Redemption

P 3343 It’s always a choice.

/ DVH

Philippians 1:27-30: “Meanwhile, live in such a way that you are a credit to the Message of Christ. Let nothing in your conduct hang on whether I come or not. Your conduct must be the same whether I show up to see things for myself or hear of it from a distance. Stand united, singular in vision, contending for people’s trust in the Message, the good news, not flinching or dodging in the slightest before the opposition. Your courage and unity will show them what they’re up against: defeat for them, victory for you—and both because of God. There’s far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There’s also suffering for Him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting. You’re involved in the same kind of struggle you saw me go through, on which you are now getting an updated report in this letter.”

I want to emphasise that we need to make sure that if we are suffering, it is not because we are unaware that we are being tormented by satan in a fake hat. If the Lord is allowing something for a greater purpose, then that is different, but a lot of what Christians put up with is sheer satanic attack — and the tragedy is they think they are suffering because it is about His kingdom, or their transformation, or they are just bad Christians and God is allowing this stuff to teach them something. 

Jesus suffered and died for our sins, but torment can quite often knock on our door especially if we’ve done something that we think can’t be forgiven. But the truth is our view of what Christ did, and what He allowed others to do to Him, is too small. We’ve made our sin bigger than Calvary. Our faith in God’s bigness, His love and His generosity toward mankind needs to grow by reading what the Lord Himself has said over and over. This will help to expand our faith levels and it goes from our heads to our hearts. It is literally, “life and health to our bones…”

Here are some scriptures to stew on: “For Christ [the Messiah Himself] died for sins once for all, the Righteous for the unrighteous (the Just for the unjust, the Innocent for the guilty), that He might bring us to God. In His human body He was put to death, but He was made alive in the spirit,…” 1 Peter 3:18. AND … Romans 6:9-10: “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.” Hebrews 2:9: “But we do see Jesus, Who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.”

Jesus suffered for us, so now we need to make sure that we are not deceived. That part is clear. But His suffering had a purpose and it was humanity’s total redemption. Sin separates us from our relationship with God Himself – He’s the Life giver! Sin renders us a pale shadow of who we can be. Because of it, we can become deaf, dumb and unable to see, receive, or accept His goodness. Meanwhile we can’t kill ourselves, we have to let others do it for us – our part is to yield. We resist the devil and yield to God. We fight what satan says, and take what the Lord says to heart and stand on it.

Sin puts us squarely into satan’s territory, a place where he rules, and please remember, he hates people! Human beings can easily be deceived and dragged away from our primary purpose, which is to present Christ to the rest of this world, by who we choose to be now, today. The power of choice is enormous! And thinking that living a neutral, quiet life will hide us from satan’s games is unrealistic. Now we all have the potential to be like Jesus, and so we need our Resident Helper’s help – He is Jesus’ gift to us in this new life!   

It was not just the Lord’s death that impacted our faith – it was also the way He lived while He was on earth! Those two things go together. Jesus has given us the same power to overcome that He had when He walked the earth with the Person of the Holy Spirit. However, you can’t have a new life without dying — you can only get a resurrected life if you are dead in the first place!  Sadly, most of the time we aren’t prepared to die to self to get it. Both things are needed — death to self and a brand new life in Christ. The power to walk in our new life comes from the choice to die. Not just a little bit dead, but all dead. Dead dead. That old life cannot walk with Jesus, it will fail so it has to go. 

Now we surrender our hopes and dreams to His purposes. After we have chosen to lay down the life that we have now, then we choose to live a life of love. We put aside what we need, and let go of all those daily things that can act as abrasions in this life. Our responses to other people, help us to diagnose the places we are still clinging to the old life. That minute by minute struggle against voluntarily choosing His way over our Way, can show us where we are not yielded to Him. Father God will not do this for us – because that would rob us of our freedom. It has to be our choice. 

Jesus Christ chose the cross – He prayed, and then He followed it through by His actions. This is the pattern WE follow. We pray and then we deliberately choose to submit to Him. At Calvary the Lord submitted to every dastardly plot of the enemy – the stuff that was sent to destroy Him. But He chose to stay in Grace toward others. He is our example. It’s always a choice.  However, let’s remember: “God (Himself) is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Our Helper lives to help us. Psalm 46:1 Bye. 👋

P 3284 We have His deposit in us.

/ DVH

“Everything we could ever need for life and godliness has already been deposited in us by His divine power. For all this was lavished upon us through the rich experience of knowing Him who has called us by name and invited us to come to Him through a glorious manifestation of His goodness. As a result of this, He has given you magnificent promises that are beyond all price, so that through the power of these tremendous promises we can experience partnership with the divine nature, by which you have escaped the corrupt desires that are of the world. 

So devote yourselves to lavishly supplementing your faith with goodness, and to goodness add understanding, and to understanding add the strength of self-control, and to self-control add patient endurance, and to patient endurance add godliness, and to godliness add mercy toward your brothers and sisters, and to mercy toward others add unending love. Since these virtues are already planted deep within, and you possess them in abundant supply, they will keep you from being inactive or fruitless in your pursuit of knowing Jesus Christ more intimately.” 2 Peter 1:3-8 TPT.

