Revelation

P 2747 We need Clarity.

/ DVH

Colossians 2:9-14 NIV: “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made YOU alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”

Oh man, God’s book is such an incredible blessing! I love it when seemingly complex subjects are written with this kind of clarity, that means I can sometimes understand what it is saying. You know, for many years, nobody ever told me that I am now dead. I listened to sermon after sermon about this interesting thing, and that glorious revelation, but how to live my life for Jesus and die to myself, never came up. OR – if it did I was too thick to hear it! I didn’t realise my bit was to die to what I want, and live for what He wants now. As a matter of fact, I thought the people who lived like that were special people – missionaries, pastors, evangelists etc. But for ordinary people like me – we just plodded along doing our best and failing – lots.

The enemy nagged at me: ’You are a failure, you are of no use to Jesus because you can’t live the perfect life. If you are sick it’s your fault, if God doesn’t help you, you must have some undiagnosed sin.’ If I was a donkey the load of weight to get stuff right, that was plonked on my shoulders was far too great to bear!! I was taught about what the right lifestyle looks like, how to pray properly, how to give, what my kids should be like, or how to live with difficult people. The answer was easy – just be nice to them now. HAH! How could I be nice to them when my instant response was to thump them?! 😱 No pressure!!!

Everybody has sinned – including the famous saints we think are perfect because they appear to get it right! They too have fallen short of His glorious ideal Jesus. His Grace is everyone’s equaliser. Sin is sin, it weighs us all down. And no matter how much we perfume sin, or cover it up with nice smiles and pretty responses, and appealing sermons, it still stinks. It smells of death!

After a while, I lost hope, I thought: ‘Maybe I’m just too broken and can’t be fixed.’  That happy little thought did not help me live with the aforementioned difficult people, and it didn’t make me very cheery either. BUT GOD IS FAITHFUL FOLKS… I’m here to tell you that every word in the bible is true, and if we choose to walk with Him, we can be transformed. It’s a process.  People may accidentally mislead you, but His book never will.  So we believe the book and then act on it. This means we will personally see God at work, every single day, when we act on what He says.  Meanwhile, the Beatitudes could keep us all busy for the rest of our lives.  He taught me about dying to self when I started living like His book says — plus, I desperately wanted to love others the way He loves them.

I use what the bible says, like a prescription from the doctor. And followed the instructions. Then I made my first assignment loving impossible people!  Boy does that keep me occupied!!  The book says: ‘all my flesh was put off when I came to Christ and was baptised…’ so I not only believe it,  I am daily living my life like it’s true. I realised that I didn’t have to sin anymore, I was making terrible choices that indulged my flesh! But Jesus paid for me to live free of my old ways and I have a HELPER.

Before anybody gets tangled up in the thought: ‘but I can’t hear the Holy Spirit’ … let’s make it clear. Try listening! Ask Him to help you recognise His voice. Don’t dismiss that quiet voice inside that says:”Don’t say that you will hurt someone.” The Holy Spirit speaks to me inside my heart. When I was a kid I would have called that voice my conscience. It seems I always had a place where God could speak to me, I just didn’t always like what He said! So I ignored it and did what I felt like. I was hardening my own heart by my refusal to listen and co-operate with Him. The truth is you and I are now dead, and we both daily choose to live that way on purpose.

Now, I walk in the power of my own God-given choices. The power of God is active on our behalf when we make that kind of choice. I had so much yuk stuff in my life that I was tolerating, thinking it was normal to struggle. I lived expecting to have to suck all the bad stuff up, buttercup!  I totally hoped my inner thoughts and behaviour didn’t show to others and that would kind of be OK. Hey, I still struggle! But now it is against my own flesh indulging itself, by having hissy fits and excusing its own bad behaviour.

If what you hear in your head is mean, nasty, spiteful, dangerous, and against what the bible says – deal with yourself and REPENT. It’s not somebody else’s fault – it’s ours! Pray and humble yourself. It’s the devil! he picks up on our weaknesses. If what you hear is kind, loving, supportive, helpful and it glorifies Jesus, and it’s IN the book – then that’s the Holy Spirit! Here is my advice on how to die daily — PRAY. Then find something you have never even tried to obey before, use your faith that God will help you, and go and do it.  We lack power because we lack the kind of faith that leads us into obedience.

This probably means we will have to fix things with our neighbour, or our mother-in-law, or someone we don’t much like. Transformation works in us as we do these hard things using our faith. He promised to help us. Believe Him – take Him at His Word. The more we obey His directives, the more our faith becomes living, and the bible will give us His clarity. Bye. 👋

P 2693 A new perspective on Giving.

/ DVH

“Give generously and generous gifts will be given back to you, shaken down to make room for more. Abundant gifts will pour out upon you with such an overflowing measure that it will run over the top! The measurement of your generosity becomes the measurement of your return.”” Luke 6:38 TPT.

