Response

P 3309 Anxiety.

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Charles F Stanley wrote the following. I hope it is helpful: “Anxiety is a problem we all will deal with at one time or another. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?”(Matt. 6:25-26)

The Greek word for “anxious” in this passage means “distracted.” It’s a word that refers to uncertainty. That’s what anxiety produces in us. It gives us a feeling of, what’s next? It’s a feeling that the rug has been pulled out from underneath us and we have no idea if we’re going to fall, how hard, in what direction, or onto what.

The word “anxious” is also translated as “worry” in the Bible. For many people, worry has become a way of life. If that describes you, I encourage you to read again the words of Jesus. His words are not a suggestion—they’re a command. You may say,“I can’t help feeling anxious, I’ve always been a worrier.”I’ve heard that from many people through the years. My response is, “Yes you can.”

There’s nothing about a circumstance that automatically creates anxiety. Anxiety occurs because of the way we respond to a problem or troubling situation.Your ability to choose is part of God’s gift of free will to every human being. You can choose how you feel. You can choose what you think about, and you can choose how you will respond to a circumstance. It certainly isn’t God’s purpose for you to feel anxious—He doesn’t allow situations in your life so you’ll have anxiety. 

The Father may allow a situation in your life to develop stronger faith, grow and mature, or change a bad habit or negative attitude. But God doesn’t set you up for anxiety. He’s always at work to bring you to a place where you’ll trust Him more, obey Him more fully, and receive more of His blessings.

You can fall into a downward spiral of anxiety, or you can say: “Father, I bring this to You. It’s beyond my control. I feel helpless in this situation, but You have the power to change what I’m facing. You love me perfectly, and I’m trusting You to handle what concerns me in the way You see fit. I know whatever You’ve planned for me is for my good. I look forward to seeing the way You choose to express Your love, wisdom, and power.” Amen. Friend, this is the way of peace—the road out of anxiety and worry.” 

Back to my little bit for today! I think this is the stuff that haunts most people. I put these thoughts by Charles F Stanley on my blog today because so many people are under siege from the things he talks about. His writing is clear and concise and he said it a whole lot better than I can! My motivation is this:  whatever it takes to help someone else get free is useful!  

This mini-sermon was particularly helpful to me, because we are preparing to put far too many things inside our car and even more stuff on top of it!— And still fit us, in it! Plus we will end up talking to a whole bunch of strangers. All this happens as we are travelling over 3,600 kms in the middle of a petrol shortage with prices through the roof. Some generous people have already helped us out financially with the extra burden of the cost of petrol. But my point is this: hubby and I are not exempt from anxiety either, it’s an ongoing battle for all of us.

I do have one helpful hint that works for me. If anxiety and worry start to build and I end up mentally knitting, I phone a friend or text someone. I don’t always tell them the problem, I simply ask them to pray. God knows what I am concerned about. I can fall into worse trouble when I talk about the difficult stuff, it actually kind of magnifies the problem in my mind. I might end up looking for sympathy instead of explaining that I simply need to hold fast. I have to pick my battles. Sometimes there are some things I can’t solve, but I can pray.

I’ve learnt that as I relinquish my anxiety about the things that bother me, I am far more open to His passions than my own. It’s not hard to love a God who values human beings so much, that He died for them. I think anxiety is a bit like a snowball rolling down a steep hill, it gathers momentum as it rolls on, and on. You can’t stand in front of it, it will squash you flat! The important bit is to know where and when that snowball begins in your life, so you can stop it at the top and jump all over it to disperse the thoughts.

The bible says in 2 Corinthians 10:5 …  “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”  Anxiety is our enemy’s lies on steroids.  We can pay attention to the incessant ugly noise or give our attention to the One who lives inside us. Yes, it is a battle, many, many times – but Mr Stanley offers great advice, I intend to take it. Bye 👋.

P 3307 Count the cost.

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Since we have come to know Jesus, our aims for this life have to change. We are no longer living to do what we want to do, we live to do what He sent us here to do to: “Since Christ, though innocent, suffered in His flesh for you, now you also must be a prepared soldier, having the same mind-set, for whoever has died in his body is done with sin. So live the rest of your earthly life no longer concerned with human desires but consumed with what brings pleasure to God.” 1 Peter 4:1-2 TPT. 

Heaven’s help in our growth is essential. I am sorry to say, that in years gone by, the church hasn’t always prepared God’s people to participate in dying to self. We’ve talked a great deal about a free ticket to heaven, and God’s love for mankind, and how His power released into our lives will enhance our lives, but unfortunately, we didn’t emphasise the cost. The bible is clear, and Jesus said it — we simply must count the cost! Let’s not avoid the verses that talk about this subject and accidentally allow His word to be watered down in our daily lives. 

