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P 3162 This is true worship!

/ DVH

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.” Romans 12:1-2. True and proper worship starts and ends with ME, voluntarily laying myself down on His altar, daily. All day, every single day. The secret to walking with the Holy Spirit is to deliberately surrender your life, even when things are good as well as when they are bad. Then I pray: “Your will, Your way Lord.”  I’ve found it is best to have no other agenda but His.

When we follow Jesus it means our lives change. It is our obedience to God’s Word that causes that transformation. As we read it, we begin to realise that worship from His POV, requires more from us than just happily singing songs of praise and worship … it is about giving Him the gift of YOU. Your time, your energy, your obedience, your love, your family, your sometimes-present difficulties. Our families are so much better off in His hands, no matter what is going on around us. We put them in His care – and we leave them there. Obviously I am not talking about whether the kids need a bath, or not, and Jesus won’t be cooking the dinner! Everything  we do we do in service to Him. “Whatsoever you do, do it with all your heart, as though you were doing it for Jesus!”

Realistically speaking, in today’s climate, we know that very few people have spare time! So the reality is like this — to honour Father God with our whole self, we will have to put something else aside. Those things we need to put aside are often important to us. And at the same time, we can have interruptions that need attention. Like, if your toddler falls on its head, that’s an important thing! But, the phone can wait. Leave that somewhere else, turned off. You can tell your pre-school child: “I’m reading the bible, I will be with you soon.” Showing little ones that we also need to pray and read the bible, is just as important, as doing it with them. 

We simply have to make reading the bible and praying, a priority, just like we make family times a priority. My hubby’s dear mother used to sit in the middle of chaos, people coming and going, the phone ringing off the hook, squabbling everywhere etc – and there she was, in the middle of it, bible in her lap, with her eyes closed because she was praying. Her alone time with God is sacrosanct. The things that dear lady has taught me without saying one word!!

We all know that God’s Word requires our obedience. We simply need to read it to find things to do, not just to tick off a daily quota. That translates into – read it, then do it! Or read until you find something to do. Actually I read until something stands out to me. This is part of putting our bodies on His altar. Don’t  dismiss these things because you haven’t got time to pay attention to them, instead make it a priority to act on them. It is a delusion to think: “I will get around to doing that.” Trust me, you won’t. We have an enemy who loves to distract and interrupt us. Make a plan to obey while you are with the Lord. Ask Him: “How do I do this Lord?” However, when it comes to repentance, do that right away, including fixing and repairing it with the other person if necessary. Never postpone repentance. Repentance blows away the cobwebs over our hearts. 

If we want to know God’s will, then we must align ourselves with Him. It’s simple. Most things about the Lord look like this… stay out of the stuff that is going to drag you down, and cling to what He has said instead – and don’t move from that place. We need to recognise some things are a distraction or temptation, and avoid them. Just because something is demanding, that does not mean we must give it our attention. Paul said: “…I die daily…”  That’s what laying our lives on the altar looks like. God’s great love and provision for mankind, has been clearly demonstrated to us, through watching how Jesus lived His life.

Jesus laid Himself on that altar by everything He did. We don’t even get a recording of the Lord’s private  thoughts or opinions in the Gospels! He didn’t even go on Israel’s got Talent! 🤣🤣 Instead, He validated God’s Words for our benefit by the Way He lived. He knew the Father so well, He could see what His Father was doing, and then He went and did it too. Ten lepers were healed once – Jesus saw His Father healing them before it happened! BTW, the Lord didn’t want the lepers to thank Him, Jesus wanted the lepers to thank Father God for what happened to them!“Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” Luke 17:18.

If we want to see what Jesus saw, and do what He did, then we need to live like He did, and do whatever our Father tells us to do. Obedience is one of the growth factors for flourishing faith. Our true worship is to lay our lives down for His sake, even as we sing and praise Him in our hearts. We are to be continually filled with the Spirit. And! We should take care of widows and orphans … James chapter one. All those good things are set into motion when we choose to lay our lives down, daily, for His sake, Galatians 2:20. Bye 👋

P 3138 Be real.

