Relationship

P2214 FRUIT is our evidence of change.

/ DVH

“When your lives bear abundant fruit, you demonstrate that you are My mature disciples who glorify My Father!” John 15:8 TPT. Now there’s a wonderful promise from the Lord. However, when we turn that coin over … if we don’t have any visible fruit, then we are not mature …yet. Sometimes I think in the church, we choose people to be leaders who have really great, pretty, fruit blossom flowers growing – they have lots of GIFTS and great charisma. Unfortunately those flowers are only a promise of what is to come … the potential for mature fruit is there … but that is only the beginning of the Lord’s processes. 

If you elevate and display those flowers in someone’s life too early – I believe you may hinder or eliminate the fruit. That person can get puffed up with their own importance, or even overwhelmed by responsibility, and stop living their lives under His direction … within a lively ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. Then they can get too busy with their ministry to work on their own fruit. The popular thought often, is this – these people have great gifts so let’s follow them and go build a church! Instead we need to pray that our leaders have the right discernment from the Lord to be able wait for the fruit in people’s lives to be ripening before they elevate immature believers. GIFTS ARE NOT FRUIT.

Now let’s take a look at what that fruit looks like: Galatians 5:22 MSG  “But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard— …” Galatians 5:22&23 TPT “But the fruit produced by the Holy Spirit within you is divine love in all its varied expressions: joy that overflows, peace that subdues, patience that endures, kindness in action, a life full of virtue, faith that prevails, gentleness of heart, and strength of spirit. Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless.” “You didn’t choose Me, but I’ve chosen and commissioned you to go into the world to bear fruit. And your fruit will last, because whatever you ask of My Father,  for My sake,  He will give it to you.” John 15:16

First of all – did you get that word limitless? Wow! 😳 And let’s please remember Whose fruit it is! Hallelujah for the Holy Spirit and His work in us – by ourselves we can’t produce anything that will last into eternity, and eternal edible fruit is the main thing! He alone produces limitless. The Holy Spirit is not limited by our perceptions of how He works or how He should work – He once used a whale and a donkey to bring about His purposes. He is limitless! Just wrap your thoughts around that HUGE word.

A pear tree will always produce pears, whether it grows untamed and untrained, or in nice neat little rows. But a wild pear tree won’t produce a lot of fruit, and it will probably be full of bugs!  The one in the orchard is nurtured, trained, sprayed, pruned, fed by fertiliser, watered by rain. It is being cultivated! We are all under cultivation right now – so let’s not pick at each other like blackbirds. The Holy Spirit needs to cultivate our lives, removing the stuff that is unprofitable, and fertilising the things that lead to greater growth and better fruit. 

When someone eats a nice, juicy piece of fruit, they say: “that fruit is good.” We begin to mature when we let the Lord decide what is good for us, and what to do with the fruit He is growing in our lives. The Lord needs to cultivate the right attitudes within us. satan, on the other hand, cannot produce good fruit even if he tries.  We saw what he produced in the garden of Eden … sin, disobedience and estrangement! Our enemy cannot produce anything that is good because he is not a creator. 

So how do I know if what I am producing is God’s fruit? His fruit is sweet and ripe and juicy, people are attracted to His fruit like bees to honey. Even the smell of the Lord’s Presence in a room attracts others. The bible says: “…taste and see that the Lord is good.” So anyone can taste God’s fruit as well as see and smell it. His fruit comes from within, from the sap of His tree of new life growing inside us. We will always need our daily fellowship with the Holy Spirit. He enriches our lives and our relationship with Him produces His fruit. We co-operate with the Holy Spirit and then the fruit comes from within us.

As we read His word, and let, or allow Him to change the way we walk, talk and think – we are giving the fruit of the Spirit opportunities to develop within us. His fruit in our lives will produce change. We should not be surprised to find that we don’t do the things we did before – that’s because we are now way too busy producing fruit fit for Our King! 👋🏻 

P 2197 Sometimes my biggest enemy is ME!

