Rebellion

P 3478 Participation and dedication.

/ DVH

“Trust in the Lord completely, and do not rely on your own opinions. With all your heart rely on Him to guide you, and He will lead you in every decision you make. Become intimate with Him in whatever you do, and He will lead you wherever you go.” Proverbs 3:5-6 TPT.

Living like this scripture says needs dedication. However, to be honest with you, when the Lord first brought this subject up with me, I kind of avoided it. I thought living like Jesus did was for the special people – the ones who had spiritual gifts and titles. I was just a bod. A nobody. Someone’s wife, someone’s mother, someone’s daughter. Jesus didn’t buy that little story when I kept trotting it out, BTW.

Due to circumstances totally beyond my control – prior to meeting the Lord, I had never had a life of my own that came from my own choices. I literally went from parental oversight to my ex-husband’s plans, and my own preferences didn’t come into it. My personal choices were framed by a threat of rejection, and that influenced me regarding total surrender. I did not want to give up my choices to SomeOne Else.

Inner rebellion grabbed me – plus I didn’t know how to change. I’d go up the front when the pastor called for the congregation to make a deeper commitment to Christ, and I’d cry my eyes out, then go home and  … wait for God to do His bit.  I had no thought that I would have to change my responses, and attitudes with His help. Or that I had to see my old life through His eyes, and TOGETHER we were going to walk away from the things I did, thought and said before.

I asked Him to help me, because at that time, I thought transformation relied upon what He did. Eventually I came to the erroneous conclusion that because He hadn’t changed this or that in my behaviour, then the things I did must not bother Him. I had blinded my eyes to the scripture and by doing so, I lost my hearing as well — mainly because I kept choosing to excuse myself from any participation! God is so kind, I reasoned – I knew He would understand that my life had not prepared me for this. Well, He is kind and He did forgive me  – but the reality was that I stayed in the same place because of those choices. I was not growing, or maturing – instead it was hard work not to go backwards!

Despite my squirrelled up thinking, Father God never rejected me. Not even once. At one stage I walked away thinking He could not possibly want me now, and I hid. I stopped going to church. Well we all know how hiding from God turns out … thank you Gideon and Jonah! However, the Lord, in His incredible Grace came after me. Father God is so much more faithful than we understand — He does not give up on us. He did not give up on me, and He won’t give up on you either!  

I had no comprehension of how faith works, so when the pastor preached that we were to ‘love others’ I automatically thought of someone I didn’t get along with at all, and I tried my best to love them. I did it using my own strength. Of course the Holy Spirit wanted to help me do what God asked of me, but without His help I failed. All that other person had to do was snarl at me, or be mean, and I would immediately run away like a scared rabbit – and then I went back to complaining about them behind their back. I felt imprisoned by other people’s attitudes which did not change – I had no sense of freedom.

The truth is, I didn’t know what was in my own heart – and I wasn’t sure I wanted to either! It takes pressure to show us what is really in our hearts. Our reaction to pressure is not a whoopsie, or a little error, it is a diagnostic tool. It shows us what’s really in there … hiding away amongst the pleasant smiles and happy little testimonies. Things like judgment can hover away in the background influencing the way we think. Plus, when bad things happen it can be far too easy to complain. Complaining seems normal, because we are human. I had no idea, at all, about how faith works and I took no responsibility for my responses to difficulties. Instead I made excuses for myself. James talks about the real issue, our lack of ability to change ourselves: chapter 3, verses 7-16. 

“This is scary: You can tame a tiger, but you can’t tame a tongue—it’s never been done. The tongue runs wild, a wanton killer. With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women He made in His image. Curses and blessings out of the same mouth! My friends, this can’t go on. A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it? Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they? Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they? You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you? Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts.” 

When we choose to merely tackle the outcome of the things we do, we are not tackling the root of these issues in our lives. The truth is, we don’t have to be afraid or ashamed of owning our faults because Jesus took all of that to the cross. Everything. Not some of it … all of it. Now we need to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness and learn to rely upon Him, and use our faith. Jesus forgave us unreservedly … so we have more than enough Grace to give away, which will flow on, to others.

The only claim to fame you and I have ever had is that we know Jesus Christ personally. The thing is — we aren’t  just meant to ‘know’ Him or say that we ‘follow’ Him. Jesus learned obedience through suffering … and SO DO WE. The same Spirit Who was in the Lord Jesus, is now in us, He wants to  teach us personally, how to follow the Lord, step by step. But that will require participation and dedication. Bye. 👋

P 3438 Yoo-hoo! I’m home!

/ DVH

“Guard and keep [with the greatest care] the precious and excellently adapted [Truth] which has been entrusted [to you], by the [help of the] Holy Spirit Who makes His home in us.” 2 Timothy:1:14.

This our aim, making a home for the Holy Spirit inside us. Anyone of us can smile and look pleased outwardly, when inside we are unhappy. We all know what polite looks like! However, the Holy Spirit doesn’t do polite. When you read the Old Testament He is often quite blunt, even though He is always very kind. We can have a funny opinion of what we think He should say, or do, it’s almost like we’ve made Him into SomeOne He isn’t.

He likes humility more than appearances. It is a fantastic thing to be able to quote the word, and I have known people who could quote whole chapters. Plus a couple of really clever people I’ve known could quote a whole book – word for word! That was mind-blowing and impressive. But one quiet word from the Holy Spirit can transform my heart.

