Right

P 2426 I know I need the Holy Spirit desperately.

/ DVH

You may think that I’m always going on about transformation, a-n-d … you would be right! Without transformation we simply cannot build His church above the first floor. People who are not in the process of being transformed can quite easily have the right motivation but the wrong agendas. They can want to do good things for the right reasons … but good things out of His timing have no life in them. We need the Holy Spirit desperately.

That’s because we are following SomeOne, not just making stuff up as we go along!  We cannot move forward unless we follow the Leader, and Jesus sent back the Holy Spirit for us to follow HIM. We need His life, His input, in every single thing we do. Before you throw your hands up in the air because you know you can’t do that at this moment – (me neither!) …I just want to remind you that getting it wrong is never the issue. We can always repent of being wrong! However, being willing to admit we are wrong is definitely an issue, and so is repairing any damage we may have done. Meanwhile, leaving Him out of everything is just plain DUMB. He made this world by speaking – no-one can follow that kind of productivity!

The works of the flesh are also a problem, because our good works stink in God’s sight. We need to use whatever energy we have to learn what the Holy Spirit likes, so we can walk with Him. “How can two walk together unless they be agreed?” That’s just a fancy schmancy way of saying if you can’t walk to-ge-ther as ONE, then two people can’t possibly walk – together! Not rocket science. Here’s a free heads up. Fighting with your spouse is amongst the dumbest things you can do, you are negating your own prayers. Swallow your pride, repent and trust God to help you out of the hole you both dug! Learn to be wrong, even if you think you are right. It doesn’t matter if your spouse joins in or not – you and God are a majority. It may be slower than you’d like but HE will win. Outdo one another in HUMILITY and loving service. The higher ground is always the lower place.

In the church and in marriages, there are way too many pretender un-holy spirits. Christians can forget that we can’t see properly in the first place — mainly because we are all so good at being a pompous ass!  Let’s remember, that in church and in our marriages, we are here to serve one another, not rule the roost. When we choose to rule the roost individually, the Holy Spirit goes right out the door, and the devil rubs his hands in glee and takes over. Meanwhile, if people are afraid of you, or avoid you, you are in the wrong spirit. 

We dare not think we are the only person within any relationship that hears the Lord! God has been known to speak through a donkey – BOY is that a good thing to remember! 1 Corinthians 13 is a great yardstick. We need the art of humbling ourselves. I only know two people, in my whole life, who will always spontaneously apologise when things go topsy turvy! Whether they did anything wrong or not. Personally, I think that is because these two people value the Holy Spirit far more than being right! It is good to check with your kids, spouse, etc. and find out what they think is coming at them from you.

We need to remember that the Holy Spirit and Jesus are two different People. They both have exactly the same agenda, They want to glorify the Father. However, the Holy Spirit is not a man. Jesus Christ understood human beings, because He is one. But the Holy Spirit of God is different, He can be easily grieved. So … what grieves Him? Here are some thoughts: people who are unloving, joyless, they lack peace. They are impatient, unkind, what they think on and do is not good, they are not faithful, or gentle, nor do they have self-control. (This would be a great time to think about yourself in this context.) In other words their fruit of the Spirit tree is BARREN. They are like the fig tree Jesus cursed, lots of leaves and nothing for anyone to eat. Remember, genuine repentance is the immediate answer.

The Holy Spirit knows the benefits of remaining ONE with the Father, and the Son. They all have perfect harmony. He knows everything … and He knows the way through everything …so why would we try to figure stuff out by ourselves? Our marriages, our lives and our churches need the Holy Spirit. We do not have enough wisdom presently to go forward without HIM. Check out how badly the Israelites did in the Old Testament, when they tried to go solo. I need Him desperately. 👋🏻

P 2342 Learning to catch the wind.

/ DVH

This morning I thought about three different scriptures I’ve read recently that touched my heart … but none of them seemed right for today’s blog. Some days I have no idea what I want to write about. So it was utterly amazing that I came up with three extremely different things on the same day! You’d think that gave me heaps of choices… but NO! … not one of them seemed right. In the end I gave up trying to bam a square peg into a round hole and wrote this instead.😂 

We can get so intensely fixated upon a task that we forget: “His yoke is easy and His burden is light.” My immediate response to that thought is – if it ain’t easy then it ain’t God! And today, with those three different thoughts, none of them were simply right for now! We are not bull-dozers, we follow the wind. His Presence is in that task, and He lifts the weight or the burden for us. 