Hubby and I have seen the truth in this verse, personally. The more we give away stuff – time, money, kindness, love – the more we are given back by God Himself. Then that interaction psychologically helps replenish our potential supply of stuff to give away next time. Meanwhile, we get our motivation to give from the Bible as well as the Holy Spirit. After a while, giving becomes a way of life. The thing is, we need those enlightened eyes I talked about yesterday, so we can notice the return waves of blessings from the Lord. Otherwise it can be too easy to miss whatever He is doing, because we are distracted by the busyness of this life. 

Here is what I’ve learnt over the years, which might help you: God does not always reciprocate in kind. In other words, perhaps you gave away apples, but the Lord may simply give you the strength to be kind in the face of someone else’s nasty disposition. The return wave of blessing, won’t necessarily contain the same thing you sent out. This is yet another opportunity to get to know His Ways even more. We can learn a lot about the Lord by the way He meets our needs, as well as the way He blesses us.

Which is why we need those enlightened eyes! Otherwise we won’t relate one thing to the other and we will miss what He is doing entirely. God gives us what He values, that’s how we get to know His Way of doing things – by taking note of what He values. This works when we are reading the bible, or we are using our enlightened eyes. It’s our generosity toward others that opens that particular flood-gate. He is such a giving God and it makes sense to me that the Lord would want His kids – who are re-presenting HIM – to be that way too. Encouragement is a great form of giving.

We can partially hinder the ever-expanding floodgates of His loving kindness toward us, by missing the blessing of giving. Giving is not just about things or money. He is always giving. In my limited opinion, God’s nature is so beautiful, He cannot help Himself! He gives because it is Who He is. Stepping into living a giving kind of life is one the ways I have found that we can ’taste and see that the Lord is good.” Many times we can pin our thoughts and hopes on Him answering our prayers. We think those things  are the only kind of blessing, but He has a myriad ways to give us Himself – I have even seen Him stretch time.

TIME is the most valuable thing we have …You and I woke up this morning, but some people didn’t!  This means our God has given us another day. Praise Him! That day is filled to the brim with opportunities and possibilities for change. We can choose to fix the things in our lives that are broken — EG:  we can choose to be reconciled, no matter who did what! And we can start dying to self, one step at a time. Dying to self is a process — it starts with taking one deliberate step after another. When our time runs out we won’t be able to do that, anymore. Today, I want to call our attention to the fact that there are so many places we can be generous to others.

So we choose not to give an angry answer – and instead we take charge, and take personal responsibility for a moment – instead of retaliating badly. We choose to say nothing, or give a soft answer instead. I have found nothing diffuses somebody else’s grumpy attitude better than apologising, even if you don’t think whatever it is was your fault! And yes, that means with some people you are always going to be the one who apologises, but this life is not a competition – we lose when we live that way. This life we now lead we lead by faith. We walk in another realm, a realm where giving away undeserved GRACE away flourishes.

Christians are not meant to walk around dishing out judgment. We died with Him, and we are now living a new life, filled with His power to overcome the old ways. When we get into how right we think we are and how wrong the other person is … even if that stuff is only going on in our thoughts, then sadly, we just hit judgment! That junk is going to come out of our mouth, today, tomorrow, a year from now. Judgment, when it is not dealt with, does not have a shelf life – it will pop out of our mouths at the darndest times. But blessing others becomes a way of life.

Leaving judgment to the Lord is another form of giving. We are giving away what He freely gave us. We have a personal responsibility to live like Christ did, and He lived a giving life. If we think about giving as simply sending out money or things, we’ve missed the greater revelation. JESUS LOVED, HE GAVE. Then giving becomes our way of life. Now we love, and we give – no matter what comes back at us. It’s His way to live. I think it is also part of that narrow gate, Jesus mentioned  – be warned …. few find it. 👋

P 2673 Who or what has your heart?

/ DVH

“When you pass through the deep, stormy sea, you can count on Me to be there with you. When you pass through raging rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through persecution like fiery flames, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you,” Isaiah 43:2 TPT.

The above verse is mentioned today to comfort to anyone who is in a very dark place. It promises us that God’s Presence is never absent despite our circumstances. The thing is, we must remember that this verse and others like it, are faith verses. Almighty God said it, and He means it, so we need to embrace it. However, in those hard times we may not feel a thing! We may dearly need to feel better, but our feelings have nothing whatsoever to do with His Grace in our lives! Even our disappointment could be seen as judgment against His ability to use everything to help us.

The lack of change can sometimes be the reason we are strongly tempted to think that He is not with us, because we have a great expectation that He will deliver us … but sometimes things can even get even worse!!  So what happened? Is it sin in our lives? No! Sin went on the cross. Does God not care that we feel overwhelmed by our circumstances? Of course He does, but we must remind ourselves that He says “I will be with you” — He does not say – you will FEEL Me with you! Yeah, I know, that seems to be splitting hairs, but let’s remember that now we are in His kingdom, where He is King. We chose to come under His rule, and we will need to trust Him to do what He has promised.

