Presnce

P 2884 The life of God in us.

/ DVH

In Luke 11:46 it says:”Jesus replied, “And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”Well this one is a doozy that nobody talks about! We cannot afford to preach what we don’t practice – we may not be perfected yet, but the starting place is having enough humility to tell God we can’t do it. We need His help, and we need to admit our lack to others.

Sometimes, at church, there may be helpful people who love to explain to others how they too can be healed, fixed, etc., because this verse says blah blah blah, so if you just do blah blah blah you’ll be right! If that isn’t enough weight to kill a sick donkey, I dunno what is! The Lord wants us to minister whatever we minister with mercy in our hearts, not law! And there is not one way to do anything. The more we know Him the more ways the Holy Spirit will help us find! Meanwhile if you ever find a pastor who will help you carry your load – treasure him!

Luke 11:42:“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.”BTW, Jesus is not making a point about tithing, instead He is saying that there is a lot more to following God than just being definitively particular about it!

Tithing cannot make up for disobedience in other areas. In this passage He is explaining to the people around Him, that we can’t pick and choose what we will obey! Unfortunately, a kind of self-righteousness will show up in people who value law more than life. Our aim is to value and cherish HIS LIFE IN US. We cannot afford to neglect being just, and sharing the love of God toward others, because those things are a hallmark of His Presence.

I want to be perfectly clear about this next remark… the way we treat our enemies — EG:  the people we don’t like;  or people who are annoying;  or family members who irritate the living daylights out of us;  or the people who deliberately and maliciously hurt us — those attitudes show us, and others, how much we love HIM! And like Jesus is saying here, we cannot pay lip-service to these things so we are going to need His help.

Many is the time, I’ve been sobbing away before the Lord explaining that I had tried to be nice to people who have hurt me, but I was totally poverty-stricken because I could not do it from my heart. That’s what “blessed are the poor in spirit...”is all about. Jesus Christ set the bar too high for any of us to reach it … without His help!

He also identified Himself with all of mankind when He said: “When you do this and that for other people, you are doing it for Me!” Our obedience is incredibly important to the Lord. Read the book. We need to understand that Father God is not interested in all talk and no action! God is looking for us to have enduring FAITH. Hebrews 12 says He is the Author of faith, so when we have faith, the life of God is in us. 

Micah 6:8 says:“He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”Mercy is now our middle name, and it is a sign of the life of God within us. Making sure that we treat others lovingly is not some old-fashioned nicey-nice concept – it is sorely needed grace in today’s self-centred world. We are to live by Christ’s brand of justice now – it is called unilateral forgiveness! Forgiveness is not optional and it is actually still justice. It is simply justice covered in MERCY! His ways aren’t ours!!

The reason the Lord was repeatedly angry with the Israelites, was because they would not obey Him – they ticked some of His boxes, but most of the time they went their own way. Father God knows how to get us through ANYTHING. He is our loving Father who created us and knows the very best way we should go. So in order to have His life, right here right now, we need to give our life away for His will, and …  … usually someone else’s benefit! That stuff makes very little sense to a legally-based mind, it will probably just make them angry. 

The Lord is not fooled by our efforts to impress other people with how spiritual we are, His kids are to carry His Presence and His abounding Life within them wherever they go. The same way David’s men carried the Ark into Jerusalem – walking and leaping and praising God! The life of God in us will lead us through anything.

Bye 👋

P 2695 Loyalty matters to God.

/ DVH

Let’s not take Father God’s kindness toward us for granted, or we can end up walking in presumption. To start with, we can easily be distracted by the cares of this life and forget Who He actually is! That’s when we could end up focussing on our own greedy little agendas of what we need or want. The point of a relationship is not just about what the other person does for me, it is also about what I bring into that relationship! What do I do that benefits that other person? We must not use Him for our own ends, He needs to be our great treasure. 

Our God’s benefits are for always seeable, and available to be easily seen, when we are living our lives loyal to Him. And He loves 💕 loyalty! Read the book. In the Old Testament we can see that His people spent more time being disloyal to the Lord than they did being loyal. But, whenever they repented and turned back to Him – His loving provision and benefits were seen and recognised and appreciated. I believe in order to see the Lord’s benefits, we need insight into the way we regard Him. God is not wishy-washy, whimsical, or careless. His preference for our salvation is crystal clear, but the decision to accept that, with all it means, needs to be taken seriously.

This is a good time to ask ourselves, where do I, personally, stand on this loyalty issue? Am I ”on the Lord’s side?” …like Joshua was? Joshua was prepared to die for God’s will to be done. Or am I on my Saviour’s side purely for so-called benefits, “I’m saved, He answers my prayers.” Maybe I get disengaged or ticked off when I happen to get trouble or tears? Is my main desire to live in His Presence? Can I see past His hands to His face? In my observation, most of the time when the going gets tough for Christians – the not-so-tough bail out!

