Relationship

P 2828 Be proactive – learn to speak life.

/ DVH

Hi! I’m following up from what I said yesterday with more road building tips. Forgive me for repeating myself, but to see how to help anyone else, first we need to get rid of the planks/ rocks/pebbles/ boulders in our own eyes. How can we possibly fix anything – at all – if we can’t see properly? 

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:3-5.

I love the way Jesus goes straight to the point. The point isn’t to avoid helping others! Instead we live this life in such a way that we keep our hearts open and clear toward Him. This means we value our relationship with Him more than we value our own perception of ourselves, our convenience, or the way we are regarded by others. 🤔 So if I say something and someone else thinks it’s dumb or critical, I repent on the spot. If I hurt someone and I know it, I ask them to forgive me asap. Why? Because I want to see clearly! I can’t pray blessings for you if I am tolerating a bad attitude in me. The words will fall on the ground or choke me. I sincerely want you to know you are loved, and be blessed by the knowledge of His love for you. 

Love is HIS chosen highway and we are all labouring on it. You’re doing your bit on your stretch of the road, and I’m doing it on mine. We don’t want love to just be words on a page, we want people to experience His love through us. Real love, the love that embraces humanity – love that never ever gives up! God gives practical advice not just pretty words to remember. When we begin to know the will of God, through our own experiences, we will end up praying more confidently. We need HIM. All day every day, every second of our time here. He is our wisdom, our strength, our ever-present help in time of need. 

What do we do with offence when it smacks us upside of our head? This is what I do … I ask for Grace, and I keep right on asking for it. That’s because I am absolutely positive I will respond badly unless the Lord helps me, plus I have plenty of negative experiences with my old nature. My aim is to kill that off asap. I need to stop imagining, and perhaps even saying terrible stuff about the other person who is hurt, or has hurt me, and I ask for His mercy, and compassion instead. At times I pray that a situation will be redeemed. I simply pray the way He tells me to pray and then I step out in faith and do the opposite of what I might want to do!

Compassion is invaluable. Sadly, loving compassion evaporates quickly in the heat of dark situations, so, along the way, we will have to do a whole lot of repenting and dying-to-self. However, we will gain even more compassion in this life when we experience a need for it ourselves, and we recognise our own sinful attitudes, because we too hurt others. Just because we think what we said, or did was OK, that does not mean our opinion prevails over someone else’s experience!  We are not meant to be legalists excusing this behaviour and giving permission for that. Reconciliation doesn’t grow in an atmosphere of justification. I never ask if I have sinned, I ask Him to show me where and when. Then I take care of business. 

Jesus died to make us pure and innocent, and it cost Him everything. He deserves our obedience to His Word, including the humility to say we were wrong. When we say we are wrong, we’re humbling ourselves. Sadly, our old nature is always going to be at war with the new one. So we will have to choose, over and over again, to walk His highway of love, especially when we don’t want to do it. People are not always NICE. And hurt people can be UGLY. Read the book. My thought bubble about someone else might be: “Boy that guy needs avoiding big time. What a grouch!”  But when I pray I stop being blind to my own faults, and I can see my own attitude, then I can see the other guy more clearly.

Many people expect this life to be easy…  we are not in a fairy tale. Life is hard. We need a daily scrubbing with the blood of Jesus to help us develop eyes of love. We are designed to be part of the Answer – not the problem. You know, our enemy wins if we are so busy concentrating on our own problems, and heartaches that we don’t see other people’s pain. Undeserved love is by nature … not deserved! 

Here’s some advice worth noting …  people may not fall at your feet and start cheering even when you’ve repented etc. Nobody is perfect. People make mistakes, and they hurt themselves and others – it’s what humanity has in common. Almighty God will empower us to obey Him, but we need to take faith steps and keep at it. Refuse to believe the worst in others, instead, speak to the good. The power of life and death is in the tongue, and we’ve been given a huge responsibility – we can proactively speak life and build Love’s road.👋

P 2800 Cultivate walking with the Holy Spirit.

/ DVH

Matthew 17:1-3: “After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.”

I was reading these verses this morning and it occurred to me that these verses about the Lord’s transfiguration show, without a doubt — that absolute purity, honour, truthfulness and glory CAN LIVE in this world and NOT SIN.  I think Christ always looked like that, but His glory was hidden from everyone around Him. Those 3 men saw Him that day, as He really was! Meanwhile all that purity, honour, truthfulness and glory etc. was nailed unjustly to a cross! If Christ hadn’t yielded to them, those Roman soldiers could not have touched Him!  “…He gave His back to the smiters …” Absolute purity became sin on that cross. Ya might like to think on that lot for a while. I did! 

For me this scene reinforces, the importance of us walking with the Holy Spirit!  It also made me think, we could easily be walking around with angels, unaware of who they are … because they’ve left their hat, glowing clothes and halos at home, and now they look just like us! We don’t know what we can’t see! These three disciples were exposed to a huge revelation in those moments, and they didn’t quite know what to do with it!  There is a fascinating reaction to the visual revelation in front of them. One of them, who shall remain nameless, but his name begins with P … starts making dumb remarks. Then they all fall on their faces when Almighty God literally says from heaven: “Just listen to My Son, please!”

