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P 2891 Obedience is its own reward.

/ DVH

People say odd things sometimes. things like: “I can’t hear God.” Here’s a big fat clue. Did you obey the last thing He told you to do? How are you going with putting Matthew chapters 5&6 into practice? That’s a great place to start!  I think the Beatitudes will keep us busy for a lifetime of practising, listening, learning, and allowing His Word to transform us. I must admit I have never quite figured out why we skip those first two commandments, and still feel good about ourselves, because we’ve obeyed all the other ones.

Opportunity came knocking on this man’s door! “Why do you ask Me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”“Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honour your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” Matthew 19:19-22. Jesus is not talking about our owning stuff, by the way, He’s talking about the kind of stuff that owns us.

Point number one: This young man was on the right track:  when we choose to follow Jesus, we need to ask Him this kind of question. Yes I am serious! There is way too much back-slapping going on in the Body of Christ, and not enough soul-searching. I ask myself questions, because I know I am not done yet.  I know I’ve wasted a great deal of my life so far, trying to fit in, and find approval. However, this young man had approval from the Lord immediately, because he had done his best to obey what he already knew. God is so generous – He values the attitudes of our heart. But, at the same time He’s not shy, He will also expose what’s else is in there too.

Point number two; Never ask a question when you are not prepared to get an answer!! I believe this man was sincere, he wanted the life of God in him and he wanted to be wholly His. Jesus gave him what he asked for – right there, on the spot! There are many times we go to the Lord and all we want is to be petted and patted. Life has gotten rough and we need a big cuddle. If we want to be mollified and pronounced excellent, then we need to go to someone who wants something from us and ask them the above question. Those people will tell us how great we are because they have an agenda!

Personally, I think we are better off asking our enemies to give us their opinion – they may not be entirely accurate, but they won’t pander to our needs either. Our enemies may have a great read-out on what’s wrong with us!  In the interest of full disclosure I must say I haven’t done that one yet…! I’ve been put off because I’ve had plenty of enemies tell me – they volunteered! … what’s wrong with me. My problem was … because they were enemies I didn’t think I had to listen! Ya might want to Selah that thought a while.

Point three: did you notice that Jesus praised the man for his ongoing efforts? Yet at the same time, the Lord actually knew what was holding this man back from his expressed desire to do whatever God wanted from him. The desire to do what is right in God’s eyes, is not the whole ball-game. There is always more, and in this guy’s case the ‘more’ was in his finances! None of us are perfect, so learning what we need to know is a blessing, not a criticism.

Now let’s not miss the punch-line, shall we? After Jesus tells this young man to sell all the profits from his own hard-work and give the results to the poor — then He says the most amazing thing: ’YOU can be My disciple and follow Me.’ This is the reason I wrote this blog today, we all have things in our lives that we want more than God – we just choose to ignore them. We live our lives virtually unaware of what could be holding us back from utterly yielding our lives to Him. Maybe you could ask yourself this question: What is it that is holding me back from giving the Lord all of my life, and choosing to obey Him – no matter what it costs? 

I can’t answer that question for you. I can only tell you that in my own experience, you can never ever out-give God. His plans for us are to give each of us a hope and a future. Sometimes we can stumble over full-surrender, because we don’t know what is on the other side of yielding everything to Him. However, we do know that God is gracious, He is kind, He’s OUR loving Heavenly Father! 

If we only focus on what we will lose … we’ve missed the real point. God is good, what He does, is always GOOD. We just don’t get to define ‘good’ for ourselves! Obedience is its own reward — check it out:  Deuteronomy 6:24; 10:12-13; and Proverbs 9:12; Ecclesiastes 11:5b.  Bye 👋

P 2439 We are His children of the light!

/ DVH

“Once your life was full of sin’s darkness, but now you have the very light of our Lord shining through you because of your union with Him. Your mission is to live as children flooded with His revelation-light! And the supernatural fruits of His light will be seen in you—goodness, righteousness, and truth. Then you will learn to choose what is beautiful to our Lord.” Ephesians 5:8-10 TPT.

When I read this today, my first thought was this – we are His happy shiny people!  Everywhere we go we take His light with us … forget about long-life batteries … we have a source of light within us, that will last into infinity… and beyond!! Imagine that. This world has no comprehension of the treasure we have inside us. And ps … that’s very likely our own fault!  Moving on … because I don’t want to be a down-a-later… all the time!

What does it mean to be children of the light? Hmmm… I think it means, no matter what the problem is, no matter how hard things seem, we will always have an answer … because we know the Answer personally! He lives inside of us. Now some other people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet may not like His answer, but that ain’t our problem. We don’t even need to get together a bunch of people for us to shine, one of us and Jesus is a majority!  I’m pretty cheery about that thought too.

We have been re-designed to be optimistic people. No matter how big that problem is – our God is bigger. No glass half-empty here, we are totally overwhelmed and overjoyed to have His life-giving water inside us… Let.It.Out!  Because of this our catch cry toward others is: “How can we help you?” Jesus set that precedent in Mark 10:51-52: “What do you want Me to do for you?” Jesus asked him. The blind man said, “Rabbi, I want to see.” “Go,” said Jesus, “your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.” There ya go — another way to evangelise!

You know, without Him we can do nothing. How-ev-er!! That means WITH HIM 💥 watch out!! The Body of Christ has left this stuff to the experts for way too long. It’s time to get in the game folks. Here’s a red hot tip … you too, can be an expert on all things godly. Think on this – if I asked you about your fav movie, you could probably give me a pretty good summation of the plot and what you liked about it. Our interest in the bible is our thermometer, we just need to take our temperature – regularly.

