Risks

P 3345 Faith has works.

/ DVH

If I were to put my title another way, I would say that faith needs works! Faith is something that should cost us. Our faith needs to be visible to others. We just drove over 4,000 kms to give away 110 blankets, 70 packs of toiletries among a lot of other things. The people we met needed a hundred times that or more – it was simply all we could carry. The current state of our world means that hard-working people are falling off the grid. Homeless people aren’t people who don’t want to work, they are people who have lost everything – including hope.

In the past week we have had several conversations with others, not always Christians. They asked us how they could help us to continue what we are doing … and may God bless them for wanting to be involved! However, our intention was never to be another charitable organisation, nor are we affiliated with the government. Hubby and I are two very ordinary pensioners who have been motivated by the Lord to put our faith into action. Living day by day with many disabilities and difficulties has made doing this a challenge – it has figuratively and literally stretched our faith. We can’t go overseas and join a missionary group, and God has arranged for us to do His will where we live. 

This means we will travel vast distances on dodgy roads, because extreme weather produces extreme road surfaces!  At one stage in our recent trip, our car took off. It hit a huge bump and went airborne for a few seconds before it came down with a thud and then continued on. Now that was an experience! On our journey we passed many petrol stations in small towns with no petrol. The thing is, we can’t afford to get stuck in places like those, they have very limited medical facilities and we could need them.

In some places if we were stranded, we would have to call in the Flying Doctor! It kind of felt like we could have waved at the pilot when we were airborne in our car! Yet we stuff the car full of more things than you can imagine and set out for places we have never been. And in 20 years we’ve been to a lot of places. We don’t do this so others would admire us. We do it because God told us to go. We are not looking for a ministry either. We go because He asked us to go, and doing this stretches our faith in more ways than anyone could possibly imagine. Stuff happens!

You can’t just learn faith, you have to do it. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. This means if our faith doesn’t result in actions it has no substance! It will stay a theory and we will live our lives fighting doubt. Personally, our own faith has grown exponentially since we started taking risks and using it for things that don’t benefit us. Faith has to have works. This means we will step into the unknown believing He will catch us. And because Jesus is faithful, He will. 

Faith has been designed to stretch us, and glorify God to strangers in such a way that they will never see Him the same way again. We RE-present God to others when we use our faith. Going to church on Sunday, prayer group on Wednesday and Bible study on Saturday uses faith. But if what we are doing does not stretch our faith beyond our own little horizon, then it will comfortably stay in the realm of ‘knowledge’ and not end up in the realm of ‘experience.’ Acting on our faith ushers His presence into what we do. JESUS LOVES FAITH. “When the Son of man comes will He find faith on the earth?” Luke 18:8.

Let’s look at Peter, who threw his legs over the edge of a perfectly good boat when Jesus said, “Come!” His fisherman’s mind knew it was impossible, but perhaps his faith in Jesus over-rode his knowledge of the ocean. The Lord did not let that man drown, and He won’t let us drown either. He is FOR US, He proved that at Calvary! Instead He turned Peter’s experience into a lesson. We all need to learn and change when we follow Him.

Matthew 14: 28-31“Lord, if it’s You,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to You on the water.”“Come,” He said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”

You and I may never get to walk on water, but we need to stop living this life influenced by the appearance of things around us and start living by what Jesus said. Instead of just using our faith to pray for day-to-day hiccups, or difficulties that occur – like praying for Uncle Bob who is sick and he is now in the hospital. Our faith needs to be active! Go lay hands on Uncle Bob. We need to aggressively take back the ground the enemy has stolen from all around us. Prayer rallies our faith, but then faith needs actions – our actions will give it substance.

Faith is designed to have works. (Read James and watch the Lord Jesus!) Faith isn’t just a creed. A bunch of words we all agree with; it is a way to live. May God bless you as you step into a bigger world. Amen!  Bye. 👋  Daniel 11:32b “…but the people who do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits.” 

P 2919 Go to the Source.