Personally, I always have to rely upon the Lord bringing what I need into my mind! He loves to help us through the problems of this life. He won’t always make them go away, Instead, He leads us through. Today, let’s remember we want our hearts to be HIS HOME  whatever that might look like. 

Maybe you have a room at your house, that you keep for visitors or long term guests? If it is like our spare room it rapidly fills up with stuff that doesn’t fit in other rooms! But when we have a visitor or a guest, we clean everything out, and get rid of the dust-bunnies, and make the room welcoming for that prospective guest. This is what we need to learn to do for the Holy Spirit. Make room for Him. We do that by focussing on Jesus and what He has already done for us. Our bit is to step into our faith and follow the Leader.

Making room for the Lord can seem to be costly — spiritually, mentally and emotionally. It hurts when we suddenly see the need to give up something that seemed OK – until the Holy Spirit put His finger on it! Learning to love Him and treasure what He does, makes that transformation easier. There are times when decisions must be made about what we say and what we don’t. I sometimes hear Him say: “Don’t say that, you will be misunderstood.”

This too, is part of clearing out our hearts to make room for Him. I think I have a big under construction sign over my heart permanently!  Life is full of surprises, not all of them are good ones. The people you love and value go away — pain and grief are things the Holy Spirit understands. He can be grieved so He knows what grief is like and Jesus is well acquainted with pain and suffering. They know the Way through the hard bits.

The fact is, we can quite easily turn to other people and rely on their faith, and not cultivate our own. The Person we need to learn to lean on is Jesus. He won’t go anywhere. Talking to other people may help in stressful times, but only the Lord knows what is happening in your heart.

Trusting Him grows our faith. Our God is so gracious to us, but accepting that He knows what is best for us, can cause us to get out of sorts. It’s that out of sorts feeling that can shift our focus off Him and onto what we think we need right now. In my experience that means my brain is working overtime and rebellion and frustration are knocking on my door. And then my faith is pushed into the back seat and my brain whizzes around and around, trying to solve things that are too hard for me.

We need His help to identify the times when we are acting out of fear instead of faith. The bible tells us that Jesus Himself is the Author and Finisher of our faith — He is utterly committed to helping our faith grow!  When the distance between the Holy Spirit and us becomes obvious, it can take a while for us to work out what is at the bottom of that pile of stuff we’ve become used to walking around! … Instead of straining to clean up the mess, I just turn my heart back to Him and then I follow His prompts.

He points out what is motivating me, blocking me from seeing Him clearly, and I follow His quiet advice. The Holy Spirit is our live-in helper, counsellor, teacher, guide, coach, advocate, our Father’s truth Speaker, and Witness to what is good right and profitable. That’s why we need to make room for Him. This isn’t about prayer or bible study, or other great things, we simply need His Presence in our lives.

He is the One Who will guard all the truths we long to keep in our hearts as He takes His stylus and writes each one on our hearts. Here’s one of my weird questions for you — when was the prodigal son rescued? When he realised his foolishness, or when he repented in front of his father? Selah!  

Hanging around with the Holy Spirit transforms us, day by day. Once we start to clear out those piles of irrelevant stuff we’ve kept, for one reason or another — we can see more clearly how to make room for Him. You know, once I decided to make my heart His home, things that had been hanging around for years, just disappeared. I simply did what He said and He did all the work. Then I heard His familiar cry: “You-hoo! I am home.” Bye. 👋.

P 3355 What love can’t do.

/ DVH

Love can’t be an obligation, because when it is, it loses its power! Love won’t make us do anything – we must choose to apply ourselves and obey. I hear such lovely people – sincere saints – they are so sweet … yet they keep praying AMISS! They think they are being honest, but God’s kingdom coin of the realm, is LOVE. The only truth is HIS truth. 

People pray: “Dear Lord, please help me to obey You and love this or that person” Amen. Great prayer, sweet prayer… useless prayer! If I have just offended you, then please forgive me! But this kind of prayer is evasion. We wipe our hands and say: ‘Well, I’ve prayed, and now it is up to Him.’ Then we keep on doing the same old same old, grizzling behind people’s backs, listing their faults, keeping hatred alive. And we wonder why nothing changes. 

The kingdom of God does not work like that. Read the book. We are the people that His Son made free, and when we voluntarily give up that freedom to bless someone else, despite their behaviour toward us, we are acting like His kids. His kingdom will flourish within us. ‘I want to’ is not the same as ‘doing.’ It’s wish praying. Real prayer has legs, feet, arms, hands and heart. In order to SEE a difference, we must BEHAVE differently. 

We can’t know what loving our enemies looks like unless we choose to love those who despitefully use us. Loving our enemies is not about being fake … it is about stepping out in faith and living like Jesus said, despite our feelings. While we are concentrating on what others are doing our own hearts are at risk. Personally, I have found the way I treat other people changes the way they respond. But I must start from poverty of heart, and then do whatever He tells me to do. Love can’t and won’t make us. Almighty God will sometimes offend our minds to reach our hearts. 

Let’s look at Jonah, God told this prophet “Go to Ninevah.” Now Jonah had a fatal flaw, he hated Ninevites so he said “No!” And off he goes, on his …‘I’m running away from God tour’ – and he ends up on a ship that’s going to sink in a huge gale. He’s asleep at the bottom of the ship. There’s probably not much conviction there yet … eh? This is where Jonah begins to turn around, and God starts to teach him something …  Jonah’s NO! has consequences on other people’s lives! He is God’s man, the pivoting point. The crew of the ship will drown right along with him because of his disobedience.

