Prison

P 2973 My Strength and Song.

/ DVH

Isaiah 12:1-6: “And you will say in that day, “I thank You, God. You were angry but Your anger wasn’t forever. You withdrew Your anger and moved in and comforted me. “Yes, indeed—God is my salvation. I trust, I won’t be afraid. God—yes God!—is my strength and song, best of all, my salvation!” Joyfully you’ll pull up buckets of water from the wells of salvation. And as you do it, you’ll say, “Give thanks to God. Call out His Name. Ask Him anything! Shout to the nations, tell them what He’s done, spread the news of His great reputation! “Sing praise-songs to God. He’s done it all! Let the whole earth know what He’s done! Raise the roof! Sing your hearts out, O Zion! The Greatest lives among you: The Holy of Israel.”

This scripture is a wonderful example of someone enjoying Almighty God and all He has done for each one of us. This is our true destiny – to enjoy God Himself. And that’s not just worshipping Him with songs etc. Sunday by Sunday either. Daily being grateful, and noticing whatever He does lifts our hearts like nothing else. I love that Isaiah is realistic, he does not pretend he is perfect. Instead, he features what God does about his imperfections.This guy’s whole perspective has changed, he is so soaked in joy for all God has done for us, he’s dripping all over the carpet!

I love it in the Old Testament when people say stuff they cannot know, purely because they are under the influence of the precious Holy Spirit! Jesus Christ is all over these verses. He’s the reason we, the Gentiles, can stand and sing our hearts out – because He came and changed the whole game-plan. Just stop reading for a minute and ask the Lord to help you to pull up a couple of buckets full of the joy of your salvation. That will help you more than reading what I am waffling on about. You know, sometimes I think we don’t have a song because we have our lives so organised there is nothing to be delivered from!

These verses in Isaiah remind me of Moses’ and Miriam’s song. I can’t put it here in full because it was a huge spontaneous song that just flowed out of everyone, as they gave thanks for Who He is and what He did … in front of their very eyes!  Exodus 15. They broke out the tambourines and just let it rip! After all they had seen the sea standing still and they walked on the bottom of the ocean! Water standing still is in the bible a few times, its in Exodus 14;  Joshua 3:16;  Psalm 89:9 … the thing is: God had already pushed aside the water away from the land underneath, all the way back in Genesis 1:6-7. And people wonder where fossils found on land come from. Duh! Read the book!

I think I’m going to be stuck all day singing Miriam’s song in my head… there’s so much joy in it. (Pity I haven’t got a tambourine at hand!) I don’t think we know anything about rejoicing in the Western world and I’m not sure we’ve met JOY yet either…We need joy! He’s always doing things for us. That’s the kind of wonderful God we serve!! Always caring, ever-present. Isaiah understands the idea that God’s plans are long-range and he acts accordingly, expectantly. His faith level is off the charts as the man says: … “ask Him anything.”!!

Isaiah has been to heaven, before the Throne, and his perspective is now clear, it is not clouded by this world’s troubles. But, because of what Christ did for us, the bible makes these things clear to US in Ephesians 2:6 MSG:“It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose His temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, He embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on His own, with no help from us! Then He picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.”

Right about now we should all be searching for a tambourine! Father God has done so much for all of us it blows my mind, over and over again. I can’t believe His intentional devotion to someone like me. I know I deserved hell, yet in His great mercy He provided — A WAY.  A way for me to know Him and live with my heart already in heaven, even if my feet can sometimes be still stuck in the mud and muck of this life. When pain haunts me – and it does sometimes – I can look toward Him and be radiant.

This is what being seated in heavenly places is all about. Isaiah experienced it and he was not the same afterward. You and I may not have his experience, but we know the same God he knows and …  ‘our God never changes.’ He’s not mad at you and he’s not mad at me, even though we fall over and fail Him. This is why Paul said: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”Philippians 1:21. This man was in prison in Rome when he wrote those lines. But he knew the Beautiful One in Isaiah 12:1-6, and this is why I think he said: “… nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:31.

🎼“I will sing unto the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously the horse and rider thrown into the sea. The Lord my God, my strength my song, has now become my victory!…”🎶 Bye. 👋

P 2972 Options are an illusion.