/ DVH

Let’s actively work at being real. We have all become so tied up in our own thoughts and superficial communications with each other, that we are barely skimming the surface of what God intended to exist within the Body of Christ. One of our greatest strengths is being over-looked — it’s becoming one with each other. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 12:12-27.

“There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptised by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.

Suppose the foot says, “I am not a hand. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. And suppose the ear says, “I am not an eye. So I don’t belong to the body.” By saying this, it cannot stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, how could it hear? If the whole body were an ear, how could it smell?  God has placed each part in the body just as hHe wanted it to be.  If all the parts were the same, how could there be a body?  As it is, there are many parts. But there is only one body.

The eye can’t say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” The head can’t say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” In fact, it is just the opposite. The parts of the body that seem to be weaker are the ones we can’t do without. The parts that we think are less important we treat with special honour. The private parts aren’t shown. But they are treated with special care. The parts that can be shown don’t need special care. But God has put together all the parts of the body. And He has given more honour to the parts that didn’t have any. In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of one another. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honoured, every part shares in its joy. You are the body of Christ. Each one of you is a part of it.”

This is a huge portion of scripture, but I believe it is often overlooked – except when we squabble with each other about which gift is important! Somehow we have convinced ourselves that having coffee and cake in the break at church means we are having real fellowship. I don’t think that for minute. Many churches seem to rely upon the individual to care for themselves, so what about the verses that talk about ‘one another?’ I believe that praying for something that someone mentioned in the coffee and cake time … can be incredibly important.  People need to know they are loved, and cherished by the Lord, and us, at all times!  And the Holy Spirit wants to use each one of us to communicate those things to each other. 

I go to a church that has members all around the city I live in. Most of those church members work, so they don’t have “spare time” during the week. So when can we minister to one another? My answer is simple – do it at church, do it on the phone, do it by TEXT!  Ask the person who is suffering: ‘Would you like me to pray with you about that?’ If they say ‘yes’ then do it. If their pain is enough to make them uncomfortable or cry in front of you, then my advice is pray for them! We are not the ANSWER to each other’s prayers — but we can hold up someone’s arms when the heaviness of their pain means they feel they can’t go on. We need to join our prayers with anyone who is suffering, instead of saying: “I’ll pray for you” – do it NOW, on the spot!” 

That person who is not coping, is an elbow, or a toe in the Body of Christ and I should no more ignore their pain, than I would ignore physical pain in my own body. I once broke a teeny tiny bone in my foot. On the grand scale of things it was nothing, but it hurt anyway! And it meant I couldn’t walk properly or do any of the normal things that happened in my day. Pain is a terrible thing when you feel all alone. But if you know someone else cares about you enough to hold you up before His throne of Grace – then you begin to feel a little better. Make it a habit, when you meet with other Christians to make sure you ask: “Does anyone need prayer?”

Many churches have people in them who are shy or inexperienced with extemporaneous prayer. Because they are not in leadership roles, they can feel their prayers are minor. The power of God operates when we take faith steps – He healed Naaman, the Syrian commander, because a little girl was brave and spoke up. Let’s actively encourage the Body to minister healing, help, kindness, wherever they can. We make time for the sermon, and the worship and the announcements – how about we make time to minister to each other? 

Church members need an opportunity to help, to take a risk, and pray for someone else. A bonus benefit is that they will gain more trust and faith, when they realise they too can hear God well enough to help somebody. That is irreplaceable gain. It means the stress to be everybody, to everyone, comes off the leaders. The barriers that hold us back from gaining further knowledge of each other, must come down. You may not think you pray all that well, but when God Himself answers your prayers for your brother or sister – you knock that lie into the bin where it belongs.