/ DVH

It’s really easy to blame satan for this and that thing that happened to us, he makes a great scapegoat when I’m too lazy to do stuff for myself or I want to make excuses. I’m not talking about feeling sorry for the devil – forget that! What a waste of time. So what do I mean by what I said? There is an old saying; ‘the devil made me do it’ – well that excuse is wearing a bit thin when it comes to Christianity. 

The reality is that human beings make poor choices – read the book. What the bible teaches us is the reality! You and I are who we are in our worst moments … so let’s thank God for Calvary. The devil can’t MAKE US DO anything anymore – now we have a choice. SomeOne died to give us the victorious power to make those choices. Because of Jesus Christ and what He did, we have another option, we can live in another kingdom now. So, LET’S LIVE THERE.

The problem seems to me to be that we wanna live in that kingdom AFTER we die – but for here and now, we just wanna paddle about in the mud and play in the stuff that the enemy has spread around here on earth. Pigs play in mud, not people – especially not our King’s Kids! And compromise is a deadly enemy of the truth. Compromise takes our eyes away from what we can do here and now – and renders us useless in this world spiritually speaking. satan is overjoyed to distract us from our real purpose until we are dead. And getting DEAD is something human beings have very little control over.

It is also incredibly useful to remember that participating in sin makes us deaf, and it takes our God-given sight away. So-o-o-o … when we can’t hear or see … then our personal obedience guidance system is broken, and we did it to ourselves. It means we need a spiritual check-up. My advice is to pick up the bible and start reading – God Himself will speak to us as we read – we need our faith-bank in Him built up to full. Personally I think if we do not esteem and decide to participate in what we have been given by Him, we will end up living in the shadows of this life. Always striving for something we can’t find, and never being satisfied and content with what we actually have. We’ll eventually become pale replicas of the person-we-could-have-been. Imagine how much bigger we can be, when we simply walk with Him, minute by minute, day by day. 

Let’s look at something that I think illustrates my point. There are over 2.13 million species on this planet. Now how do you think they got their names? They didn’t come with name tags! The bible says Adam did it … ‘so God created all the animals and the birds and He brought them to Adam to see what he will call them and “whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”’(Gen. 2.19) I’ll bet that was a long, day, week, month, year! Maybe Adam actually had the use of 100% of his brain … instead of our mingy little 11%. We’ve been restored to a place higher than Adam’s place. We live in total fellowship with the God of the universe. He doesn’t have to visit us, anymore. We are now His temple!

However, that happened to Adam before he and Eve chose control and a snack, over God’s will. Humanity lost more than living in a fabulous garden! We lost the beginnings of a relationship that was normal, natural and part of Adam’s daily life. However, mankind’s total restoration from sin was incredibly expensive. Because of Christ and what He did for us, now, we have the privilege of spreading love, life and joy around everywhere we go instead of doing the everyday humdrum stuff that drives us all crazy. Hey! Your shadow just might heal the sick!! 

Human beings can contribute to this world in ways we have never even thought about. Forget going into space. We know the Maker of heaven and earth – the One Who made those stars.  And we’ve been chosen to carry His Presence into a world that has no purpose … except for a self-aggrandising one. We can introduce others to the meaning of life. What an honour. Count me in Lord!

My bones creak some days, and my ankles swell up from time to time, plus I lack energy, and I don’t always sleep well at night … BUT – I know that I carry Jesus’ Presence with me everywhere I go! So do you. It’s a choice. Unlike the old Testament, we don’t have to ‘blow smoke’ to hide ourselves so we can talk to God, and hopefully He will talk to us. Those days are gone! He wants to be in every part of our daily lives.