When it comes to spiritual matters, like transformation through obeying the things Jesus said, or praying for the sick etc., we can no longer say we can’t do these things. Why not? Because the moment we gave our lives and hearts to Jesus, the Holy Spirit has already deposited the potential for a new life and totally different responses in us. They just need to be exercised. In other words we simply have to cultivate them by saying ‘no’ to the stuff we used to do before. The seed for a Godly life is already in us, we water it with the Word of God and prayer, and throw in the fertiliser of self-sacrifice. Mature people know we can’t always have everything we want and they face their responsibilities realistically, and with God-given determination. (See 2 Corinthians 1:8.)

The same power that enabled Christ Jesus to do what He did, is already in us. Let’s choose to obey Him and let it flow out of us, using our faith. Despite the lies we sometimes tell ourselves, we are no longer under a yoke of slavery. If you think about that sentence it will suddenly hit you how true it is – the more we think about what we do, the more we will realise we choo-oo-oose to do stuff! One of the best things the Lord gave us, apart from the Holy Spirit, and His OWN righteousness, salvation and redemption in our lives, is the power of choice. We can now choose. However, we will face the cost as we lay aside those things that are trying to drag us down. 

What the Lord did at Calvary was tremendous, He did more than die for our sins, He imparted His character, His love for His Father, into us. The potential for transformation is already inside us! Obedience now becomes a matter of using our faith and putting our feelings aside. Who are we going to believe? The Lord Jesus, or that other guy, who loves to throw doubt around. Listen to this: “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “DID GOD REALLY SAY (??) ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Genesis 3:1. There you go! Doubt!! Here’s Matthew 4:3: “The tempter came to Him and said, “IF you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”  He uses “if” like this, 3 times.

We simply cannot afford to let satan steal our God-given faith. It is just as real as our eternal salvation. When we let him do that we are not reaching our full potential in Christ – yet! In Christ means standing in a God-given position. We’ve been united with Christ – He chose to do it. This represents a new God-given identity. Jesus took my old ‘self’ to the cross with Him and gave me a new identity, like His. When Father God looks at us now, He sees the blood of Jesus covering all our lives. Just like a foetus is in the mother, we are now in the Son under the blood. The safest place for us to stand is in Him, using our faith to believe that sin is no longer our Master. 

Before we met Jesus sin dragged us around like the tail on a kite. But now, we have the power to ignore its diversions, deception and lies, and live this life, here and now, like Jesus Himself would. We don’t have to give in to the urges and feelings we cultivated before we were saved. The power of God now resides within us. The Holy Spirit came here and He never left! He also gave us gifts to bless other people. Now we don’t have to give in to the temptation to live like we did before. We don’t even have to manipulate others to get what we want, Jesus will supplies those needs now.

We can be loving, patient, kind, long-suffering with others. He promised He would not leave us alone and He didn’t! Let’s believe what the bible says, above our experiences or feelings or the PAST. We have the Holy Spirit, God’s deposit within us. We are attached to the Vine, now we let the sap (the power of God) do its work! It can be hard initially, because we have a lifetime of experiences to the contrary, but keep on keeping on and you will breakthrough into a new place. You are His own child. You share His DNA. Bless you. 👋

P 3260 Always our choice.

/ DVH

“Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything —every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.” 2 Corinthians 9:8 TPT. Amazing isn’t it? Here it talks about the clear reality that God has given us so much Grace that now we have more than enough to give away. It’s in writing, in Jesus Christ’s WILL and WE benefit. 

Everybody likes abundance. I do too! But I wonder how often we are tested on that particular concept … ?? It feels to me like I’m tested daily to be honest! If you are tired, ill, young, old, especially or you don’t have what everybody else appears to have… all that stuff we think we need. Those things we seem to be missing out onwill come and sit on us and camp there. Removing our God-given view of the eternal. The problem is, for years we have thought that Almighty God is here to indulge US! 

Look, I’m very happy for the Lord to ‘supply all my needs according to His riches in glory‘ … Whoo-pp-eee!! Yes, please! But IS THAT what this verse is actually about? Hmmm. Please note it says… ‘according to HIS riches in glory.’  Our Heavenly Father’s idea of riches is totally different than ours! Jesus is rich in all of the Graces that this life needs… and… I am not … a-n-d … neither are you. Not unless we start to use our faith. 

He has infinitely more Grace than I can ever imagine, and He won’t run OUT… e-v-e-r.  So, because I am now in Christ Jesus — I don’t have to run out either! That’s what Calvary did for all of us. When we choose to follow the Lord and obey Him, we are potentially rich in the things that last. The thing we need to ask ourselves is this, are we appropriating what we have been given? Or do we bleat ‘it’s too hard ‘ like a lost sheep waiting for the Shepherd to come and rescue us all the time.

Have we become so busy with earthly riches we’ve forgotten all of His benefits for us? “Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [ONE OF] all His benefits” – Psalm 103:2 AMPC. It’s all a done deal! He has already given us His Grace, now we can’t afford to let our hearts forget what He did! The Lord could care less about worldly wealth. He knows it can disappear in a heartbeat. Let’s list some of His real benefits. 