/ DVH

“And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and He will give it! He won’t see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures but He will overwhelm your failures with His generous grace.” James 1:5 TPT. Around about this time in our mission (day 6 of 12 days), Hubby and I have learnt that we can end up on a huge down-a-later…  right before our Heavenly Father is about to do something that will blow our socks off … again!

To be honest with you, I’m not sure we would choose to go on these trips purely for the people the Lord sets us up to met – although they are often fantastic people. But I strongly suspect we both do this because we can’t wait to see what He IS going to do next. He is always surprising us – He literally never does what we might imagine at all – nothing looks like you think it will! 

I think the reason that many Christians don’t often see the Holy Spirit working around them is because they won’t want take any risks. People who lay down their lives to follow Jesus, end up taking risks. Like walking on water, or feeding thousands of people with some kid’s lunch. Or waiting for the Holy Spirit to come – when no-one has any idea what that looks like!  We need to stop thinking He’s only present when we see miracles –  because the Lord promised never to leave us or forsake us. He will go with us, wherever we go in His Name, and He always keeps His promises.

However in those times when it seems as if hubby and I have run out of enthusiasm for moving around from one place to another, and we are slowly getting toward empty — then He just simply takes over, particularly when we confess that we are hopeless without Him and we need His wisdom …like brother James suggested in his book. That’s when wisdom flows everywhere, and we just stand back and watch Him move. I  love those times, they are the best. 

One of those fantastic times happened at the beginning of our journey, when we first arrived in Victoria, utterly exhausted. Hubby gave away a half a dozen bookmarks, and a block of chocolate to the cleaners. Their leader was so overjoyed she raced off to our cabin and hugged me – she said this: “Nobody ever thinks about the cleaners!” Hey guess what lady?? Jesus always does!! 

Another one happened because the TV and DVD in our cabin didn’t work. So two guys came to fix it and then one of them suggested we all watch some porn to see if it was working now. I laughed and said: “Boy, are you going to feel bad when you find out what WE do!” Then we told him, and we all laughed together! You just never know who the Lord is going to bring along next, like two rough Aussie blokes and 2 weak wobbly little missionaries.

Only a few days ago, hubby took bibles and bookmarks into yet another caravan park office, and after a few minutes talking, he gave the lady behind the desk, a bookmark. She burst into tears and started sobbing: “You just don’t know what this means to me,” she said through her tears. You know, that book mark was not that good, trust me! It’s the Lord!! Jesus wants people to know He loves them, and He’s not dead – He’s alive!

So far, and we are on day 6, we have given away nearly all our bibles, 341 things in 6 days and 3 of those days were hard travel days. And we, Mr and Mrs We-haven’t-got-a-clue, are simply doing whatever He tells us to do. We were able to give that sobbing receptionist one of our books that talks about knowing Jesus, as well as a heap of bibles for that park. Then somebody else came in, which kind of terminated the conversation and changed the atmosphere. The window of opportunity may be very small, but Hubby is brilliant he jumps right through it!

Travelling around by car is difficult, the roads aren’t great to start with! And it means we don’t see a lot of people in a day, as we have to cover a lot of ground between towns … where there are only emus, kangaroos, and deer – would you believe?  Australia is a land with lots of space, so that means a lot of driving. We have driven about 1500 kms, to places that often don’t even have churches. Places where faith is not a part of any conversation, so if you bring up Jesus it usually takes people by surprise. 

The Lord wants to be so much a part of our lives that we talk about Him quite naturally. Like I said to the man when he wanted to play a porn DVD – that we didn’t have (!!!) – “Sorry mate, HE wouldn’t like it.” And I pointed to the ceiling. We need to defer to the Source, first, last and always. Bye 👋.

P 2832 Get ready to be stretched.

