Right spirit

P 3482 Priorities.

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Our priorities matter. Making Jesus our first priority can seem foreign in a world where ‘how I feel’ is the main event. It is no wonder when we are under attack, we often feel weak. Mind power is strong, but it is not strong enough for the kind of testing this life will throw at us. You can’t fight the enemy with anything but a God-given sword. We certainly can’t think our way out of the bad stuff. I’ve learnt that broken hearts have jagged pieces, they hurt! I’m learning to make Jesus my first priority, I suspect that fight will go on while I’m still here.

Just stop and think and pray for a minute. What would my life look like if I made Him my priority and let the Lord have His Way, instead of talking my self out of doing the hard things? Some questions really challenge me … I do wish the Lord would give them to someone else! It is one thing to say it and another to back up the words with our chosen actions – in the middle of the battle is a hard time to assess things – but I want fruit more than temporary relief!

Sometimes this life hands us such ugly things — they look like toads or frogs. It takes faith to be able to see the Prince of Peace while you are in the middle of it, and it seems like you have to kiss the frog! The secret is to ask the Lord to reveal His blessings in the middle of the stagnant ponds of this life, instead of trying to avoid or escape from them. We desperately need to see His hand at work in and on whatever is happening to us, and around us. Although there may be enemy strikes everywhere, we can be guided by Him. He will show us when we need to resist the enemy, and when we need to yield to the Holy Spirit. Let’s make it a priority to co-operate with Him.

This new life we have is lived, minute by minute. This is no blanket methodology that we can throw over the top of difficulties. We live, move, and breathe with His eyes and hand upon us – and knowing He is always there is now our place of comfort. We can’t afford to aim at stuff like:  feeling better or things changing. If that does happen it is a very precious plus… but instead, right now, we are learning to hold fast to what He has said. When He says He will not leave or forsake us, that’s what He means, and so that’s what we cling to. Let’s choose to remind the Lord that our trust is in Him, and then remind ourselves that He has a bigger plan than we can see. Life will batter us, but Jesus already WON. 

We can’t even try to patch together some sort of human methodology so we can prepare ourselves for the same sort of situation when it comes up again. Here’s what I’ve learnt about that. The same things never happen twice, and  even when what happens seems vaguely familiar, we often don’t recognise that until we are on the bottom of some nasty little hole looking UP! PS: At those times the only useful thing we can try to cultivate is to remind ourselves to keep looking UP. 

We are not in some kind of test with the Lord looking at us, from a distance, clipboard in hand, scoring whether we did OK or not. Jesus already took that test you are struggling through. He took it in your name and mine and He not only WON —  that whole thing was nailed to the cross, right through His own hands — together with everything else that needed redemption. Our job now is to trust what He did and live this life believing everything Jesus said is true. So now we can live that way too.  

This has nothing whatsoever to do with presumption and everything to do with GRACE. He gave Grace to each one of us, when we were lost and forever damned to hell — no matter how nice everyone else thought we were! It’s our hearts that need to be transformed, we can get so busy concentrating upon the details, correcting this, loosing that … but the Lord values the state of our heart. I’m so glad one of the Psalmists prayed …”Create in me a clean heart O Lord, and renew a right spirit in me.” The heart is the place to start, not our outward actions. Those actions are like the leaves on a tree – they are simply a consequence of the state of the roots. 

Meanwhile the bible shows us that we can legitimately cheer up because Jesus died to save sinners! Those things in your life that heckle you, and laugh at you … remember, He chose to hang there long enough for them too! There is no need for pretending when we truly understand that our inadequacy has been totally replaced by His adequacy. Now we need to use our faith to appropriate what we have already been given — our faith in His truthfulness, His loving kindness, His goodness and His power! 

“So come on, let’s leave the preschool finger-painting exercises on Christ and get on with the grand work of art. Grow up in Christ. The basic foundational truths are in place: turning your back on “salvation by self-help” and turning in trust toward God; baptismal instructions; laying on of hands; resurrection of the dead; eternal judgment. God helping us, we’ll stay true to all that. But there’s so much more. Let’s get on with it!” Hebrews 6:1-3. 

