Rest

P 2656 Let’s remember we are to be married.🕊

/ DVH

Romans 7:4-6 MSG: “So, my friends, this is something like what has taken place with you. When Christ died He took that entire rule-dominated way of life down with Him and left it in the tomb, leaving you free to “marry” a resurrection life and bear “offspring” of faith for God. For as long as we lived that old way of life, doing whatever we felt we could get away with, sin was calling most of the shots as the old law code hemmed us in. And this made us all the more rebellious. In the end, all we had to show for it was miscarriages and stillbirths. But now that we’re no longer shackled to that domineering mate of sin, and out from under all those oppressive regulations and fine print, we’re free to live a new life in the freedom of God.”

Oh man, some days I can’t wait to get to heaven to listen to the Apostle Paul preaching  – that’s if I ever get over following Jesus around! What a conundrum … Picture this: Jesus is talking about how He and the Holy Spirit made the moon and stars, as He heard the Father speaking them into being. At the same time, Paul is talking about the beauty of Christ Jesus;  and James is reminding us of what we’ve been given … OR …OR!!! … every now and then we fall on our faces from the sheer wonder of where we are! And… AND!!! Here’s the biggest plus of all! We can run into the throne room and fall on our faces and worship at the throne. Choices, choices!  Maybe in heaven we can do all those things at once?! Sorry I got so distracted … moving on …

Romans 8:1-4 MSG: “With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when He sent His own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In His Son, Jesus, He personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all.”

Feel free to stand on a chair and cheer! 🥳 What a brilliant explanation! First of all I want to say, there is no worship and devotion toward the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit like the worship we choose to give All of Them down here. Why? Because down here worship is a choice, a sacrifice – in heaven, worship is joyously spontaneous. We give the Trinity the best gift when we choose to worship Them, because They are so worthy. Despite our busy lives, or whether we feel like it or not!

Just imagine the throne room for a second … there are these incredible angels — flying around the throne crying out; “Holy holy holy” over and over and over and over again – they never stop. I asked the Holy Spirit once why they do that and He told me this: ‘Because at every single turn they see something new, something glorious to enjoy, some aspect of the Father’s Love and Grace they have never seen before.” 🤯 Well, that’s my mind blown… how about you? Down here, we are always running after whatever is new – in heaven we simply have to gaze at our Heavenly Father and the view will be breath-taking and endless.

I shall vacate this heavenly rabbit trail and get back to my point … which is … look at what our beloved Bridegroom has done for us!  Take a minute to wander back to Romans 8:1-4 and read those verses again. Just when you think things can’t get any bigger or even more wonderful, we are reminded that our precious bridegroom, Jesus Christ, volunteered … because He loves us that much. Well, there’s me in a soggy heap in the corner. 😭

Christians can live like everyone else, staring at the ground, thinking that the next episode of our fav show is the only moment of joy in a week of drudgery and effort — OR — we can reread Romans and rediscover what we have been GIVEN. Those verses mean that we have the power to throw off depression and the cares of this world, because of our Bridegroom’s gifts. Those freely-given gifts mean we can be at rest, care-free, living in pure peace, despite our circumstances and difficulties.

JESUS HAS GOT US AND HE WILL NEVER EVER LEAVE US OR FORSAKE US. How we feel is just a blip on time’s radar. We don’t have to live under this world’s clouds of pessimism, constant drama and angst. Instead we can choose to embrace what we’ve been given. Each and every time I take hold of those hard-won gifts that He died to give me, I fall in love with Him over and over again.

Real Love is like that. It is a journey of discovery, familiarity …  as well as delight, where we visit and re-visit the Lord’s loving kindness, mercy and grace, and realise how much He loves us.  It’s time to remember we are engaged to be married to the most incredible Bridegroom … Who loved us before we even knew Him! Our faith is not based on pretty thoughts or theories, now we live in the daily reality of being totally forgiven, loved and cherished … And if we aren’t living there, then it is time we did!  Bye. 🙌

P 2650 Rest belongs to us.

/ DVH

Nobody can chuck us out of the place He freely gave us. It’s ours. SomeBody died to pay for it in full, and He gave it to us, LEGALLY. The only way we can lose the benefits of His kingdom is if we undervalue what we’ve been given. Every single day we can rest in our new position, IN CHRIST, safe and assured that we belong to Him and He will have our back. The only thing that can pinch that safety and security from us is what we choose to believe. Resting in what He has done, in a nutshell, means we believe in His goodness no matter what is going on around us. Good or bad, our trust is in Him.

When we carefully read the scriptures we can plainly see that from their beginnings, the Israelite nation did not value what they were given. He gave them Himself –  and they needed to acknowledge Him with their trust and obedience. Sadly the Israelite nation refused to enter into the Lord’s REST. They fussed and fretted, and grizzled, moaned and complained. Obeyed one day only to disobey for the next few hundreds of days! We must learn from them that there can be no rest for anyone, if we continue to cultivate two minds. “A double minded man can’t receive anything from the Lord.” Abraham himself demonstrated what God can do with a man who believes Him and rests in what He says.