/ DVH

Years ago, a young fellow who had no family and would have been all alone for Christmas, joined us for Christmas lunch.  And when he started in on his third helping of a heaped plate, we started to suspect something was amiss. In those days we didn’t know a lot about the munchies, but the evidence spoke for itself, so we sort of kind of figured it out. The sad part was his everyday behaviour was often all over the place, even though he was part of the leadership team, yet nobody had ever noticed that this poor kid was hooked on Marijuana!

Did you know that in Proverbs 11:25, it says: “A generous person will prosper; Whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.” Today I want to present what I think could be an interesting idea. Ask someone who lives a lonely life, to Christmas lunch. Have you ever prayed: “Lord please show me something I can do for You?” Well, asking someone you don’t know very well to join you and your family for lunch at this time of the year could open a door to deeper relationships and possibilities, and it just might stretch you … all at the same time. Plus, bonus buy, everyone could make a new friend.

Over the years our family has learnt to have an elastic house. One year a young person slept on a fold-away-bed in our lounge, because his family had chucked him out. This dear young man could break things better than a compactor, but he was the most sweetly natured person. Eventually, after he left us, he matured, he married and now he is a plumber. Only heaven knows why his folks chucked him out – he was a great kid! Having him live with us was totally inconvenient, we lived in a tiny cottage, and we had to move his bed whenever we wanted to watch TV!  Plus at that time I was as sick as I could be. The immediate years post-liver transplant were not fun. But helping out people who were virtually homeless brightened up all our lives. Living an extra-ordinary life is challenging, but the rewards outweigh the negative bits. Especially retrospectively. 🤣

The thing we’ve noticed is that we can’t afford to let our own circumstances, govern our generosity. Back then, our lives were made so much richer by the people who came to live with us … even at the worst of physical and financial times – by God’s Grace we all managed. Father God is not trying to interrupt our carefully planned existence … He wants to enrich us. Other people and their unusual ways of thinking, being, and doing, will stretch us and bring us out into that bigger place mentioned in Isaiah 54:2.“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.”

We can pray that scripture for ourselves, and then wait for Him to do it for us until we are blue in the face, but the truth is, WE must learn to stretch our tents open and take risks… It is blatantly obvious that this kind of stuff is supernaturally natural, because Jesus Himself told us that when we do these things:“…for the least of these…”we are doing them for Him! Hands up anyone who wants to minister to the Lord? OK, you have your instructions. 

Just settle in your heart that it will be inconvenient, and put stuff away if you don’t want it broken! Actually, the surest way to discover the things that we are unreasonably attached to, is to have someone else break them! I learnt that the hard way!!  BUT … no matter what, we cannot lose, because of what we win… “Everything … everything … EVERYTHING … works together for our good, … for those who love God, who are called according to His purpose.”

His purpose is to find willing vessels to fill with the Holy Spirit’s love and power! He doesn’t need experts — Jesus Himself chose ordinary  fishermen, a taxman, a former prostitute to be His followers  I mean, did you ever ask yourself Who taught Peter to speak like he did  in the book of Acts? The Holy Spirit did! The Lord is not looking for perfection – He doesn’t have to, He already is!

Like I said before, we will have to stretch ourselves to find His purpose for our lives. Remember, Jesus was homeless,  because there was no room at the inn. To me that means that you will never know who you could be taking in! Maybe a homeless angel, or a lost kid whose life was so painful he had to smoke his way through it. 

I think the poor are so poor, they have no time or energy for pretending, they are simply trying to survive. From a distance, it is easy to be put off by how they look … but God sees people clearly, He knows exactly who they are. We’ve found that poor people don’t need to be convicted of sin, when they are confronted with His Loving holiness, they know. The poor are easier to save than middle class people who think they are mostly pretty OK. 

Christianity is neither a hobby or a part-time job … it’s a life well lived. It’s a life lived the way Jesus would live it. I exhort you to begin to stretch your home and take in someone who might have Christmas dinner alone – or maybe even a bed for somebody who needs a safe place to sleep. That’s the way to get elastic houses. Bye. 👋 

P 2815 Single-mindedness.