I mean, after that event nobody even dares to talk about it  or ask questions – yet they had had holy huddles before speculating on what stuff meant! However, Jesus instructed them not to talk about what they’ve just seen with other people, and they didn’t. Imagine not saying anything about something like that! These men were in ushered into the Presence of God in all His glory! They saw Christ’s purity on this earth, unveiled. WOW!! 

My first question when I read this is, why were the disciples even present? What was the Lord Jesus looking to teach them? What did it mean? Isaiah the prophet once ended up in the throne room and his first response was that he had a revelation of his own sin. Why didn’t these three men react like Isaiah? They only fell on their faces when God Himself spoke from heaven! Ya might want to think on that!! Meanwhile, it is practically a hallmark of their relationship with the Lord, that His disciples asked questions all the time. But instead of talking about how their Master looked, they start talking about Elijah.

At the bottom of that mountain these three men are back doing what they’ve done before, casting out demons etc. — or trying to! And … they failed. Even after what they had just seen — they failed. It seems that Jesus was a bit ticked off with their faith failure. I think that this incredible, spectacular revelation of Who Christ really IS, didn’t actually help their faith. The Living breathing Word of God was standing there right in front of them, but they didn’t understand what they saw!

Does that ring any bells with anyone? Do you ever read His book and not get it?  Moo-ving on … those same disciples thought after the Jesus’ crucifixion, that that was it, game over! Whatever they had seen and experienced, thus far, did not give them enough faith, or power, to continue. Jesus eventually scared the daylights out of these grown men by walking through a wall, but they still didn’t get the magnitude of the story they were in. They had heard what He had said previously, but it was not digested. I think, they did all the things they did, in those 3 years together, in the power of HIS Name. There’s power in HIS Name! But their faith was extremely challenged by those events that happened when He died. 

Jesus knew this would happen and I think that’s why He told them … when He finally left them to go back to His Father … to WAIT for the Comforter, the Helper, the Advocate, the One Who comes alongside. Every single person present in that room needed the Holy Spirit  — and SO DO WE!  Seeing miracles is not enough to grow the kind of faith that changes the world. We all need to learn to walk with the Holy Spirit. We need to encounter Him. Not presumptuously marching ahead of Him, telling Him what to do, but in step and in tune with His Ways – we need to let Him guide us, teach us, correct us, comfort us and lead us into new places in God.

BTW, if any of you out there in blog land have ever wondered why those 3 disciples ended up on that mountain with Jesus, Moses and Elijah …I believe this is why … Jesus told them they would. Matthew.16:28: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”They were privileged to see Jesus the way we will all see Him one day. And on that day …we will be changed by His glory, forever.

These men walked for 3 1/2 years with Jesus and participated in all sorts of miracles, yet they still needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit and POWER after He died, and was resurrected. God knows we can’t do this life on our own, so cultivating our walk with the Holy Spirit needs to be our first priority. This is not about feelings, dreams or visions, or weeping at the altar  … meanwhile we all need to cry our eyes out for our hard-hearts, sins and disobedience.

What will help us grow, and step into our inheritance, is our daily obedience to His Word, enlivened and kissed by His Grace – going IN and OUT like the tide. As we live like this, Holy Spirit will show us the way we should go! Amen. Bye👋

P 2789 Our willingness to obey helps us with digestion …

/ DVH

… and that leads to spiritual health. I think it also means that whatever we do repeatedly – we will become. 

Have you ever been looking for something and found it years later, hidden away at the bottom of your junk drawer?  Life is sometimes like that. Sometimes we don’t even know those things they are there. You end up saying to yourself: ”Oh, I’ve been looking for that for ages.”  Hold onto your hat. Today, I found some stuff hidden inside me that I had conveniently forgotten about. I took those things as past hurts and I didn’t consider the consequences to my faith.

Things get hidden in everyone’s lives. And some of the time it’s not deliberate sin, it’s carelessness. And this condition can be true for many kinds of attitudes. Some attitudes in our hearts are sneaky – they hide away under pious talk, and seemingly righteous indignation. But those things are not from the Lord, instead they are devices of our own choosing to hide ourselves from who we really are. I found a bunch of that stuff in my own life recently. 😱 Like this morning.

One way, over the years that I have learnt what is going on in my heart, is to carefully listen to what comes out of my mouth. Boy, that will scare the stuffing out of you! When I began to pray over the things I found in my thinking, I learnt that— lo and behold — my thinking in some areas was definitely not good. It nearly gave me indigestion! Hey, it’s great to watch your mouth, do it — but renewing our minds takes work and application, so we are going to need the Holy Spirit’s help with our thought lives too.  And that nicely leads into my thought for today.