Our priorities and our choices matter. Even the little, seemingly insignificant ones. When we choose to trust He is Who He says He is, even when the circumstances seem bigger than you are, let’s lean on Him. That’s more solid than the ground we stand upon. “God is not human, that He should lie, not a human being, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfil?” Numbers 23:19. Bye 👋.

P3408 King David, an example of God’s faithfulness.

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“Holy Spirit, there is nowhere I can run to escape Your Presence! You won’t give up on me because You are too kind to leave me the way You found me. You guide me, counsel me, and show me the paths that lead to life. Today, make me more aware of Your goodness so that I can share Your goodness with others.” In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Isn’t this a great prayer? I didn’t write it by the way, I wish I had! It contains some beautiful truths about Who our Father is, plus it reveals His character, His intentional engagement with us and His ever-present, unfailing love for each one of us. Personally, there have been so many days when remembering His love keeps me going. Today I read Psalm 34:1-3.…“Lord! I’m bursting with joy over what You’ve done for me! My lips are full of perpetual praise. I’m boasting of You and all Your works, so let all who are discouraged take heart. Join me, everyone! Let’s praise the Lord together. Let’s make Him famous! Let’s make His Name glorious to all.”

This is David speaking and he is talking about his favourite subject, God Himself.  ‘David wrote this Psalm after escaping from King Achish of Gath. He was constantly being pursued by King Saul, so he fled to a Philistine city. And when he was recognised he feigned madness to escape execution. He wrote this Psalm when he was finally safe.’  

So this man, this King-in-waiting — who refuses to take his God-delegated throne by force, has been running away from practically everyone and yet he still so focussed on God’s goodness and kindness that when he is finally safe – JOY comes out, not just relief! These verses really made me think. When some hardship or other comes along, what is my reaction? Can I still see the Lord in the middle of my life crashing in on me on every side? When everyone else deserts me, am I incredibly glad He is still with me?

I’m not prepared to share my answer, it embarrassed me. It is not a sin to try to pray away our troubles and strife, even if we have caused the mess ourselves. But true heart repentance is only available to us as we begin to understand we can’t do anything at all without Him. Humility of heart is a huge key and David had it. As I see it, problems come up when we are so focussed on whatever is going on, we can’t see God in our situation anymore. And then — sadly — we actually stop looking for Him … because we are too busy trying to fix things on our own.

Here’s another Psalm, written by David at another time. This Psalm is addressing yet another terrible situation. He has been betrayed, again, and he is desperate for deliverance from those who seek to kill him. “Trust only in God every moment! Tell Him all your troubles and pour out your heart-longings to Him. Believe me when I tell you—He will help you! Pause in His Presence.” Psalms 62:8. David’s first thought is: “God is faithful, He will help me!” Meanwhile, can you believe this guy wrote PSALMS while he was running for his life??

It seems to me that this man’s heart was so precious to God because under pressure all that came out was David’s faith in our Heavenly Father’s goodness. He knew about God’s unswerving faithfulness to us. Here’s another important scripture for us to think on today:  “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me.” Psalm 51: 10,11.

These verses are great ones to pray over ourselves. While  the rest of the world runs about trying to impress the Lord with their great exploits, David understands the way to God’s heart lies through the way we regard Him … and this prayer shows us that we can ASK for a right heart.  We simply need to accept His Way of doing things is not the same as ours.

What an example to us David’s life is. As we read about him we watch him run, stumble, and also fall. In times of ease, he gets complacent. and he forgets Who he is serving ,and makes terrible mistakes. Yet his faith in God’s goodness is outstanding, and his ability to repent is monumental. It is almost like David had no deliberate thoughts about how to  cultivate his heart – rather his responses come from not being able to bear the separation sin brings. 