Father God proved He was Who He said He was by what He did for that nation … over and over again. We also need to remember, even though their disobedience led to punishment, the Lord has never, and will never ever let go of them, despite THEIR FAITHLESSNESS — He will always remain faithful to His promise. Their history with Him should encourage us as we bumble along, even when we miss the mark! Our God is not only reliable, He is also faithful, and honourable. He keeps His promises. 

“Now the promise of entering into God’s rest is still for us today. So we must be extremely careful to ensure that we all embrace the fullness of that promise and not fail to experience it. For we have heard the good news of deliverance just as they did, yet they didn’t join their faith with the Word. Instead, what they heard didn’t affect them deeply, for they doubted. For those of us who believe, faith activates the promise and we experience the realm of confident rest! For He has said, “I was grieved with them and made a solemn oath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’ ” God’s works have all been completed from the foundation of the world,” Hebrews 4:1-3, 6-7. TPT  “Those who first heard the good news of deliverance failed to enter into that realm of faith’s rest because of their unbelieving hearts. Yet the fact remains that we still have the opportunity to enter into the faith-rest life and experience the fulfilment of the promise! For God still has ordained a day for us to enter into called “Today.” For it was long afterwards that God repeated it in David’s words, “If only today you would listen to His voice and do not harden your hearts!””

It is extremely important that we choose to learn from their mistakes, and understand that what we’ve been given spiritually belongs to us, but we are still answerable for what we do with it! Nobody, no circumstances – whether uncomfortable, difficult or easy – can take, or trick us out of believing what God has said and done FOR US is true. That’s what faith is.  We don’t believe in the results, or what we can see. WE BELIEVE IN HIM! His goodness, His unchanging faithful character. Our God does not lie. Rest has been given to us. Now instead of fretting we know SomeBody else has our back.

When we believe what He said and did, and respond with obedience, we enter into a place that has already been reserved for us… REST. It takes faith steps to enter into rest. However, we don’t have to worry about how things will turn out, because we have a whole book that explains our relationship with Him. This means we know that ‘He will work ALL things together for our good, because we love Him and we are called according to His purpose.’  That BTW includes not having enough money, nowhere to live, a grumpy spouse or some other person we know. Difficulties aren’t our problem – believing what He says is! We have been blessed to be able to come from a place of rest. Striving to get stuff right is exhausting, as well as fruitless.

We cannot follow Jesus unless we are totally certain that His Way is the only Way. We also cannot follow Him unless we are utterly convinced that He truly is God! That means we seek to know what He wants in and from our lives, then we do whatever He tells us to do. My advice to anyone reading this blog today, is learn to live in REST. It is our God-given right. Bye. 🙌

P 2577 Grief and death.

/ DVH

Yeah, I know, everyone’s least favourite subject. The only Person who is well-qualified to talk about life after death is the Lord … as well as people like Jairus’ daughter, and Lazarus! And the very worst point about dying and death, is we won’t know what it is like until we get there. Fortunately this concept is all over the bible and we can study it, so the Holy Spirit can help us.

The bible is not silent about death. It simply says: “we must not grieve like someone with no hope.” (1 Thessalonians 4:13) But our lack of experience with God’s goodness can often carry us into head knowledge, not grief and sorrow resolution. If that is you, then please don’t be condemned. Tell the Lord you need His help. Some kinds of grief are like liquid mud – if we fall in it is hard to get out! Everybody dies, however it seems most human beings don’t cope with the finality of death. Sometimes, someone dies and our unresolved grief gets muddled up with other terrible losses. Daily keeping short accounts with others makes a great deal of sense because it is inevitable that those left behind will need closure.

The hard part of losing someone important to you, isn’t simply just because of their absence – it is that the possibility of change dies with them. Your relationship with that other person suddenly becomes stuck in time.  And now we must somehow go on to build a new life without them, and move on from the pain, regrets, failures and losses of the past. This is why we need to repent as we go along, wherever necessary. And, at the same time, we also need remember to give our pain back to the Lord. Jesus bore it on the cross and He carried it. (More on that later.) Eventually, all of us do our best to move on. Yet every time we remember, sadness rushes in.

I think grief is a vastly misunderstood normal response and emotion. It manifests itself differently through different people. Some people get mad, some people are sad – some people get mad and sad, and some just walk on, furiously suppressing how they feel. I like what a psalmist said:“Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”Psalm 30:5. This tells me something about grief. It can seem like it will drag on forever, but it is meant to be a progressive moving thing – not a parking station we can’t get out of. 

