Rebellion

P 2285 Ambassadors for His kingdom.

/ DVH

We all know this song, some of us probably learnt it way back in children’s church…“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33. 

So what does it mean to seek His kingdom first? In most instances, it means when His kingdom comes, that means MY kingdom will GO!  We are Jesus’ delegated ambassadors in this world of ours. We are here, in this time, and in this place, to be living examples of the kingdom of God in action. In effect, any sort of ambassador is a walking, talking, active representative from somewhere else.

And if you find that thought daunting, or even a little bit overpowering, then you are in exactly the right place. It is not in us, as human beings, to bring His kingdom everywhere we go, by ourselves, but when we walk with the Holy Spirit, we go, wherever HE goes. The Holy Spirit takes the kingdom of God everywhere. He simply cannot help it. It is His nature.

Some earthly ambassadors serve abroad, and they take advantage of their power and position in their new community. This can also be true in the kingdom of God too. It is up to us how, where, and IF we serve His kingdom wherever He has called us to be. Our King is not a despot, He does not demand that we must serve Him, that choice is always ours. But we owe it to the King of Kings not to forget for a minute Who we re-present – and to keep in mind how we represent Him. 

It is a tragedy when we see salvation as the end point of our interaction with Almighty God, and put aside the reason we were saved – we were saved to serve Him, and others. If all we do with what we have been given, is use it to serve ourselves and our own agendas, then we have not understood the gospel. So who do we serve? The people around us, families, friends, strangers, whoever comes across our path. 

Jesus told a large number of parables about servants serving their Master – either well, or badly. And the point of each one was that when their Master was missing, there were some servants who did not carry out His wishes. How we carry out what He has given us to do, hinges on the talents, gifts and abilities the Lord has given to each one of us. But it is up to us to activate them and use them for the good of the rest of mankind. 

In effect, we should not treat the check-out girl in the supermarket any differently than we treat Brother ‘Everybody-knows-his-name!’ We should be the same person in our homes, even under pressure, that we are in our churches when we are smiling and saying ‘good morning’ to each other. God did not promise us a safe life, but He did promise to protect us. The lack of perceived safety in situations, is a poor excuse for disobedience. He promises all of us wisdom, guidance and provision among other things.

Jesus also spent a great deal of time teaching: ”the kingdom of God is like …” So we cannot say we do not know what His kingdom looks like because Christ described it over and over again. Read the book! If we miss doing what He asks us to do, then we need to repent before Him and others, and that’s what keeps us humble. In the past we have spent way too much time trying to make ourselves feel comfortable, trying to fix our past, and organise the future so we will be fit to serve Him. We work hard to be fit for the Master’s use but never actually get around to doing something.

It is the Holy Spirit’s role to equip us, along with His gifts operating in our churches. This demonstrates to me, that in the main we have not comprehended our role in His kingdom. Every single gift is important because each gift facilitates others. Our role is to obey Him as He leads us through His word, His inner voice and our circumstances. The bible doesn’t come with an opt out button if it doesn’t suit us. Not applying it to our lives is rebellion. 

When we look at Moses, Gideon, Samson, Ezekiel, Amos, Jeremiah and other prominent figures from His book, we can quickly see that obedience puts us in a position to succeed in our earthly role for His kingdom. We cannot pick and choose what we want to obey and what we don’t, because that is like standing with one foot in His kingdom, and one foot in the enemy’s kingdom. That will divide our mind and hearts, and blur our God-appointed roles.

It is a privilege to be an ambassador for Christ wherever we serve. Our main aim should be to seek and serve His kingdom, not build our own. Bye 👋🏻

P 2251 About sin.

/ DVH

Yes, I know I talked about this subject yesterday, but I am not done yet … apparently! 😶 Sin is not a whoopsie, a boo-boo;  a mistake;  or something that happened when I wasn’t looking;  or even a momentary suspension in my concentration! It is not an accident;  or something I just kind of sort of fell into;  or even something someone else made me do; and it is definitely not my snappy response to someone else’s sin against me, either! 