/ DVH

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If you truly want to follow Me, you should at once completely reject and disown your own life. And you must be willing to share My cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to My ways.”Matthew 16:24 TPT. The trouble with reading the bible in a modern version is that then we are kind of stuck with what it says. We can’t quit reading just because we can’t understand the language in an older one! What Jesus said here is as plain as the nose on your face. Now there’s a spiritual experience people aren’t keen on! 

I think the place that the church at large got into so much trouble is right here, in the above verse. We’ve made dying to self and taking up your own cross, into an optional extra. Hmmm. Does it sound like an optional extra to you? You know, I’ve tried all kinds of excuses to wiggle out of dying to self.  I’ve said things like… “I had a hard childhood;  people were mean to me;  I’ve been sick a lot;  …”  Sigh. I couldn’t make even one of them fly! You can’t actually successfully talk about sickness, suffering and hardship etc. etc. to SomeOne Who took ALL our sickness and diseases, sorrows and suffering! 😳 He already knows – He’s very kind about it but it isn’t news to Him. 

Thankfully, because of His mercy and grace, He won’t condemn us when or if, we feel sorry for ourselves, because He’s much nicer than we are, and not even remotely religious! The bible teaches us we can make a case and discuss everything with the Lord – that’s in Isaiah. And even if whatever we have done is so horrendous it is as scarlet as blood, He will faithfully wash it for us whiter than snow, simply because He loves mankind, and He personally killed off all the legalities the enemy has held against us.

The thing is if you try talk to the Lord about avoiding dying to self thing you will get nowhere. He actually knows what is good for us,  so we haven’t got a leg to stand on. Maybe that’s because He is the expert at ‘love bears all things… hopes all things … love never gives up.’ And He refuses to give up or let go of us – His primary aim is transformation not comfort.. Here’s a secret I have learnt – you can postpone growth, but that means you are postponing change. We often look at other people and hope they will change, when WE are actually the problem.  

I think that sometimes the reason we feel we can’t die to self is because we are dragging ourselves around struggling with religious rules, and ought-tos, plus all the politically correct junk we have to give lip-service to nowadays —so the thought of dying to anything else is just way over the top. Have you noticed that Jesus   simply treated everyone lovingly, no matter who they were, or what they did, or what they had already done.

There was one time when the Lord called the religious leaders a “brood of vipers.” These leaders made it clear that they didn’t like Him, right from the beginning … but He didn’t care about what they thought, His Father’s opinion was the only one that mattered to Him. Make me like that please Lord! His aim was to stir them into thinking about the way they were affecting other people’s lives.

Sometimes I sit with the Lord and start chucking all that religious PC stuff over the side of the boat, into the sea of His glorious forgetfulness. We don’t need it. We’ve already decided that we will treat people with love — and He will help us to do it. And that’s a lot easier than remembering all the dos and don’ts! The bible clearly tells us that we have better things to do with this life we have been given. In my thinking, there is nobody better than the Creat-or, to tell the creat-ed how it works. Just saying is all …

Take the time to delight in the fact that we are living and breathing with the One Who made everything we can see … and a whole lotta stuff this world hasn’t even found yet! Did you know that there are“… about 15,000 to 20,000 new species discovered each year. This equates to approximately 40 to 55 new species discovered every day.” Doesn’t that just blow your mind?! God has better things for us to think about.

When we live this life His Way it changes the way we relate to others. So with His help and our choices, we can be loving, kind, patient etc. and accepting of people, despite what we think about their faults! When Jesus gets involved, our spiritual eyes help us to see the power of love transform US, and all the lives around us. 

Let’s face it, we all have a choice. We can be ourselves, with a rotten stinky self-aggrandisement attitude, or we can be like Jesus! The book says so. And all we need to do to enter into this new place of be ing a blessing to others is —DIE.  However, God is NOT the ultimate party-pooper, stealing away all the so-called fun things. Instead we can study the fact that He loves a good celebration like we do. Read about Jesus’ birth again, or the Holy Spirit’s arrival on ordinary men and women… Father God knows how to have an occasion better than we do, and there are no hang-overs either.

You see the problem for me in the past was this:  back when I was young, we thought we had to fight the establishment in order to be free. We were wrong. We can be in a prison and still be free — because freedom is an inside job, and options are an illusion supported by copious advertising. Read the book. Bye. 👋

P 2882 Footprints in the butter.

/ DVH

In Luke 11:2-4 Jesus says … “…When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your Name, Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’” We’ve all read the Lord’s prayer many times, and part of it says: “Give us each day our daily bread…” BTW, you know I’ve found that temptation sometimes means — ignore what I’ve read, make excuses, and beg off. 