1. He forgives our sins. (Matthew 6:12)

2. He heals our diseases. (Exodus 15:26)

3. He redeems our life from destruction. (Psalm 34:22)

4. He crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies (Luke 15:11-24)

5. He satisfies us with good things (James 1:17)

6. He renews our youth like the eagles. (Isaiah 40:31)

7. He executes righteousness and judgment for all the oppressed. (Matthew 11:38-30).

8. He makes His ways and His acts known to us.

Stop for a minute and just breathe. You and I, right here, right now, have access to Jesus’ own unlimited supply of His Father’s Love, the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, salvation, redemption, a brand new heart, plus a new way to live. And… AND!! … HEAVEN IS OURS!  Are these benefits or what? Let’s not ever forget that we have Grace, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-control … These things now belong to us. Why on earth should we worry about money, etc. when heaven belongs to us? Jesus died so we can have all this heavenly stuff that changes our lives, here and now. 

So how do I get it? Glad you asked me that!  “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. ASK for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?” Matthew 7:7-11.

A.S.K… Ask, and then A.C.T. — it’s a piece of cake. We’ve all been given faith – now we need to use it to enter into the riches Jesus won on our behalf at Calvary. Does anybody out there think that they will need love, joy, peace, patience, etc. IN HEAVEN?? Me neither. We need it down here! What the heck are we waiting for? We cannot afford to have His heavenly riches as an add-on to earthly ones. The earthly riches will distract us, and cause us to forget the heavenly ones. And, before you know it, how we feel becomes more important than loving others. 

We need to use our faith not our feelings. We can lose our peace because we are struggling with, and for, the things that do not last. Bad move. I’m with Joshua — smart guy Joshua! … He stayed behind in the tent of meeting and learnt stuff from God Himself, personally. He received wisdom and heavenly priorities in that tent! “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:25. Joshua made a personal CHOICE. He chose to do things God’s Way. It was permanent and irrevocable – he didn’t forget God’s benefits. 

We can continue to scramble around in the dust like a chicken looking for worms, and forget to use our God-given blood-bought ability to fly high — OR we can fly like eagles and renew our strength. It’s always our choice. Bye. 👋

P 3259 Family business.

/ DVH

I honestly think that some of the hardest things to wrangle are the things that are happen inside our families.  Those things seem to press right up against your chest, like they are trying to smother you and stop you from breathing. The bible acknowledges this kind of pain. These are the places where our faith can be severely tried and tested. On the plus side, they are also the place where massive growth occurs. 

Psalm 27:10 NLT:“Even if my father and mother abandon me, the LORD will hold me close.” Jeremiah 12:6 NIV: “Your relatives, members of your own family—even they have betrayed you; they have raised a loud cry against you. Do not trust them, though they speak well of you.” 

It is not good to get stuck by other people’s sins. Instead we need the Lord’s help to focus on the solution! Let’s turn Psalm 27 around. ‘The Lord will hold me close, even if my father and mother abandon me.’  Father God wants to help us into a bigger place where HIS LOVE REIGNS, so we can love those who despitefully use us. Love is not about feelings, it is about our choices.

However, the people we love deeply, are also the people who can hurt us the most. Sometimes our families can use fear, anger, intimidation, neglect and threats of harm, as well as threats of expulsion and rejection, to try to control our adult decisions. It is better in these times not to focus on what is coming at you, instead focus on how much the Lord loves you. Plus His assurance that HE will not abandon you.

It is a basic human need to feel loved and appreciated. Even tiny little babies can die when they do not experience nurturing and love. Emotional abandonment is a terrible thing. But it is good to remember, even with all this going on – you are a sinner too. It is never good to focus on “them” and “us.” We are not victims – we have our Saviour to guide us. But breaking away from family demands can be difficult. These are the people who taught you from when you were a baby. Whether they were neglectful, smothering or abusive does not matter – the love one feels for someone this close, is much more than superficial.

I believe this kind of love is based on human need. So, Jesus Christ is our ONLY Answer. He is fully God and man, and He lives to love and pray for each one of us. Read what He said in the bible, as if He were there with you talking TO you! And remember, Jesus’ family didn’t always understand HIM either! In reality we cannot expect the people who broke us, to fix us!

There can be a tremendous sense of betrayal when you struggle with your family. But I don’t want to comment on other people’s sin, otherwise that becomes the centre of our focus. Trust me, the only Person worthy of every single bit of our focus is Jesus. He cannot, and He will not ever abandon us or punish us like other human beings will. Instead He took our punishment for us. That means, He volunteered to be abandoned, misjudged, rejected, and punished, both physically, emotionally, and mentally. He was utterly despised for our sake.

In any times of family rejection, I want to encourage you to continually go back to the well of righteousness the Lord died to provide for us – and drink from it. Being righteous in His eyes is not the same as being right according to this world’s standard. Our righteousness with God has been given to us. In this world, human righteousness is earned by behaviour. 

It is best to activate your faith, and turn whatever the bible says into action. It looks like this: when a family member is treating you badly, pray and ask for the Lord’s help. Then make a firm choice to forgive them, and then, give that burden to Him. Deliberately put your thoughts about that family member, aside. When memories pop up, allow yourself to grieve, but don’t stay there. Give everything back to Him again, and choose to trust Him to fix it. Now you need to REST in the fact that He has heard you, and we are ‘persuaded that He is able to keep those things/people you have entrusted into His care.’