Sin is governed by my own choices. We can blame our mother, father, cousin, auntie, sister, friend or brother but if we read the bible carefully, we will find that… that kind of thinking don’t cut no mustard with God. Neither does … the devil made me do it. Sin is an attitude that has been embedded inside human hearts as normal – something everyone does. That is how it negates what God has said, in favour of what we want, or what is expedient to us.

Most people don’t tell the truth, and I am not just talking about the guys in jail, or terrorists! We all sin all the time, and we are so used to it, we don’t notice – or maybe we have convinced ourselves that after all we aren’t perfect. 😳 Then, because we are too busy excusing ourselves, we miss the opportunity to repent. The truth is – sin has no power over us anymore, it only has perceived power. That comes from a lack of understanding that we don’t have to sin now! We settle for less. Jesus said that like this: “I will not talk with you much more, for the prince (evil genius, ruler of the world is coming. And He has no claim on Me. (He has nothing in common with Me: there is nothing in Me that belongs to him, and He has no power over Me.” John 14:30. 

Jesus died to give us the same power He used to overcome our common enemy. His righteousness with God exchanged for our sin. The reason sin trips us up is we don’t actually understand what Christ gave us. Unfortunately, we are incapable of deciding for ourselves whether this or that is actually sin. We need the bible! Personally, I’ve found if anything is not motivated by LOVE, it is sin. 🧐 However, often people think if it looks or seems OK, it is OK. Just because we’ve always lived this way, that doesn’t make the things we do spiritually sound.

Now let’s get to the good bit. Because you and I have given our lives to Christ, we don’t have to worry about sin anymore. Jesus became like US, so we could become like HIM. “This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment:… because as He is, so are we in this world.” 1 John 4:17. Jesus died to give us the Holy Spirit’s power to live this life like He did. This thought needs to be uppermost in our minds. It was an exchange. Jesus paid for all our sins, past, present and future, and He gave us His position with Almighty God instead. It was given, we didn’t earn it or deserve it. However, tolerating sin renders us spiritually deaf, a little bit at a time. 

When God looks at you and I, now He sees us IN Christ. We will stay in that new position, covered by Jesus’ shed blood, when we live our lives the way Jesus Christ would live them. Living like that, gives us total freedom – but any rebellion against how Christ told us to live, makes us vulnerable to deception. Deception will make sin look OK. Understanding now we have a choice, helps us rise above this kind of rebellion. Instead, we step out of the boat of our old behaviour, (our old self), onto the water of Christ’s loving provision, and begin to use our God-given faith. We now have heavenly help at any given moment.

The bible says: “IF(!!) we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1John 1:9. Freedom from sin comes from confession and repentance – not just pretending things didn’t happen, or blaming someone else. Blame is a dangerous thing, it can destroy people’s faith. Instead, we give up our right to excuse ourselves. So if someone accuses us, we repent. Then we go on to humbly apologise, and acknowledge what we did. After that we need to revise our behaviour when the next opportunity turns up – using our faith.  

Christians need to learn to repent, not debate whether it is sin or not. What we think does not matter – we must let the Holy Spirit vindicate us. This is because we have died and we want Jesus to live in us more than we want anything else. We cannot afford to let pride give sin permission to hold us captive – because that will limit our ability to live in His kingdom. I’ve found regularly renewing my mind, together with prayer, and fellowshipping with the Lord and others, keeps me on track.👋🏻

P 2245 Some versus ALL.

/ DVH

Genesis 4:3&4 “In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.” In this verse we can see the danger of having a partial commitment mentality. Cain brought some of his offering, but Abel brought the Lord the very best bit, the fat portions from a firstborn. Abel sacrificed a living thing. These two men show us that our relationship with Almighty God is not meant to be a part-time thing based on dead works.