“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”Numbers 23:19. In our society today, people are judged or exalted or rewarded because of their actions. As Christians we need to remember that Almighty God does not do things to meet mankind’s expectations. He does not answer to us. In other words, our societal attitudes don’t feature in His decision making processes. Whatever His answer, action, or lack of! … the real point is – His ways are perfect. So, if there is no answer, or corresponding change of circumstances, then we need to remember that He is sovereign. We must always leave our heart with Him, that is the safest place for it.

“No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; He’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; He’ll always be there to help you come through it. So, my very dear friends, when you see people reducing God to something they can use or control, get out of their company as fast as you can.” 1 Corinthians 10:13-14. MSG.

Personally, I have discovered that I can set my pain and strife limits a bit too low – I can probably move and change much more than I think I can! I get side-tracked because I am not all that excited about stretching — old bones, etc. Everything creaks when I am stretched! In those moments, it is good to remember that this life is the only one I’m going to get, and it is about growth and change. That’s two more things older people don’t like much!! I have to remind myself over and over again, that the Lord is bigger than my circumstances, and if they remain the same, after I have prayed … then He has a purpose I can’t see yet! Good place to pray: “Teach me Your ways, Lord, so I can walk with You.” Amen.

“Even when Your path takes me through the valley of deepest darkness, fear will never conquer me, for You already have! Your authority is my strength and my peace. The comfort of Your love takes away my fear. I’ll never be lonely, for You are near.” Psalms 23:4 TPT.

This verse from the 23rd Psalm is a great clue to the solution to my problem and it diagnoses the heart of what is really going on. Who or what has my heart? Does fear rule me when the going gets tough, or does He? We must always remember that “there is no fear in love,” as well as,  “what time I am afraid I will trust in Thee.” When I finally catch on to the fact that I am feeling afraid, it can take a while, but eventually I have an ‘AHA!’ moment. That’s when I realise that I have let circumstances fill my vision, instead of WHO He is. Rookie mistake. I’m back thinking that He’s there to make my life better, I’ve totally forgotten I am here for His purposes.

After repenting, my next move is to ask the Lord, “Who can I bless?” ‘ That’s because ‘it is in giving that we receive!’  And in those difficult times, my receiver seems to have gone off-line. Sometimes doing that simple thing leads to a fresh revelation about Him. And sometimes it leads to a fresh revelation about me. I need both! I have found that taking my focus away from the difficulty, and caring for someone else, eventually gives me a chance to view things from another angle. As I bless others, I remember that my heart belongs to Him, I gave it to Him. 

He won’t ever ‘leave me or forsake me or give me up.’ Switching focus clarifies what really matters. 👋

P 2667 The wrapping comes before the gift.

/ DVH

In this scripture, Paul is praying for the church.“I am contending for you, that your hearts will be wrapped in the comfort of heaven and woven together into love’s fabric. That will give you access to all the riches of God as you experience the revelation of God’s great mystery – Christ!” Colossians 2:2. Most of us have experienced receiving a well-wrapped gift, maybe even with pretty bows on the top. But if we simply put the gift aside, after we have admired how good it looks, without unwrapping it – we’ve missed the point! However, let’s not just discard the wrapping paper either – it too has a purpose in God’s Ways.

This is what I’ve learnt over the years … many people want God’s riches and revelations, but they don’t particularly want to be woven into Love’s fabric. I’ve met some truly heinous people with fantastic gifts from God, who treat everybody around them like they are minions, or less than special  … because the person with the fantastic gift sees him or herself as a star. And we don’t help them when we reinforce the gift above their character. Hmmm. There’s a rookie mistake – those people think their gift is them. I’ve been on the pointy end of that error.

Gifts are GIVEN … they are a sign of the generosity of the GIVER, not necessarily the worth of the recipient! Check it out in the book! Start by reading Jonah, who was God’s prophet/evangelist – however his attitude showed up a whole heap of character flaws. The Lord explained to Jonah, very kindly, that he was a fathead who actually knew nothing about God’s ways. Now let’s look at Simon the sorcerer. His last name was kind of a big clue! He wanted to buy the Holy Spirit, and he skated right by that large thin ice warning  sign …!! The people in the bible aren’t there for decoration or to add interest. They show us about the holes in someone’s else’s character that anyone of us can have.

I believe the truth is we cannot afford to elevate individual people no matter what their gift is, but at the same time we need to respect the gift God gave them. Sadly, sometimes elevation can do weird things to a person’s head! There have been times when I’ve seen lovely gifts from the Lord, become a reason for a dictatorship. Yes, I really did say that out loud and in print! 😶 Lets’ be clear, this person I am speaking about may make modest noises. After all, we are supposed to be humble … and they read the rules. But somehow all that didn’t get translated into their innards. So what comes out can seem smarmy and a bit plastic. Sometimes unchecked ambition in an individual uses other people to build its own little kingdom, instead of building His. That’s a short term aim. If we all reach our potential in Christ – we will be strong, standing side by side against the real enemy – satan.  