I won’t digest whatever the Holy Spirit wants to teach me about myself, and the way I relate to Him and others, if I continually excuse myself. Even a flippant attitude can be a hiding place. The Lord is very thorough and kind with me. He often quotes me, to me. I hate it and love it … all at the same time. Sigh. Sometimes I wish the things I write every day will just kind of seep into my pores, rather than me having to work at it!  But obedience helps me with digestion, and I want His Word to be a part of me. … so-oo-….!!! On we go…

The thing is, none of us can afford to simply agree with what the Holy Spirit says without doing something about it. Now there’s the rub! I debated about whether to write about this subject today, and then hubby sent me an excellent, completely spot-on and appropriate scripture. I didn’t know whether to brain him, or thank him!! Of course I thanked him, and then I gave him one of those beautifully pious smiles, I’ve been talking about. 🙄 Meanwhile, eventually it turned out that I was measuring God and His actions, by the way I was raised> Now there’s a really dumb thing to do.

I know I cannot be gracefully transformed if I will not change my mind. And reading the bible is meant to be a heart searching event – not just a daily chore. So I started off with repentance, and in this whole process, I discovered something wonderful! The Lord is not legalistic. He is incredibly kind and generous!  I realised that I had yet another idea squirrelled away inside my heart, and it was a bad one. It needed to be changed because I don’t need to hold onto wrong concepts any longer. Father God is not like the ordinary sometimes sinful people that raised me, He’s perfect. Therefore I cannot put Him in the same category as my parental figures, because that will spoil our relationship.  

Praise God for a Saviour, because I find I need saving from myself all the time! I asked Him to forgive me for totally misjudging Him, and using my own human experiences as a reference for His actions. This sin had been hidden away deep inside, under pain, misunderstanding, despair, hopelessness, and just plain misery … that awful pile of stuff we all have that we hope no-one knows about … because we tell ourselves we ‘gotta be strong and courageous.’  Well I’m not. I’m weak and sometimes terrified and I definitely need His help all the time! 

This means that my active and interactive obedience has to come from owning my own questionable and inaccurate feelings. So I asked Him to replace them with how HE feels about me. And then I asked for a personal revelation of the kind of parent He is. I need one. I forgave all the people from the past who wrote all over my soul, “this is what love looks like.” Whether they did that on purpose or accidentally! And now I will take the time to meditate on every verse I read that tells me what He is like – and soak in it. 

“Why would you ever complain, O Jacob, or, whine, Israel, saying, “God has lost track of me. He doesn’t care what happens to me”? Don’t you know anything? Haven’t you been listening? God doesn’t come and go. God lasts. He’s Creator of all you can see or imagine. He doesn’t get tired out, doesn’t pause to catch His breath. And He knows everything, inside and out. He energises those who get tired, gives fresh strength to dropouts. For even young people tire and drop out, young folk in their prime stumble and fall. But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don’t get tired, they walk and don’t lag behind.” Isaiah 40:27-3.

Our willingness to obey and be taught by Him – as well being open to discover what’s really going on inside us – will help us digest the Word. The Holy Spirit doesn’t want to hurt us, He has been sent to help us. Bye. 👋

P 2788 A new way to think …

/ DVH

It has become way too easy to look at the things of this life from our own personal POV. What do I mean by that? Jesus died to give us a new way to think. Unfortunately, we can get stuck in our own needs, and thinking, wanting everything to happen for our own pleasure. That’s what happened to Solomon, he mistook God’s favour for His approval. Thinking like this, has led to many people into imagining that their success or failure in this life is a direct result of their spirituality, or lack of it.  

Let me explain my thoughts – I won’t unfortunately, be able to put everything in here, (read the book) …but let me try. 

Solomon was considered one of the richest and wisest men who ever lived. But he disobeyed God and married 700 women, plus he also had 300 concubines and many of these women worshipped other gods — yet Solomon had the favour of God over his finances. He was so rich, He made the billionaires of today look poor! However, those wives etc. that he chose, for his own benefit, led this King astray from the faith of his fathers. 

However, because God is so faithful, He prospered Solomon, as well as the nation of Israel during this time, for the sake of his father, David. The Lord declared David was a man after His own heart, and He promised that young man, that his son would be a predecessor to the Messiah. Remember, God “… is not a man that He should lie…” He absolutely keeps His promises – He just doesn’t always have our timetable.

There were about a thousand years between His promise to David, and its fruition. Which is why we need to learn to adopt the Lord’s timetable. My advice? Don’t take your prayers back or give up on your faith – leave it out there! Outwardly, it looked like Solomon was a very blessed man, but his character showed a lack of spiritual maturity and he had a propensity to think every sweetie in the sweet shop belonged to him. That led him astray.

God gave this man’s father a promise. He promised David that his son would one day be a predecessor to God’s own Son. Solomon, and eventually the Lord Jesus Himself, was the result of that promise. The fact that this king was immeasurably rich was because Solomon was aware of his own lack, so at the beginning of his reign, he asked for wisdom. And God said “Yes.” And gave him riches as a bonus buy.

We must stop seeing answers to prayer as a reward. They are the glorious Grace of God in action on our behalf, so let’s praise and thank Him for everything He gives us. You and I have the favour of God because His favour is on His Son, and when we accepted His Son, we came under Jesus’ covering shed blood — that ALONE gives us favour. We have not earned these things nor do we deserve them – love gifts are love gifts, they are not earned! There are many many wonderful promises in the bible, and I think one of the best things we can ever do is to check out what God Himself wants before we start rattling off lists of what we need — especially before we start trying to cash in our pile of ‘You promised’ vouchers! 