When Jonah realises he is the cause of the situation, he selflessly volunteers to be thrown overboard. This has a huge  impact on the crew – they all get saved. Two things worth noting here:  we can mess things up so badly it looks like we have ruined other people’s lives. But our Saviour is a Redeemer and He works everything together for good. When we act according to His purposes, He releases His kingdom. He cares about everyone’s lives, even the people we don’t like, who have hurt us badly. God doesn’t take sides – He only has one side …HIS! His side is pure, right, just, and wise.

Now let’s look at Jesus Who tells His disciples to “Go and heal the sick, set the captives free, cleanse the lepers and raise the dead.’ These guys don’t know up from down, and the Lord just told them to do something they know they can’t do. They’ve seen Him do it, but that’s different. We can’t love other people without Him helping us any more than we can raise the dead. It’s ALL faith! The Kingdom comes wherever the King is welcome. What did the disciples have to do? They had to do more than pray – they had to GO and DO what Jesus said. He gave them a job, and they had to go and do it. Our ‘job’ is to love others, including our enemies.

Everything rests on how much we trust Jesus’ WORD. We show Him we trust Him when we live this life the way He told us to. And when God says to forgive people, it’s not a suggestion, He’s teaching all of us HOW to enter into His Kingdom and LIVE THERE. We can’t just pick and choose what we want to do. In His Kingdom, people don’t hold grudges. Unforgiveness, disobedience and rebellion cannot inherit the kingdom of God. 

Repent, ask Him to show you what you need to DO, and obey, and then leave it with Him. It’s a choice. It is not about giving other people permission to sin, and it is about not letting their sin cause a response in us. If someone in your family of origin, or friends  used to beat the living daylights out of you, or abused you physically, or derided you with words – you probably won’t much feel much like loving them. We can’t afford to act on our feelings. Almighty God is always doing more than one thing at a time. While He is transforming us through our obedient actions, He is also reaching into someone else’s life because our obedient actions release HIS GRACE.

Acting on what the King says ushers in His kingdom. Love can’t make us choose to change. We need to yield to the Lord and act. Let’s choose His Way, and cherish it – it won’t just fall on us. We simply can’t wait for the Lord to do what He has already told US to do. Our faith has to have biblical action. We get a pure heart when we choose to have our old ways renewed, but He won’t make us- it’s our choice. Bye. 👋

P 3296 Choose to Love.

/ DVH

“Those who are loved by God, let His love continually pour from you to one another, because God is love. Everyone who loves is fathered by God and experiences an intimate knowledge of Him. The one who doesn’t love has yet to know God, for God is love. The light of God’s love shined within us when He sent His matchless Son into the world so that we might live through Him. This is love: He loved us long before we loved Him. It was His love, not ours. He proved it by sending His Son to be the pleasing sacrificial offering to take away our sins. Delightfully loved ones, if He loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life! No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendour. But if we love one another, God makes His permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in Him, and His love is brought to its full expression in us.”1 John 4:7-12 TPT.

Father God’s Love is not a theory or a lovely idea, it is the reason you and I are still here. Love can be voluntarily learned under the Holy Spirit’s tutelage – and we are here to learn to love those who treat us terribly, ignore us, hate us, or speak against us. Why? This very process is what forms Christ within us. As we co-operate with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God – we will learn to recognise what His love looks like. This means we are getting to know Him and His Ways. His love is not like this world’s love. God’s love is not indulgence, it is our pathway into holiness. 

So when we respond badly to our circumstances, we need to repent and repair things. However, every time we choose to follow the Holy Spirit, and we use our faith to respond differently — the Spirit of the Living God transforms us from the inside OUT. Suddenly we find we are walking with the Lord and it is easy. It is important to recognise that we are wasting our time fighting for our rights – dead people don’t have rights! The bible tells us to “RECKON ourselves DEAD to sin and ALIVE to righteousness.” Romans 6:11. 

This means that the way we regard the situations life flings at us, is what really matters. We can do what we’ve always done,  smile politely and say ‘that’s OK’ … but we know it isn’t!  We can avoid the person hurting us. Or we can sit about feeling sorry for ourselves and throw a pity party with our friends … OR … we can take His word and do what Jesus would do. 

The Lord Jesus saw satan for what he is – he’s a deceiver. A big bag of whispers, wheedles, half-truths and lies. he will tell us we can’t possibly do what God wants because that means we will be giving in. Then that other person will win. But we have the power within us to yield to love, not because of our own self-effort, but because of what Christ died to give us. This life is not about who wins and who loses – it is about learning to love like Jesus does. 

Let’s spend a moment thinking about all the people you have trouble loving — and see those people as neon highlighters. They highlight what is really inside us. Actually, that’s often why we get mad at them! We can all appear sweet and caring … until somebody pokes the bear!  BTW, we need to encourage each other into doing good works, not into losing our tempers. Love is not mushy, self-serving, or simply getting along with someone who is difficult. Love is an ACTION word. It’s a verb not a noun.  A noun is the name of something, a verb is something we do. We may not FEEL any love, but we choose to DO what love would do. 