Moving on from people-who-know-God-better-than-anyone-else-does … to people like you and me, who have bumped elbows, and calloused knees from falling over and getting it wrong a lot… !! 😂 Let’s just finish this bit of cringy stuff with this last thought:  faith is confidence in GOD not men. Our God is so loving that He gives gifts …  He is incredibly generous … as well as kind, and tender-hearted toward all our needs. Gifts are about Him not us. Ephesians 6:11:“Christ gave gifts to men…”

We can become so enamoured about finding out what gift we have been given, we dive right in and forget to pay attention to the wrapping paper. So let’s just look at that bit shall we?  “.. that your hearts will be wrapped in the comfort of heaven and woven together into love’s fabric.” His love for us, and our unity together, is the wrapping paper for a happy healthy gift. Please don’t throw away the bit that wraps us all together! Our gifts don’t work well without each other, and getting woven together is a whole lot of work!

So how do you and I get wrapped in the comfort of heaven? I believe that happens when we keep going back to the cross, and remembering who we were and where we were when He found us. That’ll humble you!! The cross keeps our focus in the right place. We are not all that – HE IS ALL THAT! When we learn to take risks and become obedient we will see what He can do with our teeny tiny efforts. At the same time, we need to continue to love others who don’t want to be part of the wrapping paper. Instead they want to be the source of delight inside that paper! That’s God’s bit, not ours. Any one of us can easily fall into the trap of wanting man’s praise to fill our empty hearts, when the comfort of heaven has been given to us, to do it for us. That’s Jesus Himself, BTW.

Because we all want access to the riches of God, we need to pray for the comfort of heaven to wrap around each and every one us. Then we do everything we can with His help, to be woven into something that will reveal His riches, and more of Christ. The wrapping comes before the gift, but it is still a part of the gift. So let’s cherish drawing truthfully closer to each other, while we build one another up! Bye 👋

P 2664 On seeking God’s will.

/ DVH

Romans 12:1-2: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

So did ya get that? Changing our minds to think like the Lord does, by reading and obeying what He says — opens the door to discern what He wants. Meanwhile it is not just about thinking differently, it is about letting that different thinking affect our actions and reactions. Presenting our bodies to Him means WE are no longer in charge of what happens. We can always pray and ask Him for a different outcome, but the way to truly worship God is to give Him our bodies … and let HIM decide! Um, do you need a cuppa tea and a biscuit to cheer you up yet? There are a whole lotta people who won’t like that previous thought.

When we live this way, at the same time, the Lord will use our circumstances to reveal our own hearts to us. We test His will out, daily by the way we are choosing to live now. If what we are doing falls on it’s head — then it wasn’t God! BUT! … If bears good fruit it was! Meanwhile if we keep getting the same bad result over and over again, then there is no doubt about it … not. dead. yet! It’s no good blaming other people, or whatever – a transformed mind doesn’t look for things to its own advantage – it looks for God to get all the glory, and it continually chases love.

James, one of my favourite authors, helps us in Chapter 1:5-8: “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, Who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.”  All we need to to do, is to ask for His wisdom and believe He wants to help us through whatever is going on.

There can be times when we will mess up our ability to receive from the Lord – through our own disobedience, cemented attitudes, or insistence that we are not at fault, somebody else is!  Remember, James is talking about receiving Almighty God’s wisdom. You and I can easily short circuit receiving the very thing God wants us to have by the way we respond to it. We are no longer like the rest of the world … independently minded. We are not meant to be a people whose made-up god puts a big tick on all our ideas. We serve the ever-living, always present Almighty God – He runs this show! 

Human beings love systems. BUT, when we look at the Ways of God, He’s not like that! In the bible we can clearly see that every single situation needs a fresh revelation. For example, King David did not fight every one of his battles the same way, because God sent him out with different instructions each time. This man knew how to seek God to find out what came next. He was not interested in strategies that he could repeat at will whenever he went into battle. Sometimes the Lord gave him a strategy before the battle, and sometimes God said: ‘Go! I will be with you!” In other words although a rock killed Goliath, the next time David needed a different plan, he sought the Lord to get it.

This is why I have spent so much time writing about how to receive, hear and obey the Lord. Because there is no system that we can use to make our lives more comfortable… and still serve Him! The mandate is upon us to get to know God and His ways for ourselves. Our pastors can preach until they turn blue. If we do not follow up what the man of God says with our own prayers, and then look for ways to be obedient – all we will get is double-mindedness. That looks like a bit this: “Oh, I think what pastor said here was good but I don’t agree with this and that … I think this instead …”  

Good on you! Yay for you! But you just lined yourself up to be double-minded. Ask the Lord what He wants you to know and do, personally, from what was said. Here’s a good clue —-if whatever was said annoyed you then it’s a certainty that there is something there you need to learn, about yourself, others, and the Lord Himself!  Our personal responses are our personal diagnostic tools.  Anything less than learning more about loving Him, or how to love others – plus how to die daily, is pure advertising. Those are the sort of trimmings that make our lives look good from the outside. 

There is one attitude that will help us along our way … and that is this … we daily lay down our own right to choose our destiny and, simply follow Jesus. That’s what the disciples did, when they sought His will.. When He left them, they sat about and waited like He told them to ,,, because there was no alternative plan B! Bye 👋

P 2654 Give yourself a break!

