Positive

P 3262 What language does God speak?

/ DVH

This could blow your mind, it blew mine. Just out of the blue this morning the Lord said to me: ”What language do I speak?” WOW! … I mean I wasn’t even praying or anything! We know that the Lord speaks every language of man but does HE also have a language?… I decided to go with what Ezekiel wisely said instead:“Only YOU know Lord.” Then He reminded me that He can speak every language on the planet and all the languages of angels. Plus the unutterable sighs and groaning of the human heart. WOW … again! 🤯 In fact, we don’t even have to speak, because the Lord already knows. (Psalm 139:4)

Over the years, I’ve learnt that when the Holy Spirit asks me a question, it’s time to be quiet and listen, He’s about to teach me something I don’t know. So I put a sock in it and listened. This is what He told me:“I speak faith,  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control..” Colour me flabbergasted. It took me ages to even comprehend what that means – I think of those things as actions.

First of all, it rocked my world to find out that these things we call spiritual gifts or traits, are languages! Then I realised that many people call ‘love’ a language. I know that Jesus is our perfect example of these things we call fruit… but are these things also God’s language? Off we go! In Psalm 139:6 it says:“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”  I’m so-o going to need His help!

I kept on praying about it, and then I read this:“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, the Word was God.” John 1:1. Our Lord Jesus, is His Father’s language in human form. 🤯 Jesus Christ is God’s living LANGUAGE. The more I prayed over this, with the Holy Spirit helping me, the more I started to remember other scriptures. God also speaks faith! He spoke this world into being when there was nothing – that’s faith! The Holy Spirit went off and did what Almighty God said, and that too was faith!!  Faith is a language – our universe and beyond were founded on His Words, and then Holy Spirit turned the language into an action. 

Adam and Eve blew it when they disobeyed and ate the fruit. They stopped speaking the languages God had given them, when the devil slithered in and taught them to speak doubt! A questioning perversion of the language of faith. Faith has a way to speak, and it originates in God, and freely obeys Him. Here’s an interesting thought for free: Moses lifted up his staff over the Red sea and Psalm 114:3 says: “The sea SAW it, and fled…”  The SEA saw WHAT? The staff of authority in Moses’ hand! There are many bigger ways to see and understand the things of God than we can imagine – sadly we’ve restricted ourselves to just MAN’s knowledge.

My hubby had this thought: “Jesus spoke PEACE to the sea when it was turbulent.” That rough sea obeyed the Lord immediately He spoke faith to it. When the Lord said “Peace be still,” He was speaking one of His Father’s languages. He told the disciples once in John 12:49 “For I have never spoken on My own initiative or authority, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment regarding what to say and what to speak.”

Let’s look at another one of the things that we call fruit, but God uses them as one of His languages. I picked patience. When someone is speaking to a little child and the little one doesn’t understand them, we will often say that the person is speaking patiently to the child. Patience has a tone, It is another kind of language. That language can speak to human beings as well as animals etc. and get the same response. It relaxes and soothes. God’s languages are spoken for the other person’s well-being. 

The kingdom of God down here on this earth has a voice. These kingdom languages help us to serve, know and honour the Lord, as we learn to speak them. He uses us to speak His language to others. We dare not waste our time speaking ‘man’ – we need to learn to speak His language everywhere we go – by believing and listening to what He says and acting on it. That’s how His Word begins to transform our language – when His Word becomes our language! We will learn how He speaks, when we stop predicting what we want to hear from the Lord, and take the time to wait for Him to speak to us.  

Like I said at the top of the page, the Holy Spirit shared this with me, but let’s be totally clear, my brain is not smart enough to come up with these thoughts! We need the Holy Spirit to teach us our Father’s native tongue … so we can be pure in our speech. Purity of speech isn’t about throwing out swear words, or criticism, or hate – it’s about learning to speak LOVE. The bible says: “That which is not faith is sin.”  We often go for avoiding the negative – instead of participating in the positive. 

We could be outwardly speaking well of others — but in our hearts, which are open to Him at all times, what do we really think? What are we projecting toward other people – His languages of faith, hope and love? Or are we speaking from the hurt of the past …and head knowledge… which can be a dead language. What language does our Father speak? – I think it is love. And you can be sure He speaks your language too. 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 3046 We need to focus on what matters.

