Proof

P3449 A life laid down.

/ DVH

“If we wait to feel like doing something for God, we will do nothing at all.” “Let your life be proof that Christ is real.” Mary SLESSOR. (1848-1915.) Born in Glasgow, and a missionary to Nigeria, she began her first mission at 27 years of age. She died of Malaria on the mission field. 

In Nigeria, back then, it was a common practice to kill twins, because they were regarded as a curse. Mary took those discarded twins and raised them as her own children, and eventually the native people realised their way of thinking was an error. She did not waiver in her devotion to what she knew the truth was. Mary put what she believed into practice. BTW, she was also the first female magistrate in the area, plus she advocated women’s rights, and she settled tribal disputes. But few people would know her name, today. 

I found Mary by reading the quote I’ve put at the top of this blog and I was so interested in her life, I did a bit of research. I wanted to use her as an example of what living for Jesus’ sake looks like. Here’s another quote about the cost of living this way from Wikipedia:.. “During this third mission to Calabar, Slessor received news that her mother and sister (her only living relatives) had died. She was overcome with loneliness, writing, “There is no one to write and tell my stories and nonsense to.” She had also found a sense of independence, writing, “Heaven is now nearer to me than Britain, and no one will worry about me if I go up country.” (No-one will miss me now.)

She seemed to me to be an excellent example of an ordinary Christian person who gave up her life to follow the Lord. She had had a pretty ghastly life before she became a missionary, yet she chose to obey Jesus’ call to be a witness. Obviously we won’t all end up on the mission field in a foreign land – but her singleness of purpose really challenged me. Mary became sick from Malaria early in her life in Nigeria, and had to go back to Scotland to recover, then she returned to the mission field again. This wrestling match happened many times in her forty years on the mission field. 

You know, I found what Mary did so powerful, especially in the light of this world’s penchant for self-indulgence. She is probably rarely mentioned except in Presbyterian literature. She didn’t go to Africa for fame – she went to be obedient. The little blurbs I read did not say she was a passionate person, actually she comes across as quite an ordinary, quiet heroine, who simply did what the Lord asked her to do. She bloomed where she was planted. … Boy did she!!

She wrote this in her diary: “I am trembling for the meetings,” she once wrote. “But surely God will help me. It is His own cause. I am suffering tortures of fear, and yet why is it that I cannot rest in Him? If He sends me work, surely He will help me deliver His message and do it for His glory. He never failed me before. If He be glorified that is all, whether I be considered able or not.” This piece was not written in Nigeria where she confronted drunken tribesmen with spears and shield, time and time again — this was written right before she went to speak at a meeting in her homeland, Scotland!

She said this about her calling: “God has been good to me, letting me serve Him in this humble way,” … ”I cannot thank Him enough for the honour He conferred upon me when He sent me to the Dark Continent.” By now I was crying as I am reading, because her devotion to Jesus and His sacrifice was so precious. She gave up everything to serve our King. Some of my info came from an article MARY AND THE BEAN STALK c.2005 by John W. Cowart. From the book,  People Whose Faith Got Them Into Trouble (IVP, 1990). I love that title!!  If you have time to read, she makes great reading. “One lone woman and Christ against an army” of angry natives, whose lives were changed by Jesus.

Mary helped me remember that obedience is better than sacrifice. So many great men and women have served Jesus in far off places, and history has forgotten all about them. But they gave all they had, so that others might live forever with Him. That kind of makes our reluctance to talk to strangers about Jesus seem pretty pitiful eh? Especially the sad things we hide behind – I’m too old, too young, too fat, too thin, too scared, too noisy, too quiet, too poor, too rich, too something-or-other … So I can’t do it!

I distinctly remember Moses saying something like this …  ”Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” Exodus 4:10. Thank God, after a bit of wrangling, Moses did it anyway! And Jonah saying: “O LORD, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”  Jonah 4:2. Jonah knew that God is good, and it annoyed him because people he didn’t like were saved. Human beings are weird!

Who said witnessing is an optional extra? I think a life laid down is a beautiful thing. Bye. 👋. “But we are certainly not those who are held back by fear and perish; we are among those who have faith and experience true life!” Hebrews 10:39 TPT.