/ DVH

““Heaven’s kingdom realm can be illustrated like this: “A person discovered that there was hidden treasure in a field. Upon finding it, he hid it again. Because of uncovering such treasure, he was overjoyed and sold all that he possessed to buy the entire field just so he could have the treasure.”Matthew 13:44 TPT. 

The Lord taught me a great lesson from this particular scripture today. Every single time I’ve read it in the past, I got stuck on the fact that it seems to me that this guy who found the treasure is deceitful. Today, I read it in countless versions, and that premise remained the same to me! Like I’ve said before – sometimes you have to insist! I kept on getting stuck on the fact that this field was did not belong to the man who ended up with it — in my mind he cheated the legitimate owner to get the treasure! Talk about missing-the-point-101!

Look I need to say first up that I can see that this parable is about the priority we give to His kingdom and it is clear that it must be first. But what the Lord and I talked about together today, was a clarification of motivation and inspiration. In my mind, the passer-by should have told the owner about what he found in the man’s field.  However, Jesus Himself told this story so I was pretty sure He had a worthwhile point, and it obviously wasn’t about deceiving people! And then the Lord said this to me …

“You are looking this story from the point of view of honesty and good manners. You have a man-made filter. You do that a lot. Good manners are not the same as the kingdom of God!  And good manners won’t get you into My Kingdom either! They can lock you into a place where you are no longer truthful – you make decisions about what is acceptable and what is not. Instead, you need to be looking for the kingdom of God in everything you see and do. Some times good manners and kingdom things are mutually exclusive.” ‘Ok-ay’ … says I not quite sure that I wasn’t just having a conversation with myself! 😶

The Lord went on: “As a little child you were taught to have good manners, to say please and thank you, and that you mustn’t take or touch other people’s things. So in your mind, good manners and honesty are a precedent … over everything else. However, it was not My Spirit Who taught you that, but experience. And sometimes it was often a painful one. But you cannot do things from My LOVE when you are in bondage to fear. Love and fear cannot occupy the same place – LOVE must always win.

The man in My story who owned this field had never found the treasure in it, he had never even looked, and the sale of this field was a legitimate contract between these two men. And the man who bought it, bought it because he treasured what was in it so much, he gave up everything else. That’s the way I want you to treasure My kingdom!”

Yeah, now I was getting it! I suddenly remembered a number of times when I have used good manners as an excuse to avoid confronting someone else. And then there was a time when I didn’t do or say something because it didn’t seem polite to point it out. Hmmm. Suddenly good manners had rapidly become overrated, and I could see that I was hiding the truth in some situations, under the guise of having ‘good manners.’

What I got from what the Lord said to me was — having good manners are sometimes incompatible, and obstructive to the kingdom of God. We are not meant to be rude to anyone on purpose, but if we are to be led and taught by the Holy Spirit, we may need to rethink the skills we were given as children. Because an automatic response is not the same as permanent transformation. Father God desires us to give things to others freely – not because we are obligated.

I know there are many scriptures telling us how to treat each other, even unbelievers, but it seemed to me the Holy Spirit was pointing out that I had an overriding precedent and it was not from Him.  Then He kindly explained to me that we can speak the truth in love without betraying His kingdom. It is all about our heart’s attitude, not what is or is not said. In the meantime I was hiding my real self behind something I learnt when I was small — for safeties’ sake. If I was not rude to others then that meant I dodged a smack. But the Lord is my hiding place not social niceties. 

The thing is the Kingdom of God is about taking risks, and suddenly my former theology had a hole in it that I could drive a mac-truck through!  Being polite is not the same as being Godly – it just looks the same, to everyone else. If we want to be led by the Holy Spirit then we are going to have to re-learn to do things His Way. The kingdom of God needs to be our priority over everything else, including manners etc.  What the Lord and I talked about together was a clarification of motivation, as well as inspiration.