Because David is God’s idea of a heart that is right before Him, I think we need to note that it is this man’s belief that God is good, that holds him fast in that attitude. It has nothing to do with his actions, but everything to do with his responses. These difficult situations, in the main, aren’t about what King David is actually doing … with the notable exception of Bathsheba. Instead, they are far more about someone else’s jealousy of David’s position before God. An ambitious heart sometimes envies someone else’s pure motivations. It will often credit the other person with the same motivations they have. 

David’s love and passion for God’s Presence drove every other thought out of his mind.  When he allowed his humanity to overtake him, he immediately remembered that God is a God of forgiveness, and he threw himself on His mercy. He never forgot our Heavenly Father is faithful and despite our  circumstances, our God will help us! Bye. 👋.

P 3238 Unplugged.

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“Keep creating in me a clean heart. Fill me with pure thoughts and holy desires, ready to please You.” Psalms 51:10 

I like this version, because the word ‘creating’ is used in the present tense. I actually think this is an ongoing process for every one of us. Daily, sometimes minute by minute, the Holy Spirit continually creates a new living-for-Jesus heart in us – if we let Him do it. Yielding to the Lord is one of the best assets we have.

However, we can personally short-circuit this entire process by choosing our own way, and giving into our baser desires – simply by ignoring repentance. Repentance is the way out of the kind of difficulties we can get ourselves into! When anything seems to be clouded or muddied in my mind and heart, I know I need to repent! 

I realised years ago, that I will always need to ask for His help to back up and start again, because I’m human and repentance means humbling myself. Even in the times when I am really mad, and I think the other person is utterly wrong, that’s when I really struggle to repent! Like I said – that’s also when I really need His help – and He will give it. He longs to help us. 

True repentance is the very best kind of prayer, it clears away the deceitful cobwebs we allow to hang around in our mind and heart. The Holy Spirit always answers that kind of prayer, immediately. I confess that there have been times when I kind of wished He wouldn’t!  But that is because, in those moments I want to justify myself. It is exceedingly dumb to give up the Lord’s blood bought justification for us. When I settle into my own kind of justification, nothing gets fixed, plus  ….I end up with a permanent lousy attitude!

Maybe you don’t even think about something like revenge, because you know that would be wrong. However, I still think we are all capable of speaking, thinking and wishing someone else ill, silently. I think that’s why the Lord spoke to the Israelites so often about “murmuring and complaining.’  Sadly if we are not murmuring and complaining about God, then someone else is probably in our firing line. That’s because human beings have a habit of doing it!  By the way, the Lord does not accuse us when He points this out, so we can repent. Instead He is diagnosing something that shoots all of us in the foot all the time… our inner attitude. 

Honesty, with yourself and others, can be very costly, but it also creates opportunities to truly connect. Sometimes I think the only time people feel free to be honest is when you’ve annoyed the living daylights out of them and they are angry! If we sincerely want to have the Lord create a clean heart in us, then we need to be free to own up to the stuff we keep on doing … the stuff that no-one else knows about. Even the stuff we don’t think we want to escape from that we try to hide from ourselves with lame excuses.

Because He’s our God and He can do anything—He can change our motivation!  Always remember, the bible is called GOOD NEWS! Seriously, there are some things I used to do that I can’t stand anymore. God changed my attitudes when I wasn’t even looking. I don’t know if you have met this wonderful quality the Lord has, but it blows me away, every single time I encounter it. 

It means I have ceased to be attracted to something dumb that uses up the time He has given me. One day I was able to enjoy … (whatever it was, without blinking) … and then almost instantly, I simply couldn’t stand it anymore. And all I did was give it to the Lord and I left it with Him. I cannot stress how much total surrender has changed my life. Yet it was the very thing I specifically avoided for years, 

I was so scared of Jesus taking over and taking way stuff… I knew nothing about the fact that the Lord won’t do that – our power of choice always remains. This is the blessing we have, when we deliberately choose to go in His direction. Our preferences change instead. He has never made me do things I didn’t want to do.. But eventually I figured out I was never going to be the person I longed to be from self effort… … I’m a bit thick, so that took a while. 