Sin is no longer a problem because now, we have an Advocate … a King’s Counsel, for the plaintiff, standing right beside the throne. Jesus Christ speaks PEOPLE. All He has to do is to point to His scars and we are completely restored. Ask yourself today, are you your own worst enemy? Nothing can keep us from the Love of God in Christ Jesus … nothing but our own choices. 👋🏻

P 2176 David teaches us about connection.

/ DVH

Written by David, the servant of the Lord. “…but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me.” Psalm 18:18b &19. Knowing how much the Lord delights in every single one of us, helps to keep us focussed when things don’t go the way we hoped. He is our support system. He’s there when other people are too busy, or when they think our problems are trivial. We can talk to Him about our disappointments and sadnesses, when some things don’t change, depending on what the difficulty is … or even when those things get worse. In my experience sometimes things appear to get worse before they get better!

Our God is a long-term God. He’s in this relationship with us … forever.  We need to go to the Lord with all our difficult things, big and small, at any moment, and ask Him to help and comfort us. He’s not just an emergency God – He is our reason to live! The hardest bit is to teach ourselves the kind of focus we need to make Him the centre of everything we do. But when we do that, we are often highly amazed that He cares enough to participate in the sort of stuff we might think of as little things.Jesus died to give us a permanent connection – we can talk to God any time we need to … no telecommunications experts required!

When we read the Psalms we can see that David constantly reminded himself about his past. He remembered those times when God delivered him, and he memorialised those things by writing them down. Personally, I think that things overtake us when we are simply living out our Christian life day by day. This life is full of mundanities – the whole, same-old, same-old everyday events. You get up in the morning, send your kids off to school, go off to work, etc. etc. When life is that humdrum that’s when our faith is really tested. It is also one of the greatest times for faith to grow – when nothing whatsoever is happening except the kind of stuff you know you can do, all by yourself!

In a really big crisis our first thought is often “Help, Lord!” But everyday mundanities reduces our faith to lip-service, very quickly. We can all cheer and shout and set off fireworks when He delivers us from some terrible event or another … but our day-to-day obligations lull us off to sleep and we can end up going just through the motions. This happens in ordinary human relationships too. We can get easily lost in who does what chore, and forget that the other person is someone we love and care about.

And those seemingly ordinary places are where the relationship we have with Him can stabilise us. God rarely announces His purposes over a loud-hailer! There are times where we suddenly notice someone standing off to the side of busy activities looking lost or sad or afraid. But we need His eyes to see them. We can walk past someone He wants to talk to because of our own busy lives. Remember we daily meet with a PERSON – the life that is in Christ is in us! 

I urge you to read the bible until it speaks to you. Jacob prayed this prayer in Genesis 32:26b. “… But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Today, I want to encourage everyone, to wait for the blessing whenever you engage with the Lord. Whether praying, reading or just daily living. Our God knows how much time you need to get to the ‘next thing’ on your agenda – pause, show Him that you want to hear what He has to say to you personally.

The blessing is the connection. David valued his connection. Ask the Holy Spirit to sit with you. Reading the bible isn’t about information or feelings, it is about acknowledging your need for His input. That takes faith. It is our intention to eat that counts, so ask Him for today’s daily BREAD. If reading the bible is difficult, and it does get that way sometimes, then say what Jacob said. It doesn’t have to take hours – it just means that you purpose in your heart to connect with Him. Meanwhile you can do this at anytime, as often as you want to do it during the day. 

Faith has substance because we give it substance, by giving it priority. Sometimes I have to remind myself that just because this day seems like the ‘same-old same-old’ that does not mean He isn’t there with me, listening. I have His WORD and the Holy Spirit wants to help me to overcome things like impatience, irritation, momentary selfishness, disinterest in someone else’s problems … the  everyday nitty-gritty stuff that can seem endless. Jesus is always here. He promised to be with us, and He keeps His promises. Be like David, go about your day mindful of Him. Remind yourself of all He has done and enjoy His company.   👋🏻

P 2174 The secret of a life lived in faith…

/ DVH

…is to look away from the natural realm. That BTW, does not mean we ignore the natural realm around us. It simply means we don’t let what is around us – in our faces, so to speak – dominate us. We see it all, but it does not have the final say – the Lord Jesus always has the final say. 