Here’s a useful tip — rationalising God’s Word leads us to a cliff. We can fall off and think we will be OK because God is good and He will catch us, but His aim is to have functional, mature Christians! The Lord’s death was a serious thing and our response should be just as serious. One of the reasons people struggle with their faith today is that they have not counted the cost by deciding to live their life ‘all in.’ They say things like:‘Well, I’ve prayed about my faults and it’s up to God to fix them.” The Holy Spirit requires our co-operation and interaction in this process – He will help us, correct and direct us and prompt us. 

Jesus Himself mentioned several times: “go and sin no more!” Now does it sound like that skill is going to just fall on us? I think we are either all in … … or not. There is no middle ground. That middle ground we’ve embraced is not supported by scripture. The bible forces us to look at our decision-making processes.  And here are some examples of what compromise can look like.

Chapter 14 in Luke is a really challenging chapter. Let’s look at what Jesus said in verses 25-33:“Now great crowds accompanied Him, and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after Me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be My disciple.”

Giving our lives to Jesus means that we are going to encounter various difficulties and challenges at different times. However, we can’t avoid making the tough choices. What happens when loving Jesus means we will tick off our parents, friends, rabbits and relations? I have found my true devotion shows up under pressure and there’s nothing like family to turn the pressure on! That’s a cost all of us face, explaining our faith to the people we dearly love, and sometimes being ostracised because of it.

Previous to the above scripture in Luke, the Lord also mentioned a number of scenarios we need to pay attention to – maybe we’ve been invited to a feast by somebody important, and praying for a sick person will interrupt the formal proceedings.The Lord wants us to be mindful, about whether we are influenced by our surroundings, or not. Standing up for Jesus in private is one thing – standing up for Him in public is another. There’s a cost.

At another time the Lord explained that certain guests were invited to the wedding party of all wedding parties, by God Himself – but when they were invited, they said they had other more pressing things to do. So the Master of ceremonies sent His servants out to find ANYONE they could find, and compel those people to come in and enjoy the happy time. We simply can’t afford to be careless and casual about His instructions or invitations. Counting the cost means we will have to choose under pressure.

Above in Luke it talks about counting the cost. This time it is about building a house. It says: let’s make sure we can pay for the house, on the spot, or progressively … before we start. The Lord knew the importance of counting the cost before you jumped into something incredibly challenging and life changing. Better to live in a shack and be able to concentrate on your faith, than skipping being with Him and overworking to pay a mortgage. The cost can sometimes be our own comfort.

Living for Jesus means we consult Him first, and we will take the time to wait for His answer. Then we face the cost personally, and do what He asks us to do. In His very last example, the Lord talked about going to war, and how important it is to count the cost and be aware of your ability to win, before you start. War has long term ramifications. Standing up for Him in the midst of conflict, can cost people their lives. All these things are part of counting the cost. Be aware of it first, because bearing the cost makes us His disciples. Bye 👋.

P 3286 Cling to Him

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Jeremiah 9:23: “This is what the Lord says:“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.” V25-26: “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

This is the Lord’s pronouncement over Israel, He is throughly sick and tired of these people who say ‘yes’ but do ‘no.’  He makes it perfectly clear that being rich, popular, strong, and wise in this world’s ways, is not for His kids. What He is looking for is a people who know Him, and know His ways, and love Him so much they will follow Him wherever He goes.  And because of those deliberate choices then His ways will show up in every attitude and action they take. First of all let’s look at what delights God and what is His benchmark, because the Holy Spirit very kindly gave us a list!

He loves kindness, righteousness and justice. He operates from those things. It will never be enough to read the words and nod and smile, or even wipe away a tear. Crying is easy, changing is not! However, whenever  God speaks, He is telling us about Himself and we need to listen to Him. The Jewish people were not wrong in their desire to please Him but pleasing quickly turned into placating. They carefully implemented 613 laws to make sure everyone did what He wanted – and woe betide any Wally that tried to do anything else! They were punished by the religious. These dear people put Almighty God into a box of His own design. The glorious box He called Mercy and Grace, they misused the Mercy Seat and then they walked away from personally knowing Him. The Mercy Seat is a place of meeting, not just dropping off your sins like a dry cleaner! The thing that is heartbreaking is, He is so easy to know. He told us what He likes and doesn’t like. 