Finally I gave up! That’s when total surrender became easy … when I realised I was never going to be able to create a clean heart in myself, by myself. Not to mention the lack of ability to have pure thoughts and a right spirit within me! This world had provided me with so many opportunities to get mad and stay mad—eventually I had outsourced my ownership of my own emotions, into someone else’s hands.  

The reality was they weren’t doing so well either, so that was an entirely dumb move. Back then I could tell you what was wrong with everyone around me, far better than I knew myself! In order to walk like Jesus did, I needed to unplug from this world’s thinking and plug into His. I urge you to take that path, it makes all the difference. 

Bye. 👋

P 3105 Take regular BATHS in the Holy Spirit.

/ DVH

Isaiah 42:1TPT. “Take a good look at My Servant. I’m backing Him to the hilt. He’s the One I chose, and I couldn’t be more pleased with Him. I’ve bathed Him with my Spirit, my life. He’ll set everything right among the nations. He won’t call attention to what He does with loud speeches or gaudy parades. He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and He won’t disregard the small and insignificant, but He’ll steadily and firmly set things right. He won’t tire out and quit. He won’t be stopped until He’s finished His work—to set things right on earth. Far-flung ocean islands wait expectantly for His teaching.”

As you can see, Jesus is our highly recommended example of submission. Plus He is our perfect illustration of how to have a permanent, total loving connection, at all times with our Heavenly Father. He was not interested in publicity, or fame, He is always drawn to those people our society deems unlovely, broken, nasty, and unredeemable. Let us realise that legislating tolerance is not the same as loving acceptance. Father God’s will for our lives is loving acceptance. The Lord Jesus gave His all to obey His Father’s wishes so we could be accepted. 

Meanwhile, doesn’t the whole being bathed in the Spirit thing sound lovely??!! You and the Holy Spirit splashing away, having fun together! Hmmm. Way back in the ark we took baths to get rid of dirt. Are you still there? God’s grace, together with the Holy Spirit, will help us to deal with the stuff we’ve been ignoring, or overlooking because that pile of junk seems too hard and too big to tackle. But first we need to realise we need a bath! To get rid of dirt, grime, hypocrisy, jealousy, rage, and revenge, etc. – we need to regularly take a bath in the Living Water of HIS WORD. 

Our God is so good to us. He will always use His Word to encourage us when we are down, to free us when we are trapped, and to wash us when we are dirty. The following verse in Ephesians 5:26 talks about what the Word of God does in us and for us. “Husbands, you must love your wives so deeply, purely, and sacrificially that we can understand it only when we compare it to the love the Anointed One has for His bride, the church. We know He gave Himself up completely to make her His own, washing her clean of all her impurity with water and the powerful presence of His Word.”

There’s a bonus buy in this verse for husbands who are prepared to listen to it — if you follow the Lord’s advice in this verse you will have a happy wife. The advice is this: be like Jesus to your wife. That could keep some people busy until the next millennia!  And, ya might want to read that last sentence again and remind yourself that we will always need His help! Go to the gospels and see how the Lord Himself treated women. It is a sad fact that in the past men were only too happy to lead, but they kind of skipped the whole deeply, purely and sacrificially bit – not to mention love their wives the way Jesus loved the church!

A-n-y-w-ay! … Back to my real point today – deliberately deciding to take a daily bath in His Word. We can read verses like this, nod our heads and  agree with what it says, and still privately think …‘this stuff was written long, long ago, how can it be relevant today?’ The truth is it won’t be relevant unless you choose to make it relevant. Our personal decisions govern what we participate in. If we sow into the flesh—what we feel, or what we think might happen—we won’t even begin to see a harvest in the Spirit. The way to see what the Lord will do with obedience … is to decide to be obedient and get on with it.