I once prayed out loud in a prayer meeting, and I hadn’t met Jesus yet! I sure fooled the other participants, they didn’t talk to me about the gospel for months, they thought I already knew the Lord. Just because I prayed aloud in a group!  I think it is time we were REAL with each other. BTW, there’s nothing realer than “confessing your faults to one another.” Bye. 👋 

P 2791 Let’s simplify life.

/ DVH

There are many kinds of difficulties in this life, and they occur because real life is not full of rainbows, unicorns and happy endings with blue birds! Instead we get to live day by day with ever-increasing complicated systems that don’t work. Yet our daily delight is to advertise the Lord by the way we treat others – even when they annoy the living daylights out of us.

The other day hubby was explaining stuff very carefully to a person, or maybe it was AI  …whatever-it-was on the other end of the phone! Meanwhile it took him 15 minutes to reach a voice!  AI? Actually it could have been someone who was not the brightest light bulb in the box. He explained to whoever it was on the other end —— that he did not want to be transferred to their local office, because he had already phoned there and they didn’t supply what he wanted. He needed another outcome please. The person listened, said “one moment please” and immediately transferred him to the place he just said he didn’t want to go! There’s a test on self control coming up!!

He went round the merry-go-round three four times before he found someone who was a genuine, regular, breathing proper person. And NO! We will not tell you where that real person is, we found her … she’s ours! Find your own. My hubby loathes phoning large companies. He would honestly rather walk to Alice Springs, than phone the gas company, the electricity company, the bank, the insurance people, the hospital or the government … that last one will really show you where your heart is! It’s an ace diagnostic tool!

It’s not just the wasted time, it’s also the wretched “hold please” music, which is never to your taste and incredibly loud … but you can’t turn it down. So you have to hold the phone away from the your ear, and that means you can miss out on the little voice, that turns up … after 3 months, and if you miss them, then … you go round and round again! “You are tenth in the queue … you are 24th in the queue … ” Huh? How come I went backward? I told hubby the other day when he had been on the phone for hours, circling the drain – that it is OK to be furious with AI!! 

Eventually, when you get off the phone you want to get rid of that explosion of fury you’ve built up, because you want  to walk in Grace. No wonder some people have thinning hair – they must have been pulling it out in frustration. The directions drive you nuts! Press 1, press 7 … press 484 … that’ll get ya where you want to go  …or not! You can end up playing word bingo and you have to guess the right word. Some organisations are like MI6. You need a password to get in!

I’m old! When I use the phone I am hoping to talk to a real person, with a name, and hopefully an address, A proper human VOICE on the other end, that actually understands my questions. I do not want ABU DHABI, I want to find my parcel! And how the heck did it end up in Abu Dhabi in the first place? The other week hubby had to press one cyclic number so many times —because the list of possible destinations for the call were so large that he couldn’t remember them. And he had to start again .. five times! He was stuck like that on the phone for hours — getting nowhere. It’s like hurtling along on a roller coaster. It’s a terrible ride and you can’t get off. Plus you need a rubbish bin to throw up into when it finishes.

BUT, if you don’t phone, then you run the risk of having whatever service that you-suddenly-instantly-wish-you-didn’t-have … cut off! You are informed by the ‘voice’ you must be polite, not sexist, not racist, not homophobic or religious or angry or they will terminate the call.Yet they seem to enjoy poking the bear!! Sigh. Apparently the police can turn up at your house tomorrow to carry you off to Abu Dabi — where hopefully you just might find your parcel!  After you’ve been on the phone for hours, you need a strong cup of coffee, a nice sticky bun and a long lie down. 

AI, BTW, is not even remotely helpful because it doesn’t have enough options — especially the one YOU want! Tragically we are all sunk, forevermore. At the same time is incredibly galling to see advertisements telling us how convenient their phone systems are. I do hope they find Alice in that Wonderland!

I think the Lord Jesus was incredibly wise to have entered this world at a time when life was so much simpler! After these phone call episodes we have found ourselves longing for a life without phones, and their accompanying annoying institutions. The government in Jesus’ day simply killed you if you bothered them. And if you were sick, then Jesus healed you – or you died!  A simple life is the thing, that’s what I say. 