/ DVH

I’ve noticed online recently, a pretty big subtext of chatter about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. That thought seems to ramp up whenever the Christian world is not coping or unhappy with its lot. It seems that we are looking for Jesus to: “Get us out of here please Lord, because it’s getting too hard and we don’t like it!”  Meanwhile I am permanently glued to the fact that the Lord said:  that the whole world needs to hear the gospel first… so in my mind, the second thing can’t happen until we’ve completed the first! Here are some other thoughts on the Second Coming.. My short response is this: I dunno!

Now here’s my longer one: Jesus says this in Matthew 24:35,36. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away. “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” I’m a no-one, so I think that includes me! Matthew 24:24.“For false Christs and false prophets will arise, and they will show great signs and wonders so as to deceive and lead astray, if possible, even the elect (God’s chosen ones).” Matthew 24:6: “You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.”

Those scriptures are one of the reasons you will never hear end-times stuff on this blog. I quite simply don’t know, and, to be truthful, I don’t particularly want to know either!  We can spend way too much time focussing on stuff we have no control of any of it. If Father God did not tell the Lord Jesus back then, He must have a reason. To me that is a nun-ya! (None of ya business.) Rest in the mystery. I refuse to panic when this war and that war happens, instead I pray for the poor people trapped by them and in them. I pray for workers to be thrust out into the harvest!

At the same time, I would never willingly want any of my decisions to be influenced by FEAR, and all this talk about when He’s coming … and what this means – or what that means … is worse than going on holidays! We passionately look forward to the holiday event, and pretty much zone out everything else that is going on around us while we are longing for it to happen!  We are talking about eternity here. Let’s not zone out of what IS going on, by sitting about waiting to be rescued. Newsflash! WE are the cavalry! If you aren’t on your horse by now those other people are sunk!

Because Jesus lives in us, He will always throw fear out wherever He finds it. He wants us to know His perfect love not fear! The Holy Spirit will expose that sneaky little devil, and together – He and I will find the source. At the same time, He will help us to renew our minds! And if we don’t yet understand how perfect His love is right now – we can be utterly reassured that it is His quest to get rid of doubt and fear wherever we have accidentally cherished it or hidden it. Meanwhile, if Jesus Himself doesn’t know when He is coming again, why should WE? 

Someone said this to me when I was a much younger Christian – live this life ready to go at any minute! That thought impacted me to the point where I still think like that today. It means that I can’t afford to just let things lie. especially if I have been out-of-sorts with somebody during the course of the day. The fact is, we only have today. Actually, we only have this minute. Anything else is presumption and an illusion born out of ego.  Back to today’s point …

We need to focus on what matters, in the here and now. I know that I know, that Jesus will come and collect us all when God says: “Now!” I once had a dream I’ve never forgotten about this subject, when I was a much younger woman,  but I refuse to trust in that dream. Maybe I just had too much pizza! All I know is that if it is not my concern, then I can cheerfully leave it with the One Who will come for me, whether I die first or He comes back first! Whatever!!

We can often obsess over things that don’t matter, things we can’t control. Maybe we don’t like the way our pastor preaches. Tough! The reality is this – our pastor is God’s gift to the body. Would you like to tell the Lord He made a mistake? Not me!! Our opinion on whether that person is doing the job well or not, is another nun-ya! What’s it got to do with me? Here’s another scripture to chew on …John 21:20-22: “Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; … …when Peter saw him, he asked Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man [what is in his future]?” Jesus said to him, “If I want him to stay alive until I come [again], what is that to you? You follow Me!”

Now, that sounds like really good advice to live by! Focussing on what matters, means we will stay on the cusp of what the Holy Spirit wants to do next. You might want to meditate on that  thought. It is a better subject than what this grumpy world leader says or does this or that thing we can’t influence! Take a good look at the misinformation on the news – it is all about making people scared and grumpy. I’d rather talk with the Holy Spirit, He is always incredibly positive and reliable. Let’s set our minds on the things that matter. Bye 👋

P 2833 It’s not mine, it’s for sharing.

/ DVH

1 John 3:17-18 (NIV) “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

The biggest difficulty with this scripture that I can see, is that many of our much poorer brothers and sisters live somewhere else in the world, out of our immediate sight. Or they live under a bridge. OR maybe they go to our church, but they are hiding what is really going on behind their happy Sunday-go-to-meeting  smiles, and we don’t know them well enough to know that what we see, is not real.

