Restoration

P 2288 HIS righteousness.

/ DVH

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and HIS righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33. Going after, and relying upon our own righteousness is a waste of our time, plus this life we have been given – which is why works will never get us anywhere. Our works need to come from faith, from the Holy Spirit’s leading, not from our own hopes, dreams, or clever ideas. GOD IS LOOKING FOR OUR FAITH IN HIS ABILITY TO LEAD US through this life – minute by minute. Just like He led Abraham a-n-d … everyone else in His book!

Jesus Christ suffered and died to give us HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS, His position before His Father. This blessing freely belongs to all of us but we can too easily ignore this incredible sacrificial gift by living what I call a divided life. A divided life views this life we have now, as our time – it only looks at what the Lord wants for us, for our own gain, not HIS. A person living this way has not fully comprehended the value and cost of what we’ve been given.  

Our Heavenly Father now views us the same way He viewed His Precious Son. But we can eliminate ourselves from this faith walk by using our own understanding, and not taking the time we’ve been given to treasure and go after what He has told us we are here to do. Our God dearly wants to protect us from many, many difficulties – but … not all of the blows this life throws at us. Some things are permitted, they prune things from our lives that are irrelevant, to shape us into His Son’s likeness. 

“He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit He prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”  John 15:2. We must get it fixed firmly in our minds and hearts ‘that His Ways are not our ways.’ Expecting God’s ways to make sense to our finite minds is simply unrealistic. Without the Holy Spirit’s revelation and enlightenment, human beings can fall prey to disobedience, pride and gathering knowledge. Human beings like systems. ‘If I do this, then that happens…’ 

If we think about those words carefully, we can see that ‘I’ am still in charge. HE wants to be in charge of every single thing in our lives because He has a plan for our good, for each one of us. But when we go through this life with our preconceived ideas – plus the things we have embraced because we have been taught them – and leave out relationship, we can’t step into the place Jesus Christ died to give us. 

Righteousness is a position we can readily occupy with God. It’s ours. Christ gave it to us with all that He did on mankind’s behalf.  When we occupy this position, striving goes out the window and true relationship comes in! Jesus modelled this way to live for us in His life and ministry. All He cared about was doing His Father’s will.  There was no room for any other earthly agenda. Every single time something came up to drag Him away from His God-appointed purpose He rebuked it!  You can check it out for yourself. 

His purity of purpose within His relationship with His Father was essential – BUT! all of this happened under a huge banner of love … not works, or even destiny. Jesus Christ loved His Father, and us, so much, He did what He did in joyous anticipation of our restoration to our Heavenly Father and our total redemption.  IT WAS HIS SOLE PASSION! When we read the bible with that in mind, it ceases to be a book of mere instructions and becomes a living thing. Deftly shaping us all into a bride worthy of our Saviour King. The Word of God cuts away anything that spoils our growth and fruit production. 

We have been tricked too many times by our own appetites. and needs. into living this new life that we were giv-en – in a half-hearted fashion. I believe our greatest mistake is to put ambition for God’s ways and ushering in His kingdom, ahead of our own passionate response to our beloved bridegroom.  Nothing substitutes for that. We must not put aside our eternal destiny for immediate gratification! Christ gave us HIS robes of righteousness for us to wear here and now. We wear them by faith, in purity, embracing our earthly lives as a gift to be sown into His purposes.

Isaiah 61:10ESV “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord; my soul shall exult in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation; He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks Himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” 🙌

P 2275 It is essential to practise mercy.

/ DVH

“So we must both speak and act in every respect like those who are destined to be tried by the perfect law of liberty, and remember that judgment is merciless for the one who judges others without mercy. So by showing mercy, you take dominion over judgment!” James 2:12-13 TPT

The reason the phrase mercy triumphs over judgment is often accurate, is that the human mind leans toward the side of justice. Do the words; ‘that’s not fair’ ring any bells?’ Look, if someone pinches your parking spot, then you can easily lean on mercy, but, if someone pinches the car or burns down our house most of us could easily tip over into judgment! The severity of the sin against us can create harsher responses. Unfortunately unforgiveness is deadly, it’s a no-brainer. Repentance clears away our guilt, but it does not take away the need for reparation and restoration.

The thing about Mercy is it has to become our permanent state of mind, not just something we try to find on the spot when something bad has happened. When things happen, our emotions become engaged, and we are more likely to go with how we feel at that moment, instead of leaning into being merciful. 

Memorising scriptures is a great way to know what the bible says – but the very best way to change our hearts for good is to continually choose the harder thing and do it. Doing what the bible says takes God’s Word out of the realm of knowledge, and puts it firmly into the place of our own experience. Other people will benefit from our learning curves but the main benefit is to US. That stretching, the feeling that you can’t bear whatever is going on any longer, is normal. Don’t  believe what you feel, instead, pray for help and maintain the new merciful attitude.