Love is our first responder attitude to someone else’s hatred, fear, or rebellion. We start with love, we continue in love (Hebrews 13:1);  and we finish with love. (Proverbs 17:17). Love is not meant to be the default setting on our personal radar, it is a way to live. We need to go to love asap, and stay with it. Why?? Because LOVE always wins, it cannot fail! (1 Corinthians 13:8). Just don’t touch that dial in the middle of whatever is going on! Keep trusting Jesus. The Holy Spirit can walk us through any place of temptation, we don’t have to be afraid of it. (Psalm 23).

We didn’t just receive God’s acceptance and forgiveness, for all our sins, we also received an inheritance. Read the gospels and pay particular attention to the bits Jesus says. Conquering seemingly impossible things, is what our inheritance looks like! It’s what His kingdom looks like. If we could be like Jesus in our own strength, then He would not have had to die for us. When Jesus died, He didn’t leave us money, because we don’t need money – God Himself promises to supply our needs! 

So tell Him what you need, and if you need to love someone, ask for it! Then step out and act in faith like Peter did when he walked on the water.  We inherited the Lord Jesus’ propensity and desire to love the unlovely! Love can and will conquer all – just don’t let go of it and drift off into thoughts of spite, bitterness or revenge.

The Holy Spirit has a way through every difficult situation we find ourselves in. Our biggest trap is we have already learnt this world’s responses. Some of our responses are even automatic, because we’ve honed defensive weapons to protect ourselves—and when we feel threatened, we go straight to them. We’ve been deceived by our enemy into thinking we must work at it and solve things. But God promises to help and protect us. So in order to experience His help, we will need to lay our defensive devices down, and remind ourselves that here and now – “…our God is our protection and with Him we are safe, He protects me like a shield.” (Psalm 18:2.) 

We can learn, with His help, how to ‘identify the things that so easily trip us up‘ (Hebrews 12:1) and instead pay attention, and throw our lives into living like Christ did. The reality is, when we resort to sin, we aren’t trusting Him to look after us, and that’s when we need more of His love. Study His love. See for yourself what God’s love looks like, then choose to love with His love instead. Our choices rule our lives. Bye for now. 👋

P 3261 What are we walking toward?

/ DVH

If you and I want to see other people, (Christian or not), the way Jesus sees them, then we will need heavenly eyes that can see beauty in the midst of a pile of ashes. And even if we are in mourning, we are still able to find His JOY. We will sincerely praise Him, even when we feel lower than a snake’s belly and people are after us! What we need is the kind of Love that does not falter ... please don’t settle for less!  And the way to get these heavenly things, the things that money cannot buy, is to be obedient to the things Jesus taught us to do.

“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. The reason we are so separated as a Body is thatwe are not walking in Love toward each other! Do you have anyone in your life that you want to run away from them? Me too. Some people scare me. But John tells us that God’s Love causes us to walk toward one another. That isn’t a suggestion, it’s an instruction – we need to use our faith. 

Sadly, we think if we can’t do that, then that’s OK, God will understand it’s a bit too hard, especially when we promise to try harder next time. John, BTW, doesn’t say TRY, he just says do it. Because doing it is what obedience looks like and Jesus has provided us with the power to participate. Many earthly relationships are shattered because we believe a lie. The lie is that other person is too hard for God to change. Here’s a thought, maybe we need to change, and when they meet with a transformed ‘me’ then perhaps the other people will change their responses! There is nothing like mixing things up a bit!!

Jeremiah says in 32:17:’Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! There is nothing too difficult or too wonderful for You—“  When we read the above scripture we can see that our reality is not what Jeremiah said! Our belief system is faulty. We cheerfully sing … ‘Nothing is too difficult for thee’ … and then go out and act like what we just sang isn’t true. Um,,, that’s called hypocrisy.  FYI, saying one thing and doing another is called … hypocrisy. We are much better off to be honest with the Lord and talk about it with Him with an open bible in front of us. Just be honest and tell Him ‘I don’t want to.” Then repent for disobedience. The Holy Spirit wants to show us the way forward, and if we wait for Him – He will help us.

Any negative responses in us can be triggered by fear, or anger, or thinking we are not strong enough, as well as …just plain old rebellion! This can include: “Why should they get away with hurting me?” Because our sin hurt Him! He paid, in full so now we CAN be obedient if we use our faith instead of our faulty imagination. The reality is: “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. That means I can love you even though outwardly you are pricklier than the ‘jumping chola cactus’ pictured above. That’s a cactus that apparently grabs you if you even remotely brush by it. Looks nasty doesn’t it?? OW!! I know quite a few chola cacti people – boy, are they a challenge! 

The point is this: If Almighty God Who made the heavens and the earth says I can do it, then I can do it. Not because I am clever, and not even because I can be obedient … although that helps! But because He said so!  We can’t afford to pick and choose what we decide we will believe. We need to go back to: ‘HE SAID SO,”Let’s repent and go at it again… and again… and again. Always remembering that God looks at our hearts and He helps us when we act in faith. The Lord knows when we don’t want to do stuff, but He is happy when we value what He values. 

Jesus didn’t shirk away from doing the hard things, just  because human beings can be hard to love. He continued to lovingly walk toward those who were going to destroy His life. Because we want to be like Him, we need to participate in the things He did. The difference for us is this— SomeBody else went down those roads to give us His power to overcome those very things that seem to be impossible. Now, we have His strength available to us to help us to do the very things we don’t want to do. Jesus didn’t run away from the cross – however, He was honest about how He felt about it. 