Also grief is not just about shedding a tear, it is about a dark place our hearts sometimes go into, when any hope for any kind of further future has gone. Now this world seems to be a place where true reconciliation is suddenly out of our reach. We start to regret things that we’ve said;  what we didn’t say – and the things we should have said. Like I said, repentance helps. In those days we need to remember Jesus is our hope, He is our anchor. Park your little boat (life) and throw out the anchor – He will hold you through the storm.  Meanwhile, I’m all for appreciating people while they are still breathing! 

Our society is quite intolerant of the effects of grief upon individuals. We do not seem to have the freedom to allow a mourner to pass through this kind of tough season. The BIBLE says in Ecclesiastes 3:1ff- (bits of it): “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; … …A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; …  …A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;” I love this scripture. It explains there is definitely a time for all kinds of things to happen to us in this life — BUT IT DOESN’T SAY, HOW LONG that time should be. 🤔

Now let’s look at what Jesus Christ has already done for us in this area. Remember, the bible says these things are a living established fact! “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.”  Isaiah 53:4. Jesus Himself said:‘Come unto Me all you who are labouring and are heavy laden.’ In exchange for griefs and sorrows, we can have HIS REST. That doesn’t mean we leave grief and sorrow behind us, it means He carries it FOR us.  It is an exchange. We will all suffer from some sort of grief, but it does not have to weigh us down, because Jesus has already carried it for us. I’m a literalist when it comes to the bible, I use it like a prescription. I believe that we can pray and exchange our grief and our sorrow for His REST.

Personally, I think as long as the bereaved person is moving forward in their grief, we should butt out and simply support them in ways that are meaningful to them. Grief suppressed can be dangerous – so let’s biblically learn to deal with the reality, and the pain, instead of using avoidance. Somebody – I can’t remember who said it – once said: “Grief is love with no place to go.” I think that sums this situation up beautifully. Remember our griefs can be given to the Saviour, Who knows all about it and took it with Him to the cross.   🥲👋

P 2572 Life is hard, we need His Oasis.

/ DVH

““Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to Me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis. Simply join your life with Mine. Learn My ways and you’ll discover that I’m gentle, humble, easy to please. You will find refreshment and rest in Me. For all that I require of you will be pleasant and easy to bear.”” Matthew 11:28-30 TPT. 

We can easily lose sight of Jesus, our oasis, when we try to figure out, or fix things by ourselves. That’s why Jesus said … “Come to ME!” The first place we need to go is to Him. I have personally prayed so many many times, “Lord please hold me up.” The stuff that is going on in my life doesn’t always disappear, sometimes it even gets worse. Man … I hate worse the same as anyone else! At this stage of my walk with the Lord, I have yet to say to myself: “Hooray, everything has gone upside down, here’s another great opportunity for me to learn stuff, and watch Jesus at work!” However, now I am being held up by SomeOne greater than me.

What I say is more like … “Oh NO! Not again!!” But I have also learnt from experience that my very next best move is to scurry alongside Jesus and start reminding Him of His promises! And the first promise I remember is “I”m sinking fast Lord. Help help!” I’ve learnt to do that from reading the Psalms. Those psalmists knew how to praise God, as well as worship … and they definitely knew where their help came from! Read them again and count how many times they cried out for help. These were grown men!

An independent spirit is the antithesis of what learning to follow Jesus is all about. Our task is to learn how to lean – on Him, and on each other. What we are doing is learning to lean into Him. This life is bigger than we are. It’s harder, meaner, and contrary. We need a hiding place. He’s the HIDING PLACE. I run! Most of the time like an elderly bunny rabbit – I’m slower these days OK? – yelling all the way … “I need you Lord!” There is something about acknowledging that we cannot do this life alone, that touches the heart of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

The bible says: “It is NOT GOOD for Man to be alone!” That verse isn’t just talking about finding a spouse. It means human beings don’t do well without SomeBody else wiser and greater than we are, looking after us. Sheltering us. Caring about our pain, suffering, and our deep deep sorrows. My advice is to talk to the One Who suffered so much alone, Jesus knows how not good it is to be alone.

Just like spouses are designed to walk together, we have been remade to walk with Almighty God, like Jesus did. This means we are never alone!  And the Holy Spirit will help us to do it. When I am in pain or troubled, I don’t always feel anything but I kick start my faith by praying anyway. Our God knows how we feel deep down in our hearts. Holding that stuff inside us will not help us live through it, or even cope. It is part of learning HIS WAY to share with Him. Jesus did not hide anything from God and neither should we. Remember, we don’t have to BE the Answer – HE IS!

We can sometimes get stuck seeing something or other as a bad thing, because there is an un-renewed place in our minds. That mindset will prevent us from seeing His blessings. Yesterday the Lord spoke to me about something I’ve been praying over for ages, and He said this: “You are looking at this event as a bad thing, what if I intend it to be the answer to this other prayer?” 