‘Unless the Lord is building that house we are aiming at, we will labour in vain.’ We can carefully explain to the Lord how important things are to us until we are blue in the face, even when some precious person we know deserves to live, and get well, or prosper etc. But our development spiritually is more important to Him than our comfort — He wants Sons and Daughters who value His Ways, not people who use Him!  This is why we need to be engaged in learning His Ways, so we can walk with Him.

Jesus didn’t die to give us spiritual vouchers that we can cash in whenever we like. He wants relationship. Relationships are intentional. We choose the same person over and over again, despite our circumstances and how things look! We need to invest in our relationship with Him more than any other. Sadly Solomon chose to invest in 1,000 women! How the heck he found the time and energy I have no idea – but that is beside the point. God still honoured Solomon because of His promise to David. He was not approving of Solomon’s lifestyle and marriage partner choices! Engaging with that many women who worshipped pagan gods, led this King astray.

You know, just because the Lord graciously healed Sister Susie’s ingrown toenail that does not make you or I eligible for the same grace. BUT, we are ALL eligible for a relationship with Him, on His terms.That’s why we need a new way to think. God Himself went before us to provide us with a Helper. He knew we would need the Holy Spirit. Let’s think on that. Bye. 👋

P 2756 Don’t let distraction fool you.

/ DVH

“We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.”2 Corinthians 10:5 TPT.

One of the most common stumbling blocks to living our life of faith is distraction. Our lives can be so busy, we get overcome by everything that is going on around us. We are blessed with wonderful leaders and people who want to inspire us, but sadly, even the people we admire, and cherish their words – or buy their books, or listen to their podcasts, etc. can trip us up. What someone else thinks about what the bible says contributes insight – if you want insightful inspiration for your own life, you will have to go after that for yourself.

There are no shortcuts to a relationship with Almighty God. The only proxy we need is Jesus – and He sent us His Spirit to help us. We dare not put any other person in His place. Each of us needs personal time with the Holy Spirit and His book. My advice is this, don’t cherish anyone else’s words above HIS. His words have His power in them! When we love and read His word for ourselves, and think about it – it is harder to be led off by our own imagination. So when things bump into us and turn the world on its head, we will know how to handle them – or where to go to find out!

Secondly, not every thought we personally think is worth keeping! Look at it this way – if you were the other guy – wouldn’t you throw the odd tempting ugly thought into people’s minds? That guy is the most dangerous being in this world. he tells us stuff that is from the pit — smelling of temptation, full of hatred, half-truths and prejudice and he tells us that these are our thoughts and we must act on them.Our minds can be an escape room, where nobody else can see or hear what goes on in there. The bible says: everything that is hidden will one day be shouted from the rooftops…Jesus Christ has stamped us with His stamp of approval – let’s live this life gratefully paying attention to Him instead.

Realistically speaking, I think that sin starts in our minds.  And sometimes those seemingly random thoughts, can be thrown in by our enemy as he sneaks by us, these things can be disguised as normal. The antidote against any despicable thoughts, or even some peculiar thoughts that seem a little bit off! –  Is God’s Word. When we know what the Lord thinks, we have comfort when we need comfort, we have security when we need security, we have unconditional love permanently. Now these are some thoughts that are worth holding on to.

Amazingly, our bible is what Almighty God thinks, in writing! How blessed are we? If we don’t know, or can’t remember personally what God thinks, we have a book full of what He has said. This book is not just about what He said to us, but it shows Him interacting with other human beings who are fragile, easily distracted, just like us. In His Word we have written truthful testimonies as to what our God is like, and how He interacts with other people. They are an example of how to take captive any thoughts that could lead us away from following Christ. Or they clearly show us what happens when we don’t!

The Holy Spirit’s kind of thinking helps us to relax into God’s love, rest there, and allow Him to lead us in the way we should go. His lovers LIVE to obey Him. Our affections govern our minds and hearts, and eventually, our behaviour. Listen to this scripture and think on it: “So above all, guard the affections of your heart, for they affect all that you are. Pay attention to the welfare of your innermost being, for from there flows the wellspring of life.” Proverbs 4:23 TPT. Here’s some great questions to ask yourself regularly: “How is my spirit doing? How is my heart?” I am not talking about how I’m feeling. But have I got peace on the inside? Even if worry is clanging away inside my head – it doesn’t have to torment me. The bible gives me a sword to deal with that stuff.

I heard this recently and it made me laugh … and then I sighed…  all at the same time. Truth does that to me! Someone said this about today’s world: “I had a vision of the Bride of Christ walking down the aisle toward Jesus, her Bridegroom. He was standing at the altar smiling, His eyes burning with love for His bride. And … suddenly … ’here comes the bride’ … She’s stunning, beautiful. Dressed in the finest, purest white, embroidered silk, her hair shiny, and her skin is like smooth satin.

As she progressed down the aisle a strange buzzing was heard. The bride reached into a pocket in her beautiful dress, and pulled out her phone. She stopped walking, and started talking to the person on the other end of the phone. After that, she checked her Instagram, took some selfies, and posted a photo of how she looked on Facebook! Meanwhile, Jesus our passionate bridegroom was still waiting for her to come to Him. He was waiting for the affection of her heart to turn toward Him.” 