 
Where His chosen people missed what He was saying, was that they legislated something that was meant to flow out of willing obedience, compassion and a desire to honour Him. He wanted the Jewish people to love His Ways —not just salute the flag and run back into their old habits. Only to front up at Yom Kippur and pay the set price for their disobedience, lack of loyalty etc… once a year!  He is saying that lovingly, and willingly honouring His ways is the way we love Him. “But He’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.” Micah 6:8.  

You might want to pause and think on that.  Almighty God isn’t just looking for a transitory relationship— a sometimes on, sometimes off again, depending on their mood — a girlfriend. He wants a pure and holy wife for His Son! Father God is a parent. He wants someone worthy of His Son Jesus, and all Jesus has done for us — to be His Son’s precious Bride. Someone who is willing to have the Lord cut away everything that has taken up residence in our hearts that can defile us. Sadly, sometimes those things also define us – yet we are proud of them. His people back then were circumcised to show to the world around them that they were His children, but their hearts remained unaltered. The question I want to ask today is this: has our heart, life and attitude been altered by following the Lord Jesus? Or do we settle for the outward appearance of being ‘church people’ without any inner conviction and subsequent changes to our lives.

 
Do you want to truly delight God? Then let Him circumcise your heart. Not just fill you up with more information, more rules, or sadly, even more failure. Instead, surrender your whole life to Him, like Jesus surrendered His whole life for you – willingly, joyfully, devotedly. Falling in love cannot ever be a set of rules, it is a process of choosing to get to know each other, enjoying the other person’s ways. The Lord Jesus is totally acquainted with each one of us, who we really are. He already knows every single thing there is to know about us — and yet He picked us anyway! Amazing. Next time you sing: “Amazing Love, how can it be?” Please remember that. Gratitude is our only response. 

When we meditate and act on His words, HE becomes our focus. This is a lovely side-effect of loving the Lord that will improve our view of His kingdom, this world, and other people. We will lose all of our judgment and gain compassion in this process. But at the same time we cannot circumcise ourselves. That’s why we have the New Testament, to explain to us that He has, in fact, already done that. Praise God that He knows exactly the right time and place to put His loving finger on something that is holding us captive to our old way of thinking. The Holy Spirit longs to help us as we cling to Him and get to know His Ways. Bye. 👋

P 3276 Jesus is our life now.

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We live “… in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left;  through glory and dishonour, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors;  known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” 1 Corinthians 6:6-10.

Paul carefully describes the way we are to live …from our core … out. I know the immediate response to reading something like this is to distance ourselves from it, by making excuses for our private, secret personhood, or past  circumstances. But our lack of obedience, cannot excuse us — nor does our inbuilt ineptitude for spiritual things. That’s because all transformation takes, is surrender. This is a quality decision you refuse to back out of. The thing is we can’t keep any sin like a pet, feeding it, sheltering it, and making room for it. 

We have given the Lord our lives, so we don’t belong to us now. We died! So we do not have to have those things imprisoning us anymore. We have gained His life and it has been designed to flourish in us. No matter what mess we have made of our lives – nothing is too difficult for Him. Meanwhile it is dangerous to project how we feel NOW, into the future …because feelings shift and change. God Himself and His Ways are the only certain things we can afford to embrace, because they are written down in His book!

We can try to live in both worlds but that pathway of self-control is an illusion. The truth is everybody is “fine” until something incredibly hard happens. We simply can’t hold onto the things Christ is offering us, and still have this world at the centre of our attention. We need empty hands! Grace is free but it was incredibly costly. Our love for the One Who paid such a price, demands a response — and our response needs to be total surrender. Partial surrender does not work. Trust me, I’ve tried it. You will make yourself a target with so much time-wasting guff, you can barely keep your head up above water.

Jesus has taken every single sin and burden off us, when He embraced those things upon Himself on the cross and took our punishment for them. We cannot atone for our own sin, now we live as grateful recipients of His Grace. Praise Him over and over again for the incredible Grace His death released that day. It was over abundantly more than we could ever hope or dream. Yet we cannot begin to attain anything like 1 Corinthians 6 without the Grace of God thundering through our lives, transforming the way we think, act, and speak. And we need to allow Him to do it.