P 3266 It’s the way we live!

/ DVH

‘So then faith that doesn’t involve action is phoney. But someone might object and say, “One person has faith and another person has works.” Go ahead then and prove to me that you have faith without works and I will show you faith by my works as proof that I believe… …Wasn’t our ancestor Abraham found righteous before God because of His works when He offered His son Isaac on the altar? Can’t you see how His action cooperated with His faith and by His action faith found its full expression?” James 2:17-18, 21-22.

If people cannot see our faith in action then perhaps we need to revise the way we live. We are His witnesses. When witnesses don’t speak up, the truth is left to lie dormant and undiscovered. We have not been designed to live undercover! What we know about Jesus is meant to be ‘published abroad,’ by what we say and do. Our willingness to witness for good, is a sign of our spiritual health. Faith is more than buttering buns for morning tea – it’s the way we live.

I really hesitated about writing about this true story from my own life. But after prayer, the Lord gave me clearance to do it. Years ago, our family lived in a tiny cottage that had a rental property next to us. They often had pretty wild parties, which wasn’t much fun because our houses were a couple of metres apart. One night some noise or other woke me up and I could clearly hear someone crying, pleading with some male voices. I could hear a female sobbing: ’Stop, stop! Please let me go!’ 

My poor hubby was regularly on night shift back then so it was hard to wake Him. The terrible sound of fear, pain and anguish and sobbing continued next door. Eventually hubby woke up, but the terrible sobbing etc was gone, and so we phoned the police to report it and get help. The woman, by this time was a long distance away,  walking away from the house and a man came out and yelled at her: “I can do whatever I want to you, whenever I want.” 

The police eventually turned up, much later, but by then next door was quiet – they knocked on the door and spoke to someone, but there wasn’t much else they could do. They took note of what we said and left. So we continued to pray for the people involved and left it alone. 

It was more than a year before we heard any more about it. A female police officer knocked on our door following the incident up, and she was canvassing the area asking people in the neighbourhood if they knew anything about it. She nearly fell over when I answered: “yes I had,” and we let her in. We told her we had rung the police and then we gave her the same details we had given before. 

Then she asked me if I was prepared to testify in court, to what I had heard. I said: “yes,” so did hubby, and again she seemed very surprised. Nobody else had come forward, apparently people are not willing to get involved in such things. She took our details and told us she would be in touch when the matter went before the court. My extended family didn’t want me to testify, because their fear for our safety took over… the man next door might try to get revenge etc… whatever! 

Eventually we fronted up to court, which involved its own difficulties, and I stood up in the dock and I told the court what I had heard, and hubby gave testimony about what he heard the man yell out in the street. I guess what we said must have helped, because this man was sentenced to a whole lot of years in prison for rape. After that we heard no more.

A couple of months later, I was outside in the garden hanging out the washing, when the side gate flew open and this little bit of a girl raced in, carrying the biggest bunch of flowers I’ve ever seen. She was weeping copiously, and she shoved the flowers at me, with tears pouring down her little face, and said: “thank-you thank-you, thank-you,” she hugged me really tightly, and then ran out of the gate again. It was all over in seconds. My best guess was that she was the victim from what had happened next door. 

We didn’t get a chance to talk about Jesus  … we just did what He told us to do. My point is this: we weren’t witnessing, we were simply living for Him. When I saw that young woman that day, she looked like a 12 year old she was so tiny. I was so incredibly glad we had followed the whole thing through to help give her some sort of closure. Personally I could care less if someone sees what we do or not. 

Many brave souls have gone on before us unseen and unacknowledged and they’ve done far greater things for others, and for the Lord, than I can possibly imagine! This way of life we have all entered into needs to become a lifestyle. You don’t have to debate this and that, plus the dangers of whatever … you just do what is good, right and profitable! Jesus knows when we lay down our lives for someone else.

Faith without works is dead and so are works without faith. Those two things go together. There are things for each one of us to do that won’t happen if we don’t do them. Our actions, whether they are seen or not, are the expression of our faith. It is the tangible expression of what lies within. If there is no expression then faith goes unnoticed. Faith is the way we choose to live.  Bye. 👋

P 3178 Our thoughts.