Hey! Personally I get up tight when I have to go to the dentist, eye doctor or the hospital etc. I ask people to pray for me or I can’t  go in the right spirit. I want to approach the staff wherever I go with love, not fear. Hope not despair. I can’t afford to let some nasty imagined outcome, spoil my day. We need our peace it keeps us going.This is what happens when we learn to value what the Lord valued – we keep our peace!

Walking toward each other is always going to be hard. Human beings have a way of pecking at each other’s faults like grumpy chickens. And the further we are away from some people, the better everyone looks!  Walking toward each other seems dangerous, but it means we are prepared to take a risk. Let’s start walking with Grace Himself guiding us, and trust the Holy Spirit to get us through what happens next. The love bit comes later. Bye. 👋

P 3230 Active faith is essential.

/ DVH

The Lord Himself chose the Israelites to be His own people, and He chose Israel as the place for His precious Son to be born. When you read the book, it is incredibly obvious that the Jewish people were not perfect. Ps neither are we!!… The entire bible is a demonstration of how people related to Almighty God and the way He responded to them.  Jesus Christ, God wrapped in human flesh, is our revealed illustration of our Father’s will and love for ALL mankind. 

The story of God Himself and His Ways with men, is a two-part story, lovingly and truthfully disclosed by the Holy Spirit. The New Testament does not replace the Old, it completes it! In the New Testament, at the beginning of the Lord’s ministry, Jesus’ mother told the servants who came to serve fresh wine this: the wine that Jesus miraculously transformed – “WHATEVER HE SAYS TO YOU, DO IT.” That’s our mandate. Obedient actions, made and acted upon in faith, as we follow the Holy Spirit, will transform our minds and soften our hearts. 

“This is why the Holy Spirit says, “If only you would LISTEN to His voice this day! Don’t make Him angry by hardening your hearts, like your ancestors did during the days of their rebellion, when they were tested in the wilderness. There your fathers tested Me and tried My patience even though they saw My miracles for forty years they still doubted Me! This ignited My anger with that generation and I said about them, ‘They wander in their hearts just like they do with their feet, and they refuse to learn My ways.’ My heart grieved over them so I decreed: ‘They will not enter into My rest!’ ”  Hebrews 3:7-11. 

What did the Jewish people do that made God angry? They ignored Him, rejected His Ways, and hardened their hearts with disobedience. They chose to indulge and control their own destiny, and make themselves at home with other more controllable gods. We can’t afford to follow their example. Almighty God has incredible plans for each one of us to make all our lives better in ways we cannot imagine. Why am I saying this? Because the bible says in 1 Corinthians 2:9: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love Him—“

We definitely cannot imagine what kind of life we would have if only every time somebody raised their voice or were spiteful to us, we chose to give away His love instead! If you add to that, the fact that He never responds the same way twice, we cannot live without the Holy Spirit to leading us! Sadly our negative experiences often take over and poison our thinking against change. We need His power to open our eyes to understand exactly what His Love, in us, for us, and through us … will actually DO TO US. And that’s where Jesus becomes the very best illustration we can ever have! His Presence on this earth transformed other people’s lives forever. 

Most of us have experienced the worst of mankind’s attitudes and actions, and that negative stuff has so seared into our brains and emotions, we can’t even begin to imagine God’s kind of goodness. Many times we think we already know the outcome to things that we have not yet experienced, personally. Let’s not follow the Israelites down that dead end road of unbelief in His goodness – let’s simply choose to believe and live and act on what Jesus taught us! 

The Jewish people themselves continually experienced so much goodness – God’s deliverance, His provision, but they couldn’t see the bigger picture – because they hardened their hearts against Him, and willingly applied their own view. They were slaves to their immediate position. Their fear of change negated the possibilities of new revelations. We need to allow the Lord to continually deal with our own hearts, so our receiver works! 

Having said all that, I want to quickly look at something that illustrates the incredible generosity of God and what the possibility of change looked like in the life of Abraham. Abraham gives us a brilliant example of what obedience means to God. He gave this man righteousness, because of Abraham’s active faith – he was an old man, old people like comfort. What did he do? He followed God and took the Lord at His Word! This man’s faith changed his life choices, and he became the father of our faith. You can read it about in Genesis 15. 

In Romans 4, we can also read that God Himself declared Abraham in right standing with Himself not because of perfect deeds, but because of his complete trust in GOD HIMSELF. As Christians we don’t just want the appearance of goodness in our hearts, we want the kind of transformation that has His power in it! Genuine faith leads to obedient actions – and Abraham clearly shows us how powerfully an ordinary life can change. Then Jesus came along and illustrated His own perfect obedience, unto death. Death is also a needed part of obedience.

The bible teaches us that in order to please God we must die to the kind of life we want, in order for Him to progressively enliven us into His purposes. It is not enough to say, “I will die for you Lord,” and then turn around and go away from that moment, and continue to live this life, our only life here, doing whatever WE want. That’s called paying lip service.  We ALL need active faith – like Jesus Himself had and only the Holy Spirit knows what that will mean in our daily lives. Bye. 👋

P 3134 The best response.