The key to successfully walking with the Holy Spirit is a voluntary total surrender. And the thing that stands in our way, stood in Cain’s way – pride and rebellion. Mankind has struggled with those particular sins since the garden. We decided that we knew what was better for us, instead of what God wanted us to do. We’ve become filled up with our own self-importance.

In today’s society it is essential, despite all the protests and flag waving about everybody’s rights, that you and I live out our daily lives recognising and respecting the price that was paid for us. Our lives need to be lived laid down for Jesus, in loving gratitude for what He did for us. Christ was the firstborn of many obedient, loving sons and daughters. His cross was an exchange, even though it was a free gift. Our old life was exchanged for His new life. He took our sin, and now we freely take up His calling, empowered by His Spirit. “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. 

There are a number of theories about why God accepted Abel’s sacrifice, and not Cain’s … but the real point is this – if Cain had responded to the Lord’s clarity about his behaviour differently … Abel would not have died. Jealousy and rebellion shoved Cain into a downhill slide, but I think that pride pushed him to react that way in the first place. He thought he knew better. Cain thought he could give Almighty God any old thing, after all it represented all his hard work (!) So he thought that God should accept it. But it is God’s right to chose what is acceptable or not!

Cain was the first-born son, so the younger son Abel knew his place in the pecking-order. But the eldest son was like many of us today, we can easily have an elder brother mentality. That stuff leads to jealousy when the pastor accepts someone else’s spiritual gift, and ignores ours, or someone gets healed, and we don’t. Or somebody becomes an elder, and we are still washing dishes in the kitchen. This is an entitled works-based mentality. It rationalises spiritual truths with logic. It sounds like this: “I did my best! I’ve kept on being a Christian even when it meant I had to make hard decisions. Why is my effort not recognised? Why is God not blessing me – He said He would. Why isn’t He doing it?” Offence takes the place of submission, and steers us away from living under God’s authority, into self-preservation.

And all that started in the garden, and has continued throughout man’s history. Mankind thinks it has a right to define itself and … well … really (!)… our God just ought to be grateful that we make the effort to follow Him at all … in days like these! 😳 But the bible shows us that our God will not be satisfied with some – He wants all! Just like He cautioned Cain to be careful, we need to be careful too. Giving the Lord what we’ve decided is right and good – is where Cain fell over in the first place! We cannot define what He gives us, He does. He’s God, the Creator of all things. We are not. And no matter how smart we think we are, our wisdom is not only finite – but vastly limited. Particularly by our own arrogance. 

Our God is not a despot. He doesn’t ask for all because He’s greedy or controlling. I believe He asks for all, because it is the safest place for us to live. With all of our lives laid down we are sheltered inside His love. Other people cannot steal from us if we do not own anything in the first place. This means we hold earthly things loosely. The Lord wants to do what He has promised to do, save, protect, guide us through hard things, and keep us safe from the enemy’s ploys and plots. But when we stand about in the enemy’s playground, giving in to satan’s logic and attitudes, it becomes extremely easy to grow resentful. Cain did.

Abel respected God’s wishes, and his offering was honoured – He offered an animal’s life to His Creator. Cain had an expectation that what he thought would be OK would be OK – and he got good and mad when God wanted to correct him. Our attitude to correction will reveal our heart to us – if we will let it. Some is not in God’s vocabulary – ALL is the only language God speaks … because HE GAVE US HIS ALL!👋🏻

P 2224 Growing fruit.

/ DVH

Today, I want to use the fruit of patience purely as an illustration for growing the Lord’s kind of fruit. People say all the time, ‘have patience’ – like it is something that we can conjure up all by ourselves. I just want to say – if we already have it, then the Lord wouldn’t need to give it to us. Duh! 🙄 It is so obvious that our human patience and His spiritual patience, are two different things! His fruit and our ‘try harder’ are not the same! Godly patience endures all things and it grows inside our hearts like everything else He gives us – by investing in it. It involves my desire to co-operate with Him as well as being prepared to change and challenge my own mindset, at inopportune times.