/ DVH

Actually, I don’t mean take a holiday – I mean cut yourself some slack. It is too easy to become formulaic in our faith. We think things like: ‘if I do and say this, then He will do and say that.’ It seems like we think the Lord is a vending machine. We stand in front of it, stamping our foot – getting crosser by the minute because we did everything we were supposed to do … and …nothing happened … things stayed the same.  Then we rummage about trying to figure out what we’ve done wrong because God is always active on our behalf and where’s our answer? I dunno … I learnt years ago I am as dumb as the dirt I came from! 

But I do know this … Almighty God is not afraid of inactivity. Between Malachi and Christ’s birth 400 years went by. Here’s something to reflect on — in that time there would have been Godly men and women who died waiting for an answer. Nobody likes that thought! Yet Christ went through everything He did into His terrible death, and His grave and nothing stopped any of it. That shows us that God has greater purposes. We often have to wait for the greater purpose to manifest. Other things simply must be endured, and we will need to learn to do that with faith, grace, and love … However, sadly, those graces will not take endurance off the menu! 

I also know that as individuals we can hold up our own personal change by being disobedient. Maybe we simply refuse to look at things that need transformation, or we feel that change in my life is impossible. Perhaps we even trot out well-worn excuses,…”My family is like this… it’s just who I am … other people are so picky … “  What we are really saying is: “I don’t believe I need to change God… I expect You to change Your mind … OR …You could change THEM!”  We sing songs and read in the book that nothing is impossible with God, but that goes right out of the window when it touches our inner rebellion. We are afraid of change.  BTW, about the excuse:  “My family is like this…” you joined a new family remember? There’s that excuse done and dusted!!

Years ago, I had the dearest friend who used to tell me when she was praying about something really important that she thought God had gone skiing or something because there was no response. What she said was a joke … but, at the same time, it wasn’t a joke … she was referring to the fact that His silence scared her. Rightly so, sometimes silence means NO. The Lord holds the future, and maybe that idea we have won’t hold water in the future He has planned for our lives. 

Jeremiah teaches us that HE “… know(s) the plans He has for us, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11.So what we think we need, or even want, may not be in the plans He has for us. At other times we simply need to live through our disappointment, and talk to Him about that. Either way, He’s always the Answer! The Lord simply isn’t sharing His thoughts with us at that time. That doesn’t  mean we have committed some dastardly sin – it could mean that we have an opportunity to keep banging on the door. Like the guy in the parable Jesus told. That guy needed bread for his visitors.

This is why I’ve learnt to leave things with Him. I ask Him for revelation, and then expect that when He is ready to share with me, something will pop up in my bible reading, or someone will say something, and my heart will recognise His voice, in their voice. And sometimes the circumstances have already changed, it just took me a while to notice it! I’m a bit slow that way …

My point today is, it is not good to beat yourself up and wonder what you did wrong after you have prayed about it and you still can’t hear Him, or you seem to have lost the path. If you know you did something stupid then fix it. Doing that side-steps a whole lot of angst. At the same time let Him be God and you be you. Mistakes are going to be made! He is perfectly capable of redirecting our paths. “…He will make straight our paths …”Sometimes our mistakes seem to be real clangers … I’ve made loads of them! 

Yet, because He is our wonderful Father, the glorious Creator, the One Who sets us free – He can take our surrendered spirit of disobedience or stupid, and make something beautiful out of it. He made the world out of nothing. Taking our sometimes wilfully shattered lives, and making something incredible out of them, is what He does. Give yourself a break – He won’t give up on you, so don’t give up on yourself.

I’ve found that self-flagellation accomplishes very little, surrender accomplishes far more. It softens our spirits and helps us to remain humble. I pray all the time:  ‘Lord, I want what You want.’ Amen. And then I forgetaboudit until He brings it up. Bye. 👋

P 2653 Insight gives us clarity.

/ DVH

Hebrews 1:1-3a.“Throughout our history God has spoken to our ancestors by His prophets in many different ways. The revelation He gave them was only a fragment at a time, building on truth upon another. But to us living in these last days, God now speaks to us openly in the language of a Son, the appointed Heir of everything, for through Him God created the panorama of all things and time. The Son is the dazzling radiance of God’s splendour, the exact  expression of God’s true nature—His mirror image.” TPT. Boy, those verses are a WOW moment! Jesus Christ is God talking to us now … today, through His book.

God has not stopped speaking, but I believe that we have stopped really listening! We are too used to being spoon-fed. Every single thing Christ SAID and DID was to speak to us, now – today. Even His actions were WORDS. They contain a huge revelation of His Character, Personhood and power. Let’s just start with the fact that He was born as a baby, and He had to grow up the same way we have. At twelve, we find out that Jesus chose to value the Scriptures, and He took the time to do more than study them, HE LISTENED TO THEM, and He drew a deeper meaning out of them. A twelve year old boy confounded the experts of His day.