However, lately, I have been captured by those words “each day.” We will get whatever we need from Him to face the day ahead of us, from whatever we’ve read from His Word … today. That’s what active faith looks like, it presses in every single day, until we find His wisdom for us … for that day. And sometimes He even brings us stuff out of storage!!

This daily bread is our time spent with the Trinity, in the secret place, praying, reading Their book – the four of us together. Doing this turns our hearts toward the things and plans of God. We must never forget the precious Holy Spirit is the Administrator of every single thing we have inherited. He constantly stands by, waiting to help and deliver us, whenever we cry out for help. He hears our hearts whenever our mouths or thoughts have no words.

My daily bread for today, was the realisation that the Trinity has carried me through so many things that I probably haven’t even seen!  Lately my knees have not been very friendly, and I had almost convinced myself that I did not have to go and visit someone who lives quite far away from us, simply because my knees were sore. In spite of my feelings, I prayed over it, left it with the Lord, and when I woke up today this phrase bubbled up from inside my heart. “I was in prison and you visited Me …”It seems I have my answer!! 

Oh the unknown, often unrecorded and unrecognised Grace, that continually pours out on you and I, every second, of every minute of every single day! Even when we try to run away from what the Lord wants, GRACE COMES AFTER US. There’s a good place to stop and praise Him! 🙌

Sometimes the things the Lord is doing in our lives can get lost in the ongoing, everyday argy-bargy world we live in. That’s when we need to remind ourselves that He has lovingly provided a store-house of His input every day, as we read His Word and digest it – making it a part of who we are. His word is our spiritual life-line, His blood, transfusing and filling everything else we will do that day. 

How do we know God is acting in our behalf? We notice His footprints! We live aware of Who He is in the middle of what is going on around us. Then when we faithfully study His Word and set our hearts to be obedient to it, His Word will guide us, comfort us, and it can even change our direction. We can let this world’s troubles and trials take over what we see, or we can ask Him to help us recognise His faithfulness.

The Lord’s often unrecognised footprints in our lives can give us direction, or correction or enlightenment. Imagine this scene. Instead of being rude or uncaring toward someone who has annoyed me, I find I have His grace to be kind, as I follow His leading. I call that following His footprints.

Here’s a final example: I suddenly realise that I have made it through something I thought was going to be tremendously hard. The idea of this difficult thing happening was constantly looming at me from the horizon, always coming toward me … and now, quite suddenly, it is in my rear-view mirror, and I have no idea how it happened!  But I survived!! And I suddenly begin to see His footprints in my life, again.

Dumb joke: How do we know there’s been an elephant in our refrigerator? … Footprints in the butter. Bye 👋

P 2810 Discipline is not a bad word.

/ DVH

I wanted to call this blog:“What can you do when life whacks you around the ear-hole?” But then I thought: “Nah! That’s too long for a title.” Bad things have been happening at our house – as well as in our immediate family, and to people we love dearly. This stuff has been going on for weeks, sometimes it feels like forever!  It seems like we are being water-boarded by circumstances! We’ve barely had time to take a breath –  it’s like ‘whack a mole!’  

The latest jolt at our house was my 97 year old Mum being carted off to hospital with chest pains. There ought to be a law against getting difficult news before 7.00am! My mother is fine – she’s still very old – but she’s fine! I had to repent for not trusting the Lord to take care of her. You know when life overwhelms me, and it really does, there are times I have to crawl into the throne room to worship Him. I’m not looking for pity, BTW, we all have things going on that stretch us further than we want to go. 

Actually, apart from the actual circumstances — it’s my response to them that turns things upside down. I have come to love 💕 this scripture. “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” Ephesians 4:26-27. Did ya get that? The bible says it in black and white … it is my all-time fav book, and – it gives me permission to be angry – temporarily! Of course that permission comes with a caveat … don’t sin. Fix bad stuff before the sun falls out of the sky. I guess that means whacking people around the ear-hole is out… sigh. But still … it is not a sin to be angry … BUT it IS a sin to let it go on and on and on, for DAYS, without fixing it.