You could have knocked me down with a feather, literally. My mind was fixated prayerfully on the thing I thought was insurmountable – but that thought from Him blew everything bad away in milli-seconds. My thought then was – “He is doing something else!” We desperately need to know His ways – especially in this time of great deceit, with all those smoke and mirrors swirling around us. Nothing is the way it seems … not even the weather forecast! 😂 We need a fixed place in our hearts that will not move. Jesus is our fixed oasis, at any given time, and the Holy Spirit will always lead us to Him. 

This means that now I have a place of REST because I have HIS POV. I tell myself: “The Lord has got this, I will not give it another thought.” And then I take the thoughts of worry, stress, and angst captive, when they blast at me from all sides, and give them to Him as they come. I quote whatever He says to me, at that time, at those thoughts. Now I can rest, knowing He’s got me.

This is the way we find out He is gentle, humble, and easy to please  – by following His instructions. Step by step. We get to know Him from His responses. And then we hold fast. God is bigger than our understanding and we must stop trying to organise Him into doing things our way, and learn how to do things His way. Stepping into His oasis is His way!  👋

P 2568 The day between.

/ DVH

At 4.30am this morning the Lord woke me up with these words. THE TOMB. And then He said this: There is a space between the cross and the resurrection – it is called the tomb. That tomb is the place between something that has happened to you, that will test your faith … and the ANSWER. The tomb is a place of HEAVENLY SILENCE.” Saturday is the day of helplessness, hopelessness, and all seems lost!

There is no hope in that place. Hope has died. There is no faith there either. Inside the tomb, there is nothing alive at all. Decay happens in the tomb. To get out we must be resurrected!! It is the place where the pain of betrayal washes over us. Can it be the King of all Glory has betrayed our faith? At the same time, all seems lost for everybody on the outside too, while the person inside it is locked in – gone. Hopelessly grieved over. The worst bit is you are not actually dead – you just wish you were! Life is standing still for you – you are held hostage to something you cannot control.

Remember Mary and Martha? Lazarus was three days dead. They told Jesus when He finally came – ‘you can’t get him out of there, he will smell!’  Everybody knows that dead is dead. But not to Jesus – dead is not dead to Him. Dead is merely a possibility for God, His heavenly Father to be glorified. Dead is the place where we will learn to let everything go, and rest. Nothing else is important when we enter the tomb of waiting, and that huge stone closes the gap behind us. Arguments, money, pettiness, dreams, visions, prophecies, all disappear. The question becomes – is there going to be a resurrection? It is a place where new things will open to you – if you will stay dead until He comes to you.

Lastly, there is no light in the tomb. It is not like the pretty pictures streaming with light we see on Easter Sunday. It is deathly dark and quiet. Nobody can babysit you in there – they can’t reach you anymore! You pray and your prayers seem to disappear in front of your eyes. You’ve asked others to pray and … nothing happened. Easter SATURDAY is a reality in a real faith test. It is a place where the things we thought mattered, are gone. New homes, new cars, new jobs, vanish in the reality of the tomb – the place where there is no time, because time squashes the life out of you.

That tomb is the place of ultimate surrender! Job knew it. “Even though He slay me yet will I trust Him.” Lazarus even died waiting for Jesus to come! Paul learnt it as he walked with the Lord. There is no life without Christ. Everything else we grasp at is just an illusion. A child’s story told to calm and soothe us. The tomb is the ultimate NO! The place where prayers and passion seem wasted. Let me tell you this: FOR HIS LIFE TO COME, THERE HAS TO BE A REAL TOMB – A REAL DEATH. Not a ‘nearly dead’ but all dead. Like it was for Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

This is the place where we will learn to let go… even though we are secretly hoping He’s going to do something! And even if it seems like Jesus lied … we decide to trust Him with our last ounce of strength. It is a place where HE MATTERS MORE THAN THE ANSWER. That place is where whether prayers are answered or not, it no longer matters. What we think matters is just so much dust on the floor in comparison to losing Him.

It is a yielded, surrendered and still place. Jesus Himself found that place in the garden of Gethsemane after praying in agony three times. He found peace in the place of acceptance. “Then He *came to the disciples and *said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Behold, the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let’s go; behold, the one who is betraying Me is near!”Matthew 26:45-46. Please note, everyone else in His support team fell asleep – people will let you down when you are stuck in the tomb.

That tomb becomes the place where you no longer care if your answer is yes or no … all that matters is finding Him. And you die to self waiting for Him to come. That place between Friday and Sunday is temporary – whether the answer is yes or no – He will come. Even though the tomb is fastened tightly shut … …Jesus will always come for you.  No stone can hold you in! He died to prove it. 👋

P 2556 Take the time to be observant.

/ DVH

Reflecting on this life and it’s activities is almost an automatic past-time as you get older. You can even end up zoning out … and sometimes you might just plain fall asleep in the process! This seems to happen fairly regularly when there is more of your life behind you than there is in front! 😂 However… taking the time to be observant is an enormously overlooked life-skill. 