Anybody have a twelve year old at their house? It is quite likely that you won’t find their nose in a bible – you may not even find their nose in a book! They can tell you the last thing that happened in the game they’re playing but they probably only know a few scriptures. There was nothing about the Lord Jesus life that would make Him exceptional. But He was!  He was attracted to His Heavenly Father even as a child. Remember, He’s our Father too!  Read lt like your DAD wrote you a precious letter…because He did!

In the scripture above it tells us:“The Son is the dazzling radiance of God’s splendour, the exact expression of God’s true nature—His mirror image.”  Yet Isaiah 53:2 says the precise opposite. “He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.”  I love that! I love the conflict and contradiction of the Word, it provokes me into asking questions. Those two verses are talking about two different things. Isaiah is talking about Jesus’ appearance. Paul is talking about His heart!

This is the conundrum that has haunted mankind. Some people see the Lord Jesus one way, and some see Him another. Why is there a difference? I believe the eyes of faith see what is hidden. To truly see Christ, we need insight. Otherwise the bible is just words on a page of a book written in weird English. We are far more than the skin we live in – we are far bigger than that, the bible shows us how big. Anybody can ask for insight, it belongs to us all!

Isaiah is talking about the way the Jews saw Christ. The Lord Jesus looked like nobody to them. However, we can see Him today, if we open our eyes of faith and take note of the way He treated people … that helps us to really see Him. He is not an ancient figure in a dusty book. Here we have God’s Son, He is the image of His Father!. Let’s say that like this: Almighty God looks just like Jesus Christ! Ya might want to sit and Selah that a while.

There is more to mankind than just our outer shell!  What we say, and how we say it, what and who we admire, and what we give our time to – helps us to truly SEE each other. Don’t live in the superficialities of this life – we are made for bigger things! We have been exhorted not to just know each other after the flesh – but to know each other after the Spirit. What’s INSIDE that person you are speaking to?  At the same time our inside ears need to be attuned to Him speaking to us. I am not talking about a disembodied voice out of the air, I am speaking about an attitude that looks beyond the words, to the heart that spoke them.

INSIGHT is undervalued in our society. It cannot be studied out, it must be prayed over, chased, and pursued. We need to seek it. Otherwise the bible ends up being like a well-written collection of words written by 40 old guys. The bible says in Proverbs 4:7. ESV“The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. “ Why would King Solomon say that?  Because the desire to truly understand is everything. That guy had hundreds of wives and even more kids, boy did he need insight … even to remember all their names!! Insight is the ability to look deeper, to go beyond the words and expose the heart and sight of the writer and whatever he is writing about.

Jesus Christ is God’s LOVE language to us. The bible does not describe the Lord Jesus physically, it simply said He was ordinary. Instead it describes His heart toward mankind. That’s how it is to be read. Not as a series of instructions, or exhortations, but as the Father’s heart written on every page. I have just been slogging away through the book of Chronicles. Man that will test your patience – name after name after name!! So I asked the Lord, “Why all these names?” He said: “Every single person is important to Me. Their names are there to show that they are valuable, whether they lived for Me or not.”

Insight takes the ordinary and looks beyond the superficial words, because it wants to know the One Who wrote it. I exhort everyone reading this blog, don’t just read the bible … look for the Lord’s heart. If you don’t see it right away, then ask the Holy Spirit to help you to go deeper. Insight adds clarity. And don’t forget to do what it says! 🤣 

P 2633 We all need comfort and love …

/ DVH

“All praises belong to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For He is the Father of tender mercy and the God of endless comfort. He always comes alongside us to comfort us in every suffering so that we can come alongside those who are in any painful trial. We can bring them this same comfort that God has poured out upon us.”2 Corinthians 1:3-4 TPT.

So many of us are struggling in one way or another in these difficult days, so today – let’s pray together: “Precious Holy Spirit, please be with the lonely, suffering, the broken and those who are in pain. Jesus please make Yourself real to them in a brand new way. I pray that whenever they open the bible, the scriptures they read will fly straight into their hearts and bring them such overwhelming comfort. I ask You to help them to draw even closer to You, in their sorrow and suffering, so that they constantly feel protected and loved. Please bring their brothers and sisters around them to offer Your comfort and help, in Your precious Name, Amen.

When stuff happens to me and it starts to sink my little ship, I go straight into the Psalms and dig in!  But today I found these two verses in Corinthians and realised I was limiting myself, by staying in the Psalms. So I looked up comfort and love instead. What a wealth of stuff there is in our bibles! Now here are a couple of references that really helped me. Psalm 23:4;  Psalm 27:1;  Psalm 145:18-19; Isaiah 41:10;  Matthew 10:29-31; Matthew 11:28;  2 Corinthians 4:16-18 and Colossians 1:11. As you can easily see, a couple turned into a lot! 

My advice is to read these verses over and over until they slip down from your head into your heart. Your heart will remember far more easily than your head, and they will surround and comfort you in the dead of the night when no-one else is awake. There is no sad like the sad at 3.00 am and you can’t sleep. Life seems incredibly dismal when you have pain in your body or soul. However, we gotta give the Holy Spirit stuff to work with, so that when we are overwhelmed: ‘He can lead us to the Rock that is higher than we are!’Psalm 61.