Lately, as I have mentioned before, I have had to avoid the news. It makes me shouting-at-the-TV-mad! And I can’t even hold onto the mad … I have to get rid of it before night comes!!  I came from an era that believed when kids were naughty or rude you smacked them … not round the ear-hole … just on the padded bit that we all sit on. This whole no smacking kid’s policy is at war with the bible … read Proverbs and hang on to your hosiery… otherwise you just might end up fighting HIS system. 

Where I live 12-14 year old kids, boys and girls, are pinching other people’s cars, bashing up old people, disrespecting the law, and carrying knives and guns. Yeah! I rest my case! BTW, I live in a quiet suburb in a reasonably quiet city. It’s not the location that matters, it is the lack of discipline in the home. We are going to live to regret the new-age idea that children are born blameless. That’s not what the book says.

As a little child I lived in one of the worst suburbs for crime … two of my childhood friends tried to burn their mum’s shop down. Crime bosses walked down the street, and if you were unfortunate enough to meet them, you looked at the ground and said ‘hello’  and hoped they didn’t know where you lived. You also said SIR because you didn’t want to annoy them.  

Consequently, I can get really angry about the lack of discipline everywhere today, because it’s ungodly. Read the book! These poor greedy kids will end up in prison – all because discipline was a distasteful word to their parents. Any bird brain knows that people should not beat their kids up, but a well placed smack on the seat of learning can help little brains realise they don’t rule the world. Start young. You won’t catch them when they get into their teens, they can out-talk and out-run you.

Changing the subject slightly – here’s a great verse that can easily get stuck in anyone’s throat: “For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes.” Hebrews 12:6. And here’s another one — but this one is guaranteed to bring a huge lump into your throat if you think on it.“Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him scourged.” John 19:1. I think this shows us clearly that Almighty God did not spare His only One-of-a-kind Son– so telling yourself that God will make an exception for you …  ! Well, you do the sum.

It also means that His discipline in our lives shows us that we are cherished by Him. Now ain’t that a rare and precious new thought!! I keep telling people that His ways are not our ways …BTW, did ya get the “everyone” bit in that Hebrew’s verse – no exceptions – not even JESUS! I understand that nobody likes discipline. It hurts. But it is necessary, because we can easily end up going the wrong way.

We must learn to resist the devil and persist in doing good while we still have the opportunity. Be-cau-se we need to be … “making the very most of (y)our time [on earth, recognising and taking advantage of each opportunity and using it with wisdom and diligence], because the days are [filled with] evil.” Ephesians 5:16. Discipline is not a bad word. Bye!👋

P 2725 Quit surviving and start thriving.

/ DVH

Almighty God is not going to adapt to our way of thinking. However, He has given us a Helper to help us to thrive in our new life – but we must learn to deliberately yield! Jesus Christ, and the way He lived His life here on earth, showed every one of us how to live. Personally, I have found that generosity toward other people and their actions, good or bad, opens the door to thriving.

This is why Christ came here … to DEMONSTRATE and ILLUSTRATE  how to live. I want to write those words demonstrate and illustrate over and over again … just to emphasise them! Jesus is God’s visual aid. He shows us that any human being can live like He did, simply because they have chosen to be devoted to Almighty God. The Lord came here, personally, to tell and show us the WAY God thinks. He released the power of heaven, so now we can choose to change the way we think and act. Try reading the gospels from that POV. Our gracious Heavenly Father will not adapt Himself to us and our self-centred ways… that is ill-informed theology … 

Instead, He sent His Son to live like we do. Christ more than succeeded in His appointed task. His death set us free from that prison of behaviour and attitudes we were stuck in – and He gave us a new life. A life of possibilities where we can now choose. The power of choice must never be underestimated. It provides a life where we are no longer alone, struggling to survive. Christ’s blameless death released the Holy Spirit and His Presence in our lives  provides us with the perfect clothing to wear every single day. Now, we need to choose to wear those clothes that the Holy Spirit has handpicked for us, joyfully! They are our wedding garments. 

Some of those clothes we’ve found we need, only become apparent because of PEOPLE. Some people are just simply “itchy and scratchy.’  Irritating people will be around us for this lifetime, as they generally, sometimes unwittingly, mess with our heads and hearts. These people can often be the people that are supposed to love us. People like this provide the irritation in our lives that will cause us to want to leave this world’s old garments behind and go looking in His Word for new ones! The truth is one of us has got to change, and most of the time, it probably won’t be them. We cannot change someone else’s behaviour, but we now have the power to change our response to their behaviour. 