Like Peter said in 1 Peter 3:15: “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”Studying the bible IS preparation, then doing what it says aids digestion. Your digestion of His book clears the grit and grime off the outside of your INNER light bulb. And just like moths and mosquitoes like the light – lost people who are sick of walking about in the dark bumping into awful stuff, love His light too!  His light through us is all the light this world needs.

Our God is so wonderful. He doesn’t expect us to memorise great chunks of His book– His word just needs to be a flowing river … because He is GOD … He can save people in seconds. Don’t believe me? Think about Jesus talking to the thief next to Him on the cross. That was not a comfortable conversation! Do you know how you get ready to witness etc? VOLUNTEER. “Lord I will talk to anyone You send my way today, but I am going to need Your help, as always.” Amen.

You and I, we have His marvellous light inside us. It could be as simple as saying to someone who asks you a question like: “How do you manage those difficult circumstances you are in?” I don’t even say I’m a Christian. I just say: “Without Jesus I can’t.” It’s always up to Him. The beginning, the middle and the end, I just grab hold of His thread of Love and then I follow the Leader. He knows where He is going. The Holy Spirit rides on our obedience … and it doesn’t even matter if you are scared to bits either, because the Holy Spirit LOVES this gig. You be you and let Him be Him. 

Finally, think on this – any light-bulb needs a power source. We have the power source that created this world, light bulbs and all! … inside us. It doesn’t matter how we happen to feel, faith doesn’t require feelings, it requires actions. It’s a ‘doing’ word! You and I can never ever be who we used to be, despite those awful pictures the other guy keeps throwing up in our minds… we’ve moved! Permanently. Out of the darkness into the light. 👋🏻

P 2417 The cross = LIFE.

/ DVH

There is no other place for sin but the cross. We need to pick up the hammer of our pride and rebellion and nail our sin right there, with tears of gratitude pouring down our faces. However, it would be fatal to think of the cross simply as a place of death and shame. People avoid the things they are ashamed about. Jesus Christ’s cross is a place of life. Life and – more life! His death bought us a new life. 

I often struggle with our religious concept of Good Friday, with all the solemnity and sorrow … meanwhile, we should always have Godly sorrow over our sin! … That’s what repentance looks like. But the cross is the place that our new life began. It is a place of bittersweet JOY! Not a funeral parlour. That funeral has long since past – HE. IS. RISEN.  Christ is no longer in that grave – He is seated at the right hand of the Father praying for you and I. That’s called AMAZING LOVE. 

Jesus could have gone up into heaven and rested on the marvellous thing His death and resurrection accomplished – But He Didn’t – because HIS HEART IS SO INCREDIBLY PASSIONATE TOWARD EACH ONE OF US.  He didn’t quit when He reached heaven, instead He started interceding for you and I to win. That we would overcome all the obstacles, sin, and hardships this world will throw at us. 

Some people have it tough in this world from the minute they open their eyes. Nothing goes right for them. Illness and calamity chase them like wraiths. Sorrow and suffering cloud their eyes, and they are unable to lift their heads. Christ Jesus, our Redeemer, is praying for them, right now.

There is not always an easy out from pain and suffering – the way to overcome these terrible afflictions is the way Jesus did it. Go through them with your eyes on God’s love for you. And don’t take your eyes off Jesus for a second. All hope is IN HIM, not in a solution to your problems. People say stupid things when they feel they are drowning in pain. They question the love of God because He has not made this life easy for them. I would never say don’t pray for healing or deliverance – but I would say don’t hinge your faith on an answer – hinge your faith on what He did and Who He is.

We are living in some of the most horrendous times since the Middle Ages. It’s incredibly spiritually dark outside! We must face the fact that in order for His light to shine so brightly in us – it simply MUST get dark outside. “The light shines more brightly in the darkness!!” I am not here to explain God’s Ways to you or anybody else. But I do know what darkness looks like, personally – it is like a vacuum – sucking energy, enthusiasm and hope out of you.

However the bible says:“The people who were sitting (living) in [spiritual] darkness have seen a great Light, And for those who were sitting (living) in the land and shadow of [spiritual and moral] death, Upon them a Light has dawned.” Matthew 4:16 AMP. Darkness cannot put light out. Light dismisses darkness in a heartbeat. 

We have lost the attention of so many people who were once practising Christians, because we handed them lollies and ice creams and salty potato chips and called all that …GOD and His Ways. Saying things to them like this: ‘Whatever you want God will give it to you.’ “My God will supply all your needs …” Lollies and ice cream will freeze our brains and rot our teeth, and too much salt will give us high blood pressure! Unfortunately when people prayed prayers that were not answered, they became disappointed and disillusioned with Him. We RE-PRESENTED Him BADLY in those times. Good place to repent right there!

GOD HIMSELF WILL FOREVER BE OUR PRIZE. Not what He does or does not do. The church at large marketed God and failed. Now we need to LIVE to re-present Him, alive and well and living in each one of us!  Now we live our lives, this only life we have, in the glorious light of that cross … Rejoicing that SomeOne loved each one of us so much He went there for us. The cross is a place we visit to WORSHIP, repent, and remember Him. That cross is a place of JOY. The whole game of life changed on that cross!

We need to remember that Jesus Christ knows suffering first hand – this means I am never alone. He knows how to get through this stuff – whether He tells me to hold on in faith because He will heal me – or He tells me He will be with me in my suffering and sorrow. Just grab His hand and follow Him through it … and get to know HIM as you do it!

The cross = Life. It transforms the life we actually have, from day to day, into something so beautiful we have no words to explain it. We simply know His eternal life touched ours and now we are not the same. 🥰 👋🏻