I want to briefly talk about the incredible value of the Lord’s benefits. We have such wealth. We are strongly exhorted in Psalm 126:3 to: “… forget not all His benefits…”. In this Psalm, it talks about restoration of fortunes, reaping in joy, carrying seed to sow, and bringing in sheaves. But all of that comes after a whole lotta shaking and hardship going on – including sowing in tears! The thought struck me that we all want the joy, and the restoration, and the seed plus the sheaves … but not-so-much with the tears. It’s a package deal.

Some Psalms contain lists of the benefits of our loyalty to God. In Psalm 119 there are a whole lot of stated benefits. However, I think seeing God’s benefits is linked to our loyalty – and if we do not value Who He is, we won’t SEE them. These things are way too costly to be treated carelessly, haphazardly or poorly. Anybody can participate in everything He has done for us, but our response needs to be a heart filled with loyalty to Him because He has been so gracious to us.

Let’s look quickly at Psalm 23:1. In the Living bible it says:“Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need!”  This shepherd was totally in charge of his sheep! While they were under his protection the sheep lacked nothing. Even if they wandered off he would go and seek them out. This is a fine example of Jesus’ loyalty to us! Outside the camp there are wolves etc. This shows me that our faith can easily be devoured by cares and worries of this life – the shepherd’s sheep knew the value of staying close.

Some times we merrily produce our largish lists of needs and wants, and post them off to the Lord without bearing in mind where our loyalties are currently lying. Are we paying lip service, or are we His devoted servants, looking to simply be His sheep? Meanwhile if we are that distracted, will we even see the answers He sends? In Philippians 4:19 it says: “I pray that God will take care of all your needs with the wonderful blessings that come from Christ Jesus!”

Our God is so much more than the supplier of our needs – He’s Almighty God. He made everything we can see!

Every blessing we’ve received was bought for us by Jesus Christ’s own suffering. This life is not about Him getting us a new car, or having a baby, or getting into a course we think we want!  It’s about belonging to SomeOne so incredible, so loving, so focussed on us, that we take the time to see His heart and love Him back. We need to carefully inspect the origins of some of the things we claim and ask for, because loyalty and gratitude matter – especially to Him.

GRACE IS FREE BUT IT WAS NOT CHEAP. This is why everything we do, or want, needs to be prayerfully requested with our eye firmly on the prize of honouring Jesus. Otherwise we can go from faith into presumption in a heartbeat. Let’s not rob the Lord of our loyalty … 👋

“Jesus said to all of His followers, “If you truly desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:23-24.

P 2691 Time to make a Move!

/ DVH

Today I am sharing one of my fav songs by TobyMac. I love this guy, he has seen so much heartbreak and he still

continues to exhort and minister and in spite of his difficulties, this man is full of hope. I pray it blesses and encourages you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou-p_RDUbB4

You know, for too long the body of Christ has been happy to sit on the sidelines, watching our leaders do stuff. Even sometimes criticising them, because we glimpse their humanity. It seems like we are watching the footie or some other competitive sport. We love to cheer for those who are out on the field battling, fighting to win and yet we still pick on the guy who gets it wrong!  Instead of looking at someone else doing the stuff, we … you and I, need to practice looking to the Holy Spirit for guidance… so we will know what to do next. After all we are His army! 

In the natural world, letting someone my age into the army is just plain ridiculous. I have 2 hearing aids – because otherwise I can’t hear a word anyone says. I wear old person glasses – trifocals … and I spend my time looking about for the next loo, because my insides are no longer young! So when I look in a mirror I don’t see a mighty warrior of God – I see a tired old lady, who loves to nap at least once a day! I’m pretty good at Nanna naps. Meanwhile, I’m guessing most of us in blog-land aren’t ready for the Olympics either. Yet Father God has called each one of us to participate in what He is doing on the earth today. It seems to me that we must make moving and growing spiritually, a priority. That may be hard initially, maybe some of us have not been living a totally sold-out life for Jesus. 

If we truly want to know the Lord intimately, then we need to engage with Him personally, so that means learning to love what He loves – and He loves PEOPLE. That necessitates our getting off the bench and getting into the game. We will have to use our faith to do more than make our own lives easier! The marvellous thing about the Holy Spirit is that He is more likely to choose people who can’t do … whatever it is He wants done… because already they know their ineptitude and lack, firsthand. He’s wonderful! He promises to guide us into and through whatever we have to do, each day. He has a plan and He wants to go everywhere with us! Bonus buy! He will give us His grace, plus His joy, so we can authentically praise God for His help as we are learning to live a life of faith.

I think we are falling behind in our ability to rise above any occasion or problems we have, and it’s not because Christians don’t love the Lord. I think it is because they love the Lord, AND… !! Sadly, we also want to be and look like everyone else, so we end up in a default position, serving Jesus like loving Him is a special hobby. Whenever we do obey Him, there is often an ever-present fear that we will be ostracised or somehow fall out of step with the people around us. 

Most people have great excuses too – mortgages, food, bills – those things occupy our thoughts and days because we need to work. This means we tend to fit Him in around what we do for a living. We have not grasped what a life of faith looks like. It is so easy to think: “Well that’s what Jesus did, and of course He is just special.” No argument here! But Christ died to make the seemingly impossible, possible in our lives. We can live for Jesus and earn a living plus raise kids or live in retirement. 