Let’s choose to be all in, now and forever. That’s a quality decision that we will choose to honour for His sake. Not because Christ will reject us – He won’t – this side of judgment day. But because sin is slippery, uncontrollable stuff that seeps into our very thinking. It will come out of our mouths when life squeezes us tightly. It will slowly but surely lead us away from the very Person Who saved us.  The bible says in Galatians 2:20:“I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

The reality is, we simply must choose to become alive to Father God’s Ways. And then start by using our faith  and acting on those choices. It’s a done deal —Jesus took us all to the cross with Him. Now we choose to live — daily, minute by minute, honouring that decision by following His Ways with all of our substance. If He wants us to give, then we give. If He wants us to pray for others, then we pray for them. If He wants us to go live somewhere else, then we do that. If He wants us to speak, we speak. And if He wants us to be silent, then we are silent. His Grace is available to those who want Him to help them. We are ruled by what we embrace.

Our God promises to meet all our needs … so we don’t want to go about demanding our rights. We gave them away when we said ‘yes’ to Jesus! Now, we choose to submit to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Jesus Christ God’s Holy Son. And WE CAN TRUST HIM. We will never ever deserve what He did for us, even for a nano-second. Our grateful, obedient response means that we choose to follow His instructions in the Bible, because we have ingested the way He thinks, rather than the way this world does. 

He has becomes our reference point — not our own comfort. How can we do this? We choose to live with forever in mind, as we honour God Himself with our obedience. Jesus is our life now. We are still in this world, but we are no longer a product of what this world thinks and does. Now we follow the One Who produced life, life, and more life. Bye. 👋 

“So then, prepare your hearts and minds for action! Stay alert and fix your hope firmly on the marvellous grace that is coming to you. For when Jesus Christ is unveiled, a greater measure of grace will be released to you. As God’s obedient children, never again shape your lives by the desires that you followed when you didn’t know better. Instead, shape your lives to become like the Holy One who called you. For Scripture says: “You are to be holy, because I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:13-16 TPT.

P 3246 Watch the Holy Spirit at work.

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For years now, three of my precious granddaughters have taken it in turns to go with their Dad to work for one whole day, every year. It was kind of a “bring your kid to work’ day – supported by his boss. The result was they knew why their Dad was late sometimes, and they understood what traffic did, and what working hard all day really means! Observation is a great way to learn.

I wanted to talk about the Holy Spirit working in us, because I think we are missing the things that He does for us, unseen, every single day. He is so good at working in secret – you have to want to see Him! But our current circumstances can distract or overwhelm us and we shut down, and stop being spiritually aware. That response will rob us of something so valuable. Look for the good! … that’s my catch cry. Find the good and focus on that. He’s IN THAT! We will always see Him at work when we look for the good. 

Unfortunately we can give credit to man, or circumstances, instead of seeing His hands in everything good that happens to us. Let’s stop crediting good things to ‘luck’ (a pagan god) and start looking in our own lives, for the Holy Spirit’s loving touch. This is part of the way we train ourselves in holy things. Sadly, most of the time, any one of us can get through a whole day without even acknowledging His Presence, except for daily bible reading and prayer. He is our heavenly air – we need to take Him with us. It’s good for us to know what He does, and see and appreciate it, so we can participate in it.

The Holy Spirit never takes credit for Himself. He is the silent One—the One Who is most easily overlooked. Maybe that is because a/ we are selfish and self involved and b/ we don’t know what He looks like when He is doing stuff! He looks just like Jesus would if He were here. Can you imagine being among the people who saw the Lord Jesus heal the lepers, feed thousands, and teach – yet they walked away thinking, or even saying: “Well, yeah, I dunno. I liked what that Man said but I can’t live like that. I think I believe what the synagogue teacher does. My Dad did, so did his Dad and they are nice people…“ Logic kills seeing Him stone dead.

Look, I don’t really know how to say this ‘nicely’ so I am just going to spit it out. The devil gets more air-play than the Holy Spirit does! That ought not to be so!! It’s an abomination. The Holy Spirit is the most Creative, Loving Being we will ever know this side of heaven. He is not secondary to our Heavenly Father or the Lord Jesus – He is part of the Trinity. Jesus sent Him back to us to help us, and told us that it was BEST for us that He went away. He’s God-with-us today and every single day we are here. Listening to Him is our new normal!

The problem seems to be that the enemy has snuck into our camp and made praying in tongues, or this or that spiritual gift, more important than HE is!  Big mistake! Huge!! He is a Person, not an activity! (I told you I didn’t know how to say it!) Pray for eyes to continually see Him at work. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if it is Godly, and good, it’s HIM!… Always look for His fruit in any kind of situation… If what happens helps you believe God, or it lovingly challenges your existing belief system… It’s HIM! 