Today I want to talk about the similarities between writing this blog and witnessing. Facing a blank page is daunting, knowing that tomorrow total strangers are going to read it, and hopefully understand what you have written. And facing a total stranger and talking about your faith is also very challenging. You feel you must get it right or you will fail the Lord, and mislead that person so badly you will put them off Jesus forever. 😱No pressure of course!!  But that moment also clearly diagnoses that we are trying hard again. We do what we do because we love people, there is no pressure.

So here’s what today’s lesson showed me – when I feel the weight of responsibility to get whatever I am doing right – then I need to back up and …WAIT. I am waiting for Him to prompt me, or until I see an opening I can drive a Mac truck through. I’m waiting for HIM, I’m not waiting for feelings, I’m waiting for some sort of clarity. Sometimes that could be just one word so I go with that. I could look at someone and see anger, or sadness, and I ask them how they have been doing lately. These things, unfold, sometimes one sentence at a time.

Meanwhile, I figure things like witnessing probably will be scary because I am dying to my carefully cultivated life of self-preservation!! In these past few months I’ve noticed an opportunity to talk about what I know about Him, with strangers, a number of times. Those people asked me questions. I like that, it seems way easier than being obedient when He asks me to bring up something He gives me to say.  At those more difficult times I have a clear choice to obey or not …and I don’t always make the right one! Just being truthful …😶

Witnessing is not a rigid thing, it is fluid. In the past few weeks, practitioners in the health profession have asked me what I write about in this blog. I figure they are checking me out, since I fell downstairs quite badly, and they want to make sure my marbles aren’t scrambled, or broken or lost! The first time I simply told the person that it is a Christian blog and then they asked all kinds of questions, and I answered them as clearly and carefully as I could. We had a lovely talk together, and then we went back to my health again. The next time the new person asked exactly the same question and I thought ‘here we go again!’  Except we didn’t. They said “Oh, OK,” and they went straight back to asking health questions.

‘There is no system.’  Seriously, witnessing is a ‘fly by the seat of your pants, always relying on the Holy Spirit’  kind of thing. The Lord is always in charge, and right after His leading, comes the other person’s curiosity. Our job is to remain a safe place for them to ask questions. We are planting seeds, not restructuring their lives! Be prepared to stop in the middle of the most intriguing opportunity ever, to let the whole conversation slide. Even though you might badly wanna shout: “Dag-nab-it we were nearly there!!” We must leave it to Him to turn that conversation around again – if He wants to.

The Holy Spirit is gentle, HE Leads, He does not push – so no shoving please. He is the wind, we are just weather vanes turning to and fro as He blows on us. That’s all for today, maybe I will write about those three things I mentioned another time. Who knows, I’m just trying to catch the wind.👋🏻

P 2332 Our perceptions can limit our expansion.

/ DVH

Almighty God’s goodness, faithfulness, loving kindness, mercy, grace, love, joy and peace does not, and will not ever, depend on our perception. He IS all those things and more … simply because it is Who He is. Now there’s a good place to stop and cheer! 🥳 I have learnt during my life so far, that the ability to laugh at yourself is invaluable. Christians can be a bit ridiculous and intense, as well as ever-so-slightly pompous at times – if we are not careful we can suck all the spontaneous fun out of a room with a well placed raise of the eyebrows. 

We can also take ourselves way too seriously. I think we need to enjoy this life we’ve been given more. We can end up trying so hard to appear godly and pious, we give the impression that following Jesus is no fun at all. We should never be ashamed to share our faults and missteps with everyone around us, including our brothers and sisters – who knows what that kind of honest freedom could produce? 

How will others know what Christ did FOR US, if we are so busy trying so hard to look right all the time – without the Holy Spirit’s help. Trying to look good all the time, uses up way too much energy. No wonder we have no extra energy to witness and love on people. Keeping up that kind of appearance is exhausting. Conversely, some of us turn into undercover agents, and work on that sort of attitude so hard that the people around us don’t know we are Christians at all. We just ooze disapproval instead.