My immediate response is to ask myself – am I like that bride in the vision, so distracted by this life, by the every day stuff going on? Or am I trying to find out how many people are watching me?  Do I seek everyone else’s opinion of my life but HIS? It is later than we think. We cannot afford to let our distracted ways of thinking get in the way. Our Bridegroom is waiting for us.  Bye. 💕

P 2706 My thoughts about prayer.

/ DVH

Matthew 6:5-15 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, Who is unseen. Then your Father, Who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”

“This, then, is how you should pray: “‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’ For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Many people think of the Lord’s prayer as a model for prayer. I think prayer is simply talking to the Lord about the things that are bothering us, asking Him to help us. Rightly or wrongly I personally pray about temptation etc. when it comes up! Our Heavenly Father loves the kind of prayers prayed quietly, away from other people’s eyes, and approval. He doesn’t want long endless prayers, as a matter of fact, Jesus refers to that kind of prayer as the sort of prayer that is meant to impress God and others. Whatever someone’s reason is, praying quietly by yourself is a wonderful way to sit with Him. Jesus’ own prayers were personal and often private.  Moses talked to the Lord face to face, and sometimes Moses was ON his face, but it was personal!

The Lord’s prayer shows us our priorities in prayer. Our heavenly Father, and His role in our lives, then what He wants us to do in this life to bring about His kingdom. Our Father is not a just a title, it is a reality. If you think about that the next time you pray it will change everything! We are reminding ourselves of Who He is, and who we are not! After that we go on to pray for the people who sin against us. The thing is, we are praying because we see HIM as our Answer. We don’t need a list, we need connection. We are not going shopping, we are meeting with SomeOne Who loves us and is our great priority. We have been told that we can ask for the things we need. 

We all know that forgiveness is an ongoing need, it is an always optional decision to obey Him. What we do about someone else’s sin is carried out to honour Him. I have found that feelings come, and go, but prayer is like air – necessary. As I’ve said recently, I’ve been learning that we must simply let go of some people, as well as our expectations that they will change to meet our needs and make us more comfortable. Talking to Jesus, Who was a Master of letting go – is a fantastic idea. Praying for things means we have lost the importance of Who He is in our lives. He’s the priority – not just the answer!.

But what about when someone maliciously hurts you over and over again? Then we are suddenly at the pointy end of their jabbing stick. Forgiveness negates the pain of being prodded by memories over and over again. I’ve learnt to accept people from my past, as well those in the present, by letting go of their mean spiritedness, their attitude is not my business. We can easily have an unrealistic aim for others to be perfect. However, I know I’m not – so I can forgive you! Sometimes I have to let go of things and forgive, minute by minute, as well as daily. I make that decision FOR HIS sake, not the other people. I owe those people Love and I will receive that love by sitting in the Presence of the One Who did everything to restore me.

“…do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others” — it is not the size of our prayers or our ability to outtalk, or even outshine others, or present a good case— what counts is our relationship with the Lord – it’s Him we are talking to! He’s told us that unforgiveness cements us into a bad place. This whole thing comes down to what we care about the most. Our embarrassment, pride, or the desire to simply let go of the past – so we can all get on with our future. We injure ourselves when we hold onto things.

When we pray in secret this means we have become eligible for unseen blessings. Those things are only recognised by the person who prayed, unseen!  I don’t know if you have noticed this or not, but our wonderful Heavenly Father loves to do things in secret. When He asks us to pray that way, He is inviting us into a place where He often works, and at the same time we will get to know and understand Him in a new way.

If God knows what we need before we need it, it stands to reason in my peanut brain that if we do need it He will supply it! I have learnt to say to Him: “Surprise me!” and He does! Prayer is a privilege we all share because we love Him and we want to acknowledge Him first. Bye. 👋

P 2695 Loyalty matters to God.

/ DVH

Let’s not take Father God’s kindness toward us for granted, or we can end up walking in presumption. To start with, we can easily be distracted by the cares of this life and forget Who He actually is! That’s when we could end up focussing on our own greedy little agendas of what we need or want. The point of a relationship is not just about what the other person does for me, it is also about what I bring into that relationship! What do I do that benefits that other person? We must not use Him for our own ends, He needs to be our great treasure. 

Our God’s benefits are for always seeable, and available to be easily seen, when we are living our lives loyal to Him. And He loves 💕 loyalty! Read the book. In the Old Testament we can see that His people spent more time being disloyal to the Lord than they did being loyal. But, whenever they repented and turned back to Him – His loving provision and benefits were seen and recognised and appreciated. I believe in order to see the Lord’s benefits, we need insight into the way we regard Him. God is not wishy-washy, whimsical, or careless. His preference for our salvation is crystal clear, but the decision to accept that, with all it means, needs to be taken seriously.

This is a good time to ask ourselves, where do I, personally, stand on this loyalty issue? Am I ”on the Lord’s side?” …like Joshua was? Joshua was prepared to die for God’s will to be done. Or am I on my Saviour’s side purely for so-called benefits, “I’m saved, He answers my prayers.” Maybe I get disengaged or ticked off when I happen to get trouble or tears? Is my main desire to live in His Presence? Can I see past His hands to His face? In my observation, most of the time when the going gets tough for Christians – the not-so-tough bail out!