In my opinion we only know we need His fruit, when we can see with our own eyes that we don’t have it!  Spiritual poverty is a great diagnostic tool of the stuff we lack. Don’t let pride, lukewarmness, or even feelings of inadequacy, fool you into missing out on the blessing of being transformed. Transformation starts in our minds, first. We need to change the way we think. Spiritual patience is one of those things that flow out from His Love in us. But the human version of patience consists of stretching ourselves beyond where we think we can go – and then announcing to the world that: “I ran out of patience, I don’t have any left.” That usually happens when we think someone else has gone too far! The fruit of the Spirit cannot run out. It is eternal. 🧐

If we already think we are quite spiritual enough, then that can cause all kinds of other problems … mainly for everyone else who happens to live around us! Under-developed unripe spiritual fruit tastes terrible – just like normal under-developed etc. etc. fruit does! 😖 I’ve found the best way to handle my own inadequacies in a whole lot of spiritual areas – is to treat this life as an ongoing learning experience. I have settled in my heart that I have not, and will not arrive, all done, all perfect, until I see Him face to face. I have chosen patience as my illustration today, because we can easily see we haven’t got it.

At the same time the best thing is to refuse to make excuses for our own bad or unwise behaviour. We are aiming at fruit, not just flowers, and that involves engaging with the process. Jesus death and resurrection has already empowered Christians to live a totally changed life – right here, right now. Recognising our humanity without excusing it, immediately releases us from the pressure to try to BE what the book says we already ARE. We rely on the power of HIS WORD. We live our lives co-operating with the Holy Spirit – today – this minute! And we are learning to live by His Grace alone. Let’s all leave ‘trying harder’ behind! Speaking for myself, I was awful at it – I don’t have the stamina for it.

God breathes His fruit into our own tree of His life in us, as we co-operate with Him. Co-operation with the Holy Spirit is like following a guide through a maze – you never know what is going to come around the corner, but our daily experiences with Him remind us that He knows where it is safe to put our feet etc. Impatient people … OR people who rely upon human patience … and then call it spirituality … get cranky at you. They often get cranky at you quite quickly. Now there’s a diagnostic tool! The result is, you feel like a dunce, a failure. Anybody who robs you of the fact that you are accepted by the Lord Jesus, is stealing your birthright, whether it is accidental, or not. Forgive them, pray for them, and then go back to leaning on Him.

When we feel inadequate – and I often do – my first port-of-call is to go to the Lord and ask where I have given my enemy, satan .. ground in my life. There is some place I am believing a lie, either because I was lied to, or I chose the lie over what God says in the book! Repentance is the answer to that one! I am allowed to learn. But, sadly, continually postponing change is a sign of rebellion. It simply means I have given rebellion a much nicer name to help ME to feel better… I called it hurt feelings, or other people’s provocation. 

Nobody can keep us from the love of God, but sometimes we need a larger revelation of His love than the one we currently have. Ask for it! The fruit of the Spirit grows from His flowing sap of love in my life – whether it is patience, kindness or long- suffering etc. I exhort you to actively ask for a greater revelation of His love, because we all need it. And He promises, in the book, to supply OUR needs. 👋🏻

P 2156 Our children belong to all of us.

/ DVH

The Western world has very firm ideas about how to raise kids. No smacking or corporal punishment of any kind. You are supposed to reason with them, or maybe bargain with them, and/or bribe them. Well that’s not in my bible! And it could be why we have teenagers rampaging about, doing things that are not good for the community or themselves. Many kids are being left alone daily by their parents in favour of a bigger TV, car or house. Kids need love and attention, first. 