Today I decided to share some of the dumb things I have done in my lifetime. You know appearing to be the goods is exhausting, and when you get older you need all the energy you can find just to manage the stuff going on. Being changed from the inside out is the thing, it makes the supernatural normal!  

Hmm … back onto my point …I’ve done so many dumb things – it’s hard to pick. 😂 I once tipped a whole bottle of Shalimar perfume down the drain. I was utterly convinced that very expensive stuff was of the devil … so glub＄glub＄glub＄… down the drain it went. What was I thinking? I thought holiness was about being minutely careful over every little detail. I had no idea back then that holiness has already been imputed to us through our relationship with Christ. 

In other words holiness is about WHO we choose to hang out with, not just how paranoid we are about sin. How we look is mostly irrelevant, Who He is and what He has done for us is the main thing. Meanwhile down the plug hole went the Shalimar. Sigh. My drain smelled gorgeous for weeks! Retrospectively, my poor ex had heaps to put up with. 

Then there was the time I was utterly convinced that God was going to heal my severe short-sightedness. What a laugh-riot that was. I smashed my contact lenses convinced I needed to prove to God how serious I was in my belief that He heals today. You ain’t gunna believe the next bit … for two whole years I went about blind as a bat … doing all the normal things I always did. Fortunately, I didn’t drive back then! 

But I crossed roads, chopped stuff with big nasty knives, looked after my little kids and other people’s kids etc. caught buses, took trains, and carried on pretending that any minute now, praise God, I was going to be healed! Our wonderful Father protected and looked after this ding-bat and her kids, in spite of my theological blooper. I also told everyone else I was healed. Naturally, it was blatantly obvious to everyone around me I wasn’t. SO, what happened? A dear friend gently pointed out that not only wasn’t I healed … I was living dangerously. So, I cried heaps, swallowed my pride, confessed my fault and put my glasses back on. Then I apologised to everyone, and I put it all behind me.

I said all that to say this: at that time –  my perception of Who God is and what He will do, was skewed. I took the word of other people who had experienced His healing, and had actually been healed, followed their steps, and stood on that. Let me be clear, testimony from others can inspire and encourage us but we cannot stand on it. When we stand on things like that, we are trying to piggyback our faith on someone else’s belief – instead of using their faith to springboard us into a deeper relationship with Him, by praying over what the Bible says for ourselves. 

Our perception is incredibly important, it can limit our God-given expansion – we can waste the time we have, trying to be someone or something else! To get a bigger perception we must take His word seriously, wait for His personal input, and let Him expand our view of His kingdom. Be yourself – everyone else is taken!  👋🏻

P 2311 The bible is not for proving ME right!

/ DVH

“Beloved friends, what should be our proper response to God’s marvellous mercies? To surrender yourselves to God to be His sacred, living sacrifices. And live in holiness, experiencing all that delights His heart. For this becomes your genuine expression of worship.” Romans 12:1 TPT

Sadly what happens when we look at verses like this one — is we often go from – what it says …  straight into – how I think it should be done. And we start merrily defining holiness – what we should do, and what we shouldn’t. What is allowed … and WHAT IS NOT.  What we can get away with … and what we can’t! Did I say that out loud??  😶 

Now, I am not saying that we can’t use the bible to gather relevant info …BUT … the ‘me,’ or ‘my opinion-centred way’ of thinking, still leaves US in charge and we end up with what we think this or that verse means as the criteria. Let’s  look closely at this scenario for a second. You might think that having a beer or a glass of wine, for instance, is OK. But I, on the other hand, may not.

So the I-like-a-beer-etc.-people find 54 verses for ‘JESUS DRANK WINE …’ etc etc. and paint them on banners. And my hypothetical group of abstainers find 48 verses that say ‘don’t drink, don’t be a drunkard.’ So we picket the opposition group (big clue in that name!) and handing out fliers saying “people who drink alcohol go straight to hell.” 😱

Who decides WHO wins? Well, actually sadly, nobody wins! In reality, 54 people leave our church of 102 people … who ALL say they love Jesus. And these God-loving people toddle off and form ‘the Church of people who love a good beer…’ and 48 are left behind who have suddenly become prideful because they didn’t fall for the devil’s trap! They in turn form a new church called ‘purity means abstinence.’ Everybody loses! Especially the Lord and His purposes. And we all go round and round – achieving nothing.