“We look away from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus who birthed faith within us and who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this: Because His heart was focused on the joy of knowing that YOU would be His, He endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!” Hebrews 12:2TPT.

And there you have it. Our new life in Christ is all about focus. In today’s world, focus on Him takes faith, because there is so much to distract us. For most people, their lives are soooo busy it seems they barely have any time to take the time to focus on spiritual things. Perhaps that’s because we have over-spiritualised stuff. Spirituality needs to be like breathing. Adam and Eve didn’t flap-doodle about every evening when the Lord came into the garden … they expected Him!  This new life needs to be normal, not something we have to ‘work up.’ Faith isn’t what we do, it’s the way we regard Him. What we do comes from knowing Him.

We have become so enamoured with having ‘experiences’ that we have forgotten that this life is a relationship with a Person. Read the Old Testament – the men and women in there expected Almighty God to guide and help them, and that was normal. They complained when they thought He wasn’t helping them – read the Psalms! Stop for a minute. Imagine expecting the Lord to be with you in every single situation that you will face today. That was the way the Israelites lived. Yet they missed it, because they only saw His provision – they did not see Him or His wonderful Heart toward them.

When we get over into the New Testament we find that the Lord is SomeOne that the people in those stories utterly rely upon in every situation, and they know that He will be there for them. He is no longer an add-on – now He is their life! You know, we’ve unintentionally allowed the most precious things in this life to become secondary. Our God is a jealous God. He doesn’t ‘do’ second place. And that’s not because Almighty God is egotistical either – it’s because we were made to be with Him. He knows us. Every single thing He does is for our good. 

Mankind was not designed to walk alone. In Genesis the Lord says: “It is not good for man to be alone …” When Almighty God says something is not good it is NOT GOOD!  He walked and talked with Adam and Eve every single day. And His minute by minute input into our individual lives always refreshes and revives us! We are not good on our own. We can manage some of our time without other people, but we cannot possibly manage without HIM. I was raised without a father and I missed him. How much more should we miss the Presence of the One Who made us!

Jesus Christ lived day by day together with His disciples – He chose to be that close to human beings.  Ordinary people, not just religious scholars, asked God Himself questions and … He explained Himself! Sometimes His answers created even bigger questions (!!)  … but … just imagine that for a second. Those people were in His Presence and most of them didn’t even know it. Maybe we are still doing that today!  The Lord Jesus loved to interact with people. He healed them, fed them, talked to them, in Person! And He didn’t zap sinners into stone either – He is so merciful. When we don’t spend time with Him, we forget how precious His company is. And oh! – how He misses our company.

In this life we live, every single day is filled with pressure and distractions. But our God has enormous compassion toward us, because He knows we are glorified dust, and human beings fold up under pressure. BUT, He is there for us throughout each single nano-second – loving us – encouraging us to press on – into His Presence. We don’t go anywhere without Him knowing where we are. Most of us are just like a little baby who thinks the adult is not there when they play ‘peek-a-boo’ – He’s there. Turn your head. LOVE WALKS WITH YOU. He doesn’t sign in and out on a time clock!

The Holy Spirit is this life’s greatest treasure. Imagine this – the SomeOne Who made everything we see, wants to walk around with you and I through some of the dullest, dumbest days ever. Work isn’t called work because it’s fun! But our God loves us so much He can’t wait to be with us … He knows how to do what you do, much better than you do. You know, AWE is the natural outworking of a greater revelation of Who He is. 

Father God loves to share His secrets with anyone who wants to know them. But to do that we must look away from the natural realm into the things that will last, and pull focus onto His new life within us.  This life we have now is just a blink in eternity’s eyes. Living by faith means we live this life, right here right now – enjoying Him. 24/7. 👋🏻

P 2113 Perspective is extremely important.