Put hurtful people down at the foot of the cross – it is our symbol of redemption. Leave them with Him! All the worry, tears, and anguish in this world can’t make someone else understand you, or love you, or give you what you need. However! Our God can do anything but fail! The secret is to keep walking with Him. Don’t look back, just trust Him to take care of all of it.

At the same time, limit set what you choose to do around these people. Don’t cut them out of your life, unless your life is in physical danger, but do set limits. Ask the Lord to help you with it. Finally, please don’t let bitterness or spite get hold of you, because that stuff will muddy His living water, and you will get lost in the mud! 

Let your glorious Redeemer, redeem your old life. Losing your earthly family because of your spiritual beliefs in Jesus is a terrible thing – however, Jesus will help you to survive – and eventually thrive. Praise Him! Bye. 😢

P 3257 It’s time to get the band back together.

/ DVH

Years and years ago, when I was a much younger Christian, I loved reading instructional Christian books, plus I listened to tapes, music, and videos, everything I could. I was trying to grow my faith. I desperately needed to belong, to feel like a part of the Body of Christ. You know, there’s a whole lotta of odd people out there who really really need Jesus – we all might want to think about that. Back to it … eventually, I realised I was reading the bible and understanding it through someone else’s filter!

The Holy Spirit truly is the very best Teacher, He explains things first-hand – personally! There’s nothing like getting your own revelation from His book. Back then, whenever I read 1 Corinthians 13, I read it through other people’s interpretations to help me understand it. My thoughts were ‘boy do I fail at that!’ No wonder I felt a failure, at that time I had no idea how complete the Lord’s redemption was on my behalf. Like Paul said in Galatians 3:3 MSG bible: 

“Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!”

I believed my sins were bigger than what Jesus did. So when I messed up … and I did, a lot … I was shattered. Yeah, I know, that makes no sense at all. The Lord has a whole new kingdom reality for all of us. Sadly, at that time, I just had too much luggage that I dragged along behind me! To top it all off I erroneously believed this kind of stuff was true Christianity, and I was just really really bad at it. 

You see, people in my family or the church still irritated me, and when they were unkind, I wanted to run away, or thump them. Eventually, I became ill. So getting healed became my new focus. I figured I had become sick because I was failing the Lord all the time. I just want to strongly insert the fact that Jesus is not like that! 

But at that time, I jumped into every single healing line I could find, simply because I badly wanted to be well! Instead I just got sicker, and that added a further burden. It seemed to me that I must be a terrible Christian because I was ill in a generation that thought if you were sick it was your own fault! For years I wandered around thinking God had given up on me. And getting divorced did not help that perception. 

I know there are verses that clearly talk about divorce, and yes, I accept them! God definitely says don’t do it! However, He’s also merciful – He explains WHY. Participating in a divorce makes our hearts hard. Even though I repented up one hill and down the other, I had hardened my heart against any sort of redemption by Him. Unbelief is still sin! Works will do that to you. They will cut you off from true redemption and also real gratitude. It’s hard to be grateful when living for Jesus is a whole lot of hard work, and you can’t do it.

I guess I saw Almighty God as SomeOne Who held a grudge, like most people I had met. And I thought I deserved to be rejected. In that process I lost the One Person Who dearly, eternally loved me. At that time, I had no comprehension of unconditional love. If you happen to feel like that, I would like to testify to you that the Lord Jesus is not keeping a score of our sins against us. He can’t, His blood wiped them out!! At the same time, I hadn’t properly personally digested 2 Corinthians 5:19: “…that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favour with God].”

It’s pretty hard to go out and tell others about the reconciliation that exists in Christ, when we aren’t living in it! Eventually, through the patience of a dear old minster, I came to see that the Lord Jesus is the One Who knelt beside a woman who was taken in adultery. and He also dealt with the people who wanted to stone her. Once He sat by a well and talked with a woman who had had five husbands … He didn’t give either of these women permission to live like that! However, the Lord altered the course of  both of their lives just by being Himself! The love and power of God is like that – it sets people free. 

I believe the church world-wide needs to go after the Lord’s lost sheep. The bible clearly tells us the Shepherd always does! Those broken, beaten sheep who have wandered away – or maybe they were even shoved out because the church didn’t want to be contaminated by their sin. Let’s ask the Lord to help us to win back our brothers and sisters – mothers, fathers, friends, rabbits and relations. The Body cannot function without ALL its parts. We need to be like Paul and participate in their reconciliation and restoration. So let’s love them OUT of their isolation. Maybe they are ready to repent and come back! 2 Corinthians 2:5-11.

How about we stop shooting the wounded, or leaving our broken-hearted members behind? And ask the Lord if we can be used by Him to restore them instead. Let’s get the band back together. Who knows what God will  do when we embrace others who have gotten lost along the way? Bye. 👋

P 3252 Letting Go – lets Him IN!

/ DVH

“As for us, we have all of these great witnesses who encircle us like clouds. So we must let go of every wound that has pierced us and the sin we so easily fall into. Then we will be able to run life’s marathon race with passion and determination, for the path has been already marked out before us.” Hebrews 12:1 TPT.

