REhearsing

P 3240 Come up higher.

/ DVH

Sometimes we can become so earthly-minded we are no longer of any heavenly use. It seems to me that the church has become distracted by the cares and worries of this world. At the same time, it kind of looks like we expect Almighty God to enter our world and meet our needs here and now — He already did that. The thing is, He has higher priorities and I don’t think that it is His priority to make sure His kids have a cushy life.

Let’s take what the bible says seriously, and start making investments and withdrawals, using that book as our guideline. Then we can begin to bring His kingdom down here where the truly needy live. Truly needy people are the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet! Personally, I think telling people Jesus died to make them rich and prosper, is an abomination! 

None of Jesus’ disciples settled down into living in a grand house, in the ‘burbs, with everything they needed on tap. Instead they hit the road, and trusted Jesus to meet their needs. BTW, I am not saying, sell your house, go and sit on the curb and wait for Jesus to come back, but I am saying  – He is our priority. His agenda is now our agenda. We have given our lives to Him, so we can’t afford to let this life dictate what happens to us, through us and around us. 

As kingdom people, our destiny is to bring light and hope into the darkness. We may have to punch a hole in the darkness sometimes. The author of the book of Daniel punched a hole, and it took a while for the answer to come. Yet this man kept waiting for the Lord to do what He loves to do for all of us. Redeem the situation. Jesus loves to redeem situations, as well as relationships. It’s faith that gives us the impetus we need to pray, and keep on praying as we wait for Him to answer.  

Sometimes a believer’s problems can be a wrong attitude. Especially when we want to use God to make this life, our own earthly life, better. This world is a sewer. You can’t see the kingdom of God in a sewer, unless God Himself called you in there! This means we can’t afford to steep ourselves in the gunk that goes on around us – we need to soak in the Word of God to stay clean! We are called to be IN this world and not OF it. That means this world is not alive in us.

We can use our spiritual energy up by trying to praying our way out of this and that. But the bible says we are already more than conquerors, because of what Jesus has done. Let’s focus on that instead, and deliberately make sure all our relationships are based on the kind of love Jesus gave us. And when things are difficult, and “stuff” happens – while we are in the middle of it – let’s look for someone we are there to help, to witness to, to care for.

We seem to have given up on fulfilling the Great Commission. Sadly, we’ve become so involved in human affairs, we’ve forgotten our mandate. My advice is this – tell the Lord your needs, and choose to walk with the Spirit of God. Our faith is not designed to be like a credit card that is whipped out for use when we need it. Our faith is like an atmosphere that surrounds us. We live there, in good or bad seasons, we choose to focus on our glorious God being in charge. We comfort ourselves that He is doing what He set out to do … we just can’t see it yet. So we pray for steadfastness in trials and the ability to rest while He’s doing whatever He is doing. It is going to be for our good, we just can’t see it yet.

The Body of Christ is here to be salt and light — to lift everyone around us up higher, by the way we regard others. It is not lying to speak to the good in someone else who has been anything but good to you! It takes faith. We have the power to speak things into being – ask the Lord to show you what He sees in those people. Let’s stop rehearsing other people’s sins, and start looking for why they are here, and speak into that… … encouraging them into those things. 

In the last century, my age group made a mistake, we started exalting ourselves. Telling ourselves that we were  this or that and quoting verses from the bible to prove it to ourselves and others. It was a lot of hot air. Forget being the head instead of the tail – Jesus is our Head! I do not care if I am a toenail in the Body of Christ, I’m just glad to be included! Jesus is the only One Who is all this, AND that. We are here to encourage and bless and uphold others. We don’t need to big note ourselves spiritually. 

What stands us out in this world needs to be His GRACE and LOVE operating in us and through us. Let’s  decide what kingdom we want to live in, here and now – HIS kingdom is the Higher Place, living like He lived. We dare not call ourselves successful unless we are living to help others, because loving one another has become our priority. Let’s put our prayer, faith and energy into that. Bye 👋.