Here’s a BIG THOUGHT. The Holy Spirit isn’t called the HOLY SPIRIT for nothing. We can end up in these sad little eddies because we ignore the One Person Who actually knows ALL the answers! Now off we go making more rules and regs to prove our POV is right and theirs is wrong. Sadly our time is no longer taken up seeking Him, for His will to be done in our lives. Instead we read the bible to prove a point, not to know Him, and learn about ourselves. 

2 Timothy 2:15“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” We can use this verse, and that theology to prove we are right, but the Answer is simple. Ask yourself, ‘is what I am doing LOVE. Or am I just trying to prove my point?’  We can’t do both! We must ask ourselves “what spirit are we in?”

Surrender! Romans 12:1: is our primary response. Otherwise we can end up trying to fight ‘God’s battles” … and …He can fight His own. After surrendering we are on the Lord’s side, and His great goodness is now our inspiration. We need to ask Him what HE wants. This verse says He wants yielded vessels, people who put aside what they want or need for His sake. Holiness flows from THIS – relationship. Let’s not waste His time and ours galloping about deciding who is right and who is wrong. WE are all WRONG. Read the book!

Unity flows out of this kind of surrender, simply because we yield to Him and leave our POVs behind. When we clear away our self-centred debris, suddenly we begin to see the little things He does, that only mean something to us because HE IS SO PERSONALLY engaged with us. He doesn’t just  want to give us platitudes or verses that generically bless everyone – The Holy Spirit wants to give us things that have great meaning to us in our current situations. 

So the person who likes a beer or a glass of wine is given the verse 1 Corinthians 6:12 by the Holy Spirit.  “Everything is permissible for me”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible for me”–but I will not be mastered by anything.” And the purity through abstinence people are reminded that: “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” James 2:12-13. Sadly, today I think the church is more interested in the appearance of good, rather than letting the Holy Spirit complete His work of redemption in us.

The Holy Spirit’s words are apples of gold in settings of silver. Always be careful to have the setting as well as the apples! 👋🏻

P 2290 Where is your treasure?

/ DVH

“For your heart will always pursue what you esteem as your treasure.” Matthew 6:21 TPT. This scripture caused me no end of genuine soul searching today. This is the kind of thought that I wish wasn’t in the book. When it comes to spiritual things, sometimes we like to give ourselves a passing mark, without actually looking hard at what really happens from day to day.

FYI, I have this experience a lot – the false pass, the big tick where there should be a big blank, because the truth is, I dunno and I don’t think I will like my truthful answer! Meanwhile does wanting it count? This is where I would like to be but I’m not sure there is enough evidence that it is who I actually am… yet. Sigh. Today is a check-up day… here’s another one …. Matthew 22:37&38 “Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”

Yeah. His book always does this to me. But, just when I was ready to go stick my head in the oven – a fruitless task, because we have an electric oven, not a gas one, hubby pipes up with this …“We may not be aware that God is not our treasure. But when He asks the question, now our treasure is exposed by His light so it is up to us to respond when His light exposes our hearts.”

And he got that happy thought from reading the scripture below this morning. You know, I think our church society is so geared into looking right, and sounding right, and doing our best to giving the appearance of being right (good ‘ol Dudley Do-rights that we are) but we often forget that God made such an expensive provision for our hard heartedness before we were ever born. We don’t have to pretend – we just need to admit our faults and co-operate with the opportunities He sends us. I do know this much, loving the Lord with everything entails putting Him first.

