Religious rules

P3459 Popularity with man.

/ DVH

This is a current theme in our society, everyone has to be PC, or you will be told! I am all for being sensitive and careful, because wisdom itself demands the kind of thoughtfulness that allows it to speak clearly to someone without the distraction of offence! However, our priority should always be whatever the Lord says to us. And I think we need to practice tolerance and forbearance toward other people not political correctness. I want to look at a brief few verses from Jeremiah today, bearing in mind that this man was a salmon swimming upstream for most of his life!

“Then the officials said to the king, “This man should be put to death. He is discouraging the soldiers who are left in this city, as well as all the people, by the things he is saying to them. This man is not seeking the good of these people but their ruin.”“He is in your hands,” King Zedekiah answered. “The king can do nothing to oppose you.” So they took Jeremiah and put him into the cistern of Malkijah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah by ropes into the cistern; it had no water in it, only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud.” Jeremiah 38:4-6.

Jeremiah was doing what God asked him to do, yet he was being persecuted for what he said. That’s because other people interpreted his actions for their own agenda. Lately, I have had to become so much better at forgiving people, simply because they have thoughtfully given me so many opportunities to do it! Meanwhile the Lord helps me, every single time, or I would succumb to self-pity. Sigh. But that’s an observation, not my point. My point is things have not changed all that much since Jeremiah’s time. We still think we can judge other people and put pressure on them to be just like us.

Pressure comes from all sorts of directions – but many of them are internal. We fall into political correctness by saying we don’t want to offend others – but actually we are scared of what others will do to us! The point of this passage in Jeremiah is that all kinds of pressure will be unfairly applied on us. It is to be expected. We may not end up in a cistern, but ‘the fear of man (still) brings a snare’ if it affects our ability to be truthful.

Proverbs 29:25. Here’s the Message version – “The fear of human opinion disables;  trusting in God protects you from that.”  Yeah. That’s the rub, moving away from what others might say, into …’what do YOU want from me Lord?’ Then we need to take the time to find that out for ourselves. Christians have hidden behind denominational creeds for too long. We need to hate any sin, but love the sinner just like Jesus did. The point is, the gospel is for everyone and we can’t possibly know who the Lord is going to turn around.

I think that Jeremiah was a victim of the downside of popular opinion. I like this verse from Proverbs 18:13: “Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.” It is so easy to decide that we already know what other people need, and miss the Lord’s wisdom altogether, because we have prejudged our own way to be the right one. We can also fall into the trap of being ‘nice’ and insincere, all at the same time. For times like ours, we need the Holy Spirit’s wisdom, not just a creed, or what we think.

If we are serious about extending love to other people who are not like us, then we cannot be motivated by political correctness. We must be motivated by God Himself. Here’s a verse to chew on: “Make love your aim.” Folks! The elephant is now actually in the room! We cannot avoid it any longer. Our real problem is, we have avoided some subjects for so long, we no longer know how to address them! It is time for the kind of prayer that leads to action. Choosing to loving others is never easy. God’s love can turn all kinds of people around, I think we would be better occupied remaining full of His love ourselves, than finding reasons to exclude people.

I don’t have to love what you do, to love you! The church has an opportunity right now to choose how she will behave toward people, especially those She has decided are already illegitimate because of their choices. The bible says: ‘Love is patient, kind, it is not jealous, it doesn’t brag, it is not selfish or rude, angry or resentful. It hates injustice, it loves the truth, it bears all things, hopes all things – it is long-suffering.’ Love is an ETERNAL quality. We can’t afford to draw up our ‘holy robes’ around us anymore – our holy robes have holes in them that you can drive a truck through. If we are hiding any kind of sin from others, the Lord in His Grace will allow those things hidden in the darkness to come into the light. He is not punishing us – He is cleaning up His house. 

I believe we simply don’t know how to love anybody who lives their life in ways we find unacceptable. We think love is approval. We need to pray for real revelation about His idea of love – He loved us long before we arrived here! Jesus Christ had no qualms about touching the unclean … the religious people did! His power, glory and strength are released by loving others.

Maybe it is time to admit we were wrong and ask forgiveness for the way we have treated others. Humbling ourselves won’t kill us. Sin still remains sin – one is not worse than another. We also need to remember, many times it is the people in our own churches who have hurt others. The Body of Christ has misplaced our discernment and used religious rules to compensate. Then we boarded up, and sealed our hearts of compassion against the very people the Lord wants to speak to … and fear of contamination made us do it. We’ve thrown people into a pit of despair simply because we are not walking with Him – we need the Lord’s input, we need His heart! Gifts are not a sign of holiness – loving others in what we do and say is.