When we choose to change our response, a new Person comes into our situation. The Holy Spirit. Forgiveness is never optional. Jesus had people who were difficult in His earthly life — some of them were family, and some were even His friends. He led a life of ongoing visible forgiveness. When we read “forgive one another as the Lord forgives you” – it can be easy to forget the punchline … WE don’t deserve forgiveness either! In my life there are times when I think people are like kryptonite. They can leave us on the floor, gasping for air. Unlike Superman, our Saviour laid His life down so now we have a way of escape.

If we want to go from surviving to thriving we will have to let go of the past, even if it was just 3 seconds ago! Then we need to deliberately choose to move on with the Holy Spirit as our Helper. The past is a trap. We have no control over it – it’s gone. And just like other people’s behaviour, it should have no place in our lives to influence us today. Here’s a little warning: we can say we forgive others, but the thing that will put a neon sign above the reality of that action in our lives, is a little word that often pops up – that person did it … “again.” That word ‘again’ is a sign post! Forgiveness always wipes the slate clean. God does not keep a record of wrongs so neither should we. 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 “… love keeps no record of wrongs.”

His love, when it is active in our lives, consists of laying aside everything that happens to us, deliberately. Instead we choose Him and His ways simply because He is more important than anything else. This is how we love the Lord back! He gave us all – we give Him ALL.  As it says in Hebrews 12:1&2 “ …let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, …” Let things go. I have found there are times when it gets hard to swallow my pride, because I’ve let the darn thing grow into a large lump in my thoughts! That’s why the bible tells us to keep a watch over our thoughts.

We can be daily learning how to thrive, as we live this life for Jesus’ sake. That’s our purpose. Christ was incredibly generous to us, so now we choose to become generous to others. He died to Himself, so we die to ourselves. We know that nothing ever happens to us by chance – because the Holy Spirit is permanently watching over us to guide us into the good works the Father prepared for us before we ever arrived here. We have been designed to thrive, not just survive. 👋

P 2720 If we want to see the Lord work …

/ DVH

…then we are going to have to take risks. It’s that simple. Father God isn’t into safety, He doesn’t have to be – He’s where safety comes from! I’d add ‘DUH’ to that sentence but it seems a bit rude, so you will have to imagine it instead. 😂 I could also talk about the many interesting side effects of living by faith, but one of the primary benefits is that it isn’t ever boring. Nothing about our God is boring!!

Let’s briefly look at how you or I could talk to our neighbours about Jesus. Start by asking the Lord to provide you with an opportunity. In our experience that particular prayer works a treat. I’m often housebound for long periods of time so I literally have to pray this kind of encounter into our house! After I pray that, I pray for Him to stick a big sign on the circumstances that says: ‘opening’ or ‘space for me to share about what I believe’ … because I’m as dumb as a rock and I have been known to miss what I asked for!  Witnessing keeps us on our toes. It keeps grace going IN and OUT … but… sometimes, in the light of full disclosure … you can also land on your head! That’s OK, we can all do with a big dose of humility. 

All we need to be able to witness to others is a desire to please the Lord. We know from His book that He loves it. I mean …  … He really really loves it when His people talk about Him to others. That action shatters the never-spoken-about glass ceiling that Christians like to hide behind. I’m talking about that safety zone we have carefully constructed to keep everyone around us OUT and at the same time, present a pretty picture of who we are supposed to be. Aren’t we all glad that Jesus never did that!?

Back to my point: It is good if we don’t use fancy words when talking to others-who-don’t-know-Him-yet. Most people don’t speak Christian-ese, so when you speak God’s word, it’s OK to use a modern version. You might like the King James version but that is too hard for an unbeliever to understand. Besides, it seems that not many people speak what I actually call English anymore. People today seem to speak ‘abbreviation’ instead! 😶 

So here are a couple of illustrations of witnessing in action on our trip…hubby went for a walk to a local bakery and the things for sale in there cost an arm and leg — he came out of there hopping and waving one arm for balance. Only joking!!  But the baker and staff loved the bookmarks and calendars he gave out, and she gave him a free bun .

On the way back, hubby passed a homeless man sleeping on a bench in a bus shelter. Man there’s a reality rush! There’s nothing like looking at how someone else is forced to live to give you a wake-up call.. Hubby stopped, sat down with him, talked to him, and prayed for him. Then he gave him a Coles voucher and the Book of Hope.  His name is Rob. We’ve learnt that people end up on the street for all kinds of reasons they can’t help!