So if you do get trapped on a phone going round and round for days, try singing your favourite Christian songs loudly so you don’t lose your cool.  NOTE OF WARNING — but not into the receiver because you are not allowed to be religious. You might also read the bible out loud – again — not into the phone!  Bye …📞

P 2756 Don’t let distraction fool you.

/ DVH

“We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.”2 Corinthians 10:5 TPT.

One of the most common stumbling blocks to living our life of faith is distraction. Our lives can be so busy, we get overcome by everything that is going on around us. We are blessed with wonderful leaders and people who want to inspire us, but sadly, even the people we admire, and cherish their words – or buy their books, or listen to their podcasts, etc. can trip us up. What someone else thinks about what the bible says contributes insight – if you want insightful inspiration for your own life, you will have to go after that for yourself.

There are no shortcuts to a relationship with Almighty God. The only proxy we need is Jesus – and He sent us His Spirit to help us. We dare not put any other person in His place. Each of us needs personal time with the Holy Spirit and His book. My advice is this, don’t cherish anyone else’s words above HIS. His words have His power in them! When we love and read His word for ourselves, and think about it – it is harder to be led off by our own imagination. So when things bump into us and turn the world on its head, we will know how to handle them – or where to go to find out!

Secondly, not every thought we personally think is worth keeping! Look at it this way – if you were the other guy – wouldn’t you throw the odd tempting ugly thought into people’s minds? That guy is the most dangerous being in this world. he tells us stuff that is from the pit — smelling of temptation, full of hatred, half-truths and prejudice and he tells us that these are our thoughts and we must act on them.Our minds can be an escape room, where nobody else can see or hear what goes on in there. The bible says: everything that is hidden will one day be shouted from the rooftops…Jesus Christ has stamped us with His stamp of approval – let’s live this life gratefully paying attention to Him instead.

Realistically speaking, I think that sin starts in our minds.  And sometimes those seemingly random thoughts, can be thrown in by our enemy as he sneaks by us, these things can be disguised as normal. The antidote against any despicable thoughts, or even some peculiar thoughts that seem a little bit off! –  Is God’s Word. When we know what the Lord thinks, we have comfort when we need comfort, we have security when we need security, we have unconditional love permanently. Now these are some thoughts that are worth holding on to.

Amazingly, our bible is what Almighty God thinks, in writing! How blessed are we? If we don’t know, or can’t remember personally what God thinks, we have a book full of what He has said. This book is not just about what He said to us, but it shows Him interacting with other human beings who are fragile, easily distracted, just like us. In His Word we have written truthful testimonies as to what our God is like, and how He interacts with other people. They are an example of how to take captive any thoughts that could lead us away from following Christ. Or they clearly show us what happens when we don’t!

The Holy Spirit’s kind of thinking helps us to relax into God’s love, rest there, and allow Him to lead us in the way we should go. His lovers LIVE to obey Him. Our affections govern our minds and hearts, and eventually, our behaviour. Listen to this scripture and think on it: “So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23 TPT. Here’s some great questions to ask yourself regularly: “How is my spirit doing? How is my heart?” I am not talking about how I’m feeling. But have I got peace on the inside? Even if worry is clanging away inside my head – it doesn’t have to torment me. The bible gives me a sword to deal with that stuff.

I heard this recently and it made me laugh … and then I sighed…  all at the same time. Truth does that to me! Someone said this about today’s world: “I had a vision of the Bride of Christ walking down the aisle toward Jesus, her Bridegroom. He was standing at the altar smiling, His eyes burning with love for His bride. And … suddenly … ’here comes the bride’ … She’s stunning, beautiful. Dressed in the finest, purest white, embroidered silk, her hair shiny, and her skin is like smooth satin.