But if it indulges your sense of self-importance, and implies you don’t need to pray, or read the word or repent and repair things … guess what? IT’S NOT HIM! Easy peasy. And if the bible doesn’t say it … it’s not Him. The bible is His reference book, and we have His personally signed copy of that book when we decide to choose to do what it says. The Spirit of God wants to get our attention! This is how we fall in love with our Heavenly Father – we watch and see Him work! Just like my granddaughters watched their earthly Dad. He wants to spend our lifetime with us, opening up new horizons, and new ways to praise God – plus a whole new ME. Bonus buy = transformation from within.

Take a few minutes to reflect, not on the bad things, but on the good ones.  Ask for His help to focus on the things that will last. Otherwise distraction will take away whatever time we have and waste it. Our God first sent the Holy Spirit to each one of us, in the form of a Saviour – His Name is Jesus. Then Jesus Himself sent us the Holy Spirit to be with us, every moment of every day, in any situation, to be our helper, comforter, guide, counsellor, advocate … live and in Person! He can be at your house inspiring you, while He is at my house comforting me. What’s not to love about that? Teach yourself to look at even bad things and find something good in them.

Here are some verses for all of us to chew on: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.”  Romans 15:13. He’s the HOPE bringer. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is IN you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own;…” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. We are His house! Take the time to put out the welcome mat! “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”Acts. 1:8. Most of us have no power because we are not co-operating with Him. “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” John 4:26. 

We have an on-the-spot, resident Teacher. Let’s open our spiritual eyes and watch for Him quietly working in our lives – working all things together for our good. If it’s good – it’s Him! Bye. 🕊️

P 3235 We give away what we have.

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Now there’s a daunting thought!! Peter and John were off to a prayer meeting when a lame beggar asked for money. “When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” … … “Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”  Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. He jumped to his feet and began to walk…” This story is in Acts 3:3,4,6-8a.

The thought that Peter knew what he had, blows my mind. ‘Lord, please help all of us to know what You have given us in these jars of clay!’ Amen. This kind of confidence in God’s investment in His children can motivate anyone into action. One of our major difficulties in the church at this moment, is we don’t know who we are. People who know who they are, have confidence, they do great exploits. 

Secondly, Peter knew what was really important for this man. It was healing, not money. I mean wow! I counted the gifts Peter used;  two words of knowledge, plus discernment, and healing. Plus let’s remember, that he and John were actually going somewhere else! Think about that. What would be your response if you saw a lame man begging at the side of the road, as you were going off to church? Yeah, I know, bring that up! Sadly I think we’ve turned into a people who gather info and form committees, rather than responding to need. Could it be because we doubt what He told us He has given us?

It was amazing in Acts. Nobody knew what was going to come next and God came to every meeting. He was their treasure. How He must have loved it!  But people also dropped dead when they lied to God. Someone else died because he spoke the truth and was stoned to death for it. One man, whose name we all know, was going about his business, finding Christians to kill, and God knocked him down, and blinded him. Then, the Lord very kindly revealed to him how truly blind he was. “Please Lord do that for us too!” Amen.

Have you ever asked yourself – what on earth has happened to us? Good. It’s good to ask questions. Even better to start with yourself, like —why aren’t I doing this? Then, we need to move past ‘me,’ to all of us, the church as a whole. But please remember, we can hide ourselves away from our own personal responsibility if we start out by blaming the church, or the pastor etc. In that state, we may never find the answer! But if I start with me, I’m pretty sure I will get plenty to go on with. I have so far!

We can always give away His kindness, mercy, joy, peace, faithfulness and goodness. Because He gives that to us every single day, “Resist revenge, and make sure that no one pays back evil in place of evil but always pursue doing what is beautiful to one another and to all the unbelievers.” 1 Thessalonians 5:15 TPT. 

Did you get that? Paul said PURSUE it.  It won’t fall on us … we will have to run after it. I want to do my best not to waste my time even thinking about revenge. Otherwise I will have no time or energy left to pursue giving other people beautiful things. The beautiful things we do should far outweigh any revenge etc. that we have or an attitude that someone has toward us. Meanwhile, sadly, we are way too smart in the church to call anything revenge—we call it “hurt feelings” instead. That sounds much better doesn’t it?

Except for one little thing the Lord Himself said ..“Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” Matthew 16:24-26. It is necessary to look at what is really at stake, if we decide to  give in to our hurt feelings — or vengeful attitudes. 

People who deliberately do mean-spirited things to us are the splinters in our new life in Him. Some of those splinters really are BIG ones. And we get stabbed purely because we have chosen to deny ourselves and follow Him. Some situations are little splinters that you can feel, but you can’t seem to get rid of  … and every now and then they poke you hard and hurt you again.  And some slivers remain invisible for virtually years, only to stab you in the heart at the least expected moment. One way or another we all pick up, and get stabbed by splinters.