There is what I consider to be a huge trap in the Pentecostal church. The secret unspoken rule that says we must always be positive. I love speaking well of others, plus I love looking through the Lord’s eyes at what is good about even difficult situations… I do it all the time, as He leads me…  BUT … we simply must not do this to the point of actively hiding the truth.

Jesus is totally AWESOME. His Ways are incredible, and we need to live our lives, seeking out those ways, daily, some times minute by minute. He told His disciples the truth — all the time — whether it was palatable or not!  And covering up things that need to be in the light is not the same thing as having a positive perspective. How can we comfort one another if no-one knows the depth of our sorrow?

Privacy is definitely important, but please, let’s make the main thing the main thing. I think we need the Body of Christ supporting one another far more than we think we need personal privacy. Jesus spared nothing in His quest to save the world. In the end He hung naked on a cross with soldiers gambling for His tunic. That’s about exposed as anyone can get!

Hubby and I have lived by the thought that ‘if you need it and I have it, then it is yours.’ There is such a danger when we pay lip-service to the things that actually need our intentional devotion. Like I said yesterday, when we do things for His kids we are doing it to, and for, Him. It is up to us to decide to live with more honesty than we are experiencing currently.

Darkness is our enemy – light is our friend. We can easily settle for praying for someone from a distance sometimes, not that this is a bad thing! … But it is if we are doing it instead of actually engaging, helping, and sharing what we have. After all if we pray that the Lord will help them, we are actually asking the Lord to fix something that we can do ourselves.

For example: a brother or sister needs food. We can pray. We should pray! But I have to say apples and oranges rarely fall out of the sky.Although we once found a much needed pumpkin in the middle of a deserted country road!! If I have food and you don’t, then my giving reflects the depth of my spirituality! Back to my point …You or I may not be able to pay someone’s rent, but we can take them a bag of groceries. 

Today I want to suggest that while we are praying, we need to remember to ask Him – “What do YOU want me to do about this Lord?”  We are His hands and feet. BTW, I am not suggesting that He needs us to participate, because our God is the God of the miraculous… However, He will often allow us to be part of what He wants to do, and then we get to see what He does with our obedience, first-hand. It is not about how much we give either, remember, Jesus Himself commended the little lady who only gave two pennies!

In closing I need to be honest, not everyone has been super excited when we decided to help them. Years ago we had Christian friends and we honestly thought that they were struggling. So we did the bunch of groceries in a box drop on their doorstep and watched from a large distance away to make sure they got them: The whole ‘…don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,,,’ thing– from Matthew 6:3.

The people we hoped to care for found the whole thing hysterically funny for some reason or other, and we were finally able to ascertained that things were not as bad as they had been presented. That was an ACE lesson in humility! But this is the only case ever, in the many years we have been sharing what we have. I think we probably needed that jolt to remind ourselves that … ‘…without Him we can do nothing.’  We are learning to follow the Holy Spirit as He leads us. However, the chance of a misfire is not a good reason to ignore someone else’s needs!  

Whatever we have, we have been given, including the ability to make money – so sharing with others is not optional. We’ve found that as He leads us and we give, our Heavenly Father God gives back in ways beyond our comprehension. We have never given to be repaid, we give because we want to be like Jesus, and GOD GAVE US EVERYTHING HE HAD, FIRST. Bye 👋

P 2768 Religious wrappings.

/ DVH

Have you tried to open a Kit Kat or a bag of biscuits or a packet of cheese, lately? You need scissors! We used to be able to exert a little bit of effort, and the thing would just rip open. Actually, sometimes if you ripped it too hard, what was in the packet fell out because of the force applied – and you had Smarties all over the floor! But now you need to be a safe cracker to get into a bag of chips! Ah, the good old days … when partially-eaten chips were sealed with a peg so they wouldn’t go soft and nasty.

As you can tell, I am on about wrappings today. I think that religious wrappings are the worst kind of all, but I’ll get to that in a minute … …Right now I’m feeling nostalgic about the days gone by, when we went to a green grocer and if the apples looked nice, and they smelt nice, it was because they were nice. Today, looking nice means nothing, and you can go into a supermarket and not even smell the fruit and veg. The mind boggles. 

I can still remember sawdust on the butcher’s floor! They had that stuff there so if there were any little accidents, the sawdust absorbed all the evidence quickly and the butcher could sweep it away. Back then our milk came in glass bottles, delivered to your door, not in cartons. You could hear the bottles clink and clatter as the milkman thunked them down on your front steps. Then you would hear his horse and cart rattle off down the street. Ah well, memory lane aside – I’m finally picking up my subject for today.