“But if we freely admit our sins when His light uncovers them, He will be faithful to forgive us every time. God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and He will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we claim that we’re not guilty of sin when God uncovers it with His light, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”1 John 1:9-10 TPT

The secret is not to hide from the light, or even pretend it isn’t on, by walking around with our eyes shut. Our God has provided for this exact situation. There are times when we’d like to have the right answer, but the truth is we don’t. How can I say that? I have a million reasons actually, more than this space allows, but let’s just settle for this one: 

How many people did you tell last week that Christ was alive and He died for their sins? Hmm … There I go again, asking questions nobody wants to answer. Moving on. We trundle along, Sunday by Sunday, singing loudly, giving our money and being nice to each other … sometimes … and hoping that will do.

BUT when, and IF we let His light in, we will find there is no need for shame. The shame comes when we say sorry and have no intention of changing whatever it is, at all! We just hope magically it will manifest itself in our lives one morning when we wake up. Maybe we need to be even more honest and say, “I want to Lord, but I kind of stink at it..” Perhaps it is time we told the Lord that we are probably kind of a dud, and without Him we can do nothing… because … we can’t! 

Instead, most of us are far more used to letting our lives be dragged about by circumstances. Or by appeasing grumpy people, who are in plague proportions in this ever changing world.  Instead let’s make a quality decision to be honest with Him when His light hits whatever it is. As well as honest with ourselves. Let’s decide to take the kind of action that leads to change. ‘I pray we will be more like the second man in this scripture that Jesus taught, than the first one. Amen.’

“And He also told this parable to some people who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and viewed others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14 NASV. Jesus is like totally our treasure – He is also our MAP! Bye 👋🏻.

P 2255 A true intercessor.

/ DVH

In Genesis 18:23-25. Almighty God and Abraham are dialoguing about Sodom and Gomorrah. “Then Abraham approached Him and said: “Will You sweep away the righteous with the wicked? What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from You! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

This is, by far, one of my very favourite verses in all the bible. This mighty man, Abraham, the Father of our Faith, has such incredible confidence in the Character of God! We all need this kind of confidence in Who our God is, and know His Ways, intimately. I pray the people of these current generations know the Lord so well, that they cannot comprehend Him doing anything evil! We all need that kind of confidence and knowledge about Him, desperately. Abraham is extremely respectful, but he insists.

This passage in Genesis is what I think that an intercessor looks like. I know many people think intercessors spend hours on their faces praying and interceding for the lost – and I praise God for that kind of gift! However I’d be overjoyed to have 5 minutes of someone praying for me, for my life and future, with this sort of confidence in God Himself. 

Abraham was interceding for the people in Sodom and Gomorrah, and they didn’t even know their fate. However God knew their hearts, and He had purposed to deal with the evil in this city. But one man stood in the breach and had a conversation with God about their destruction. Abraham’s point of intercession was not about the people, or their wickedness, or deeds … it was all about HIS CONFIDENCE IN THE CHARACTER OF GOD – He challenged God to do right.

If you read Chapter 18 you will see he gets pretty overwhelmed somewhere in the middle of this conversation. It is almost like he’s kind of got his big toe almost outside the door, ready to run, 😐 but he still talking and still bargaining for these lives. We need this kind of intercessor, today, people who hold God to His word. We can see that this man learnt the Father’s Ways as he journeyed with Him from Haran to Canaan.

However, the basis of Abraham’s prayers are about Who God is! The Father’s reputation. I have heard it taught before that perhaps Abraham did not bargain hard enough for these people to be saved. I don’t know about that – but I love this man who stood toe to toe with Almighty God and pleaded for the lives of these people, whether they deserved it or not. Please do not tell me that God doesn’t love or care about everybody – I don’t believe you. This is what He is like, right here in these few verses – He doesn’t just love good people – He loves all of mankind. Jesus died for all. The penalty that was paid indicates Almighty God’s estimation of worth!

Jesus Christ Himself prays and intercedes for us with even more fervency than Abraham shows here – we are so blessed to be alive NOW! I think you can see Father God’s righteous loving Character so clearly through Abraham’s confidence in Him, when this man speaks and negotiates with God. If the Lord had disagreed with him, He would have told Abraham not to bother praying for them. In my heart this is what real prayer looks like! It looks like this kind of confidence in God’s goodness. The Body of Christ must go far, far beyond the places we’ve already been before – right into His heart, and gain further understanding of His love for everyone. 