/ DVH

Our justification before Almighty God is based entirely on what Jesus did for us. He came to earth, totally identified with mankind, and chose to die in our place. That fact continually amazes me …. What amazing love! What an incredible exchange! 🙌 The Father, His Son, and the Holy Spirit have such a passionate love for humanity, wherever we are, no matter what we have done. Always remember, Jesus knows how hard this life can be. Because of what He did for us, now we are DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, dead! All dead – so we live like we are DEAD!

The blood of Jesus washes away every single bit of our ugliness, carelessness, spite, anger, rage and wanting what we know we cannot have. Now, because of the freedom from fear of reprisal, and the power of God given to us to live like Jesus did – it’s time to put this AWAY world’s junk and LIVE for Him. God is no longer angry with mankind – all His anger was spent on Jesus. Now let’s ask some questions: what are we doing with what our Saviour DIED to give us? Do we squander it by living this life doing whatever we want to do? Or pay Him lip service on Sundays, while we live for ourselves Monday through to Saturday? What should our response be? Romans 5:1-6,8-11,16b, has the answer: 

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, Who has been given to us. 

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… … But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation… … The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.”

Have you ever told a lie, thought an unclean thought, or wanted to seriously hurt someone else – even in your head? God calls that, and many many other things, sin. In His kingdom, that which is not LOVE is SIN! Instead of all of us facing punishment, Father God chose to give us the opportunity and power to live this life glorifying the One Who gave us so much. Jesus is with us in Person, day by day. 

Thank God, our ignorance or rebellion, has not cancelled out the magnitude of what was done on our behalf. The Lord Jesus made us right with Almighty God, and it cost Him everything this world had to offer, to do it for us. He paid our outstanding debt! A legal contract that eliminated what we owed forever, washed clean in His blood. Before we knew Him, we had no inkling of need, or even the personal power to gain that kind of incredible favour for ourselves. We’ve been tainted by sin since the moment we were born – even the sin of our forefathers still haunts us. His LOVE toward us, is the reason we are compelled into action.

After Jesus Christ died He went to hell and He defeated death. It had a legal right to claim all of us. He went there for us, as our proxy, the One Who chose to face satan in our place. But hell could not keep Him there because satan could not find one reason to punish the sinless, spotless Lamb of God! He had no legal reason to accuse Jesus. our enemy had to let the Lord go, because Jesus never sinned, in thought, word or deed. Everything He ever did, said, or thought, was done from Love’s motivation..

He took away every legal right satan had to torment mankind forever … and then …Holiness entered the halls of hell! Now satan cannot keep anyone there who has given their life to the Lord because he has no legal ground to stand on. Faith in what was done on our behalf is our only response. We’ve sinned, but SomeOne Else overpaid the bill for us and satan has been legally tied up. he has no recourse – except to deceive us into thinking we don’t qualify …or torture us with past sins … or get us to totally focus on getting what we want in this life. When we call upon the Name of Jesus to save us, we move from this world’s kingdom into God the Father’s kingdom. Our faith in what Christ did justifies us, gives us His peace, and releases God’s grace to live this life the way Jesus Himself would. 

We no longer belong to this world. We have an allegiance, a loyalty to the One Who paid it all to save us from ourselves. So much grace was released by what Christ did, that the power of sin over us has been broken, forever! No matter how we feel, or whatever temptation crosses our path, we don’t have to live that old life anymore. Daily we choose to live, by faith, in His kingdom where LOVE has all the power. We live  voluntarily, giving away that love, for His sake. When we choose to step away from sin, or accepting its premises, we find that now we have the power to defeat it. That’s the very best response! Bye. 👋.

“We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Romans 6:2b.

P 3125 The Lord has His own way of looking at things.

/ DVH

I know the bible says we must love the unlovely – but I confess, there was a time when I didn’t want to believe that. So I repented of unbelief and then the Holy Spirit very patiently took me through the bible and showed me His love in action in that book. This has totally changed the way I read the bible. It meant that I stopped reading stories about the men and women in them and their response — and started reading them from God’s point of view. Our God has endless patience with us!

I recommend that everyone have a go at this! Actively prayerfully, look for God Himself – His ways, His thoughts. Read the bible as if He is speaking to you, personally. Our God is incredibly active, and as we see Him in His book, His reality impacts our lives. Ask Him to reveal Who He is to you, and BTW, be aware that wonderfully interesting things can happen when you pray that prayer. Jesus came here, in Person to show us and teach us – what God is like. 

WE might treat sinners badly, but Jesus definitely didn’t. Instead, He bent down to where the sinner was, in the dirt! And He had compassion on everyone. The thing I immediately noticed was that Lord knew these people didn’t have a Shepherd to explain God’s Ways to them. Jesus Christ is our God-given Shepherd. The Bible clearly tells us God’s ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts – but we must never forget we have a book full of what He thinks and what He does. Let’s stop looking at His book as stories about people, and what they think or say, and start looking at it as God revealing Himself to us. 

Otherwise His book becomes a series of instructions to be memorised and treasured purely for the WORDS. When I read God‘s book, I can choose to read it and read about other people who are like me and their struggles with God and man. But the person who really needs to know God is the one who chooses to follow Him. We will grow in our understanding and His grace for our part in His plans, when we choose to read the bible watching out for God Himself. Reading something, someone has written down, helps us to get to know the Author.