Jeremiah was thrown into a pit because what he said was unpopular, and the King didn’t want to enter that arena. We can’t afford to approve of sin because we are swayed by popularity, anymore than we can afford to label people and walk away from them. We need the Lord Himself “to extend the boundaries of our tents” and “pull up the stakes” we have driven into the ground, to define who we are, and what we believe. Popularity with man is not just political correctness – it’s also religion that can bind us. Look after widows and orphans instead – that’s true religion.

We are His people and we are so blessed, each one of us has been given a chance to change. Walking with the Spirit of the living God means that whoever we meet, will meet with the Lord Himself through us… then we leave the results to Him. Let’s extend His love to everybody, in the hope that we may see some saved, and refuse to judge because that leads to even more judgment. Our part is to extend Grace and Mercy to everyone, and focus on being a carrier of the Presence of God Himself. He has straightened US out, and we know He has the power to do that in other people’s lives.

Lastly, let’s value intimacy with Him above all else. We need to read the bible and do what it says, and love others, because love is our priority. Forget political correctness, and religion — we love people because He loved us first. Loving them does not mean we agree with them. Popularity, or unpopularity with mankind is over-rated. Bye. 👋.

P 2835 A little Christmas gift from me.

/ DVH

““Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with Me and work with Me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with Me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”” Matthew 11:28-30 MSG.

I laughed when I read this scripture today, because I put it at the bottom of yesterday’s blog, and it just seems to be following me around – I had better pay attention!  First of all, I think this version is such a sweet one because it is so accessible. It accurately diagnoses the things that cause us to lose sight of what Grace looks like – tired, worn out, fed up with religion. And it doesn’t just diagnose, it also provides sound spiritual medicine! Win, win.

Religious rules are easily learned and quite easily applied — but in my opinion, they do not further productive relationships, particularly spiritual ones. In fact I think religious rules can make you excessively watchful and very cranky about somebody else blatantly breaking them.You can become more like a policeman than a loving participant. The presence of any type of threat does not produce good fruit. It is like a child obeying its parents purely because it knows if it doesn’t it will receive a thrashing. 

Conversely, God’s love brings out the very best in people. So when we have someone who is a thorn in our side, we know we have a person that can be used by God to teach us this God-given, God-kissed skill. But first we will need to choose to die to looking after me, and what I want!  Yeah. You just knew there was a catch eh? We talked about forgiveness yesterday, so we will take that as a given, but we can’t just focus forgiveness, we must move on into pressing into God.  That’s because people do dumb inconsiderate hurtful things – A LOT. Sometimes it can seem like that is their gift to society … when I know people like this, I quite often want a refund! 

I try to be real when I write this blog. So if I recommend something, it is because I have tried it and I know it works, but it only works with HIS help. I’ve checked that out, I can’t do any of this stuff without Him! I want to qualify those remarks by saying, I don’t think I was ever a ‘Lone Ranger’ type. I need my hand held and someone nice to teach me, and the Holy Spirit always does that.  Plus I’m pretty sure I’m the kind of person who seeks shelter in a storm rather than braving the elements … BUT … I know I am also quite opinionated, and I can fly off the handle when I think something is unfair or unreasonable. It’s hilarious isn’t it? I hate people being unreasonable but I can easily become excessively unreasonable about things when stuff doesn’t suit me! There’s a lesson in there somewhere. 😳

The Lord Jesus is giving us brilliant spiritual advice in this verse. Don’t go to your Mum, or Dad, or best friend, or your spouse – go to HIM, first. There are lots of great reasons why we should do this- here’s one: “In His presence there is fullness of JOY.” The secret is to seek Him no matter how we feel, because although the Lord sometimes plays ‘hide and seek’ to draw us closer to Himself, the bible reassures us that we will find Him! The bible is truer than our knowledge or experiences – or lack of them. We can’t measure His book by what we know, or even don’t know. God’s Ways work best when we take His Word over whatever is going on around us. And “help” is still a great prayer. 

If someone said they had left you a million dollars, wouldn’t you at least get in touch with the bank to check it out? You know you would! Everything God says in His book is accessible when we apply our faith. Faith means we can’t see it, but because of the veracity, stature and nature of the One Who said it, we believe it anyway – we believe it enough to act on it. Believing is more than agreeing. If you never go to the bank to get your 1,000,000 dollars it will stay in the bank forever, waiting for you to claim it. God has given us a measure of faith, it’s OURS.

Almighty God knows everything there is to know about rest. The bible tells us He did it first. He rested from His labours on the seventh day. Why? I dunno! As an example to us?? I know He wasn’t tired, because He does not grow weary! That’s also in the book!! The more we know and deliberately act on His word, and seize every opportunity that comes our way, the more the truth of everything the Lord has said begins to resonate in our hearts. Learning to rest is a great place to start. God’s word will stay a theory if we never ever check it out. 