The major difficulty we have is that we don’t yet fully understand Who lives inside us. The Person Who lives IN us is greater than any old splinter. Peter and John definitely KNEW what they had. They had been filled with the Holy Spirit and He brought a whole new way to think with Him. They didn’t form a prayer group, or phone around to find out what everyone else thought. They were both there on the spot, so Peter gave what he knew he had. That’s our issue right there…

We cannot give away what we do not think we have. It’s definitely time we did something about that. Bye. 👋

P 3215 Eternity starts now.

/ DVH

“Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.” Romans 12:2 TPT.

What we think about affects how we handle our days, and so this transformation process is a progressive thing. The more we act on what we believe, the more our thoughts become tied into what the bible says. Eventually this process produces an automatic response in us, and in the end, transformation is seamless, and we don’t even notice it is happening – now we are too busy falling even more in love with Jesus. 

I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but the biggest problem many people have is that when they read what the bible says, they agree with it, maybe even smile because it is so accurate …but THEN –– they don’t take the time to find out how to apply what they’ve read, into their everyday life. Application is the key that opens the door so we can participate in His kingdom. Let me put it this way, the language of the Lord’s kingdom is faith – we don’t need faith to do what we can already do! We need it so we can participate in the impossible!! And change can seem impossible.

OK, let’s look at some verses. The bible says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit …” Matthew 5:3. In order to ask for help you need to know that you need help! We must recognise that knowing we are poor in spirit is not a bad thing! Doing nothing about it, however, is not good. God says we are blessed when we live aware of this reality. Poverty of spirit looks like this: you can see what is required is beyond your own ability to change yourself. We need His help – this is a good time to remember that we already have it! Just don’t wait to feel like you have it. Step out in faith.

Now, I want to look at another scripture and it’s about holiness. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8. This means we make a quality decision to choose to become aware of where we have not lived in purity of heart, and talk to the Lord about it. Then we repent and repair things. At the same time, we need to be real and aware of the kind of pressures we live under in today’s society — ghastly thoughts tormenting us don’t make us a bad Christian, it’s what we DO about the torment that matters. 

Part of transformation is the realisation that just because something exists in my life now, that does not mean God is not dealing with it. It also does not mean He likes it or wants it!  Timing is a key factor in God’s Ways. Let’s remember that Jesus never let what was going on around Him sway Him from His God-appointed ministry. I picked purity today to look at, because in today’s atmosphere it is impossible to remain pure without His help! 

Jesus’ devotion to what His Father wanted was His priority – so we also need to continue to assess our priorities. Because we follow Him, purity needs to be our priority too. Jesus answered His enemy’s remarks with God’s Word, because He already knew what the bible said. The Lord has the right word to give us when we are attacked too. However, we can quote scripture up one side of the hill and down the other. Remember, we will always need His help! We need a specific word from Him, for us, at that moment … ‘an apple of gold in a setting of silver. ‘

When our aim is to hear from God about whatever He wants from us, sometimes we will have to wait. He is not at our beck and call, we are here for Him. Our Father knows what stretching does for our faith. He will never postpone His answer to hurt us, but He does want to see growth in our character and hearts. Often all we want is a short cut that shows us the way through these learning processes quickly. Most of us are ‘allergic” to difficulties – not hardened to them. (See Isaiah 42:10) 

Let’s look at another scripture that I think ties in well with the one above: Psalm 24:24:4-5: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”  So what do we ACT on? We need to watch what we say, and be careful to be truthful. 

Here’s another one: “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”  Philippians 1:9. Loving others has to be a tangible, seeable, thing – not just a theory. And our knowledge of what is excellent also requires our participation but the bible has lots of suggestions! So we need to step away from things that will contaminate a pure life. 

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8. Discipline in our thinking helps, and that part is up to us. Our Wonderful Father does not just say, ‘don’t do this,’ —instead He says: “DO, DO THIS.” 

He is always preparing us, helping us to live in His Presence. He is not just interested in us living with Him in eternity, down the road when we are dead. ETERNITY STARTS NOW.  We will all be pure of heart in heaven because we will be changed to be like Him. It’s what we do TODAY that’s important.. Bye.👋

P 3188 His will His way.

/ DVH

Let’s imagine, or even try to stretch our imaginations a bit, and think about being fourteen or fifteen years old, unmarried and pregnant. You just happen to live in a society that at the very least, would shun you … but at its worst …it just might want to stone you to death! You know you are pure and innocent, but other people won’t see it that way. And you have to tell your fiancee that God Himself made you pregnant!  That would have been some conversation with him and her parents!