Many of this world’s ideas are the exact opposite of our stated desire to be transformed and changed into the Lord’s likeness. You simply can’t walk with the Holy Spirit and disagree with the Way He does things! Father God is so good, He will not cross our wishes. However, what He has done is to provide us with opportunities to change our minds and turn around and go back into submission. Submission means our human mission becomes subordinate to His Heavenly mission. It means that He knows better than we do what we actually want and need – mankind is ruled by its appetites. God has a better plan, because of the Grace Jesus released at Calvary, the Holy Spirit can and will guide and lead us into His Ways.

Like I’ve said many times before – Jesus overpaid our debt. Now we have a bank of Grace that we can draw on, anytime, anywhere … under any circumstances… it is there to help us change! “…ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be opened to you …”  The problem is people have bashed on the door of this verse for years now to get stuff that they think they want or need. Things like expensive cars, houses, boats, trips overseas etc.etc.

This verse about asking was used to illustrate to us that we can have the Holy Spirit’s help anywhere, any time. Jesus is talking about receiving, welcoming and being helped by the Holy Spirit, not about me being given a new Porsche! When we allow God’s Word to wash us clean, our motivations become clean too. Let me put it this way – every interaction with His Presence changes us. If we mean it when we say,‘create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit in me,’  then we must choose to engage with His ways. Taking regular baths in the Holy Spirit means bearing in mind that we are looking to be clean — not just tick a box! That will change our hearts and transform our minds. Bless you. 👋

P 2908 Alfred.

/ DVH

Good morning everyone. It seems that part of our preparation for our bible trip next Monday is reorganising our house! I shan’t bore you with many details – one room has sprung a leak and another room is even lower than that one. So we are emptying both rooms and stuffing everything we have in them into the rest of our quite small home. Like many people where we live, we have not experienced a cyclone. Personally, I could have cheerfully skipped that event, but it seems the Lord has other plans in my transformation process.

Man, we are sentimental packrats at our house! We’ve been married for 38 years and I think we have kept every single thing we ever bought. We have thought about moving on various occasions but the trauma of all that packing etc. etc. …if you have ever moved you will know that a lot of stuff happens in those words etc.etc!!

Many times, all that work has dissuaded us from moving, and so we decided to stay put. I don’t think anyone likes to have to pack their life into boxes. But currently it seems the Lord wants us to revise our pack-ratty ways and we will have quite a bit of sorting out to do when we get back home. Yes, we are still going, the Lord willing, if the planes are allowed to fly out. I imagine it is not much fun in a plane in a cyclone! 

The rising panic of this whole event makes for a difficult atmosphere all over the place. A lot of people at the shops seem quite afraid because it has been 50 years since the last cyclone darkened our city’s doorstep. That fear is almost palpable everywhere you go. It highlights for me that most people have no clue about the Lord Jesus, or eternity, or ‘what happens to me?’ Those people live in our neighbourhoods. Meanwhile, we are having a crash course in letting go and letting God, and allowing Him to bring His kingdom into our lives despite the temptation to fling up our hands and give in to despair. 

Thank the Lord our son has come to help us practically because I think hubby has had to transform himself into three people when I wasn’t looking! One of them is looking after me, the other one is preparing for our bible trip and the most exhausted one is moving furniture! Life is never boring. But we keep on giving things back to the Lord, and dealing with them one at a time. Sadly my brain turns into confused mush if you push on it, and so I am not much help. But I can and will pray.

I said all that to finally introduce my subject for today’s blog – clearing and cleaning out our spiritual closets. I have learnt over the years that what is happening in the natural world around us can mirror what is happening inside us. Speaking for myself, there seems to be a whole lot of stuff I have stored, hiding unnoticed and undisturbed! Life is busy, and time passes more quickly than any of us think – it is good to have a stock-taking event now and then!

So here is my verse for today … I think it may end up my verse of the month! “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with Thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.” Psalm 51:10-19. 

This made a great deal of sense to me  – we cannot go out and talk to people about the Lord next week, with unnecessary burdens and dirty hands. These precious people mean so much to Him and we want the purity of His love to shine through us. So thank you, cyclone Alfred, for calling us to revise our absent- minded ways. Bye, 👋

P 2582 More on a heart like David.