We have a path God has prepared for us to run on. We are not running along aimlessly, bumping into things, we have been chosen to run in the same race our Saviour ran in. Imagine that! A race that will glorify our Heavenly Father! We simply can’t afford to hold onto old wounds, or other people’s sins against us. Instead, let’s ask the Lord for healing, extend forgiveness, and then make a quality decision not to go over these things again … and move on. When you get angry with someone, put the energy produced into something else! I don’t recommend punching out their lights BTW.

Our enemy tries to trick us that if we let go of stuff, we will not get any resolution – those people who hurt us will get away with it. That’s a lie from the pit.  Jesus Himself brings resolution and redemption everywhere He goes! Let Him in, He is a Redeemer, Healer, Comforter, Trusted Advisor. This type of thinking simply brings death with it – it is sent to torment us. It is like running around with one foot nailed to the floor. We go nowhere. These things tie us into the here and now – and we forget our purpose! 

We can’t afford to live like that –  holding onto grudges, or perceived slights from others, or continually probing old wounds to see if they have healed or not. Those things prevent us from running the race God has set before us. Our enemy uses other people’s actions to throw dirt and dust into the air, clouding our God-given ability to see spiritually. These things tie us into somebody else’s agenda. Forgiveness is mandatory, not an optional extra, no matter who did what to whom. My advice is to keep on asking for Grace, Grace and more Grace, daily. 

“Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God has forgiven you because you belong to Christ.”  Ephesians 4:32. What does that mean? It means that every time somebody hurts us the first thing we need to remember is the fact that we’ve already been forgiven for our own sins. Letting go of grudges —  the past, other people’s unwillingness or inability to change — frees us for better God-inspired things! We simply can’t afford to give our eternal blessings away. It’s too dear!! What we lose is clarity of heart and mind.

The way to be fearless in the face of other people’s sins, is to ask for His help and then act in faith. “Do good to those who despitefully use you…” Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:27&28. Praying for these people is essential. And our  obedience is the key that opens up the kingdom, it will usher in the change we want to see.. “If you are willing AND obedient …” it says this in Isaiah 1:19a. It is not enough to just be willing, willingness needs to be followed through with action – obedience. 

Let’s stop merely agreeing with what the bible says, and go out and live this way, every single day. We can’t “afford” to stay angry with other people. We don’t have to go and live at their house! Pray and do what God says to do. Forgiveness ushers in real peace. If we haven’t got some personal instructions from the Holy Spirit — a directive on how to manage things. Then we need to read the book, and find something in it to do, that we are not already doing, and do that. Those biblical things are the principles of His kingdom. We always have plenty of those.

It is incredibly important to let go of the weights that have been holding us down. We sing these things … we say them, we read them and we even memorise them — but we need to do more than that. It is time to remember that the life we had before we met Jesus is over. Our previous dreams are over. There are better things than that ahead! He gave His life to us, and now we choose to give our lives to Him. We can’t tell Him how to operate His kingdom – He is the King! The more we let go of our own agendas, timetables, lifestyles, the more His kingdom will manifest itself among us. 

Our God is incredibly gracious to us, He lets us learn. But for some of us, even learning has become a side eddy. A place we’ve been caught up in. It stops us from going out and doing what He asked us to do. The best kind of learning finishes with practical application. Personal life changing experiences. By all means study the bible, every single day, but study it to find things you can do. The things that stir your heart are likely to be the things that stir His. 

We can read stuff like, ‘forgive one another’ but then we forget to do our “safety checks.” That’s like a sound check for believers … Let’s not put a big tick on any scripture thinking that we already know this stuff, and He died for it, so we’ve already passed. He paid for us, so we have already passed. However, now we need to ask the Holy Spirit: ‘do I have any little foxes in my life spoiling the vine?’  That verse above in Hebrews 12:1 sees sin and wounds as weights. Are we trying to run a marathon with a whole lot of weights all over us? 

We have to let go of our wounds, even though they are deep, and they still hurt. We are not releasing things because these things don’t matter – those wounds, those sins, cost Jesus His life. They matter! Let the Lord take care of them. Forgiveness is not giving in – IT’S A BATTLE-PLAN! Think about it. Let’s release everything that distracts us and let Him help us win. Bye. 👋

P 3227 Choosing to live in the good.

/ DVH

“For we remember before our God and Father how you put your faith into practice, how your love motivates you to serve others, and how unrelenting is your hope-filled patience in our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 1:3 TPT.

Deliberately taking the time to remind ourselves to take to heart the good things, can help us to walk through  difficulties. Especially when the bad stuff just keeps on coming! Even if the bad seems to outweigh the good, when we turn our heads to see the blessings of God, our vision of His life in us expands. We start to see that what seems bad, can actually ‘work together for our good.’ That verse stops being theory and becomes real.

It is also useful to give the Lord permission to poke us in the heart when we are cranky with someone, and ask Him to remind us of the lovely things this person may have done for us. We also need to ask Him to show us what He sees as good. If He calls it good, it’s good, remember?? There are times when I get angry at someone and I can’t remember a good thing they ever did. But that’s because I’m angry with them! It’s about me not them! 