Now that Christmas is coming toward us at warp speed, I thought today was a good day to think about these two young people and what they had to face to carry out Almighty God’s calling over their lives. While we whinge and whine when the Lord asks us to mow our neighbours lawn! Or maybe He has asked us to be nice to our in-laws? We make lists about these presents and that food, but there are some among us that can’t wait for all the hoo-haa to be over! 

It seems to me that back then in Bethlehem it was a different, far-less-indulgent time. People often faced the consequences of their actions on the spot! God Himself chose this inexperienced young couple, for an honour the likes of which this world has never seen before — or since! Praise Him they both had integrity, character and a shared devotion to His will. They chose to obey HIM despite the hardship it involved. Imagine managing a faith test like Mary and Joseph had to face …in a very religious society to boot. 

The Roman occupying forces demanded that everyone, including Mary, who was pregnant out to here (!) ← → had to return to their place of their ancestor’s origins. Meanwhile, our census turns up in the post and people moan about that! Joseph himself was from David’s genealogy, so this young couple had to go all the way to Jerusalem. Which, BTW, was hardly a leisurely stroll to the local shops!  All this happened so the citizens could be counted and to make sure that the appropriate taxes would be paid to the Roman Government. And we think our lives are hard!! 

That donkey we see in all the so-called Christmas pictures, was probably something tradition made up, just to make a pretty picture out of a long and difficult journey. Mary and Joseph weren’t rich people, and while this young couple may have travelled within a caravan of people, simply because there was a possibility of bandits along the way — in that 129-145 kilometre week-long journey, it is more likely that they walked.… All that happened just so they could pay more tax to an occupying army! 

Let’s think about Mary for a moment… the last month of a pregnancy is not the greatest time to go on a bush walking tour! It must have been incredibly taxing for her, as well as disappointing to be in labour, and have no safe shelter at the other end. Plus she had no family on hand to help either of them with the process. I’m writing about this today because we have a tendency to mentally glamourise our picture of the birth of Jesus, without taking into account the reality of the situation. 

When we do that, we can minimise the pure faith of this young couple who were simply being law-abiding citizens doing what was asked of them!  But their obedience meant that they were walking straight into unknown hardship. And at the same time — they were also walking straight into God’s will for them. Funny how that happens sometimes, isn’t it?

When I think of giving birth the way Mary gave birth I shudder. I gave birth to three kids in a hospital. In one of them we couldn’t find a nurse. In another, women were giving birth in the corridor! But I had medical attention close to hand. All Mary had was Joseph. This young man was a carpenter – what did he know about giving birth? Mary was all alone, in pain, and her husband knew bupkis. There she is giving birth to God’s precious Son, her own Saviour – in a cave or animal shed. All because prophetically, they are clearly demonstrating that this world did not even want a Saviour. God’s will can put us into difficult situations through no fault of our own.

So much happened to them in the process of bringing Jesus into this world. I think their response is so beautiful – unrelenting devotion. After all that, this life was not finished with throwing hardships at them. They finally got settled as a family, only to have to escape from a jealous despot who wanted to kill all the Jewish baby boys so he could be the only king on the premises. So, off the little family goes again. This time they are running from persecution and the fear of death — simply trying to find somewhere safe to raise their little son. No wonder Joseph baulked at returning to their hometown, when it was finally safe again – their lives had been in chaos for months.

Jesus Christ was born under all these difficult conditions simply to fulfil prophecy. His life, birth and death identified Him with everyone. Including the poor, weak, homeless, unwanted, rejected, persecuted, marginalised people of this world – not in theory, but in practice. Jesus and His parents had to live minute by minute with stress and strain and hardship.. Nobody asked either Mary or Joseph if they thought they could handle all the persecution and fear that lay ahead, it simply happened to them. 

Let’s pray that we can grab hold of all the courage and clarity that has been made available to us because of what Jesus did. I wanted to talk about the things this couple faced, simply because we too can face awful, difficult situations regularly and we feel oppressed by them.Things can seem insurmountable. We can easily baulk at all those things we face, and wonder why God would let such hard and bad things happen to us. He didn’t spare His precious Son!  

In the bright joyous light of Christmas, we also need to deliberately remember the things which can turn us away from our devotion to Him. We won’t always understand why some things happen, any more than that young couple did. But we need to choose to look for the good in the middle of trouble and strife. Right now, we are training our spiritual senses to be aware of the very real spiritual war going on all around us.Let’s remind ourselves that some people are hoping for a decent meal in their Santa sack, plus somewhere safe to sleep – instead of being rudely awakened by vicious godless men with machetes.