Humanity is always busy. This life is about hurry hurry, rush rush, everywhere — gotta be, gotta do, gotta make money, gotta buy stuff! Gotta help this guy … gotta yell at that one! If we sit down at all,  it’s because we simply have to veg-out and stop thinking, purely because we are exhausted – mentally, and physically. I believe we will build our own faith if we take the time to notice the beautiful things God does for us every single day, plus the incredibly lovely things He has put all around us.

Here’s a verse to chew on: “Wait and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing].” Amp. Isaiah 55:1-3. Maybe, if we have stopped being thirsty, it’s because we are trying to satisfy spiritual needs with physical activity and busyness etc? Trust me, that won’t work. If you feel like you are working yourself to the bone but you are going nowhere, this could easily be the reason. Perhaps you’ve lost the power to observe and reflect.

True rest, joy and peace only comes from Jesus. From knowing Him. From seeing this life from His POV. I believe that is why Christ said: “… consider the lilies” AND  “… consider the birds.”  Mankind can get so busy providing, buying, doing and planning, we can easily forget this life is not all there is! Walking with Jesus down here on earth is preparation for walking with Him up there in heaven. How do I know that? Because the bible says: “…on earth as it is in heaven.” There ain’t nobody rushing about in heaven! There is no need, time as we know it, doesn’t exist up there.

Being reflectively observant means we take some moments to actually pay a different kind of attention to the world around us. We aren’t racing along so task-focussed we have no thought for anything else.  My favourite thing to look at when I am just chilling, is birds. It seemed to me, when I prayed over this, that birds have another lesson to teach me. To start with Jesus told us to consider them – so that kind of makes it legal! 

Did you ever wonder why Jesus mentioned flowers and birds as good illustrations of the way we are to regard His kingdom? As I’ve said I watch birds a lot. It seems to me that the only time they are not busy is when they are sleeping! However,…birds never actually ASK where their food comes from. Aha!— thinks I… so perhaps this bible thought is about not busyness but what actually occupies or fills our minds. Like the stuff we think about as we go about our days? Maybe birds are simply occupied “…with the self-surrender that accepts the blessing.“ 

Have WE learnt the self-surrender that accepts the daily blessings that God sends us? We know He does bless us all the time because He is a far better Father than our earthly fathers ever could be! (Matthew 7:9-11.) But can it be that we are so busy rushing here and there and everywhere, that we don’t notice, or even pause and see what He is doing? I believe in the power of pausing. The bible calls that “selah” – it means pause and think on this.

So I’ve asked the Lord to help me to stop, and pay attention to whatever He is doing, plus what is going on around me. I am learning to take the time, moment by moment, to notice and thank Him for doing it. Our steps are ordered by Him. (Psalm 37: 23,24.) That means there is not one fraction of a second in your life and mine that is not considered, gazed upon, and lovingly reflected upon, by God Himself. Just that thought should blow anyone’s mind into reflection! Yet another great way to know our Heavenly Father is to see this life through His eyes, and He is never in a hurry.

It is amazing that there are things that we can miss from day to day, unless we are prompted by the Holy Spirit. However, He is not a TADA! kind of a Person. But He will bring these things to our attention if we ask Him to, so we can carefully observe and reflect on them. Bye. 😊👋

Proverbs 4:20-22“My son, give attention to my words; Incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; For they are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.”

P 2510 Striving to enter His rest.

/ DVH

I think about rest like this … I do whatever He tells me to do, and He will do the rest. Meanwhile, resting in God is not about doing nothing. Resting in Him means we are trusting Him to help us, and get us through whatever is happening to us, and around us. We need to remind ourselves constantly that He’s in charge, no matter how this life looks, and that will give us confidence.

At the same time, we will have to fight the devil to maintain our peace and our assurance that God is always good – in spite of the circumstances we can see around us. Every time I am tempted to pick up and worry over whatever it is that I am obsessing about, I remind myself that He is now in charge of my life. My life is no longer my own. SomeBody bought me! And for HIM, Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, you and I weren’t cheap! We were definitely not on sale, nor last year’s reduced price model!

This world is so obsessed with surviving … it is pushing us to strive to make sure that we become rich, beautiful, skinny, empty … corpses. We are supposed to work incredibly hard to market ourselves, YET, the King of all glory loves us simply because we are His. Why would anyone do that stuff to themselves? Yet we take untold questionable pills, exercise until we drop, and pinch, punch and pummel our bodies to somehow make them last forever. That’s just nuts! We already have forever, HE gave it to us. Why would you work for a gift? You accept a gift, that’s part of rest! This life is temporary.

Dying to self is the only way to live like Jesus did on this planet. It helps us see this life from His perspective, and it gives us, freedom. We simply give up our right to say what we will do, or where we will go, or who we will love, or where we will live … and then live the way He tells us to live … plus … love all the people He sends our way. Meanwhile, if you can’t do that …neither can I! That’s why we need to strive to enter His rest. We have to fight against sin, this world, our flesh and our enemy. Almighty God’s love is the reason we are all still here, because His Grace has kept us here. Rest is about Who we trust. Who we want to be in charge of our lives.