Here’s a helpful thought: instead of avoiding homeless people, try just saying ‘hello’ or smiling at them instead. They are human beings with names … they just fell into hard times and they aren’t all drunks and druggies. Like I said, if you want to see the Lord work you will have to take a risk, and sometimes you will have to put up with the smell. The thing is that smell reminds me that my sins stink like that in the Lord’s sight. It makes me think about the parable of the Wedding feast. The guys that actually come to that feast are the guys who weren’t asked to be there  – other people compelled them to come in. 😂

Here’s another cool thing the Lord did – the other day we returned to Ayr, to see our new Chinese friend Steven. Hubby was sorting out our bibles, etc., and guess what he found?? Yay, Jesus!! He found a Chinese New Testament for Steven to read. Hubby searched very thoroughly for one when we were in Ayr going toward Cairns, but he couldn’t find it. We assumed we didn’t have one. On the way back it just appeared! Seriously. Sometimes angels are really busy doing stuff for the Lord — they don’t all scare the living daylights out of people. You and I might pass one on the street. .. or in a bus shelter … 

“…Be ready with a meal or a bed when it’s needed. Why, some have extended hospitality to angels without ever knowing it! Regard prisoners as if you were in prison with them. Look on victims of abuse as if what happened to them had happened to you…“ Hebrews 13:2,3. MSG. Good advice. This world is not our home, next time it could be our turn to live through horrid stuff… Remember, if we want to see the Lord at work… then we will need to open our mouths and take risks. Bye. 👋

P 2678 Love has the last word.

/ DVH

“This love means living in obedience to whatever God commands us. For to walk in love toward one another is the unifying commandment we’ve heard from the beginning.”2 John 1:6 TPT. Did you get that phrase ‘walk … toward’? Love always comes towards us – from Him, and in my interpersonal relationships. That’s because it never turns back or gives up! You know, I have found it helpful to read 1 Corinthians 13 looking for things that I am expecting, or anticipating development about, in my own life — instead of seeing them as things that I don’t have! 

When I see these qualities as things I don’t have, I will give up the fight to be transformed far too easily. That’s when I stop repenting and start justifying myself. Big mistake. Huge! Think about it like this – when I work hard to justify myself, then I can be proven wrong, corrected, shamed, by someone else who is more motivated than I am!  For some people this life is a competition, they cannot bear to be wrong, it is as if they think they will shatter if they are wrong. That’s just dumb. 

We are ALL wrong!”…as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12. I hope that this is clear that if we are ALL wrong, then there is no room for competitiveness. Suddenly I am standing on an even playing field. The only person who can stop me from moving forward into His love, and even more love, is me. I need to exercise my faith … what you do is none of my business. Paul himself says this: “My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.” 1 Corinthians 4:4.

Love is always waiting for us, because it is in the Lord’s NATURE to love. Now all the impediments are gone.  All I do is this, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me to repent and grow past my current attitudes and actions. At this point I don’t do nothing ← there’s a double negative for ya!! … I exercise my faith and step out and do the opposite of what I was doing before  … and I do it, on purpose. And I keep doing that believing that He will help and empower me. Remember the Holy Spirit wants me to win.

When I let Jesus justify me – I can live this life assured. I have proof of what He said, and Who He is in writing in the book. My enemy might have a million reasons why I’ve failed, but I don’t have to allow myself to be cemented into any of them. If satan points out my sins, then I agree with him and repent immediately. Repentance takes the ground out from underneath our enemy. Here’s another scripture: “Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison.”Matthew 5:25NKJV. 

The prison mentioned here is the one we end up in, when we are tormented unnecessarily from something we’ve done or said … that we know we should not have done … or said! Real repentance is the key that opens THAT jail door. We never plan to sin, but if we do, we repent, to the person and the Lord. Admitting we are wrong, humbling ourselves, puts us in a position to receive from Him. It is only shameful when we decide to hide our sin away – that shows we don’t understand what we have been given. Why would you stay locked in a jail when you have the key in your own pocket? The Holy Spirit is the ‘angel’ Who will swing open the door of our own personal jail – just like He did for Peter, in the book of Acts.