On the other hand, if we do love someone just because we are commanded to – sheer obedience – then we may miss out on the greater good. The greater good comes from loving others because we can see God’s goodness in them. That’s called spiritual sight! With people we don’t particularly like, that can take practice and spiritual eyes! Remember, we want to speak God’s language – He came here to learn ours. Even though in some people, this kind of goodness may be like the stuff that gets hidden way, wa-a-y back … at the back of the fridge, where it’s easily forgotten. My advice is to clean out the fridge regularly, you never know what you might find back there that’s good.

Let’s begin to see the Lord at work, for our own spiritual well-being. Pressing in helps! Critical, unhappy hearts misinterpret what they see. I’m talking about taking the time to notice, even if that good is infinitesimal in our eyes. It can still transform the way we look at the things that happen around us. It is easy to move on too quickly from appreciating someone’s else’s effort when they make it. It is a mistake to see kindness as something we deserve. We will always get kindness from the Lord, but other people don’t have to give it to us, no matter who the heck they are, or who WE are. Allowing cynicism to guide us is deadly. 

Christians expect so much from our leaders, without understanding that they are just human beings like us and they can make mistakes. The way we treat our companions when they have made a mistake or sinned, is an indication of our attitude toward redemption. It also shows us our level of kindness. Our job is to help people get rid of their earthly burdens, not find extra ones to tie on their backs just because they did something we don’t like! Here’s an interesting ‘heads up’ – the things we excuse in our own lives can really annoy us when someone else does it. Hmm, I think I’ve heard that before: “logs and specks’ wasn’t it??”

The subtext to this particular subject, kind of goes like this: “If I can make all this effort then why can’t you do it?”This kind of thinking is one of the best diagnosis of “running on works” I’ve seen. The next step from there is to make what you think a law in your own mind and then, bingo bongo, you suddenly have religion. That stuff is particularly poisonous to the things of the Spirit. One of the most useful things I have learnt, is that everyone else is not on the same learning curve I’m on. They serve God first, not me. Thank the Lord I am not in charge … imagine the mess!! 

Here’s a pretty obvious fact – we actually need to see and acknowledge the good, in order to remember it. There’s those spiritual eyes again. In my opinion we cannot afford to live this new life in Christ without them. Ask Him! But be prepared for your new eyes to work on you first when you look into the mirror of His Word! Meanwhile, let’s give the Lord permission to reveal ourselves to ourselves, otherwise we will just keep running around and around, with lots of hot angry air, but accomplishing nothing and going nowhere. 

The Lord has something that you can be, or do, that I can’t, and it will be memorable. You may have noticed when Jesus speaks to some people, He sees them through spiritual eyes, right into their character, even though He has never met them before. “Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, “Here is an Israelite indeed [a true descendant of Jacob], in whom there is no guile nor deceit…” John 1:47. We all need this kind of sight! In this modern age, we have worked much too hard on reading the bad in people – it’s a form of self-protection. It almost goes without saying that ‘our God is our protection and with HIM we are safe.’

Remembering, and noticing the good in others becomes a skill. We all need it. Have you ever heard someone prophesy over someone else and say things like: ‘You are a mighty man/woman of God.’ Really?? I wonder what their family thinks? At that moment God is speaking to what’s good right and profitable, and our minds need to dwell on those things too for our own spiritual health! Bye.👋

P 3155 “Behold the NEW has come.”

/ DVH

“My OLD identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this NEW life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives His life through me—we live in union as one! My NEW life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God Who loves me so much that He gave Himself for me, dispensing His life into mine!” Galatians 2:20 TPT.

Right here, in this scripture, we can see the benefit of living that new life we have been given – ‘in Christ.” IN CHRIST always means He is IN CHARGE. It also means because it is IN Him – then it is NOT in us. However, we can get the benefit, by simply acting on what He says. Despite our unrealistic hopes and expectations, this is not an automatic thing!  It will not fall on us, the Lord wants our ongoing permission, so we must choose His Way, every single time.

Our free will needs to be yielded to the Lord out of love and trust in what He has already done for us. This our gift to Him. It consists of daily, progressive choices, to yield and die to self, and live for Him instead. “In Christ”  means His Grace is in action in our lives and the lives of others around us. We are learning, first-hand, from Jesus things like ‘how to stop judging others from our flesh.’ At the same time we also realise this world hasn’t got anything lasting to offer. But now we can start seeing others through the Holy Spirit’s eyes. We are honouring the consistent pursuit of what Jesus calls “good.”

Let’s be clear, everything we need in this life to walk with Jesus, is already in our “heavenly account.” It was deposited there 2,000+ years ago. Now we simply exercise our faith to step into what is already OURS. We quite literally go into our heavenly bank account and make withdrawals over and over again — using that faith He already gave us. Because God says I can love the unlovely, that means I can step out and ask the Holy Spirit to show me how to love the person in front of me. I simply follow His instructions using my faith.

In our past, these blessings were presented with trying harder as a subtitle. And so we did our best to try to be nicer. We’d try to be the kind of person Jesus would be proud of, and we would try to persevere, etc. but in the end our soft, flabby flesh, outweighed our ability to try to push through. We need ongoing daily faith. In the try harder system, we learnt to give up, and go back to hating ourselves for getting it wrong, or we became proud and superior, because we think we got it right! God never meant for us to be frustrated by a system. Instead we are to be drawn into an incredible relationship where we follow HIM, step-by-step into a new way of living this life. 