/ DVH

Most despairing attitudes start in our thought-life. However when we take the time to pay attention to what we are thinking, we can exchange those thoughts for Who He is and how much He loves us! His love is the only constant thing this world has! It is a matter of choice, not a matter of proof. Do we believe what He says or how we feel. The more we know what the truth is — the bigger our opportunity is to be blessed, because we have come to know personally, intimately, a greater reality. 

These two seemingly opposite things, like hardship and blessings can co-exist. Pain, heartache, and sorrow, can be present at the same time as our knowledge of Who He is and how much we are loved by Him. Open the bible and find a scripture that helps, and then hold fast to it.  His love is always greater than the circumstances. When these things fall upon us, we need to learn to insist, purely for our own good. The Lord Jesus outweighs the things that come against us to try to drown us in our problems. He is bigger than anything we might face. Yelling ‘help,’ helps me! And no, I don’t always do that out loud!!

When we are under any sort of duress, we need to deliberately read the bible to remind ourselves of His kind of love. At the moment when you feel you can’t – you must! His love is so good, so faithful, so steadfast, that as we read, we will come to a place where we feel the darkness recede … don’t stop there, keep going. The enemy is pushing you, push back! If we fall into something testing or tormenting we know that He will help us. He says so! The Holy Spirit, the One Who comes alongside us, will kiss us back to life again. This is when our faith in God’s goodness has an opportunity to grow. Jesus died to give us that choice!

Faith needs to be tested otherwise it will not have depth. There is a stronger kind of faith that has been tried and tested and come through all kinds of difficulties with even more gratitude and worship. I know people who have this kind of faith. All kinds of hardship are actually fertile ground, fertilised by our surrender and our active faith that He is bigger than anything else. Being tested, and pushing on, can only deepen what we already know about Him! We cannot trust the Lord completely until what we believe has had our beliefs tested and shaken, so that all the unbelief falls off. Then we’ll discover that He is more than able to keep us.

If we choose to continue to follow and submit to Him even when we feel we cannot find our way—we will get through whatever is shaking our world, and come out of the other side – whether the situation changes or not.. Let’s make the immediate choice to look up and see that dear face of His so close to us. He knows all about pain and suffering and sorrow – personally. He understands it is hard – personally! At the same time the Holy Spirit will comfort us, and teach us that we can rely upon the very real fact that He will never leave us or forsake us. 

The Lord is closest to us whenever we feel devastated and alone. We have His promises. The question is, do we believe what He says, over and above what we can see with our own eyes or hear with our own ears? Hebrews 13:5b,6. “Never will I leave you;  never will I forsake you.” So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my Helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?” Did you see what that verse says? ‘So we SAY with confidence …’  At this point I start speaking to my soul, like the Psalmist told us: I tell my soul to ”… hope in God!” (Psalm 42:11.)

Now let’s look at James 1:2-4 – “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colours. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.” James says that the thing we often desperately want to wriggle out of, is a GIFT. Because under pressure we are forced to face what we lack! When you know what you don’t have, you can target it with repentance and scriptures. Start by identifying what you are feeling: ‘I’m angry;  I’m afraid;  I’m jealous;  I am in despair.’  We no longer need to be afraid to diagnose the places in our hearts that lack — Jesus died for that lack. All we are doing is working with the One Who was sent to help us through!

Finally, we begin to realise that there is even something greater at stake than our immediate sense of comfort or peace of mind. That is God’s Kingdom blooming and blossoming in us. Hebrews 10:35-36 “Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.”  Don’t choke in the hard bits – press through – grab hold of Jesus and hang on!

His kingdom will begin to be revealed through your life, simply because it is our destiny to bring the kingdom with us. The gospels are not some sort of fairy story with a happily ever-after ending. They end in the death of the HERO. But – His resurrection ushered us into a whole new kind of world. His world has love in its centre and it is filled with hope and faith. OUR world has things in it that can be stolen or broken, but His kingdom is an incredible storage unit, we can deposit our precious families etc. with the Lord, where this world can’t get at them.

Our thoughts are so important, they can turn the ship of our lives into the wind, to be moved by our beloved Holy Spirit – HE knows where we are going and what we will need to get there!  Bye. 👋