I believe it’s time for the bride of Christ to have deep meaningful times with the Holy Spirit, and let Him reveal God‘s heart to each one of us. Almighty God wants us is to triumph over our supposed enemies by doing things like – loving those who despitefully use us. When we do this, we release the Holy Spirit to have His Way. As we choose to make the bible about Him, it changes everything. Almighty God dearly longs to reveal His heart to all of us, and as He does that, we will see a part of His heart that has previously remained hidden. 

That thought is not meant to foster competition, or be a status symbol, by the way — many people have mistaken the Lord’s POWER for His HEART. However, He’s way too big for any one of us to understand. That’s why we will have eternity together, because we just plain don’t – and often can’t – get it. Instead we keep discovering new things and making them the next big thing … the NEW answer. Our God cannot be explained by a formula – He told us to seek Him. The Lord always plays the long game and human beings  are geared up for instant answers.

Until the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, His people remained ignorant. The precious Holy Spirit opened the disciples’ eyes, ears and their hearts to the reality of Christ’s life and death … who He is, what He has done for us. The very things that looked impossible for them before, now looked possible, because the Holy Spirit was there present with them, expanding their inner beings. He wrote what God said on on their hearts that day and nobody had to explain it. The Teacher, the Counsellor, the perfect Guidance of God Himself was there with them. He is with us, too. 

So that person you think you can’t stand for another minute;  or that person who used to beat you when you were a kid;  or that boss who is so unreasonable;  that spouse who can’t hear a word you say;  those people are all loveable IN Him! We simply need His heart, His eyes to see and hear them, not our own. Who loves them? GOD! Who knows them? He does! You will be amazed at how different people look, when you look at them through the eyes of the Holy Spirit. As we know Him we will understand how, and why He loves the way He does.

This happened to me with a near and dear relative. If I told you my story you might feel sympathy for me, and probably a bit angry with them. But God‘s point of view is bigger than yours and mine! The truth was I needed to look at this person through His eyes, and the minute I started to do that, I saw how broken they were. What I saw as rebellion and wickedness, was their response to the world they had come into, a world they didn’t understand. They were sheep who didn’t have a shepherd! 

Compassion rose up, and I began to truly love someone who was previously quite unlovable in my eyes. Meanwhile, I must warn you, the enemy did not let up on bashing away at my resolve – he doesn’t want anyone saved! That other person had been cemented into their attitudes, by time. So I had to choose to maintain my position in His plan for their lives, and make strong choices, with His help … to leave the past behind. I started to look forward to seeing them and being with them, because pleasing Him became my aim. Take the time to get to know how Almighty God thinks. Bye. 👋

P 3117 Listen.

/ DVH

“I will graciously give you a new, tender heart and put a new, willing spirit inside you. I will remove your hard heart of stone and give you an obedient, responsive heart instead.” Ezekiel 36:26 TPT. A stony heart is a liability. It does not allow the Word of God to penetrate the surface of our lives and bring about inner growth and change. Plus the birds of the air can easily steal away whatever God wants to reveal to us. We must learn to listen with our hearts as well as our ears. It is our heart that will lead us into acting on what we hear.

Today I want to look at the type of stuff that hardens our hearts and how to collect our new God-given tender heart — by cultivating the willing spirit He gave us – exercising our faith. This message, from Jesus Himself, shows us how important a soft heart is.“Some seed fell on the stony ground. That is like a person who hears the message and right away he is glad to hear it. But it does not go down deep in his heart. He believes it for a short time. When trouble or a hard time comes because of the message, he stops believing.” Matthew 13:20,21.

“As has just been said: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion.” Hebrews 3:15. Rebellion will harden our heart faster than we can say hippopotamus! Our enemy hangs around watching for us to fall head-first into set-ups he’s already laid in front of us. he wants us to be disappointed with God, and our lives, and our relationships with others. Rebellion wants its own way. It does not want to bend like bamboo in the wind, it stands like a telephone pole daring someone else to push it over! For this person, their own strength and purpose reigns over everything else. Those attitudes will harden any heart.

Repeated, unrepentant sin can cause our hearts to harden. Sin does not have to be outward, where everyone else can see it, it can fester inside us, like when we mull over other people’s sin in our minds, and we stubbornly refuse to allow gentleness and kindness to prevail. Instead those things are seen as weakness or giving in. We all need to be discerning because that’s one of the Holy Spirit’s gifts, but not to the point of suspicion.

“Love suffers long, hopes all things, believes all things …” A hardened heart ceases to understand the Spirit’s promptings, so when He speaks to us, or even when our Helper acts, this person misses what He says or does. This kind of hardened heart can become spiritually obstinate. Many people refused to believe the time when Jesus fed so many with the loaves and fishes, …”For they considered not the miracle of the loaves: for their heart was hardened…” Mark 6:52. Truth will slide right off a hardened heart. Miracles are His gift to us, in spite of our  inner attitudes.

We can also harden our hearts because of fear. We can be so fearful of walking into error, that we step away from other people to protect ourselves. God’s definition of Love needs to be at the bottom of everything we do and say. It is not good to have caveats on our love. Like: “If you do that, then I will not forgive you.” If we feel prickly when someone else points out a fault of ours, we revise our response. That perceived blow, merited or not, can help us keep our hearts soft, when we identify what is really going on. One thing that helps me to identify if I am cultivating a hard heart, is whether my response is defensive, judgmental – or willing to learn.This means our hearts need to remain soft and pliable or we will miss what the Lord is going to do next.