There is a hidden blessing in suffering — it builds something inside us. And it makes us more open to care for someone else who is not doing well either. Over the years I have learnt to recognise pain by looking in someone else’s eyes. I don’t think it is a spiritual gift … well maybe it’s discernment… whatever! Lately, everywhere I look I see pain. I can’t even watch the news. How newsreaders can read about such terrible daily suffering and still smile beats me.

The wonderful thing about our Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is — They are non-partisan and not prejudiced against anyone. Holy pure Love flourishes between Them like an ever-flowing fountain, and we are incredibly blessed to be splashed and washed over and over again, in the fountain-overflow of Their love. When your body is tired and aching, a shower or a bath is great – when your spirit and emotions are overwhelmed we need to be soaked in, and splashed with His love for us.

Think about this – our God actually loves those who hate Him. Just think about that as an example of His unending Grace! Think about the people you know who have deliberately walked away and could care less about coming back to Him. Yet He still goes after them. I pray for those people that God will give them a revelation of how marvellous His love is. Until time is no more, our wonderful God will chase after ALL His kids. Each one of us matters to Him, and, speaking personally … some of us are kind of a bit strange – and that’s an understatement! 

Our Heavenly Father pays attention to every bird that falls to the ground. That made me wonder just  how many birds die every single day all around the world? So I looked it up…tens of millions of birds die every single day and He sees each one fall. Now here’s the glorious, hang-onto-this-info-with-both-hands bit — we know that HE CARES SO MUCH MORE FOR YOU and I, as imperfect as we both know we are.

The point is we need to let Him comfort us, instead of trying to buck up and stagger on, pretending everything is alright. My advice is to just sit in a puddle of your own tears on the floor and tell Him everything is NOT alright, and it won’t be alright until He helps you. And then wait for His peace to fill and still your heart. We need His comfort and love to surround us, all day every day.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” … “Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 4:7 (I found another one!!) Bye.👋

P 2627 He is always with us.

/ DVH

“When you pass through the deep, stormy sea, you can count on Me to be there with you. When you pass through raging rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through persecution like fiery flames, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you,…” Isaiah 43:2.

The bible says – Lord will be ‘with’ us. It does not, however, say that He will always keep us away from dangerous, difficult stuff. I think the reason the Lord does not say: ‘I will make it so you never suffer’ – is because “I will be WITH you…” is SO much better! The very best thing we can do when we are in dire straights, is to look for Him. Why? Because He said He would be there, that’s why! The body of Christ has become spiritually unfit – we stopped doing our spiritual exercises and started demanding God do this and that. That’s what sent the Israelites down the plug-hole!

We can see in the bible, that the fire of persecution could not touch Christ. He stood silently and faced accusation even on the way to the cross. satan couldn’t drown the Lord Jesus either. Even before He was resurrected, He walked on water. He knew Who was in charge of what He did and where He went  He was with those disciples on the water talking to them when they thought they might drown. He stood on the water outside the boat!

Almighty God respects our free will, instead of turning it over to our enemy – we need to remind ourselves Who we belong to. The best thing we can do when things go upside down and inside out, is to ask Jesus to be with us. In His Presence nothing on this earth can bother us – we simply must learn to live in His Presence. Jesus DID it! Kingdom things like grace, mercy, love, and peace etc. are bigger than trouble, they instantly exclude it. Stuff won’t go away – we will WALK RIGHT THROUGH IT.

God’s peace does not sort of kind of shoo trouble out of the door, anymore than turning on the light pushes away the darkness! When His peace is present HE is present. (God’s peace is a Person, BTW – the precious Holy Spirit.) If you and I switch a light on, the darkness instantly disappears. There is no contest between light and dark. One thing simply excludes the other. That statement is our point of faith. Despite how we feel – truth is always truth. Our faith is an ever increasing revelation of Who we know God to be.

The real secret to overcoming in difficult circumstances is to make Him welcome. Tell Him: “Holy Spirit You are welcome in this place” – then point to your heart. It is one thing to do that in church and completely another to do it when stuff starts happening. It’s a faith statement. We aren’t talking about a theory – one that works sometimes and doesn’t others. Jesus didn’t try to walk on water. He simply did it, as casually as you or I would walk up the street. The wind and waves didn’t bother Him one bit. Why not? Because ...“He was going to the other side.” That’s what He said and that’s what He did.

Even on this earth Jesus lived in another kingdom! That kingdom has a different POV than this world does. God’s Kingdom has His POV.“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights [the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens], IN Whom there is no variation [no rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [for He is perfect and never changes].” James 1:17. Knowing God can’t deceive you despite the circumstances, is the place to stand. There is no “maybe” or “I hope so” in God’s kingdom. Everything is YES and AMEN. 

The Lord Jesus quite simply didn’t live in a place that included other possibilities. He took the time to know His Father and relate to Him. Just like you and I take a breath without even thinking about it, the Lord Jesus lived to do God’s will. As imperfect human beings we like to entertain other possibilities — mainly to explain why we are shrieking our heads off in a sinking boat, as it goes up and down in rough seas!