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”1 John 4:18. This verse is not an accusation, it is a diagnosis. The response from us to this verse needs to be – “Lord, I need to know and understand Your love more deeply, because I know I’m still afraid I’ve blown it! Amen.”  “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” 1 John 2:1, 2. God has even taken care of the possibility of sin in our lives. The reason we don’t want to sin, isn’t FEAR. We don’t sin because we know His Love, and we value that above anything else that might come up in our lives. HE becomes more important than any sin.

I can’t look at the sun and the moon at the same time. One will blind me to the other. I will have to shift my focus off me and my difficulties onto the Son, the One Who is the Answer to all of them. When I go there, I am overcome by the light of His love for me, simply because I’ve shifted my focus. The way I help myself to do that is to regularly read His love letter to me – I read the bible looking for His love. There are times when I will also find instructions, but if I need love because I’m drowning in difficulties and sin … then I read it looking for love. 💕 Love has the last word. 👋

P 2338 Live willing.

/ DVH

We’ve been isolated at home for 11 weeks so far … and the saddest part is that we love being on the road for Jesus. We like to go where He says to go, and talk to anyone we meet along the way. It is the most fun you can ever have, and we have been doing this over and over again for the past 18 years.

But the Lord has decided we need to be home, laid aside while we are waiting for this bone in my upper arm to heal. Hilariously, since then, hubby too has fallen UP the stupid stairs – TWICE. But fortunately he skipped the bouncing all the way to the bottom part. Our dog has also nearly had the same accident as well. Someone is coming to check out those stairs next week. Yay! Now our back stairs are against us!

What might be a holiday could easily feel like a prison. It’s Covid all over again. Now here’s some fun facts for you. We’ve interacted with so many people since we have been stuck in this Cul-de-sac of injury, even though we are, hypothetically, marooned. OT’s, administrators, PTs, doctors, radiologists, specialists, hospital clinics, government provided home assistance etc. These people, and the things we literally have to do as part of the healing process, have been thrust into our isolation. 

Of course there has been a whole lotta pain, no continuous sleep, and HEAPS of waiting waiting waiting in those very appropriately named waiting rooms! But let’s just skip over that part. With home help alone we have met a total of five different helpers, with three more government assist persons coming this week.These are all strangers that we’ve never met before, and each time we have had opportunities to talk to them about the Lord. 

Hubby asked one young man to open up his heart to Jesus last week, and invite the Lord in. He did. This particular young man talked non-stop all the time. The first time he came, I got so mad at him. He was completely non-compliant about the work he was supposed to do, and he argued with everything that normally happens. It was a total nightmare. I was so incensed by his lack of sensitivity in a hurting household. So … tada! JESUS SENT HIM BACK AGAIN! 😂 Goodie. Now we are praying for him and his life and having fellowship together. And only God can organise that …!

One young lady helper came from Burundi – which, BTW, is the poorest country in the world. Horrendous things happen there. We blessed her and her family with all sorts of stuff and had fellowship together. And another lady covered in tattoos is about to get married, so we had books and a bible for her. Everybody has been delighted to listen and take stuff, and our front door is like a revolving door. We’ve never seen so many people come into our house in such a short time before. 

I said all that stuff to paint a picture. First of all life never goes the way you plan it. Almighty God has His own ideas and He probably won’t consult you – or me either! It has been fascinating to see how something so painfully awful can be worked together for everyone’s good!  And I mean everyone. It seems to me that hubby and I are currently stuck in Jerusalem, and we haven’t been able to get to Judea, or Samaria, let alone the uttermost parts of this world! Anybody can live like this – we simply have to stop seeing other people as a service industry for our lives, and see them as people Christ died for. We need KINGDOM EYES.

All this has caused me to be more reflective, if our Christian lives remain undisturbed and we continue to live our life routinely, we can easily think that we are doing sort of, kind of, OK.  (See Luke 17:27) The same old same old is dangerous. When trouble comes and we are no longer ‘on top’ of anything, rather we struggle to be pleasant in unpleasant circumstances … and fail. That is when we start to understand just how deeply we’ve been lulled off to sleep. Business as usual is deadly for Christians.

Personally I found all sorts of bad stuff in me that I didn’t know was there – until somebody pushed the right button. I have also found I must constantly revisit my desire and intention to remain willing, in spite of my circumstances. Life is about moving – people who don’t move are often DEAD, and not the good kind of dead either! 👋🏻

Acts 1:8 “You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

2 Corinthians 11: 30 ‘If I must boast, I will boast about things that show how weak I am.’