As she progressed down the aisle a strange buzzing was heard. The bride reached into a pocket in her beautiful dress, and pulled out her phone. She stopped walking, and started talking to the person on the other end of the phone. After that, she checked her Instagram, took some selfies, and posted a photo of how she looked on Facebook! Meanwhile, Jesus our passionate bridegroom was still waiting for her to come to Him. He was waiting for the affection of her heart to turn toward Him.” 

My immediate response is to ask myself – am I like that bride in the vision, so distracted by this life, by the every day stuff going on? Or am I trying to find out how many people are watching me?  Do I seek everyone else’s opinion of my life but HIS? It is later than we think. We cannot afford to let our distracted ways of thinking get in the way. Our Bridegroom is waiting for us.  Bye. 💕

P 2601 One way to find out where the holes are …

/ DVH

… is to go on the road for Jesus. We seem to have found every single pothole between here and Cobar, all the way to the Blue Mountains. The worst bit is you don’t see the potholes until you hit them! Yikes. All that rain they have had in NSW has made the countryside very green — but it ruined the tarmac! Nyngan and Cobar, however, were dry before the rain, and, they still are! 

We went through a plague of locusts to get to those two places. Locusts make this icky noise when they hit the car or windscreen. EW! The front of our car looks like somebody peppered it with dead bodies. Yeah, I know, charming right?? Lest you think today’s blog is going to be about damaged bitumen, and dead bugs, right about now I need to clarify what I am really on about … and it ain’t potholes! 

Coming out here to demonstrate the Lord Jesus’ love to others, means that you can often find out exactly where you are ‘not nice.’ As well as learning about how quickly you can judge other people … without knowing their back story. It is unfortunately much too easy to take people’s speech or actions as an example of who they really are!

Here’s a story about us. We arrived at our destination for the night, it was in the middle of nowhere, and hubby went to check in. The lady gave us a list of unheard of rules that must be obeyed to stay at this motel, which included paying bond money. While hubby was talking to her, the Lord said to me firmly: “This is the person you made that bookmark with the elephant on it, give it to her now!” So we did and she was thrilled —- but she would take nothing else. Nothing for her kids, no bibles for the motel. Just a flat refusal. She apologised but said ‘no.’

So we left it at that, smiled and took their large list of things we must not do, and trundled off to our room. Hubby tried several times during our stay, to talk to the man of the house but the guy seemed to be very unapproachable! So he prayed for him and God said: “Keep blessing him, keep being generous.” Meanwhile we delivered more blankets 120 kms down the road, and two days later when we were in the middle of packing up our stuff to leave, when the manager appeared at our door. 

Like I said before, we don’t actually know people’s stories, so when he came to speak to us, he was so happy and nice, I actually wondered who hubby was talking to? Without being asked, he started to explain why he had so many rules — in his mind they were reasonable. Meanwhile this family had been rejected by the whole town. Nobody there liked any of them, or understood the way the accommodation was run. Somebody in the town had been incredibly mean to them and put up rude comments on facebook, all out of context. This other person put up a photo of their family as well. The manager was desolate and bewildered about this betrayal. In our host’s mind he was simply being responsible and doing his job. 

He was hurt and the result had been a huge mistrust of other people. So hubby stood in the motel doorway and talked to him ever-so-gently about Jesus and how much the Lord loved him and his family. Then the Lord Himself turned up and touched all of them. Their kids got happy, and mum and dad were openly weeping … and we had church in the doorway of a motel! Hubby preached the gospel to them all, and showed them one of his pictures of Jesus helping the disciples when they were caught in a huge storm. They strongly identified with that story. When my dear hubby stopped speaking our host kept laughing and crying and asking him to please continue – “keep going, we can hear you,” he said. It was like he was a different man – it all reminded me of the story of Zacchaeus.

Hubby tried again to give the man the picture he had painted, to remind him that Jesus was always with them – but he said no, again. Then he explained that they were leaving in 20 days and everything was already packed up ready to go and …that’s why they didn’t want bibles or more stuff! So the Lord said: “Tell him to take a picture of the painting on his phone!” This dear man, was suddenly our new best friend! …he was utterly delighted with that answer. 