Religious wrappings, what are they? Well, I think they are the things we wrap around ourselves so we can fit in. Either we don’t want to talk about our pain, or we don’t trust other people to keep what we say to themselves if we share it. Maybe, whatever it is, is so dastardly we don’t want anyone else to know about it! These are the things that will keep us sealed up away from the love of God, expressed through our brethren. So, sadly, we whack on a smiley face, raise our little hands … if that’s what our particular church expects … Or we sit still, and kneel at appropriate times etc. and nod and smile — when inside our hearts are broken, and we feel more like a discarded puppet than a real person!  Instead we add spiritual sawdust and quickly sweep up the evidence.

Do I see a tear out there? Oh, no. Perhaps it was a trick of the light…!  You know if we look at most church families we will see people who seem to be very much together. Lots of bright smiles and happy looks … But if we look closer? Well, that’s another story. It’s those supermarket apples all over again! Why do we work so hard to keep up a stupid charade. We seem to think that the Lord expects us to represent Him with bright happy faces, always saying positive things … yet, sometimes we are dying slowly inside. I’m pretty sure you won’t find “slap on a happy face” in the bible. You can ‘rejoice in the Lord always’ with tears still pouring down your face. I’ve done it.

It is very easy to think God doesn’t care about my troubles, my little bag of awful things – I’m just meant to plod along and hope they disappear … or I do!  But He cares! That’s why I’m writing this blog! Father God wants us to comfort and help one another. It seems to me that the church has left no room for the broken, or the unhappy, to join in. Personally, I think a whole lot of broken people are sitting bravely, week by week, desperate and sad, making the best of it as they can!! … on our nice seats. Covid did more than nearly kill a lot of people – it separated us. You know if we keep on separating church from our homes our faith won’t grow.

Jesus always interrupted whatever He was doing, to speak to, or heal a person trapped by pain and circumstances. Yet we feel that we simply must say that prayer, or sing that song, because we cannot let God down. It is one thing to want to see the Lord in every circumstance – but entirely another to deny real pain. Wouldn’t it be lovely if when we got to church someone said: “Is anyone here in pain? Let’s all gather around and pray for them.”  Maybe we would end up praying for everyone! Instead of hiding the fact that someone’s marriage is an illusion and our kids seem to be going off the rails.

How about we open up the windows and let the light in? Praying for each other instead of learning all the time. Why don’t we take off those very deftly sealed wrappings, and put what we learn, week by week, into practice? Well, that’s my little thought bundle for today. Bye.👋

P 2700 Let’s keep our eyes on forever.

/ DVH

The bible tells us to “… 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. When I watch over my heart I am watching over who I am and what I produce!

Sometimes the hardest thing to watch over is our own heart. From my limited experience, other people often tread on someone else’s heart unknowingly. However, whoever started whatever has happened, if someone is offended, it means that there is something we both need to look at..Sadly, we can mistake somebody else’s motivation for evil intent, when the truth is this:… a whole lotta people are just big dummies, (like me), and they talk without thinking.

It goes without saying that forgiveness is the key that opens the door to understanding and reconciliation, but we all have people in our lives who are repeat offenders. So today I want to talk to the offended as well as the offender. Have you noticed how easy it is today to take offence? My first bit of advice to the one who is offended, is that forgiveness will require resolve, it will take self-discipline. There’s a happy thought! However, this is how we mature, and grow the fruits of self-control and patience…  by hanging on firmly to the VINE – true forgiveness is in that vine.

So we: “…set our mind on the things above.’ Colossians 3:2. Most growing points in our lives are a matter of forgiveness. The thing is, people aren’t doing whatever they did AGAIN – if we really forgave them in the first place! There may be some times when we read this bible stuff and say to ourselves, “yeah, yeah, great thought, but how do I do that?” I wish I had some snappy whizz bang methodology, that took care of our instant responses – but I don’t.

Here’s my advice for the one offended. My experience in this area of forgiveness has come down to two words – DO IT.  Don’t expect to feel good about it – just do it. Deliberately, and with great resolve, take authority over all the mean, niggly things you want to say to that offender, and ZIP IT. 🤐 When Jesus hung there silently on that cross for us. He gave us the power, by what He did, to shut up when we desperately want to put someone else in their place or comment on their behaviour.. 