I want to briefly talk about the incredible value of the Lord’s benefits. We have such wealth. We are strongly exhorted in Psalm 126:3 to: “… forget not all His benefits…”. In this Psalm, it talks about restoration of fortunes, reaping in joy, carrying seed to sow, and bringing in sheaves. But all of that comes after a whole lotta shaking and hardship going on – including sowing in tears! The thought struck me that we all want the joy, and the restoration, and the seed plus the sheaves … but not-so-much with the tears. It’s a package deal.

Some Psalms contain lists of the benefits of our loyalty to God. In Psalm 119 there are a whole lot of stated benefits. However, I think seeing God’s benefits is linked to our loyalty – and if we do not value Who He is, we won’t SEE them. These things are way too costly to be treated carelessly, haphazardly or poorly. Anybody can participate in everything He has done for us, but our response needs to be a heart filled with loyalty to Him because He has been so gracious to us.

Let’s look quickly at Psalm 23:1. In the Living bible it says:“Because the Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need!”  This shepherd was totally in charge of his sheep! While they were under his protection the sheep lacked nothing. Even if they wandered off he would go and seek them out. This is a fine example of Jesus’ loyalty to us! Outside the camp there are wolves etc. This shows me that our faith can easily be devoured by cares and worries of this life – the shepherd’s sheep knew the value of staying close.

Some times we merrily produce our largish lists of needs and wants, and post them off to the Lord without bearing in mind where our loyalties are currently lying. Are we paying lip service, or are we His devoted servants, looking to simply be His sheep? Meanwhile if we are that distracted, will we even see the answers He sends? In Philippians 4:19 it says: “I pray that God will take care of all your needs with the wonderful blessings that come from Christ Jesus!”

Our God is so much more than the supplier of our needs – He’s Almighty God. He made everything we can see!

Every blessing we’ve received was bought for us by Jesus Christ’s own suffering. This life is not about Him getting us a new car, or having a baby, or getting into a course we think we want!  It’s about belonging to SomeOne so incredible, so loving, so focussed on us, that we take the time to see His heart and love Him back. We need to carefully inspect the origins of some of the things we claim and ask for, because loyalty and gratitude matter – especially to Him.

GRACE IS FREE BUT IT WAS NOT CHEAP. This is why everything we do, or want, needs to be prayerfully requested with our eye firmly on the prize of honouring Jesus. Otherwise we can go from faith into presumption in a heartbeat. Let’s not rob the Lord of our loyalty … 👋

“Jesus said to all of His followers, “If you truly desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:23-24.

P 2682 Easy Peasy … NOT!

/ DVH

“For the Scriptures tell us: Whoever wants to embrace true life and find beauty in each day must stop speaking evil, hurtful words and never deceive in what they say. Always turn from what is wrong and cultivate what is good; eagerly pursue peace in every relationship, making it your prize.” 1 Peter 3:10-11 TPT.

Monitoring our words is so powerful and special, when we fail to do it, we can prevent ourselves from finding beauty in each new day!  I bumbled along saying whatever came into my head for years. I was being true to myself – a common theme nowadays – but I was in the wrong spirit, because I was not yet walking in a renewed mind. Jesus Himself talked about that kind of thing in Luke 9:55. The disciples were unhappy because the Samaritans did not welcome the Lord into their village. They wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume this village, like Elijah did and the Lord Jesus rebuked them for saying and thinking like that.

To be honest, it seems to me that the disciples did not fully understand the working of the Holy Spirit. He came to facilitate our new birth, not to exterminate us! Watching what we say means we will always need His full-time help. Today I want to share the little bits I’ve learnt so far as I’ve been walking along with Him. To start with, the Holy Spirit always gives me a warning nudge. What I mean by that is that He knows what I want to say, and He will speak to my heart and say: “Don’t say that,” before I’ve opened my mouth. 

You see it is much too easy to think I’m a big girl now, I can judge and choose my own words and I don’t actually need a filter. But the truth is … I need a full-time filter BIG time! The whole thing about our words is that they are intimately personal. They come from our own private thoughts. The Lord knows my heart and He knows that other person’s heart as well, and He knows what will hurt, and what will heal. He also knows what will send me off into a tangent, or what will build up my faith, as well as theirs. Knowing someone’s heart means knowing their motivation, and inclinations – our God is brilliant at that!

He knows when I feel inclined to bad mouth the other person or try to put them in their place, because I happen to think it is called for.  So unless my mind is renewed, I am sunk … I will actually need to make quality choices to participate in His renewal. In other words – unless what I think, is the way that I act, not just something I say I believe or agree with – I can, and probably will misspeak. That realisation is a ‘woe is me’ moment. The best thing to do after woe is me is to repent … fast! Repent to the Lord, the other person and to anybody else within ear-shot.

We must never forget that our words are powerful. We can speak life or death to someone else, whether they are present or not. That same voice we’ve been given that can raise the dead and heal the sick, needs oversight!  I have struggled with a number of relationships over the years, and I have found that if I give in to self-pity, grumbling or criticism, whether those things are justified or not … I’m definitely going to end up saying something stupid that I will regret. 