In heaven there is no place for doubt. Faith and Love rule. Our job is to bring those things down here – no matter what is going on around us. That cannot work if we don’t practise the skill of trusting God in all things – big and small. We need to immediately get rid of those thoughts that say: “God won’t help me”… “This thing doesn’t matter it is too small to bother Him about” … “I can’t.” I can’t but HE CAN. Dependance upon Him means we lean back into Him and trust He is Who He says He is.

A lack of peace begins in our soul. In our emotions, our thoughts. Fear grabs at us and we start to sink in our emotions and thoughts first. The reason we have to wrangle this or that all the time, is that we are living in the wrong kingdom –OR maybe we are trying to live in both! That means we end up doing the hokey pokey with our faith! When we live by His kingdom’s rules then His life flows. Remember, nobody can kill us without His permission. And Almighty God will not give permission until it is the right time. Why? “Because there is a TIME to be born and a time to die ..” (Ecclesiastes 3) 

Sometimes I want to say to people, take your earthly glasses off and put on the kingdom ones and just leave them there, and please, don’t forget to read the book!! His book reminds us of Who He is, and how much He loves us. He is always with us. We are not of this world … we are His Kingdom people. We talk about it, carry it, live in it, breath it, and do it – and if necessary – we die for it. Bye.👋

P 2604 God’s word is a revelation waiting to happen.

/ DVH

Psalm 19:10-14:“God’s Word is better than a diamond, better than a diamond set between emeralds. You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring, better than red, ripe strawberries.There’s more: God’s Word warns us of danger and directs us to hidden treasure. Otherwise how will we find our way? Or know when we play the fool? Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh! Keep me from stupid sins, from thinking I can take over Your work; Then I can start this day sun-washed, scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.These are the words in my mouth; these are what I chew on and pray.”

Have you ever watched someone panning for gemstones or gold? They swish water over the collected river gravel and then they swirl the contents around. The heavy stuff, the gold and the gemstones, fall to the bottom and the other useless gravel ends up on top. It is a process of elimination. I think that’s what the Lord does in our lives daily!

This trip has become one of those swirly, whirly times for me. Just when I think I might know something – round we go again and I’m wondering whether I’m sinking or not —- or whether this time I’m gunna end up at the top and be thrown out! I only know one thing, I want to be found to be gold, not gravel. So I keep on digging into His word, looking for things that speak to my heart, as I press on to face each day. Then I look for ways to apply what I read.

To live like that as a body, we will have to be prepared to be rumbled and tossed about – yet at the same time stay incredibly pliable, always prepared for change spiritually speaking. Our trust is definitely going to be stretched  as we get tossed about! We will need to see what the Holy Spirit sees when He is dealing with us. The glint of gold, the sparkle of a gemstone, hidden under the detritus of every day life. The only way that that can happen is to continually expose ourselves to His Word, taking everything we read seriously, and personally. 

Faith says God’s Word is good, it tastes like honey – even if it is sometimes hard to digest! “How sweet are Your words to my taste, Sweeter than honey to my mouth! From Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way. Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” Psalm 119:103-105. His word can give us understanding about ourselves, and others … it will expose and illuminate our personal circumstances. It takes us out of self-interest into His interests …plus it makes the impossible, possible. 

It can seem that miracles are spectacular things, like raising the dead, turning water into wine, healing the sick, preaching sermons that convict and convince. Maybe when we read the word ‘miracles’ we are blinded by our own ideas. But when Jesus miraculously fed thousands of people, I wonder if everyone knew where that food even came from! We can miss our own miracles, because they don’t come with trumpets and angel song. Instead we need eyes to see and ears to hear what He says and does daily, quietly, without any fanfare. Every single day I submit to His word, I have found He opens my eyes to new perspectives. He also keeps me aware of danger.  

The Holy Spirit, through the bible, challenges who I think I am. He checks me when I am about to lose my way. Before I became aware of the reality of Christ, I just blundered about saying what I thought … when I thought it. Because I was living that way, I was blissfully unaware of how what I said affected other people. Truth alone can be harsh and unyielding, but truth kissed with LOVE will set people free to see Him, and find themselves.

I like to use the above scripture as a prayer. Especially the ‘keep me from stupid sins’ part! This psalmist understands God’s dealings with mankind. He knows, that we are like the precious, but yet-to-be-revealed gemstones hidden in the accumulated gravel of our lives. We all need shaking up. We need to be sloshed about in the whirlwinds of this world, so we can be separated away from the false comfort we think we need. Unfortunately we won’t cry out for deliverance if we don’t think we need to be delivered. Instead, we could easily blame someone else for our own faults, and make them the fall guy! Here’s a hot tip: try asking Him; “what did I do?”

God’s Word is everything we need for personal revelation. There are things for each of our lives that are poised, waiting to happen, waiting to be discovered. I exhort all of us to search for the gemstones, and be careful what we throw away!  Think about the bible says, chew on it, sink your teeth into it until you get happy honey nourishment from it.  👋