We cannot continue to use the systems of the past to usher in whatever our God wants to do next. Jeremiah tells us that any system we can devise will spring a leak! “For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned (rejected) Me, The fountain of living water, And they have carved out their own cisterns, Broken cisterns That cannot hold water.”Jeremiah 2:13. This scripture shows us, that Almighty God requires our loyalty … not just our lip-service. Our hearts need to change and when we obey His will, His way, the Holy Spirit writes that onto our hearts. You don’t forget those lessons!  Jesus came here to be an illustration of how God’s Way works. He even modelled dying to self right up to the end of His earthly life. His kind of faith moves away mountains of doubt and unbelief. 

In the past, the church centred itself around men and women who we saw as ‘specialists.’ They were God-gifted, and God-appointed, and they seemed to have a better hold on how to operate in the Holy Spirit than most lay-people did. They grabbed hold of His promises and operated in their gift by using their faith. But our God did not mean for His promises to be relegated only to specialists – He wants us ALL to walk in faith. The Holy Spirit is here to lead us into this kind of obedience.

When the bible says we are dead to the things of this world, it is not just a hope-filled saying … that saying has a whole lot of power attached to it! It is an absolute concrete reality. But living in that reality is not something the average church goer understands. We have no idea, that despite our age, or injuries, we are all elite runners who are spiritually fit for the journey ahead of us. What Jesus did for us, made us fit. Now we need to believe and ACT on whatever He says in the bible.

We have accidentally accepted a level of unbelief that is not biblical! We need to know His voice because Jesus Himself said: “My sheep know My voice and they follow Me.” John 10:17. In some versions it says:“My sheep LISTEN to My voice …”  Listening is every bit as important as hearing – we have to give HIS truth our attention!

“Since we are now joined to Christ, we have been given the treasures of redemption by His blood—the total cancellation of our sins—all because of the cascading riches of His grace.” Ephesians 1:7 TPT.

We were given something of incredible value and it is now up to us to choose to enter into it. Let’s take the time to comprehend what we have been given, so we can co-operate with the Holy Spirit, and give it away to others. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, the new has come into being.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. The new is already here, because the old has been gone for 2,000+ years! Bye👋.

P 3150 Living by faith.

/ DVH

Like I said, yesterday, this means that we will put down our desire to hone in our focus on a problem, and choose to look at Jesus instead. He perfectly mirrors the things we are looking for in ourselves, and others. Let me put that this way – if all you are focussing on is what the other person did wrong, then you can’t focus on the One Who IS perfect in all of His Ways. Unless you are cross-eyed!

A single focus is needed and the bible calls that being single-minded. “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24. When difficulties occur, our part is to realise that although we are weak in many areas – Jesus isn’t! So we choose to ask the Holy Spirit to help us to focus on the Lord, because He is good at it!

Practically speaking, if we just yelled at someone else, then it is a no-brainer that we need to repent and repair things – even when we feel provoked. Extending forgiveness is the quickest way to go back to focussing on Him. It will lead us back into single-mindedness. We can’t look at two vastly different things at once. Our choices matter, and most of the time we make them almost without thinking. But when we review what Jesus said, that means our focus switches from what went wrong, to what He did. We choose to look just one way – at Him. Forgiveness is much easier to access in His Presence.

When you are annoyed or angry with someone else, take a breath, and say “Jesus please help me” I’ve read the bible for years but I have never once read about Jesus saying: “That person is wa-ay beyond redemption. It’s OK, you can’t help being mad at them.” We both know that He simply won’t do that. Why not? Because He bought redemption for everyone when He died! He knows it is a done deal. It cost Him His life-blood and His time on earth to do it! 

Unfortunately, we can easily become used to making room for our scratchy, nasty, irritated attitudes. This means our focus can be sidetracked. But if we choose what the scripture says, we will look at Who Jesus is and what He has given us, and those facts change everything! In the face of such incredible generosity, anger has no place to stand. Loving generosity takes the ground out from under our enemies – not to mention our stinky attitudes.

Because we are still in process, perhaps there are times when we don’t want to look at the Lord, because we think we want to punish that other person. After all they upset us, so they deserve to be in trouble. That whole POV is deceit. It’s like locking yourself up, throwing away the key and saying: “That’ll fix them!” Free means free – even for the guy you don’t like! In moments like that, I’m not sure we understand the whole concept of freedom clearly enough. We need to practice.

When we hold onto anger, resentment, and bitterness, we are locking ourselves away from the Answer. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” Galatians 5:1. A bad attitude is extremely costly – not to mention heavy! You don’t have to sell your house and give the money away to live by faith.  We just need to live our lives like Jesus would.

This reminds me of an old cartoon, with the Road Runner and the Wile E. Coyote. That dumb Coyote was never ever going to win. It wasn’t in the script! His job was to end up blown to bits, flattened under a rock, or smashed by a train etc. The Road Runner was always going to beat him. Defeat is inevitable when we play in satan’s backyard. It is not in God’s heavenly script for us to punish the people who despitefully use us. Read the book! Living by faith is not some big deal ‘raising the dead’ occasion – it consists of the daily choice to obey the Lord, forgive others, and live like He did. One hurt at a time.