/ DVH

“It’s urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived—I mean right now!—when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive. Just as the Father has life in Himself, He has conferred on the Son life in Himself…” John 5:25a. Lazarus heard Jesus’ voice in his tomb, and although he was throughly dead, he came alive. That’s the kind of God we serve, when HE speaks – everything changes, even if it is impossible – we need to learn how to hold fast to what He says to us.

We also need to think about Who He IS – particularly when things in our lives are going badly. Sometimes the Lord allows things in our lives to bring out certain qualities, and to nudge us deeper into Him. Human beings like to live their lives superficially, but the safest place is right next to Him. Otherwise we can fall into the same sin that tempted Adam and Eve. Perspective is about knowing who we are, and to do that we must first know Who HE is, otherwise we can end up in presumption. And presumption will put us onto thin ice, remember, they fell in! If we are to be like Him, we will need His perspective – His way of looking at things.

Despite the many rumours flying about today, we are not equal with God. But Jesus Christ IS and He became a man and stood up in our place. Philippians 2:5-7. “In your relationships with one another, HAVE THE SAME MINDSET as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage;  rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Remember, Almighty God already took the initiative on our behalf – HE CAME HERE.

Jesus Himself said this: John 8:55 “Though you do not know Him, I know Him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know Him and obey His word.” Knowing God’s ways means we obey Him. These are key things in the process of being transformed – Jesus chose to live that way and so should we. Here’s a handy helpful hint: When you read the bible ask yourself – ‘What does this teach me about Almighty God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit? What can I see here, that shows me about Who They are? What I am reading that I can DO?’ .

The way that Christ thought about His Heavenly Father while He was here on earth was remarkable. Jesus knew He was here on assignment from God and yet He acted with the same humility and authority He died to give us. He limited Himself! Human beings are not all that, we’ve been elevated by the One we keep company with. Giving Him glory is not just about singing worship songs passionately – it is about the way we revere and honour what Jesus told us to do. We are only made great by the Company we keep. 

Father God wants the same kind of relationship with each one of us that He had with Christ. I know we are members of a huge family – but the Lord dearly loves each one of us … specifically. This world may never ever know your name, but God knows it, and He is proud of you. Despite who we are and what we have done, and sometimes keep ON doing … He sees you and I through the blood of Jesus. Perspective means I know to my core, what was done for me. I cannot be arrogant because I know who I really am, and who I would be without Christ.

Now, there is no need to be ashamed in His Presence. Personally, I find that shame is a big red flag in my life. It tells me that I have done something that I am not sure about, and now I am making excuses for it. I need to go and get alone with Him and get His perspective, His POV, on what has happened. And I don’t have to be ashamed or afraid when I do it. When we go into His Presence our AIM is to be washed, changed, actively transformed, by what we are reading and what He says to us. Whether we are reading the bible, or simply praying, the Holy Spirit will remind us of what Christ did, and why He did it. Then gratitude takes over. Gratitude is a great perspective, and true generosity is another one. God has been incredibly generous to us, so, with His help, we need to be incredibly generous to others, no matter what they have done. 

Perspective highlights the way He thinks, as well as showing us how to think. I need to know what He thinks, so I can be transformed by looking at Who He is. That’s what the bible is for, to show us who Father God is, and what He has deliberately planned and done on our behalf before we ever came into this world. Biblical perspective changes our POV. I don’t give two cents about what I think anymore, I want to know what He thinks about it!  And I probably won’t value whatever someone else thinks either, no matter how important it seems, unless they are saying something that is in His book!

The things of this world fade into insignificance when we have His perspective. We need to take on His perspective desperately, because HE HAS THE WORDS THAT LEAD TO ETERNAL LIFE. That starts right here, right now. Christians live their lives eternity minded – that is true perspective. 👋🏻