they have a hold over us. Now we can take God at His Word and believe Him. That’s how faith works. we refuse to listen to the so-called evidence that pops its ugly head up, and say to ourselves: “What does the Lord have to say about that? Is He REALLY like that?” satan can no longer use my history to define me – even if I did something extremely dumb yesterday! I have been redefined as alive in Christ. I urge you, take the time to know what you believe. Bye. 👋

P 3109 Is failure fatal?

/ DVH

Our Heavenly Father will make the wrong way, or even a some kind of upside-down way—into the right way– when our only desire is to please and obey Him! Just remember to turn around whenever, and wherever, necessary and own your own sinful attitudes and repent. That means doing more than saying sorry. OK? Reparation, there’s a word. Back to the point: we can get so scared by the thought that we will get whatever He asks us to do wrong, that we are paralysed into doing nothing.This attitude makes Almighty God too small. Our faith needs to be firmly fixed on what Christ did for us, as well as His goodness, not on our own ability. 

Lately I have been rereading Acts again and I have been so impacted by the way Paul behaved as he went from place to place.There was no sign of the kind of paralysis that comes with fear in Paul. Not only that, but in one of the many shipwrecks he endured, his behaviour and faith in God influenced the unsaved sailors and soldiers around him. Paul wasn’t preaching BTW, he was just living out his life before the Lord, and the other people on that sinking ship! He simply shared with his fellow travellers what God told Him. 

Acts 27. 33-38, 44: “Just before dawn Paul urged them all to eat. “For the last fourteen days,” he said, “you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food—you haven’t eaten anything. Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.” After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat. They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves. Altogether there were 276 of us on board. When they had eaten as much as they wanted, they lightened the ship by throwing the grain into the sea… … But the centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land.The rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely.”

Did you get that? I had to read it twice. Paul suggested they stop to eat as the boat was breaking up and sinking!  Does that make sense to you? Hey! I thought long and hard about this, and I think I would have thrown the grain overboard first, to lighten the load. Right?? Or maybe grabbed the nearest plank and hung on to it! Everyone had prayed for land, in the midst of a terrible storm, and they found land and then …the entire ship stops to EAT?Why? Because God said so, that’s why. And He knows what we need more than we do. He told Paul through an angel that nobody would be lost if they just followed His instructions.

Now let’s do a quick recap of the oddball things I remember from the bible. I know I rabbit on regularly about Gideon, but honestly … !! That outcome could never have been predicted. God Himself threw confusion into the multitude of Midianites’ camp and they killed each other? Weird right? I mean who’d’ve thunk it? Almighty God did, that’s Who. Who would think you could find honey inside a lion’s carcass? Our Wonderful God — He’s the boss of bees. What about Paul, who heard,“Go to the Gentiles!” Boy was that not politically correct!

Let’s take Peter who was innocently praying by himself, when God interrupted his prayers with a vision. Peter’s thought bubble: “Hey that’s not kosher, I’m not allowed to eat a camel sandwich!”  Then this man of God took note of what God said and acted on it. Popular is not a kingdom word … influence is.

Here’s another one. Imagine this – a local prophet is told to sleep for one year on one side and then the next year on the other side. Why? Jeremiah was an illustration of what was to come. That’s just one of the many many highly unusual things God asked this man to do. What about Hosea? Go marry a prostitute?? That guy would have rushed off to have had his ears cleaned out. How about Noah? Build an ARK? What’s an ark??There were no BIG boats. yet this man built that ark with seven other people helping him. It took 120 years and he did a whole lot of waiting on God, while he was being obedient. Weird can be normal in His kingdom! We can be so afraid of getting it wrong, we don’t do anything.

We think we can’t possibly go and see Mrs Kerfoops next door who is dying from cancer. Hey – here’s a good thought to bear in mind — when the ride is over most people look for the exit!! Our God is so wonderful, He does not care if people are saved for 5 seconds or 50 years! He loves them all and He wants them to be with Him. So, just pull up your grown-up pants, go to see Mrs Kerfoops and tell her Jesus loves her. If she tells you that she doesn’t believe in all that stuff, blah blah blah, and you feel like a goose for all that effort and angst …remember, even if you get it wrong – when our motivation is to please Him and be obedient, He can use that faith for His glory.

Failure is not fatal – Jesus is a Redeemer by nature. However! failure is not fun, or a great story you can tell everyone afterward. Just remember … doing something beats doing nothing.The results are always up to Him. Maybe Mrs Kerfoops’ last thoughts are about what you said to her, or … maybe not. Step into the Favour of God – not for personal gain, but for service. Somewhere, somehow, the church has lost a lot of boldness. WE WANT IT BACK, please Lord. Amen. Bye. 👋