It has become much too easy to forget how to really live this life we have been given. Busyness and business take over! But we are here to be other-centred. We’ve been born again and now we’ve become a part of ushering in God’s kingdom, here and now, into this world. The self-centred things of this life lose their charm, because when you walk with Christ, you can’t wait to see what He is going to do next! The bible says:“Taste and see that the Lord is good”You and I are meant to be this world’s Godly taste test. 

It is extremely sad when fear is allowed to rule His people. The fear of failing Him, the fear of loss, the fear of not being good enough, even the fear of dying! But NOW, right here, right NOW, today — we are to live this life, the only one we have from another kingdom. Jesus Christ’s death took mankind OUT of the kingdom of darkness and INTO the kingdom of His marvellous light. And our lives are now the light switch for so many people!

Like Esther said in His book, once long ago: “If I die I die!” That’s what His rest really looks like. The bible doesn’t say how Esther felt about it. She just fell back into the arms of the ‘God Who saves!’  She knew how to rest – she left it up to God to see if she was going to survive – because other people’s lives were at stake. In Christ, we are a dangerous people. That’s why our enemy throws stuff at us all the time. That ‘stuff’ is batting practice. We pick up the bat of His Word, plus our faith in our Coach, and do things the way He says to do them. Just like Esther did. It takes effort to walk in faith, that’s what striving is. When I feel like I can’t do this anymore, I ask Him to help me with my effort! 

Our belief system is not just nice and comforting — IT IS POWERFUL. That power written about in His book does not just apply to an anointed few … it is here for all of us. Access to that power comes alive when we choose to love others, exercise forgiveness, exhibit generosity, and treasure to-geth-er-ness. There is NO LAW against those things because they are so far above the things of this world. We will not learn to raise the dead, if we do not learn how to raise our hopes! Rest is not just about knowing we are going to heaven when we die. It is about us fighting the good fight, bringing His kingdom down to earth, right here, right now in our own lives.

God’s kingdom has a higher aim. A greater calling. It desires to impart His reality not just a theory. Our God is real and we carry Him with us, every single place we go. The point is, we need to let Him out!  Striving to rest is about allowing Him to do what He wants with our lives. Instead of us choosing what we feel like, or want to do. We get out of His way and let Him do what He does best… love and save people through us. Bye 👋

P 2509 What if Jesus lived next door?

/ DVH

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish.” John 1:14 MSG

I started to think about this verse this morning and chew over it. Meanwhile, I also like the Passion Translation as well – I put a picture of that one at the bottom of the page. The way John 1:14 reads inspires me. However, in reality, Jesus didn’t actually just move into our neighbourhood – He came even closer … He moved into our physical house! Think about it.

“Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, Who lives in you and Who was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourselves but to God;…”1 Corinthians 6:19. Imagine what life would, or could look like, if we took this verse seriously? The thing is … this verse is actually our new reality. Just because we can’t feel His Presence that doesn’t mean the verse isn’t true – it just means whatever He does is easy to ignore because we can’t see Him. We have to be determined to pay attention to Him, because we want to be dedicated lovers of Jesus.  

Here’s another big thought … your physical home is now His house too! Yeah. This is true whether we are renting or we’ve paid off the mortgage. The reality is, we work and slave and make a life for ourselves by owning things but, we actually own nothing. We can all go ahead and make grand plans for our stuff — that’s called making a will — but most inheritors can’t wait to sell Mum or Dad’s house for the money. Which is, after all, only a piece of paper that mankind has given value to! 

For me those things all come under a heading of “things human beings do that make no sense at all” — spiritually speaking. God says that in His book, like this: “… It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don’t you know He enjoys giving rest to those He loves?”  Psalm 127:2b MSG. You know, I can almost hear some people saying, “Well, it may seem useless to Him but I will get the sack if I don’t put in the time.” I hear ya! But what it actually means is this – Who are you relying upon? That’s the real point! Now we belong to Jesus, whatever we do, we are now working for Him. He gave us His life and we give Him ours.

Our financial circumstances can change in a heartbeat or overnight – Covid showed us that. This Psalmist is saying it makes no sense to slave your heart out, and sit up night by night worrying over how you will pay the rent or the mortgage. He’s NOT talking about being careless with your responsibilities, or wandering off to bed saying: “Whatever!” … and hoping that will do. He is talking about relinquishment and entering into God’s kind of rest. 

Almighty God’s rest doesn’t take effort. First we pray, and then we just hand stuff over and ask Him to help us do these things under His guidance. Then we carry out whatever He told us to do. It’s in the book, as well as in our hearts. Human beings like to think we are powerful, but the reality is that this life can change in a heartbeat … or the lack of one!