Our personal faith deposit from Him, will continue to sit in the bank unused, until we get desperate, or the ceiling falls in. Unfortunately, when bad things happen to us, that’s actually a lousy time to start practicing faith. When life gets hard, our spiritual hearing aids stop working. Panic sets in. In the above scripture, Jesus is encouraging us to walk with Him and work with Him – absolutely nothing in that sentence is passive. My Christmas gift to you is to exhort you to start acting on what you already know. Bye. 👋🎁

“What good does it do for you to say I am your Lord and Master if you don’t put into practice what I teach you?”Luke 6:46

P 2790 Priorities.

/ DVH

The Holy Spirit loves to clarify and personalise His Word – that’s part of the joy of reading the book! One Sabbath day Jesus and His disciples were hungry so they picked some grain from a field they walked by, and ate it. The Pharisees – who were obviously spying on Him!… jumped up and down and accused them all of breaking the law. Jesus, ever gracious, tried to help them stretch their faith by pointing out that their ancestor David once ate the Shew bread and doing that was unlawful, according to their rabbinical rules. Plus, he mentioned that the priests on Sabbath duty break that law too, but they are declared innocent.

The Lord Jesus then says this: “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent.” After this He moves on from that conversation into the synagogue – because there’s another lesson coming up! On that day there is a man with a shrivelled. withered hand in attendance. Meanwhile the Pharisees are still spying on Him, waiting for Him to do something illegal on the Sabbath. They know He will heal this man. Can you believe it? How SAD. They are waiting to catch Jesus out for doing good! So there they were again, pointing out religious rules. They seem to be unaware that they have faulty religious priorities.

So He asked the Pharisees if it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath and reminds them that if one of their sheep falls down a hole on the Sabbath they will pull it out! Matthew 12:12: “How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” It is part of Jesus’ nature to always desire good for His Bride. He stumped these religious guys every time. Meanwhile, they have no idea that this is their opportunity to think differently. The Lord Jesus loves people completely. I think problems occur when we decide to define good, as things that work out the way I want them to, or by categorising whatever supposedly meets our religious standards.

God has His own WAYS. That means it is important for us to know what He wants, in any and all of our various situations. What His will is. Here’s some scripture to help us focus on the way He thinks: “In everything give thanks for this is the will of Christ Jesus concerning you.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18. The idea is to start by giving thanks, because doingthat will help us focus. We need to thank Him for helping us to know what He wants from us, remembering we don’t need religion either!

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will.”Romans 12:2. I urge us all to be pliable, ready to expand what we think – we are allowed to learn. Always be big enough to renew your mind by acting on what the book says. I’ve found the best and quickest discernment comes to me when I actively let the Lord teach me His priorities in any situation. I ask myself all the time: “Is this love?” Then I ask Him to help me to be fair and not flavour any answer with my own POV, needs, or religious stuff.

At the same time, the Lord Himself chooses what He wants to change in our lives – not us!  The fact that He is so intimately involved in our lives and thinking must reassure us that He always has our good in mind. There are times when we try to avoid what the Holy Spirit wants to tell us because of fear. We’d rather focus on the little things than tackle the big hard ones. Like the Pharisees, we would rather stick with what we know because it feels safer. Often there are quite obvious things that we know need His transformation, yet we run away because of fear, or unbelief or a stronghold in our mind that says: “I can’t help this, everyone in my family is this way.” You and I are in a new family now – HIS. The old has passed away! We must prioritise His new kingdom now.

Romans 8:27 tells us that the Holy Spirit is already praying God’s will for us – how brilliant is that? Wow. To start with, the Holy Spirit totally knows the difference between the law and LOVE. Right here, right now. Today. There is no question about it we have a trustworthy Helper! Here are two more scriptures that will help us locate what the Lord wants to prioritise as we walk with Him:“For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.” 1 Peter 2:15. So I ask Him when I have doubt about any situation – is it doing good for someone else? Doing good is our priority. Our aim should always be for other people to tell us:  “I want to know the God you serve.”

Our Loving Heavenly Father;  His beautiful Son, the Lord Jesus;  and the precious ever-present Holy Spirit are our JOY! Let’s live celebrating Them!  There are times we can persecute other brothers and sisters with the law, by verbally beating them up, saying: “don’t do this and don’t do that “. And sadly, sometimes we say: “you did this AND that — so God won’t love YOU anymore.” But none of that stuff RE-presents Him truthfully. To know what is right on any occasion we must prioritise knowing Him. We have the book!

So we do good, give thanks, walk in Love and change our mindsets by reading His word. The Holy Spirit is continually praying for us to live an overcoming life filled with the Lord’s love for us. Walking with Him is our priority now. Bye. 👋