We had a lovely time, hugged all round and eventually we headed off to our next destination. At the same time I personally learnt another huge valuable lesson. Everyone has a story, and people have what they think are valid reasons for the way they behave. They don’t always see themselves the way they present outwardly to others. We can see the way they are behaving, and interpret those things through our own internal thought processes, but that might have nothing whatsoever to do with what is actually going on! 

Like I said, one way to find out where the holes are in our own behaviour … is to put our ideas under pressure. 👋

p 2429 Bless others and be generous.

/ DVH

“Those who live to bless others will have blessings heaped upon them, and the one who pours out his life to pour out blessings will be saturated with favour.” Proverbs 11:25 TPT. Boy that verse paints a great picture, especially at a time like this, when things everywhere are so difficult. You know, when things are tough we can tend to look the other way, and hope any other people who are suffering, will look after themselves. There’s another way to look at tough times. “If it is this hard for US, what must it be like for THEM?” 

I want to be clear right at the very beginning of this blog – generosity is not just about money, or goods etc. or service. Being generous and blessing others, these are heart things. Things we voluntarily do to enrich someone else’s life. This life will never be about who has the most – it is about who loves the most. Jesus told us when we do this stuff we are doing it for HIM. This means anything we do for others is not related to their relationship to us. Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance we care deeply about what happens to strangers. It happens because His love wells up inside us, and we start praying He will show us how to help.

Sometimes living like this means we will text or phone someone just to see how they are doing. It means becoming involved in the day to day issues that many people face, but doing that…without taking over. Blessing others means offering support, and letting the other person know that they are not alone. It also means not storing up our wealth down here on earth, but instead we share it with those who are less fortunate – and Jesus says that is storing it up in heaven!

It also means spending time on our knees, as we hold up someone else’s plight before the throne of God like it is our own issue. God’s love in us does not stand back and wait to see what will happen next. Nor does it wait to see if it is going to be needed. That’s because His love is not afraid of rejection. Jesus was always incredibly generous with His time. He sought to bless others, simply because it is a part of His nature. As we follow Him our goal is to become a people whose generosity increases.  

We need to continually ask Him for His help so we can make practical and caring suggestions. We do that because in times of trouble people have enough to cope with, and thinking up something for you to do to help me, when I’m drowning, is too much work! Plus that isn’t actually helping!! The only thing that kind of action helps is our own conscience. “Well I tried to help them, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do.”  Suddenly it is their fault if they are going down for the third time, because they couldn’t think straight under pressure!

Suffering people need somebody to lift the rubble of this life off them, and stop their proverbial bleeding. Somebody who cares enough to take them into their hearts until that injured party can stand up again. Love looks like something. In things like this it looks like commitment! Generosity, and blessing others looks like something concrete.“Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds.” 1 John 3:18 TPT.

Blessing people is not just restricted to helping those who cannot help themselves or even people who have little or no resources. All kinds of people can be spiritually and emotionally poor. We can open doors for the spiritually hungry by loving them in spirit and action. In prayer, words, and also practical ways. Being generous toward other people is also about the way we view what we actually have. Is it ours … or is it HIS? Do we bless the people we know and like, or will we help anyone? A life poured out for others is a life well-lived. Jesus modelled that.

Sometimes our time given to someone else includes weeping with them. Then we pray. One by one we hand all the things that are concerning that person back to the Lord, without preaching at them, or imparting condemnation. Always remembering that we are there specifically to bless, and we want to bring forth “An apple of gold in a setting of silver” — not a baseball bat and a lump of coal! 

A generous person who blesses others is selfless. Their aim is to leave the other person better off than they found them – closer to God and each other. Our generosity with our time, and care, as well as our finances can utterly transform someone else’s life under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. It opens inner doors. 🤗