Seriously, don’t give into your feelings for a minute, because you will find yourself circling the plug-hole going down for the last time! The bible says SET your mind because sort of kind of hoping the conflict will magically go away, will not work! Let me clarify this – we are changing an internal mindset in our lives, and doing that is not easy. Mindsets change when we consistently ask Him for His help,  use our faith, and keep our anger to ourselves. I say to myself: “I wanna be like Jesus and this is the Way to get there.” People who have no self-control haven’t totally realised what He gave us when He died for us. We already have forgiveness – LEARN TO SHARE. Read Romans! The more we die to self the more we gain!

Transformation takes hold when we find we can say something positive to the person who is jumping all over our last nerve. The bible says: “Bless those who curse you, do good to those who despitefully use you.”  Look, we are not talking about a walk in the park, we are talking about pressing into God until you forget what you were mad about! It IS hard! Hullo!! I say to myself at this point: “Oh there’s that thing that I am not going to remember, because it is a trap sent to distract me!”  That scripture from Colossians is not just a nice thought – it is an essential part of victorious Christian living! Why would we hand our enemy a loaded gun to shoot us? Disarm the gun.

Now to look at the offender: If something is your fault. If you opened your big mouth and hurt someone else and they tell you what you did … then don’t make excuses, and don’t give endless explanations… simply APOLOGISE. Humble yourself. You are not the judge of what hurts someone else! Actually we are not the judge of anything — read the book. Ask what you can do to make amends. People can easily forget that “I’m sorry” is not what the bible says. It says repent. Repentance involves humbling yourself and taking responsibility for what you did. Hurting someone else IS a big deal, because we don’t live by this world’s standards, now we live by His! And He clearly tells us not to make each other stumble.

Offending people is a big deal! I’ve met many people who say they are sorry, but they don’t go that one step further to usher in reconciliation. The aim of repentance is reconciliation. We need to remember that in this Christian life our hearts belong to Him. Father God takes this stuff seriously – it cost Him His life!  When people are mean to you they are being mean to His child. This means we need to pray for them!  Christ’s ministry is all about love and reconciliation, and that is our ministry now too. To live this way, it will help us to keep our eyes on forever, instead of just the here and now. Bye. 👋

P 2677 Looking for the good.

/ DVH

“Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up.”1 Corinthians 13:7TPT. I highly recommend speaking life into whatever you can see that is good, and of God in other people. It is God-honouring to tell the people we know, what’s good about them. So today, I wanted to follow up yesterdays’ blog with something positive we can hopefully all do.

I am not talking about flattery. I believe we need speak real things, positive things, things that will help others feel encouraged and loved. You can be used by God to create a safe verbal shelter for the people you care about — and who doesn’t need that?! Flattery is also deceitful. It can’t build anything because it has a rotten foundation. Often the motivation behind flattery is to gain advantage over someone else.

I love this verse from Song of Songs 4:7: “You are altogether beautiful, my darling;  there is no flaw in you.” Oh, the things the Lord says! This whole book is about a love story and worth reading just from that POV. The bride/beloved in it, is not flawless, the Shepherd is talking about the way he sees her. On the other hand, unfortunately, the Shulamite woman can see her flaws clearly. Some of them are even physical, but the Shepherd sees so much more than she can see. When we look through LOVE we can see so much more. It is interesting to note that if we have a physical flaw, sometimes we cannot see beyond it.

The Lord rebuked me recently about the way I view myself and He said something that was so accurate I laughed out loud. It seems I avoid mirrors. If there is one in the room I look away from it, or even down. Apparently, I am ashamed of the way I look … so … I don’t look at me unless I have to! This attitude shows me a place inside, where I need His loving, caring touch. I know I need to let His Love into my mind and heart, or I will just pass that shame on to someone else in my own speech. 

The way the Shepherd in this book speaks to his bride, as well as about her, is a wonderful example of love building the other person up! Song of Songs is a fantastic illustration of the power of words to transform a life and develop LOVE. The Shepherd’s love spoken out, freely deposits that quality into the Shulamite’s life, and she does the same for him. That love transforms everything it touches.

This principle, prompted by the Holy Spirit, and activated in our own lives, can empower someone else to be bigger and more positive than they are. The other person discovers life is not about outward looks, or talents, it is about loving and being loved. In my opinion, there is a whole other person inside most of us, just waiting to come out. But we’ve learnt early on in our lives that freely expressing ourselves, and being ourselves, led to disapproval – so we quit.

