Resurrection life

P 3434 A quality decision.  

/ DVH

“Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour, and authority! Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm. Your crucifixion with Christ has severed the tie to this life, and now your true life is hidden away in God in Christ.” Colossians 3:1-3 TPT.

There is a way we all need to go … Proverbs 22:6, I think a description of that way appears in Colossians 3:1-3. That way means we don’t just die to self – we live this life resurrected, striding into a brand new life, where Jesus rules – right here, right now. This happened to each one of us when we gave our lives to Christ. He has kept His part of this covenant, and now it is up to us to keep our part.  Our part is an assignment. We choose to take Him with us wherever we go. 

His part will stand forever, whether people acknowledge it or not. Ours depends upon us believing what He said and acting accordingly – using our faith. Everything we read in the bible points to this brand new life that is ours for the taking – Jesus gave it to us when He died in our place. Why live in the defeated ruins of an old life, when the new life He died to give us is ours for the taking?

Our daily need for His help, and His freely-given input, turns into a yearning that encourages and motivates our faith to keep on pressing on, and in. We want Him. Not rules, not religion, but Him. Anything else pales into insignificance. There can be times we feel listless, plagued by an unwillingness to yield to Him, and we sometimes give into it. That stuff isn’t just disobedience — it comes from a lack of real focus about what is actually going on... God Himself is wooing us! This is the next part of our chosen adventure with Christ. He stands at the window, oil dripping from His nail-scarred hands, waiting to be asked into each and every moment.

We cannot afford to ignore the things Jesus said, they are our life-blood. Our spiritual life and health depends entirely on what He did for us, and our choice to believe the things written in His book are true. Otherwise we will pick and choose what we want to believe, and be led about by all sorts of distractions that will tickle our ears, and continually lead us nowhere. We might even become faddish, and look ridiculous to the world around us. 

Whenever God is truly present, conviction has to follow because His holiness challenges our humanity. Conviction is not about yelling at people for being sinful, and threatening them with a ghastly final destination – it also not just about going the wrong way — conviction means we are wrong! We can’t be right without His input. Deep down most people already know that their way of life is broken – they either don’t care, or don’t want to change, or they don’t know how to change. 

The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin. As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach the Christ-like goal. The reality of the Presence of God Himself, and His holiness, will convict many people of sin.

As Christians, we simply have to do our bit, and release His love everywhere we go. Without the Holy Spirit’s leading, and His comforting Presence and help, God’s people can easily slide toward defining  themselves by their ability to keep rules … or not. Only very honest souls will own their inability to reach this Christ-like goal.

The Holy Spirit revives our faith as He leads us. Our faith was not design to drag along behind – always waiting for a sign, or proof, or some sort of approval. What matters in this process is the room we give Him in our lives. Some people can spend 60 minutes quality time with the Lord day by day, and it is enough to fuel their ministry. Others progressively fall in Love with A PERSON and they refuse to let Him out of their sight! The Holy Spirit longs to draw us into the same sort of depth we see in the Apostles in Acts.

We are all in the same battle. We daily fight to let Christ be everything to us, instead of simply our back-up in times of trouble. Freely loving Him is our reward – we don’t care what this world offers us, or what we think we might gain in the next. Jesus wants to reside/live/inhabit our lives, today. Imagine the honour! The King of glory quietly calls us to walk with Him. His Presence is not a merit badge tribute to our spirituality, He is our beloved Lord and Saviour – Who is closer to us than our heartbeat.

But we must deal with our own pride, our need for autonomy and self-importance. And make a quality decision to live in His resurrection life, listening to Him and loving others. Bye 👋.

P 3029 A people of faith.

/ DVH

“And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God. So if while we were still enemies, God fully reconciled us to Himself through the death of his Son, then something greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, and because we share in His resurrection life, how much more we will be rescued from sin’s dominion! And even more than that, we overflow with triumphant joy in our new relationship of living reconciled to God—all because of Jesus Christ!” Romans 5:9-11 TPT.

I have to admit I find some people’s reactions to scripture almost hilarious. I’ve known people who pick through the bible like they are trying to avoid veggies they don’t like! Good luck with that!  Life has become so difficult there’s no chance of avoiding those brussel sprouts any more. There they are, lying on your plate staring at you, and everyone else is watching to see what you are going to do about it!

Here’s an astonishing fact:  Almighty God gave Abraham righteousness because that man chose to believe what God had told him. “Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness.” That fact is written down in a whole lot of places in the bible.  Genesis 15:6, Romans 4:1-22, Galatians 3:6-9, Hebrews11:8-10, Hebrews 11:17-19. Abraham believed what God said, and acted on it. This ordinary man took his family of origin from the land of his birth, and led them to a new place, Haran. Then he and his immediate family followed God on a merry dance to somewhere he never even heard of! And he did all that purely because God asked him to do it. 

Now that’s real obedience!! The Lord and Abraham had a discussion, and the man didn’t really understand what he had been given at first, because his mind was stuck in his own human circumstances. He had no children, yet God told him he would have a son of his own flesh. You wanna bet Abe thought to himself: “Who is this really?” SEE! You are not the only person to wonder if what you heard was God or not!! But because of his obedience he would have millions of spiritual sons and daughters. Abraham took what Almighty God said seriously, and then one day the Lord showed him his ongoing legacy. US!!  That is, everybody who lives trusting in what God said in the book. 

Our description now as Christians is this: “…the people who walk by faith not by sight.” We are called that because we walk with God the way Abraham did. We follow Jesus. We can’t see Jesus any more than Abraham could see having a child could be possible at 100 years of age! Instead, as his spiritual descendants, we use our faith to live and walk with the Lord in every single situation. Abraham showed us what faith looks like. It moves, it obeys, it walks with God Himself. 

Father God has called us righteous in His sight, just like He gave righteousness to Abraham. The Lord Jesus bought it for us. But it was a gift. We became righteous because Jesus took our punishment for us and now our destiny has changed. We are destined to live a new life of faith. The Lord Jesus has given us the power to live our daily life in a new way. Abraham did not deserve a son, anymore than we deserve to be saved. Meanwhile, Abraham and Sarah tried to help God along, by introducing works … but God clearly shows us through this man’s life, and his mistakes, that works cannot inherit His promises. The life lived in faith is the only life that pleases God.

Ephesians 2:7-9.”… in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Almighty God is incredibly rich in so many things we need to learn to esteem. Unfortunately we often go after monetary or situational gain. We are chasing the wind if we chase money or security, because God has another bigger plan for our lives. He showed us that we too can live relying on and counting on what Christ did for us, to totally transform our lives. Grace is not just a lovely attribute of God’s nature. It is a powerful force that utterly changed the outcome of this world. 

Everything Jesus Christ did for us was done in His great Love for us. Now our Christ-given inheritance means we will not have to come up against the wrath of God. That thought just boggles my tiny mind. In my lifetime I have come up against the wrath of many human beings …and their nasty was pretty awful. However, I do not even want to begin to imagine what the wrath of an angry God looks like, thank you very much!

“Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust Him along the way, you’ll find He pulled it off perfectly! He will appear as your righteousness, as sure as the dawning of a new day. He will manifest as your justice, as sure and strong as the noonday sun. Quiet your heart in His presence and wait patiently for Yahweh. And don’t think for a moment that the wicked, in their prosperity, are better off than you.” Psalms 37:5-7 TPT. We are His people, a people of faith. Bye 👋

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. 🙌