At one time Jesus was teaching the disciples, while they were all in a boat together. Jesus says something they don’t understand and they are immediately concerned that they should have brought some actual bread with them. However He is talking about the kind of yeast that comes from Pharisees, because that group think they are the only ones who know … and their attitudes are contagious. The disciples don’t get it because they are focussing on the natural world. A lack of comprehension can mean our heart is hardening, because our eyes are only fixed on what is in the material world, in front of us. But Mark 8:17-18 says: “Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them: “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?”

All of us can easily be sidetracked by the things around us that will pass away and then we miss the spiritual implications of any situation. Being dull of hearing also hardens hearts. Ask questions. Don’t close the door on anything you don’t understand until you have had some revelation. The very best way to soften our hearts is to soak in His Word and His Presence – humility is a key component of a soft heart. Let’s let His Word work on us and in us, because we can’t afford to just agree with it. Jesus needs to be our Lord and Saviour, not just our Saviour. When we live with Him as Lord over our lives that becomes a transformative way to live.. 

Lastly, God Himself says He has given us a new soft heart, and the willingness to walk in Grace. To pick those things up we have to take our old hardened heart to the cross and leave it there. That means we refuse to hate the people we hated before, instead we choose to love, like Jesus did, over any hate. We deliberately make the Holy Spirit the Guardian of our hearts, because He alone knows what God wants to bring out in our lives to be a blessing to others. And then we listen when He speaks to us, even if we don’t like it. Bye. 👋.

P 3059 Up close and personal!

/ DVH

“Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage.” Ephesians 6:12 TPT. 

Ignoring our enemy may well be one of Christianity’s biggest mistakes so far. But I totally believe in the Lord’s great all-encompassing goodness. I know He is raising up a generation of believers who will face all of our enemies, unashamed, and fearless. The way we can enter this brave band of brothers, is to practice fighting the good fight in our own little lives, every single day. Up close and personal! I pray all the time for His Grace to be abundant upon me because I’ve lived long enough to know that I need it!

Lately it seems the Lord is stretching my patience, while He is perfecting me and transforming me …Sigh. So there is a big l-o-n-g space between whatever bad event just happened in my life – to finally being able to see the Lord’s outcome. I will always need a big dollop of His hope daily to cope. Here’s a freebie …put your hope in Jesus, not in the Answer. Sometimes we don’t actually know what is good for us. My faith can be feeble and self-serving, and without His help, impatience will jump up and down on the inside of me – demanding my attention.

I battle with a sense of overall tiredness daily. It’s the kind of tiredness that makes you want to sleep for a week and hope that everything will be fixed when you wake up! I sort of understand the whole deal with the Israelites when they left Egypt and wandered around in the wilderness. I don’t like to live my life feeling uncomfortable either! The solution is easy – instead of waiting for my circumstances to change I need to give the whole thing to Jesus and walk away, leaving it with Him. And refuse to pick it up again..

God is good ALL the time. I simply need to cultivate my spiritual eyes and ears and make what He wants my priority. The problem is not with Him. It’s me!! There are days when I realise there is much more of the world inside me than I’ve comprehended so far. You know some days I also understand the Israelites longing for the leeks and garlic of Egypt, even when Manna fell out of the sky every day. It seems to me that there’s not that many ways you can cook Manna over an open fire! Boiled? Scrambled? toasted? I have a limited diet but manna porridge every day for forty years seems hard to bear. That problem is not with what I am eating – it is with what I am thinking!

The bible says in Galatians 2:20:“I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” I love the bible so much,.it shows me clearly there is no way forward without sticking to, leaning on, and totally surrendering to Jesus. ‘By faith’ means He is now my reference point, not the awful circumstances, or my feelings, but Jesus.

I love the bit in Galatians that says: “in the body.” My ability to conquer what’s going on in my head is already inside me – it came in when He came in! Salvation is not just something that happens only once. I am saved from all kinds of sin every single blooming minute of every day! Especially when icky thoughts float through my educated-idiot-box if I am irritable. That thing says stuff inside my head to the person who is annoying me: “If I give in to you, I am letting you win and there is no way you should win … because I don’t trust you!” Look at me, thoughts of reconciliation flowing about like a river! Hah! Fighting with YOU will not help ME overcome!!

That’s what this verse from Ephesians 6:12 is about. It is reminding us …“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty to the pulling down of strongholds.” 2 Corinthians 10:4. The war we fight daily, sometimes minute by minute, has nothing whatsoever to do with guns, spears, swords, or nuclear weapons – but it has everything to do with my own private thoughts … by the time that junk comes out of my mouth, I’m sunk!

If I let irritation with you pull up a chair in my private thoughts … then … all by myself, I can personally conjure up why you said what you said, and what you meant by it!   You did get the whole “conjure up” vibe right? I mean that junk floating about is not valid. It shows me that somebody else has been whispering to me:  “They said that because of this – and they mean this because of that!” That’s like one step away from necromancy and that stuff is bad news according to the bible. Saul lost his kingdom and his life to that sort of Chinese whispers because God did not answer the man according to his timetable. 

All of this fight is internal, and most definitely up close and personal! However, yielding my will to His, when I am in the middle of it, changes everything. When I choose to daily learn to give up quickly, and lay my life down for His sake, not yours …then He can make whatever He wants to make, out of it – and it is always good! Bye 🤗