/ DVH

The Lord said of His servant David, that “this is a man after My own heart”. (1 Samuel 13:14) It seems to me it is comparatively easy to pray:“Oh Lord please give me a heart like David had!”…in a moment of love and passion toward God Himself … with no understanding of what that means!  Will we blame God for not answering that prayer – when we ignore the opportunities He sends our way?

Think on this: if you and I really want a heart like David had, then God Himself will need to send us the kind of opportunities DAVID had! Hearts are formed, they do not fall on us. Here’s quick revision of David’s life — this young man was overlooked in his family. His earthly father forgot he had him and obviously thought the boy was not as promising as his six brothers were!  Did David moan about that? No! Instead he learnt about God in the middle of a pasture doing a job that was beneath his stature. This was where he learnt about soaking in God’s ways. That’s where he learnt to make the Lord his priority. He wrote beautiful Psalms… instead of complaining about his lowly position and the weather.

David chose God’s ways over his own human desires, many times. We all know about his failure and the subsequent consequences, but there were so many other times that David chose to honour the Lord despite his circumstances. His responses to his life were way above most men’s natural tendencies. He did not do that to curry favour with God, BTW, he did it because that was who he was! Soaking in God’s beauty had shaped his heart, and his responses came from that heart of love toward the Father. 

So if WE want a heart like David, then maybe we will have to fight our own Goliath and WIN. We all have Goliaths in our lives, and we often feel ill-equipped to fight them. But David took what he had – which was belief in Who Almighty God is – and defeated his enemy. There may also be a possibility that we will have to honour somebody in our lives just like King Saul, David’s persecutor of 20 years. Simply because that person is God’s choice to shape US… by handing out constant oppression! Maybe our tormentor has been tormenting us for years too!!

Let’s look at David’s response when his little baby boy died… “After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill. David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth on the ground. On the seventh day the child died …” 2 Samuel 12:15-18. 

After his baby’s death, David’s servants were reluctant to tell him the little one was gone, but he figured it out. Then he does an extraordinary thing — it seems almost totally incomprehensible. He gets up, washes himself, and asks for food. Why on earth would he do that? You know when I think about his response it blows me away. This man is so concerned about doing God’s will, God’s way, once the Lord’s plan is revealed – He leaves the whole thing alone and goes back into ordinary life, immediately. Boy is that living this life surrendered!  

Much later, David actively sets out to find someone left in Saul’s house … even after Saul and Jonathan had died. He wants to do his enemy’s family good. (Now there’s a grand illustration of doing good to your enemies!) Despite his warrior life, this man of God had such integrity before the Lord. It all sprang from his deep love for God, not obligation, or religious duty. Those Psalms he wrote came right out of his own experiences! Instead of cultivating despair, anger and jealousy – David cultivated a sweet heart.

It may be that we too have lost else someone so dear to us, like David did, when his older son Absalom died. But David was not able to mourn Absalom … imagine that! He’s a leader, his sheep come first! He puts his grief aside, in order to be a good leader and king to his subjects. Funny how God picks ordinary people like that quite often. Think about it.

These are just some ?highlights? After all David’s life was filled with war and betrayal! If we truly want a heart like he had, maybe we are going to need some panel-beating first! That, and a sweet, spontaneous heart-response under pressure. God Himself forges men and women in the furnaces of trouble, pestilence, war, sorrow and strife. We must simply choose to learn His ways, they won’t fall on us.

Here’s my last thought – right after the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost, persecution for the gospel’s sake broke out. But Father God had a purpose, He wanted the disciples to disperse to spread the gospel further. So, instead of becoming a jolly, happy, worshipping group, who enjoyed their new life together teaching the same things over and over again … persecution and bad experiences are now their teacher.

 We will have troubles and strife in this life, and this means God is working on our hearts. To have a heart like David we will need to be changed. 👋 “Create in me a clean heart O, Lord, and renew a right spirit within me.” Amen!