“Jesus said, “The food that keeps Me going is that I do the will of the One who sent Me, finishing the work He started. As you look around right now, wouldn’t you say that in about four months it will be time to harvest? Well, I’m telling you to open your eyes and take a good look at what’s right in front of you. These … fields are ripe. It’s harvest time!”John 4:34-35 MSG.

However, as we obey the Holy Spirit we will discover what God will do through you and me. Paul, or Peter or James – were not extraordinary men. They served an extraordinary, incredible God. They lived and worked in the Holy Spirit’s Presence. They did not stand still – they knew it was time to move, so they obeyed what He taught them. Those people turned the world upside down. 👋

P 2688 To grow faith – use supplements!

/ DVH

“So devote yourselves to lavishly supplementing your faith with goodness, and to goodness add understanding, and to understanding add the strength of self-control, and to self-control add patient endurance, and to patient endurance add godliness, and to godliness add mercy toward your brothers and sisters, and to mercy toward others add unending love. Since these virtues are already planted deep within, and you possess them in abundant supply, they will keep you from being inactive or fruitless in your pursuit of knowing Jesus Christ more intimately.” 2 Peter 1:5-8 TPT.

I love the way this version brings out a clear meaning to some quite complicated verses. I like to look at this progressive thought Peter has, as a way of walking with the Lord. If we look at these faith ‘pills’ then we can see that this kind of walking is not aimless. We are actually going somewhere when we deliberately add goodness to our fragile as well as sometimes wobbly …faith. Instead we are deliberately, step by step, walking toward unending love.

Instead of seeing these verses as a whole lotta words that seem to be joined together like beads on a string, it helps to read it as progressive instructions. Let us say my faith is lagging, I am living my daily life doing the same old, same old. My prayers seem dead and lifeless – and maybe a bit repetitious. My bible reading ends with the thought …“thank goodness that’s over with for today.” If things get difficult my first thought is nearer to: “the end of the world as I know it”  … than it is to: “what are You going to do with this Lord?” 

I may even start to think tithing is beyond me, maybe I will just give what I can afford until I have resolved my current financial crisis.. And I begin to avoid anybody who drives me crazy because I can’t cope with them. My faith is heading for a crash, and I don’t know how to stop it. Well, here’s the solution, thank you Apostle Peter!! First of all I pick up what remains of my dragged along faith, and repent. Then I start my new spiritual vitamin regime. That means I add other things into my basket to help, or supplement my faith. I am not stingy with these add-ons, I throw lots of each one in. (That’s what ‘lavish’ means!) 

Let’s look at goodness. How do I add goodness to faith? First of all I look at the source of all our goodness – Almighty God. I deliberately sit and think about my life, so I can notice how His goodness has been following me, quietly, and unobtrusively. I deliberately look for the signs of His Presence in the midst of my troubles. I start noting all the good things, and I choose to leave the disappointments behind. Then I find someone worse off than me and do something spontaneously loving for them!  After that is moving along, and I acknowledge that I can be good to many people, not just one! Then I take another supplement – understanding. My understanding is based on WHO He is, not whether my life makes sense or not.

He is the only way my life will make sense. I must discipline myself to understand that He is God, and this means I may not always comprehend what is going on. But I know He is good, so I start reading verses about how good He is. To do that I am going to need self-control … focus. In essence I have stopped seeing my problems as the centre of my universe and I have begun to let go of them giving them over to Him and leaving them there.  I will need self control to fix my mind on good things instead of rehearsing how hard my life is. 

Next I need patient endurance. That’s because I serve Him He does not serve me! Every now and then I also stop and remind myself of these intentional supplements. I need these things to get through the mire of how I feel, simply because now I want to arrive at unending love – not just to escape from difficulties. That means that I will need to be patient with myself as well! Endurance, holding our focus, helps us to let the Lord accomplish what He wants to do IN us. 

Ding, ding! Time for the next supplement. Now I need to add godliness to the previous supplements, otherwise I can easily become obsessed with how hard things are, instead of looking for His goodness in the land of the living now I am focussing on His promise that I can endure all things because He is strengthening me! To live aware of His godliness I am going to need to adopt mercy – for you, and for me, and anybody else who crosses my path. All judgment and condemnation does is chuck us out of the battle right when we are about to win it.

Last supplement, unending love. Each previous vitamin I have taken has reminded me that I am a recipient of His everlasting, unfailing love. Even though I may not feel like I have all these supplements, the bible says I have them! “Since these virtues are planted deep within.” So my faith needs to kick in. BTW the book says that I don’t just have some – I have lots.

The bonus buy in all this vitamin taking is that I will walk away from constantly staring at my problems, because I have a new focus —  now I wanna see His goodness in the land of the living!  Instead of going round and round, trying to find solutions, going nowhere – I have a purpose. I want to know the One Who rescued me intimately and my vitamin taking helps me REMEMBER Who He is. I know I can’t do anything without His help, but I can step out in faith by obeying what He says, step by step, from His book, and become a good old lady, who takes all of my vitamin supplements!  Bye. 👋