The first point I want to make today is this: nobody’s flesh is reasonable. Even children are little bags of ‘gimme gimme, I want want … ’ We are the adults, we need to carefully choose what is actually good for them. Meanwhile despite public opinion, kids are not basically good – left to their own devices they can create havoc. While I agree that we should not thump the daylights out of a child to govern its behaviour – because when you do that you introduce fear – we definitely need to do much better than we’ve been doing. Toothless warnings don’t work. If we don’t discipline our children then rebellion takes over. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline [correction administered with godly wisdom and lovingkindness] will remove it far from him.”  Proverbs 22:15. 

My best advice is first of all, asap, introduce kids to Jesus. We desperately need people prepared to dedicate their lives to raising the next generation for the Lord – people who are called by God, to witness to and share with kids. And then we must deliberately DISCIPLE them. Teach them daily how to follow Him. It can be helpful to remember that you are teaching individual children. Blanket statements are not as effective – the Lord Jesus sees individuals so we should too. He knows their names! When you have a bunch of kids together you will quickly find none of them are the exactly same. Love the kid in front of you like it is the only one. And BTW, don’t typecast them either. Nobody is all one thing.

Back when I was an active parent, I learnt that some children need strong discipline, and others barely need a feather… plus a whole range of stuff in between. So you really do need to know what is what, before you sail forth and do them harm! Discern the child’s nature as well as the reason for its behaviour. Back to my point – our children belong to all of us – this world around us will not profit if we only care about OUR kids. There are too many orphan-spirited kids in our world today. Children get into mischief and trouble without supervision. We are so busy saving the whales, etc. we’ve forgotten, first of all! –  We need to save our children! They won’t magically arrive as mature adults – they need direction and supervision.

I want to share a story from my own history. When my son was much younger, he used to play with a kid who lived up the road. That kid was a bit of a bully. One day this boy picked up a big lump of concrete and threw it at my son’s head and hit him on the temple. There was blood everywhere … I calmed my boy down and fixed his head, then, my temper took my feet out of the front door. I’m pretty sure I was NOT thinking very Christian thoughts at the time … I imagine I left my Christianity in the sock drawer! I was so furious, I marched up the street and banged on the front door of the other boy’s house. 

This boy’s father was often home and the man was a huge fellow.  Sadly, I can’t tell you why he was home – I didn’t know them well enough. At the time I was shaking like a leaf with anger … as well as quite a bit of fear chucked in. However, when he opened the door I still shouted at him. I told him to control his son or else … I have no idea what I was going to do about it if he didn’t BTW! The guy just kept laughing at me and slurping his beer – I truly don’t think I had much of an impact on him at all. However, he must have told his son to stop playing with mine and there were no further incidents. 

Recently, I’ve begun to realise that when you are under pressure, what is really INSIDE you – comes OUT. And the only kid I cared about that day was mine! At the time I was not even remotely concerned about the poor kid who had a beer-in-his-hand-father-drinking-away-at-two-o’clock-in-afternoon!  I’ve repented, but I don’t ever really remember even apologising to the guy nor did I speak again to that boy. I just sort-of kind-of avoided them after that. I let my embarrassment and pride win.

My point is this, these kids are the future, and it is unrealistic to label badly behaved kids as: ”Somebody else’s problem,” like somehow we have no part in them. Undeserved kindness has a profound influence on kids, I know it did on me when I was young – I can actually remember the names of people who were kind to me. Punishment may become necessary, but it needs to be tempered with wisdom and mercy. Psalms 127:3 says: “Children are God’s love-gift; they are heaven’s generous reward.” Matthew 18:10:“Be careful that you not corrupt one of these little ones. For I can assure you that in heaven each of their guardian angels always see the face of My heavenly Father.” Mark 9:36&37 “Then He had a child come and stand among them. He wrapped the child in His arms and said to them.“Whoever welcomes a little child in My Name welcomes Me.”

I have learnt the hard way that when things get difficult we can easily forget what we believe – in favour of simply taking care of our own. We all live on the same planet and we need to remember that today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders. This world’s children belong to us all.  We simply must care enough to help them find their true selves in Christ. 👋🏻