P 2688 To grow faith – use supplements!

/ DVH

“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 1:5-8 TPT.

I love the way this version brings out a clear meaning to some quite complicated verses. I like to look at this progressive thought Peter has, as a way of walking with the Lord. If we look at these faith ‘pills’ then we can see that this kind of walking is not aimless. We are actually going somewhere when we deliberately add goodness to our fragile as well as sometimes wobbly …faith. Instead we are deliberately, step by step, walking toward unending love.

Instead of seeing these verses as a whole lotta words that seem to be joined together like beads on a string, it helps to read it as progressive instructions. Let us say my faith is lagging, I am living my daily life doing the same old, same old. My prayers seem dead and lifeless – and maybe a bit repetitious. My bible reading ends with the thought …“thank goodness that’s over with for today.” If things get difficult my first thought is nearer to: “the end of the world as I know it”  … than it is to: “what are You going to do with this Lord?” 

I may even start to think tithing is beyond me, maybe I will just give what I can afford until I have resolved my current financial crisis.. And I begin to avoid anybody who drives me crazy because I can’t cope with them. My faith is heading for a crash, and I don’t know how to stop it. Well, here’s the solution, thank you Apostle Peter!! First of all I pick up what remains of my dragged along faith, and repent. Then I start my new spiritual vitamin regime. That means I add other things into my basket to help, or supplement my faith. I am not stingy with these add-ons, I throw lots of each one in. (That’s what ‘lavish’ means!) 

Let’s look at goodness. How do I add goodness to faith? First of all I look at the source of all our goodness – Almighty God. I deliberately sit and think about my life, so I can notice how His goodness has been following me, quietly, and unobtrusively. I deliberately look for the signs of His Presence in the midst of my troubles. I start noting all the good things, and I choose to leave the disappointments behind. Then I find someone worse off than me and do something spontaneously loving for them!  After that is moving along, and I acknowledge that I can be good to many people, not just one! Then I take another supplement – understanding. My understanding is based on WHO He is, not whether my life makes sense or not.

He is the only way my life will make sense. I must discipline myself to understand that He is God, and this means I may not always comprehend what is going on. But I know He is good, so I start reading verses about how good He is. To do that I am going to need self-control … focus. In essence I have stopped seeing my problems as the centre of my universe and I have begun to let go of them giving them over to Him and leaving them there.  I will need self control to fix my mind on good things instead of rehearsing how hard my life is. 

Next I need patient endurance. That’s because I serve Him He does not serve me! Every now and then I also stop and remind myself of these intentional supplements. I need these things to get through the mire of how I feel, simply because now I want to arrive at unending love – not just to escape from difficulties. That means that I will need to be patient with myself as well! Endurance, holding our focus, helps us to let the Lord accomplish what He wants to do IN us. 

Ding, ding! Time for the next supplement. Now I need to add godliness to the previous supplements, otherwise I can easily become obsessed with how hard things are, instead of looking for His goodness in the land of the living now I am focussing on His promise that I can endure all things because He is strengthening me! To live aware of His godliness I am going to need to adopt mercy – for you, and for me, and anybody else who crosses my path. All judgment and condemnation does is chuck us out of the battle right when we are about to win it.

Last supplement, unending love. Each previous vitamin I have taken has reminded me that I am a recipient of His everlasting, unfailing love. Even though I may not feel like I have all these supplements, the bible says I have them! “Since these virtues are planted deep within.” So my faith needs to kick in. BTW the book says that I don’t just have some – I have lots.

The bonus buy in all this vitamin taking is that I will walk away from constantly staring at my problems, because I have a new focus —  now I wanna see His goodness in the land of the living!  Instead of going round and round, trying to find solutions, going nowhere – I have a purpose. I want to know the One Who rescued me intimately and my vitamin taking helps me REMEMBER Who He is. I know I can’t do anything without His help, but I can step out in faith by obeying what He says, step by step, from His book, and become a good old lady, who takes all of my vitamin supplements!  Bye. 👋