Meanwhile, just prior to the above verses God says this, in Genesis 18:17 “Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do?” I think that this is what true intimacy between God and man looks like. Father God regards Abraham with respect. This shows us over and over again, that the Lord loves to dialogue with mankind. What you and I can hear throughout the the pages of the bible, is His disappointment that the man He made doesn’t love Him back!

The wonderful old Patriarchs, Abraham and Moses, knew God in ways we can only imagine. However, we are so blessed to be alive today in this world we live in. Praise God we have the joy of knowing the Answer – Jesus! We can know the Father through Christ, even better than these men did. Jesus Christ is now our perfect intercessor. Let’s not live in the shallows, let’s dive deeper into the Bible, together with prayer, so we can know and understand Who He is, and what He wants, and fight for it. 

We need to learn how to pray with understanding for His heart, and His desires and passions. Let’s AIM bigger. We’ve been aiming at too little for too long. We need men and women who intercede like Abraham! 👋🏻

P 2244 Avoiding sin.

/ DVH

Genesis 4:5-7 MSG “God liked Abel and his offering, but Cain and his offering didn’t get His approval. Cain lost his temper and went into a sulk. God spoke to Cain: “Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? If you do well, won’t you be accepted? And if you don’t do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it’s out to get you, you’ve got to master it.” 

My first point is this – Cain wasn’t mad at Abel – he was actually mad at God’s response to his sacrifice. The thing is, it is sometimes easier to get angry with the person who is standing next to you – than it is to tackle the real problem. The place to turn away from sin isn’t afterward … it’s before it grabs hold of you. In this passage, Cain seems unaware, or unconcerned about his own weaknesses and where they will lead him. He simply exhibits envy and jealousy. Recognising what is going on inside us, is a key to stopping or pushing the pause button on something before it starts.

Brooding is a useless thing to do. Nasty things grow in hidden places. At the moment the Lord identified those stirrings in Cain it would have been opportune for this man to pause and acknowledge his sin. But he didn’t. I’ve found that anger is an emotion that loves to escalate – it can grow into resentment and bitterness very quickly. Let’s be clear, the Lord was trying to help Cain to recognise he was in danger of doing worse things than getting angry – but Cain was not happy to be uncovered, and have his fault identified. Often this scenario has nothing whatsoever to do with the person who is trying to get the truth out – they want to help!

Learning to recognise our triggers is part of overcoming the potential for sin, so I ask the Holy Spirit to help me with this process. We all have blind spots, and as we recover from painful things that have happened in our past, we will hopefully mature enough to ask our partner, or someone else close to us, to help us to pause, think about it, and then turn to the Holy Spirit for His help. BTW, the other person in a disagreement does have some responsibility… 

… here’s a red hot tip if you happen to be that other person. “A soft word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 15:1. Kindness and understanding at the moment of impact can turn an angry person around, and give them breathing space. Then they can recover and realise they are headed down the wrong road on a skateboard… and there is a hairpin bend coming up rapidly! We can help each other with our faults, if and when we all want transformation, more than being right.

Unfortunately this confrontation between Cain and Abel escalates – and the next stage is harder to turn away from. When we get into retaliation we have entered the going-down-the-drain stage. It is not impossible, but it is very difficult to come back from there. This is because we have invested in the drama with our own words and attitudes, and now we have an ax to grind about it all. A point to prove. A beach-head to defend! It is hard to recover when you feel under attack – but it is not impossible with His help.

In this case we all know Cain’s last step was to kill his brother, and then he lied about it. The place to stop murder is in our thoughts, not when we’ve entered into out-of-control anger. By then our emotions are totally in charge. This is why the bible says we need to renew our minds. Our natural minds are defensive, and we go into “protect me” mode whether there is a danger or not. BTW, when the Lord told Cain he was now cursed for shedding his brother’s blood, Cain also lost his role in society. He was a farmer, and he could no longer successfully tend the ground because of what he had done. 

Mastery of any sin starts in our thought life, not in our words or actions. James 3:2 says: “For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.”  👋🏻

PS A disclaimer: despite the last three blogs featuring pictures about physical activity, I have not joined a gym. My main physical exercise is getting out of my chair to go to the loo! 😂