Every time we give away undeserved Grace to someone, we are releasing God’s Grace into their lives. That Grace is powerful. It saved us!! But when we hold onto someone else’s sin, we are keeping them from the kind of Grace that can deliver them from the very attitudes that caused the problem in the first place! Many people are easily imprisoned by how they feel. Hanging onto things like a list of all the wrongs that other person did – and keeping it in our heads, together with the accompanying emotions is a deep pit with no way out. 

When that stuff hits your heart – boy are you in trouble.That’s when a tree of bitterness can take root and grow. Let’s kill that tree, and stop going over what they did repeatedly – even if they just did it again ten seconds ago. Don’t throw anyone’s past sins into their face in an argument, and don’t talk about what happened to you, with other people to soothe yourself. Their opinion actually doesn’t matter. Building a case against someone else is dumb. Sin belongs under the blood of Jesus.

Lastly, talk to the Lord. He understands betrayal, heartache, disappointment, anger, and provocation etc. The Holy Spirit will help us negotiate our way through the crumbling cliffs of excuses, the explosive reactions, the endless litany of disappointment and the utter despair we face when we feel betrayed. Living by faith is only hard for us because we have not cultivated it. Bye.👋

P 3129 Is God trustworthy?

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We can all face issues that seem to be impossible. Today I want to look at those impossibilities from the best possible place. Is Almighty God trustworthy and reliable? He sees impossibility as an opportunity to show us His faithfulness, mercy and love, so we can’t afford to doubt what He has said on the basis of unanswered prayer. 

Romans 4:18-25.“Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, BUT ALSO FOR US, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in Him Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

Abraham’s walk with God, is an illustration that shows us that God can do anything – human reasoning need not apply! This man faced his own inadequacy, and he saw with his own eyes what God told him was going to happen. It was a no contest situation. However, this Godly example for us looked past what he knew human beings could do, to the God Who can and will do anything!  His faith was in God, Who told him they would have a son. 

He gave Almighty God glory for what He had promised to do, be-fo-re He did it. We can get stuck on what we call reality, or reason, if we only look at these senior citizens on the old-aged pension having a child, and miss the entire point. God gave that man what He has promised to give each one of us who choose to follow Jesus – Christ’s righteousness. We have Jesus’ position of favour before the Lord. But we need to remember, the bible says Jesus did not ever take advantage of that favour. 

The birth of Isaac was secondary. The Lord showed us through Abraham our right-standing(righteousness)  with God is free and not earned! Abraham looked at the One Who told him it would happen and believed Him — before the event.  His faith in God’s ability to do what He said He would do, gave Him righteousness with God, and made this man ‘the father of the same sort of faith we have.’  Almighty God initiated what happened — Abraham responded with faith in the One Who spoke to Him — and God was generous. Faith believes we are righteous even when it seems like everything around us  is screaming that’s not possible. My faith is in what Christ did.

Abraham is not just an example of faith in action, he lived in a position of being right with God long before Jesus came to die for us, and God gave that to him – just like He gave it to us. Our hopes can’t afford to be in the answer to our prayers – they are in the Person we ask! Jesus is God’s Answer to mankind’s prayers and when He died He gave us God’s favour, for free. No matter how impossible things seem – our God is trustworthy. Any promise that He gives us is wonderful, but the Character of the One Who gives us that promise is everything. Steadfastly keeping our faith firmly in Him, Who He is – despite any obvious difficulties – is our real promise. 

Never doubt the Lord’s miraculous intervention on our behalf, even if we have been a bit of a dummy and gone the wrong way and chaos resulted. Abraham did! Pray and then hand the mess over to God, and leave it with Him. Follow His instructions, and start to praise God for giving us Christ. Our redemption does not hinge on our behaviour. It hinges on what Jesus did. Everything depends on what we are focussed on, the outcome, or the Person Who provides the outcome. One fosters ‘results’ thinking and the other relationship.

God gave us His Word that we now have Jesus’ righteousness. Now we need to believe that God is good and trustworthy and He will keep His word. Our faith rests on God’s Character and His Word, not in our current circumstances changing. Our faith will stay strong when we put it in Who He is, rather than the answer to our prayers. Father God gave Abraham His Word, and He kept it, but there was a long stretch of time between those two things. But, Abraham’s strong faith in God’s Character led to him being called righteous with God before Jesus ever arrived. Protect your faith it is your most valuable gift from God.

Heartache happens when we presume, or rush ahead and try to get our own answer – like Abraham. Wait for Him. God tells us that He will take care of us from the cradle to the grave, and we need to believe Him. Even if bad things happen to us in our lives or the roof falls in. Do I believe He keeps His Word? Is He good? Is He faithful and true and reliable? Sometimes we can have more faith in the results of our prayers, than we do in the God Who gave us all these promises in the first place!  We need to hold fast to our belief in Him, and His goodness.

One word of caution, it is not wise to use our own enthusiasm to prop up what you know about Him and yourself. We can be led astray by our own passions. (James) Our righteousness before Him, is a gift given to us by Jesus. Cherish it. But hold fast to the fact that He is trustworthy and reliable because that is a greater blessing. Deal with anything that might try to destroy that. Bye. 👋