It is better to remain silent rather than say something that cements the other person into a role you have created in your own mind, whether they mean to treat you badly or not. We have the power to speak life, this means we need to pull our focus back onto what is “good, right and profitable.” The bible tells us to “let our minds dwell on these things.” So when we let fly and say something unkind etc. — guess what our minds have been doing??  Yeah, I don’t like that idea either.

We have to choose to live this way now, and it cannot be a religious thing, it is a reliance thing. It’s a choice we make for the Lord and the other person. If you can’t trust yourself to say something good, then saying nothing at all, is a truly great idea. However, we are not meant to lie, so how do we say good things about people who have deliberately and sometimes maliciously treated us badly? Glad you asked that question – because I have an answer! We ask the Lord what He wants us to do or say in that moment. We choose to lay aside our own judgment, anger, and hurt, because when we do that, we are also avoiding being judged ourselves. So we either keep schtum or we choose our words carefully with Him helping us.

Just to make things clear, this can be a very difficult thing to do when you are someone who finds out what they think when they say it out loud! I’m an external processor, and telling me to watch what I say is like sending me to the Paris Olympics to enter a relay race. Not happening! BUT … I have a Helper Who knows exactly what I am going to say before I say it so I am learning to rely upon His judgment not my own. I’m happy to do that because the bible says: “lean not on your own understanding …” Win win. Easy peasy … with His help. Bye. 👋

P 2666 It will never seem safe …

/ DVH

…and you will get a testimony, just like this guy did! Here is a stunning example of the Holy Spirit working. It’s from the Old Testament…”And (the servant) said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, Who has not left my master bereft and destitute of His loving-kindness and steadfastness. As for me, going on the way [of obedience and faith] the Lord led me to the house of my master’s kinsmen.” Genesis 24:27. 

The person who said the above profound sentence, was a senior servant in Abraham’s household. He prayed that the Holy Spirit would guide him, yet he didn’t even know his master’s God! This man simply took his orders from Abraham, and stepped out into the unknown. This is how the bible works. As the Holy Spirit kisses it, and highlights something to us, then we act in faith … and probably feel nothing whatsoever – except maybe a little bit dumb!

This man made a deal with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit honoured his faith. (The whole story is in Genesis chapter 24.) He was charged with finding a wife for Isaac in a land far away. We don’t even know this man’s name! And when he prays for help, it is clear that he does not personally know Abraham’s God! But he knows His master — and he knows how to be obedient.  He clarifies the specific directions from the now elderly Abraham, and sets out, he knows not where, to find a specific wife for Isaac. A series of miracles happen to him, because God honours faith – no matter who has it – even when it is redirected!

That man never took his eyes off the prize. And the prize was fulfilling his Master’s wishes. He didn’t sit on the ground and wail about everything being too hard, yet his task was extremely difficult …instead he found where he was told to go, and using prayer and faith, he made a way to complete what he was given to do. Then he rejoiced mightily that God sent him to the right place at the right time to meet the right girl! Even when the girl’s father tried to slow up the process of returning back to Isaac with her – this servant put obedience over people pleasing.

This is how we walk with the Holy Spirit. Let’s use an example. We read in the bible that we should love one another and forgive others. However, at the same time, there is somebody in our lives that really gets our goat! We have every reason to avoid this person, but instead we’ve made a quality decision to obey what the book says over how we feel. So we pray about whatever it is, and next, we go to the person involved and humbly tell them that we are sorry we haven’t been able to get along with them. We don’t list everything they have done to us over the years to hurt us – after all, Jesus let us go free without conditions – so we do the same for them! Then we ask them how we can contribute to mending the relationship. Obedience to the instructions is our goal.

Remember, when we live like this we are only being good obedient servants — so we don’t expect thunderous applause or recognition. Personally, I could give you a list of the things that people have done to hurt me over the years. They made my life miserable … BUT I tore that list up and forgot what was on it … BY CHOICE. I make that choice every single time I see them!  I choose God – not my need for retribution, or holding onto my hurt feelings, or even as some sort of ridiculous ineffective protection against what they will do or say this time. Instead, I’m hiding behind the Holy Spirit! I obey what He says. I’m safe with Him when I obey His directions.

The servant who belonged to Abraham felt nothing! He bumbled into the right place at the right time and God did the rest. This is a great example of working with the Holy Spirit – we follow our Master’s instructions and we do it ASAP. The longer we wait to feel better first, the worse our feelings will get. satan will be delighted to hand us new reasons to not reconcile. Actually, there’s a chance that this person is probably going to ring us up and say something worse! Our enemy hates reconciliation. Humbling yourself is the key to a Holy Spirit filled life – you can’t walk with Him and not be reconciled to your brother. And I don’t care who does what, even if they keep on doing it, ad nauseam. 