It is important that whatever we have, does not own us. When we are worried about our stuff, then those things own our time, as well as our mental, and physical effort. Maybe someone reading this is renting. You should thank God, that you don’t have to make sure the roof doesn’t leak, and the walls stay upright. That’s the landlord’s responsibility. Owning stuff can push our spirituality aside unless we are really prayerful and careful. My advice is this — hold whatever you have in an open hand. People, house, car, job … remember, we bring nothing here and we take nothing away. God has another way for us to live. He wants us to live trusting Him, not in what we can do. HE has no limitations.

Let’s briefly look at the ordinary people who are on earth right now, who are in the middle of a war or a famine. Everything they thought they owned is gone. All their clothes, mementos, personal stuff is gone in a heartbeat. And they come out of that awful situation grateful if their families survive. There are NO insurance policies in war torn countries. They have to rely upon the goodwill of those in other countries for help with food, medicine, safety. Now these people have to begin this life again … and their sense of safety within their own space etc. is gone. There is nothing like losing everything to remind us we own nothing!

Sacrificial giving is our new way to live, it is part of being His kid. Giving out of excess is a rumour, it won’t happen while we live in a an excessive, greedy society. The sun comes up every day for free! Those of us who seem to be living in some sort of safety, need to live gratefully, and prayerfully, and share with others who do not! You know if Jesus lived next door to us, we would actively see Him helping others. We can easily see Him living that way – it’s in the book! Bye. 👋

P 2463 Faith verses doubt.

/ DVH

James 1:5-8 “If any of you lacks wisdom [to guide him through a decision or circumstance], he is to ask of [our benevolent] God, Who gives to everyone generously and without rebuke or blame, and it will be given to him.  But he must ask [for wisdom] in faith, without doubting [God’s willingness to help], for the one who doubts is like a billowing surge of the sea that is blown about and tossed by the wind.  For such a person ought not to think or expect that he will receive anything [at all] from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable and restless in all his ways [in everything he thinks, feels, or decides].”

How cool are these verses! Sadly, this is also the place where we can become unstuck. Under pressure we can start to doubt God’s goodness and that erodes our faith in Him. And by pressure, I mean that we’ve forgiven others and done everything we know how to do, and still our bad circumstances have not changed. Sometimes circumstances don’t change! Why not? I dunno! I would not even remotely dare to explain the way Almighty God thinks and acts. I have not got a clue. I just know that in those moments our faith level comes under pressure. Now we can learn something about ourselves.

We need to ask ourselves what is my faith actually IN? Is it in my circumstances — or in God Himself. At these times we have been plunged into the perfect place to revise what we actually think, and what that is based on. However, our thoughts dare not rest on His performance because we are not wise enough to understand all the things He does. We must rest in His proven, revealed character in the book! 

BTW resting is not begrudgingly parking, sulking, or dismissive. Resting is a positive God-appointed action that is deliberate —- it has a purpose. The purpose is to quiet our busy minds and hearts and simply be still before Him. Those other things are mere reactions – they need repentance. Like I said yesterday, our faith is to be founded in Christ alone because God did not spare His only Son to have us for His own family. This is how and why we know His purpose is always greater than ours, and that His goodness is irreproachable. He sacrificed Jesus. We dare not move away from that.

When we need wisdom from God: “we must believe that HE IS and that He is a REWARDER of those who diligently seek Him.”  (Hebrews) That’s what true faith is … it is not about US or even our ability to believe, it is about the truthfulness of the One we believe in. That is why Jesus said any one of us can have faith as small as a mustard seed and it will still grow a huge tree! Because our faith is in SomeOne’s Else’s incredibly reliable nature, and that faith can be teeny tiny and it will still grow and work.

Therefore we need to guard our hearts against letting in doubt. We dare not doubt His willingness to act in our behalf …because we have proof! Christ is our proof. Whether the answer is yes, or no, is irrelevant. God is for us. So NO is the right answer if that is what we get. Remember, doubt is the thought that God is not good and not trustworthy – that His thoughts and actions are not FOR us. When we pray we are looking at the nature of the Person not at the answer to our prayer.

That’s what happened to Adam and Eve in the garden. satan used their careless knowledge of God’s overwhelming goodness, against them, and caused them to doubt His truthfulness. Faith is never about our circumstances, or what we have or what we don’t have — faith is in a Person. Christ Himself. It is up to us to make the decision that we will not doubt this Person as He is described in the bible. “I know You and I trust You.”

So when we need wisdom, we go to the source of all wisdom, God Himself, in prayer, and ask for it. Then we wait. We rest in the knowledge that His bible says that we will gain strength while we wait! Win win! We rest in the fact that He will give us His wisdom because He says He will … in James1: 5-8!! It has nothing to do with us, or our thoughts or lack of them or even our behaviour. Our faith is always in God’s faithfulness, which is revealed in His book and His faithfulness is gloriously demonstrated in Christ. I am now following Christ’s example – I do things the way He would.