Christians have the capacity and the power to speak life – Jesus died to give that to us. His truth was always tempered with mercy and hope. Everything He said contained within it the power to bring about transformation and security in love. BTW, I’m not talking about being fake, rather, ask the Lord to show you accurate things to say that encourage other people to see themselves through your eyes. This involves taking note of things that are often not easily seen. We glorify God when we notice His Ways in others.

The amazing thing is, you and I don’t have to be perfectly healed and totally whole to live this way. And the even greater bonus is that speaking out life actually increases our own faith. It takes faith to speak out kindness and love when what you are receiving from that person is anger, apathy or indifference. People don’t have to yell at you for you to know they are suspicious of you and your motivations – you can kind of guess….

Lastly I would like to include a short word of warning from 1 Corinthians 3:16: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.” If I use my words to destroy you and I don’t repent for what I’ve done, I am actively cursing you. I am destroying God’s house! Not to mention the harmony that is meant to exist within that house!  Words matter. They are more than a means to communicate, they are the building blocks that open a way to build a place for God Himself to live in!

I exhort you to start praying the Lord will show something good, upright and beautiful about someone who inhabits your world. At home, at work, in your church. Let’s begin to look for the good in others and tell them. Bye. 👋

P 2558 “You’re the goodness in my life.”

/ DVH

So click on the arrow and enjoy!! Those of you who are Toby Mac fans will recognise my title immediately. This a great track he made with Blessing Offor. ps If you have not met TobyMac, I highly recommend his music. This man is not singing lyrics that are theoretical, rather his music is drawn from his own personal walk with God – he has had his tough times like all of us. Blessing himself is well-named!

It’s Christian hip hop BTW. I’ve been introduced to the joy of hip hop by my three darling granddaughters – I love it! Well, the good stuff – there are icky ones and I give them a swerve. I think that music that is written from real life – using real words – is a big plus. In my head those rhythms and words kind of bop away in the background of my thoughts. Music is a great tool to help us pull focus as well as comfort us when we are struggling. And I love the cheery, chatty aspect of hip-hop. 

On to today’s blog … the other day hubby and I were chatting away and he made a comment that got stuck in my head and eventually my heart. He said: “Why is it that the church focusses so hard on what we shouldn’t say instead of focussing on and teaching us about how we should talk to other people?”  My answer is the same as usual … I always stick with my trusty “I dunno!” That phrase is very helpful, it takes all the pressure off me having to be brilliant instantly, and answer knotty questions. Particularly the ones that I have no clue about. But I thought about what he said quite a lot, afterward.

In the dim dark ages when I was a child, there was a professor on TV who talked about science. His manner and natural curiosity created a fascination with that subject that still continues in my life today. His catch cry was “why is it so?” — that got so stuck in my psyche somewhere and now I ask myself that question a lot. It seems to me that it is far more important to teach people how to SPEAK LIFE to each other, than it is to teach them not to be rude, gossip or swear. Abstinence creates a vacuum and things can fall into it!

In my experience, speaking life to others can actually become a way to relate to others – kind of a way of life – a good habit. I’ve watched hubby do it over and over again when we go on the road and he is talking to people-who-don’t-know-Jesus-yet. I’m not talking about flattery, or what my dear mum would call ‘palaver,” which is hollow and sounds wrong even when it comes out of your mouth. 

I’m talking about noticing a positive quality in another person and lovingly appreciating it, out loud. You operate with the purpose of building others up. It really doesn’t take that much more effort to find something good about someone else. Sadly, the bad things usually slap you right in the face, and you are left scrambling to escape. But if you can find a good thing to say to someone who clearly got out of the wrong side of the bed, sometimes that soft answer will totally turn away wrath.

Meanwhile the great point about speaking life, is this —when it is properly executed, it opens spiritual doors – and then you can shove love through the crack!!  It is all about paying attention to the person in front of you and noticing them enough to say something truthful that will build them up. When I am stuck I ask the Lord to show me what He sees.That’s a brilliant method BTW. The Holy Spirit is always so switched on to everyone’s hearts. I once asked the Lord what was wrong with a woman working at the check-out in a chain store, because if she was happy her face didn’t know about it! 

He said: “Her feet hurt.” So we did the usual, how-are-you-today-I’m-fine-how-are-you? And then I said: “This job must be so hard on your feet!” She looked at me with relief and she said: “They really are so sore today.” Like Aladdin said in his movie – it opened up “a whole new world” and we were able to pray for her sore feet! The conversation was over in minutes and she was smiling when we left.