What does it matter if our little Franco or Zelda does not get some you-beaut fancy electronic gizmo for Christmas? That temporary pleasure is something that will be probably pronounced boring and discarded in a week! The most precious gift ever, has already arrived, and He completed His heaven-sent assignment to the letter. Jesus Himself, is our proof that our God is out-of-this-world generous in His gift-giving. And instead of complaints, moaning and groaning, rebellion and disobedience — let’s also remember that two very ordinary people were brave enough to follow His will, His way. Bye. 👋

P 3181 A new kind of knowledge.

/ DVH

“In this new creation life, your nationality makes no difference, nor your ethnicity, education, nor economic status—they matter nothing. For it is Christ that means everything as He lives in every one of us!” Colossians 3:11 TPT. Light years ago now, when I was doing my shopping in the supermarket, carefully picking out apples for my family. I looked up and there was a young woman about my age on the other side of the pile of apples doing the same thing. We smiled and then we both spoke at exactly the same time – “You’re a Christian too,” we said simultaneously. 

It was truly awesome and …pretty weird … all-at-the-same-time! We chatted about Jesus, and eventually she went off back into her world, and I went off into mine. Jesus in me, recognised Jesus in her. That’s because He is the same, yesterday, today and forever! The bible tells us other people will know we are Christians by our love— but in this instance, it seems to me the Lord went a little step further. I saw, for a brief moment, that there are no strangers in the realm of the Spirit.

The bible itself exhorts us to know one another after the Spirit:“So from now on we regard no one from a human point of view [according to worldly standards and values]. Though we have known Christ from a human point of view, now we no longer know Him in this way.”  2 Corinthians 5:16. Which brings me to my point today …

I have a question. Do we only know Jesus as the Man, the One Who walked upon the earth like we do now? Or do we also know Him as the risen resurrected Christ? Is He now the mighty One Who appeared to John in the book of Revelation? People make a great deal out of creating movies that bring an image of Jesus into this world. They retell His story with a human being playing Christ. Praise God for those who have come to know the Lord because of those films! But why must we reduce everything to movie land? What’s wrong with talking to people?

When is the last time somebody was healed because your shadow fell on them? Me neither! We sing ‘He is Lord’ and then go out of the meeting and do precisely whatever we want to do. Where did ”Live for Jesus” go? Are we excusing ourselves over and over again by saying, God understands? Does He? Or is that comforting voice that reassures us that we’ll be OK, not Him? Paul describes our society to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:2-5: It’s a warning!

“People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.” Having nothing to do with people like that, could be a bit hard to carry out when the person you are looking at is in the mirror! Maybe that soothing voice is not the Holy Spirit after all, but someone else lulling us all back to sleep. 

During Jesus time on this earth, there were mixed reactions to the Man He was. Some of the people back then walked away from Him, and some actively opposed everything He said. These people were in the Presence of God Himself, and didn’t know it. Why not? I think their idea of religion blocked their spiritual sight. They saw Jesus as SomeOne Who was like everyone else but He had nice impossible ideals. Have we made religious decisions about the Lord, instead of being guided by the precious Holy Spirit?

Disobeying SomeOne we see as a man like us, probably won’t matter much, but disobeying our Almighty Ever-lasting Father, God will! Perception is a valuable thing.  We can let this world down when we do not make it clear that we will all one day stand before God Himself. Instead, it seems to me that we are hiding in holes, hoping this nasty, vicious, slimy world around us will wake up to itself. It won’t – not like that it won’t! What works in places like Africa with poor underprivileged people, may not work at all here in we have-pretty-much-everything-we-want-land.

Jesus is not merely a carpenter with dirty dusty feet, and good stories to tell. We dare not lose sight of the One we know as our Lord, because otherwise holy things can become common. Back in Israel in Jesus’ time some people immediately fell at His feet in worship. Those people saw more than just a man! We need to move on past our personal view of Jesus as a human being, and also see Him as God incarnate. Heaven and earth’s Darling, Who calls us brothers and sisters. What an honour!

What truly matters is Christ in us… and then our mandate is to release His love to anybody we meet, wherever we go. We can’t just live in our happy little Sunday clubs anymore – we need to take Him with us, out into the places of suffering and sorrow. And yes, we just might get our nice new blue skirt, or jeans dirty. A new kind of knowledge requires a new kind of response. Bye. 👋

“And so the Living Expression became a man and lived among us! We gazed upon His glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father overflowing with tender mercy and truth!” John 1:14 TPT.