I am not saying that letting Mercy triumph is an easy thing to do. As a matter of fact I think it’s probably one of the hardest things … like, ever! But we are not just simply learning a way to live – we are giving the Holy Spirit room to transform our hearts. This means we have an opportunity to change or  soften our hardened heart… by believing His word to the point where we act on it. A changed heart has no problem with mercy. This person knows from experiencing His grace when they’ve needed it, that growing and changing can be painful. Plus they understand the principle of giving away what they need. 

The Bible says: “Cast your bread on the surface of the waters, [be diligently active, make thoughtful decisions], for you will find it after many days.” Ecclesiastes 11:1 Amp. This means that we will often give away what we need over and over again before we see any change in our response, but remember – God is no man’s debtor! Now if we are still actively hostile inside our brain two days later … eventually that bubbling pot of anger and resentment will boil over!  Often it is at some poor schmuck who said the wrong thing at the wrong time. We have all the grace and power we will need to overcome the things that come at us, or even the things that are already inside us – simply by practising His word as He reveals it to us. Hallelujah!

Human beings see things in terms of big and small.  To the Lord sin is not something big or small – it’s the thing that separates us from Him. It causes us to hide from Him right when we need Him the most.  When Jesus died for our sins He utterly cleared away the pathway between us and sin – we don’t have to sin any more. We need to remember this verse: “If we sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanses from all unrighteousness.” 

In the old Testament when Rebecca gave birth to twins, the twins were wrestling inside her for supremacy. That’s what happens inside us – either in our minds or in our emotions or both. The new you – that is who you are now in Christ Jesus – is now inside you. But the old us, our old habits and indulgences are wrestling against the person that God wants to release. This fight is ongoing, we don’t just fight against what the enemy throws at us, we are fighting our old ways of thinking, being, and doing with the Holy Spirit helping us.

Just because something is hard that does not mean it isn’t God’s will. We are in a wrestling match daily, sometimes minute by minute to make the choices Christ would make … Dying is hard but it is extremely powerful!  👋🏻

P 2219 Hope is a wonderful thing!

/ DVH

To continue with what I wrote yesterday, I wanted to mention the importance of hope today. “There once was a shepherd with a hundred lambs, but one of his lambs wandered away and was lost. So the shepherd left the ninety-nine lambs out in the open field and searched in the wilderness for that one lost lamb. He didn’t stop until he finally found it. With exuberant joy, he raised it up, placed it on his shoulders, and carried it back with cheerful delight!” Luke 15:4-5. TPT.

In my immediate family, we have “lost sheep” – people who no longer follow Christ. Some ran away grumpy, on purpose. They got cheesed off because the Christian life did not turn out the way they thought it should.  And some just kind of meandered off not looking where they were going. Sheep are dumb – they don’t know what is good for them, they can be so busy eating and meeting their own needs, that they forget about the Shepherd and how much He loves them … until they get into trouble.

As you already know, I rarely include someone else’s thoughts in my blog, but I read this prophetic exhortation, and I thought it was worth including today. Many of us have one or more individuals in our families that have gone away from their faith in Christ. This excerpt was such an encouragement to me, I hope it encourages you too. 

I Hear His Whisper … THE PRODIGALS WILL RETURN. “I am calling home the sons and daughters who have forgotten Me. You will see a waterfall of love and mercy bring My children from afar. I have walled them in. They haven’t roamed as far as you expected. They are never outside of the boundaries of My love, and I have never left their sides. I know how to woo the hearts I created. They cannot find what they need outside of Me. In My mercy, they will be restored with fresh passion to seek Me and to know Me.

Dry your eyes, and with a hope-filled heart, look with eyes of faith. The lost ones are coming home. Your delight must be in finding them and loving them back into wholeness and dignity. You will remove loneliness from their hearts. You will see them restored. Even within your family, there will be healing and grace as I recapture hearts and ignite their longings for Me. Love well. Forgive completely. You will see the restoration you’ve prayed for. My will shall be done in their lives.” by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez.

I loved this prophetic word, because it is all about what God is going to do for us, but it includes an exhortation for US to prepare our hurt, disappointed hearts, to receive the ones who broke our hearts back again. Those who have been lost to us have been lost for many reasons. Right now is the time to deal with our side of everything that happened. “Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you.”(Ephesians 4:31) 

It has taken me a long time to absorb the fact that I can add to my own struggle with others, by what I say.  If I choose to continually rehearse someone else’s sin over and over again, it may seem like a form of self-protection. Plus it seems like you are reminding yourself of what happened so you don’t fall for the same guff again! But the reality is, my self-talk can also cement someone else back into a place that no longer exists for them. That attitude, that action, only exists in my own memory. Personally, I am not who I was even last week – or last month – or last year! God is changing me, daily and boy do I need it! Let’s not colour in tomorrow’s miracles with yesterday’s half-dead felt-tipped markers. He’s doing something new. Hold on, it’s coming…

The Lord is going to do what He has planned to do so quickly, that we will be astonished. So we need to prepare take the time to search our own hearts and minds now, with His help. Let’s start thanking Him for what comes next, and remember – you and I could have easily been the sheep that wandered off. None of us are exempt from the seduction of the spirit of stupid, in this funny old world of ours. Cultivating hope is a wonderful thing. 👋🏻