The whole thing was a win-win situation, because I got to exercise my faith, take a risk and open my mouth. At the same time she felt seen, cared for, and momentarily understood! I mean nobody much sees the check-out person in a store, right? We can all just do the obligatory ‘how-are-you-today’ without even looking at them …but people don’t usually want an answer! My dear hubby always leaves people with a smile from ear to ear. Living like this changes the colour of everyone’s day. It’s great to speak life to everyone you meet. Bless you! 😇

“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.

P 2376 Living a transparent life.

/ DVH

“Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James 5:16. “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7

Transparency in our lives frees us to walk with each other … not to mention the cleansing effect it has as we walk along! However, our current society loves to expose people simply for the shock value. But that is not the same as choosing to live a transparent life for Jesus’ sake. Exposure in today’s world often equals intrusion. 

Unfortunately it is very easy to hide the reality of who we actually are at our house, and present a better picture to others on the outside. But choosing to live honestly frees all of us to openly trust the Lord more, and to present our faith in its true light. We are the people who live in, and value, forgiveness. It is way too easy to hide who we are and simply claim we are being positive. Lots of nasty stuff hides in there! We need total honesty when we are coming before the One ‘to whom all hearts are open’  – and if I lie to you about who I really am, I will hurt the BODY – I will stunt its growth.

Transparency is a hallmark of belonging to Jesus, because we are the people who have nothing to HIDE, so we don’t live in fear of exposure. Instead we live in reality. We know we are sinners saved entirely by His Grace. It is dumb and a waste of our time here on earth to be saved by grace, and then go on to try do our best to LIVE hiding in external works and nice attitudes. Paul talks about that in Romans and Galatians. 

Our God will never take our choices away, He wants us to surrender them, willingly. You only have to read the Old Testament to see how patient He is with all sorts of people. He dealt with them as individuals. He let them grow INTO whatever He had for them to do. It is sad when pride, plus fear of judgment, along with a fatal saving-face attitude, can get in the way of owning our own frailties – we can’t reach our full spiritual potential that way! 

Sadly, some things we choose to hide because we are ashamed about them, and other things we hide because of the way we want to appear to others. We can unfortunately, easily acquaint hiding with privacy or safety, but trying to remain safe and secure without Him being in charge, hinders our growth. Growth comes from acknowledgment, not sweeping stuff under the carpet and hoping nobody else notices the lump! Jesus is gentle and lowly in His heart – that’s our reality. Isn’t that an amazing thing to be able to say about our Saviour? No wonder we love Him!

And He loves for us to be our true selves, freely and willingly, because there is a great deal of healing in being honest and open. I am not talking about being nasty or letting your nasty feelings attack others. The idea is to be CHANGED – not just released to be a pain! This kind of life means we will learn how to accept ourselves and others, and their flaws. However, self is definitely going to die in the process of changing the way we live, because all pretence has to go out of the window. Polite and nice simply get in the way of real Spirit-given love. We use so much energy trying to look right, that in the end, we have nothing left to give away.

Owning our own frailties is so important. To live like this we have to deal with fear, which can snarl at us from the corners of our minds and emotions and tell us that those ‘other people are not safe.’ Let’s be absolutely clear. Other people are definitely not safe! They need saving too!! That’s why we don’t put our trust in them, we put our trust in Jesus, to get us through anything and everything that comes at us. We are doomed to disappointment if we misplace our trust. We may need to give other people the benefit of the doubt as to their motives, but we trust HIM, not them. Others will fail us, accidentally, or on purpose. Human beings are frail, they have faults and foibles and they can easily stomp on us without even knowing it, or thinking about it.

That’s why we need to trust the One Who knows us better than we know ourselves. I’ve found that all kinds of nasty little things hide in corners when we are not honest with ourselves or one another. It is good to forgive and forget when people let us down, but the best way to deal with others is by living in His love with His help. That Love looks like 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. This is what the Lord Jesus already looks like, and that’s WHY we can trust HIM.

I found it is helpful when dealing with difficult people, to go straight to forgiveness and not pass “go!” until I’ve done it.  At the same time I continue to cultivate the company of the One Who will never ever fail me. The Holy Spirit. Transparency and honesty help us to relate to Him, and He helps us to become who we wish we were. 👋🏻