When I gave my life to Jesus, He took it. Jesus trusted God with His life, and if I want to grow to be like Him and follow Him, I need to learn to give my life to Him and trust in God’s faithfulness, too. Trust comes when I believe what He said over what I feel or think, or even what other people feel or think. This means I am now occupied with making His thoughts my thoughts. (Renewing my mind!) We become double-minded when we entertain the idea that trouble and circumstances are ruling our lives. When I ask Him for His wisdom, I am asking for His thoughts. 

Double-minded people are like yo-yos. They are up, they are down. They get stuck, plus they get tangled up in their own ideas. They have a continually moving focus that depends on what is going on around them. Single-minded people look at Christ and tell themselves: “Jesus died for me. My faith is in Him. God is not deaf, and His arms aren’t short. If nothing is happening then it is because He has a better plan, or I will gain something by waiting.”  That’s faith. 👋🏻

P 2454 Let’s be spectators …

/ DVH

“For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3. To remain hidden in Christ, we need to ask for the Lord’s help to see difficulties through His eyes. Seeing what He sees means we can remain hidden inside His purposes. Father God’s view of our lives is incredibly different than our own. He saw that cross as the best thing E-V-E-R … even though it hurt Him and His Son immeasurably when it happened. Their eyes looked through the sorrow and suffering that happened at that time, and saw the joy of our reconciliation back to them, and relationships restored. 

Psalm 91 is often a favourite Psalm for many, because it is incredibly comforting, and next to the 23rd Psalm, it is probably the most quoted one. Today I want to talk about a small, but very important aspect of this Psalm that the Lord has highlighted to me over the years. “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Whom I trust.” Psalm 91:1.

The Lord makes it clear at the beginning of this Psalm that what we SAY matters. To live in the secret place we need to be aware of what we are saying.  At the same time, I think that the Holy Spirit will give us insight into what is really going on inside us, by what comes out of our mouths. However, I am not talking about being paranoid, or driving yourself batty with censorship. Hard situations don’t mean we can’t speak, it means we choose to speak out what He sees, and not how we feel. And what the Lord sees, becomes our hiding place, turning us into spectators. In those terrible and difficult moments, we hit the pause and wait button, until we have His insight. In these moments we need to know what Jesus thinks about what is going on!  

So, when we are tempted to complain about how bad things are, we say:  “Jesus knows what He is doing, He’s got this too.”  And then go on to pray and read the bible and ask Him to help us to see what is happening … That’s how we cling to Him until the danger has passed. The danger being we can easily shoot our own faith in the foot with what we say! When we start trying to figure bad stuff out on our own, by talking about it, or mulling it over with someone – we’ve left faith in His ability to care for us behind. We need to say to the Lord at the moment of impact: “Lord, You are my refuge and fortress, I don’t have to understand or escape from this difficulty – I trust You.” 

This is how we learn to hide in Him. We vocally step in behind Him, and stop trying to figure stuff out by ourselves. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit will give us revelation about ourselves, as well as the situation we find ourselves in. I believe we are better off knowing what we actually think, and how we really feel, and dealing with that as a reality — than we are spruiking stuff that is coming from internal or external pressure to ‘sound right,’ or even rabbit on about how we don’t understand how God could let this happen to us! Jesus was silent for most of His trial and torment. Our confidence in His ability to get us out of what we have gotten into needs to be bigger than the temptation to just say what we think. Trouble is an opportunity for faith to grow, and that starts with what WE SAY.

Difficult circumstances are not tests the way we see tests, these things are about us discovering what He already knows. That is this: what is buried inside can eventually come out of our mouths and drag us away from Him. Then those bad situations will usher in disappointment and despair, instead of increasing our faith! That is why we need to pay attention to what we say in moments of trouble, because we can repent immediately if we’ve said something faithless or dumb. Many times we are often victims of our feelings, far more than any other generation before us. Feelings drag believers away from faith. They demand that we pay attention to them. 

Living in that secret place … the shelter of the most High God, provides us with all kinds of grace we don’t deserve or earn. The thing is, that undeserved, Grace-given, God-space also gives us the opportunity to be a spectator and we can leave being a bashed-up participant behind. We don’t have to jump in and save the day all the time. Jesus already did that! The secret place is the best place to be when bad stuff is going do-w-n!  That’s when we need to pay attention and watch to see what He is doing. We already know Who is winning – HE IS! So it doesn’t matter how it looks all around us – He won!

Being a spectator has a distinct advantage. We’ve stepped away from our emotions, and mental torment into His Grace – and now we can see WHO needs prayer – me or that other guy!  The person needing prayer won’t always be us, it easily could be somebody whose faith needs a boost, or even some other person who is really the cause of the problem. We can get stuck inside someone else’s learning curve. At the same time, it is important to remember, we are not designed to be the Answer, we simply bring Jesus with us wherever we go. As spectators we have the advantage of having no agenda but His, and that’s a fantastic place to be. 🤗