This is the real choice — we are deciding WHO we want to walk with, not just choosing a way to make things better. If we truly want to walk with the Lord, we will have to do more than talk about our faith… we will have to live by it, every single day. We need to obey His instructions, even if what it says seems ridiculous to our thinking. Christians are a people who take what the bible says seriously. That obedient servant had no idea how his quest would end, but his desire to please HIS MASTER superseded his need to be safe. 👋

P 2641 Here’s something chunky to chew on:

/ DVH

“The Lord sent Babylonian, Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him – (Jehoiakim ) – to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by His servants the prophets. Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord’s command, in order to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was not willing to forgive.” 2 Kings 24:2-4.

In this passage we are told that Almighty God punished all of Judah for something a previous king had done. Good place to stop and think! Meanwhile Jehoiakim, the current king, was a bad king as well. However, the Lord’s punishment came 90 years later! Think about it. People who weren’t even born under Manasseh’s reign were still part of the Lord’s punishment! Everyone was carted off to Babylon. But the king who actually did all that bad stuff was already dead!! That puts a whole lot of things in a different light. Father God’s plan was for restoration for that whole nation – their plan was to keep on doing what they wanted to do. Guess Who won?

This scripture also shows us that God may WAIT to do whatever He said is going to do, but … He WILL do it!! He was standing up for His prophets who kept telling everyone – “Wrong way go back!” His long pause was about waiting for the people of Judah to repent. In the book of 2 Kings, as the prophets foretold, the whole of Judah was carried off as captives to Babylon. I’m guessing “I didn’t vote for that guy Manasseh, He wasn’t a good leader” didn’t cut much mustard with the Lord!! They ALL went off to Babylon. They were given time to turn around, and they didn’t. ‘That’s not fair’ isn’t part of His thinking – it’s the way WE think. It seems to me that our idea of good and His idea of good – are two different things.

We weigh up this and that, and forget that God has a plan! There are times that He might tell us about it … but just because whatever He said hasn’t happened yet, that doesn’t mean He’s gone to sleep at the wheel. Acknowledging His sovereignty means we trust Him no matter what is going on. We are told in the New Testament that we can appeal His decisions, but that still doesn’t guarantee we will change things. Interacting with the Lord over things that we would like to see changed, or even people we wish would change – may not always seem fruitful because His plan is for everyone’s good – not just ours.The secret is to ask Him what He is doing, instead of asking Him to rubber-stamp what we think is good for us. 

The bit that often irritates us is we don’t like to think we don’t have any power. We know that Jesus is King, we know the King – what’s the hold up?? Here’s a revelation I’d like to offer: We will always have power to perform whatever He tells us to do! ← ya might want to Selah that for a while.  In other words, we are not given power to show off, make friends, avoid trouble, get big churches or to demonstrate our own personal POV. Beware, sometimes the Lord has a very different purpose and destiny for us in our stupidity. 😳 That thing that seems OK with us can lead to us wondering why we fell off a cliff. (Proverbs 14:12.)

Human beings like to make their own plans. Sometimes they are even founded on something that the Lord told us to do, and so we merrily go off and start to do it. Then something happens, and we can end up wondering: ‘where did He  go?’ It’s time to remember, that Almighty God loves relationship. Relationship is not about one person organising another – it is about two people finding common ground and moving forward. Our God is happy to negotiate but because He is wiser than we are, there will be many many times when He gets the final say! His way has benefits for everyone, not just ME.

However, we can always ask Him what His plan is in this situation, or that, or that person’s circumstances or that. and then pray accordingly. What am I saying is this: WHY NOT LET GOD BE GOD?!Human beings are wonderful at taking something dodgy and dressing it up in fine clothes and phrasing it so it sounds like it will benefit everyone. But the subtext often is it that it will benefit ME. Like Yoda says in Star Wars: “See through you we do.” We are no longer living in a democracy – we have been born again into a Theocracy.

Yes, we can always negotiate, and put in our two cents worth, but at the same time, we need to remember, the Lord has all the information! And He is looking for us to have faith in Him and trust Him. People who have little faith in God make their own plans! But He knows the plans He has for us, plans for our good, plans to give us hope and a future. We need to trust HIS PLANS instead of tweaking this and that so it suits us better. The best part of His plan is that He will come with us when we want to do things His Way. 

Is He a God of mercy and grace? Of course He is! It says so in the book. But He is looking for a people who are happy for Him to be God, and at the same time they are happy to be His people. Read the bible! His disappointment with the Israelites, over and over again, makes me want to weep. The Israelites wanted a token god, one they could put on a shelf and forget about until they needed help or some victory, or deliverance. He’s NEVER been that! But this is a good time to reflect on the fact that God’s overall plan included letting us kill His Son so we can be utterly restored – from sins we never should have committed in the first place!  Selah.

Sadly we can still make that mistake today. Ask yourself, do I talk to the Lord to get to know Him, or do I do it to get my prayers answered? The way to flow with the Lord, is to run things by Him, then take the time to wait to get an answer. Ask Him for His mercy and grace, because He will always give it – and then watch and see what He will do with your trust in Him. I can’t even begin to say how many times I’ve run past doing stuff His way, in my enthusiasm to get things done. However, there was always an unforeseen cost.

We want pain and suffering to go away, but God can use it to transform us and our motivations – as well as touch the people around us.  And that’s something else chunky to chew on! 👋