The bible teaches us that: “a double minded man will not receive anything from the Lord.” And I can see that the conflict between my manners and His kingdom has helped to make me double minded. Those two things are not the same. So I repented! Manners are a man-made way of dealing with society. But we need the same sort of single-mindedness the Lord Himself had. His one purpose was to glorify God, not just keep Himself well regarded and safe! He is always our place of safety. Please feel free to pray for me as I learn how to discern between these two things, Bless you. 👋 

P 2766 Contentment.

/ DVH

God is so good. He’s a good, good Father. He loves it when we sing songs, and preach sermons that talk about Him, and Who He is. … but He loves it even more when we go out from church, and live this life – the only one we have(!) – like we belong to a good good Father!  A Father we trust. A Father who has plans for us. Hope-filled plans for a future that we can embrace because He is in it. Those plans include our total transformation – we end up being the “ME” I was designed to be. Paul says this in Philippians 4:11: “Not that I speak from [any personal] need, for I have learned to be content [and self-sufficient through Christ, satisfied to the point where I am not disturbed or uneasy] regardless of my circumstances.”

The essence of who we are now, is IN CHRIST JESUS. God did that for us. His love was squeezed so tightly, that even when the world chose to reject Christ  – all that came out at that moment was even MORE LOVE. That’s our  hope and our aim too. ‘No matter how tightly we are squeezed, dear Jesus, let pure love come out!’ Amen. God loves us because it is His nature – He IS pure Love. But pure love is not permissive, nor is it wishy washy – read the book!

I know one place where anyone from any circumstance, crime, or foul attitude can go, where they will always be welcome to live.  His door is always open, and the lights are always on, and there is love and acceptance in our Father’s house! Even for the vilest sinner. They can exchange their old life for His new life. He died and took my place, my punishment – so now I choose to die and take HIS PLACE. Our FATHER did everything He could to snatch each one us from the fires of hell — and it cost Him dearly. He had to watch His beautiful, godly, pure and holy Son die, covered in our filthy sin.

Contentment in God is acquired as we voluntarily choose to learn, for ourselves, that He is enough. It is not second-hand knowledge. True contentment is about trust. Trust is built into our lives by taking faith risks, and watching Almighty God redeem things that we thought were unredeemable. He doesn’t actually need our help – He simply enjoys our company in those adventures!  That’s because nobody thinks like you, nobody loves like you do. Your uniqueness is His treasure. We can wander along through this life thinking only we know what is good for us, and what will make us happy and produce contentment. BUT true contentment is found by living in Christ’s transforming Grace.

Learning to love like He does is our destiny. There is a higher love than human love. It is the kind of love that sees everything that you and I can become. That kind of love wants to work everything that happens in our lives for our own good. Which is why I pray, all the time, that the Lord will redeem stuff that crosses my path. I pray:’Change me please.” OR … “Please give me the Grace to live through this like You would Jesus.’ I never know which answer I’m going to get — sometimes it’s both. PS — He’s God, HE can do that! I have learnt over time that I like His way better than my way. My way means I might get what I want … but His way everybody benefits.

1 Timothy 6:2c -8. “These are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”

Paul is talking to a young pastor, Timothy, he pastors the church at Ephesus. Paul’s teaching him that contentment can be learnt, and it is a sign of God within us. Those awful things Paul describes in these scriptures we hear about every single day in the news!  However, we understand that Godliness can’t be bought, or sold, because SomeBody Else, Jesus Christ, already bought it for all of us. Our response to this truth, makes all the difference to our ability to live in contentment. Hallelujah! You and I can both learn to be content – Paul says so.

Almighty God is our ‘enough.” He cannot disappoint us. Deuteronomy 31:8 says:“And the LORD, He it is that goes before you; He will be with you, He will not fail you, nor walk away from you: don’t be afraid or dismayed.” And that’s what true contentment looks like. (That’s my version BTW). Bye 😌

P 2689 We gotta get in the flow and go, go, GO.

/ DVH

Today I thought it could be useful to follow up yesterday’s blog and revise what unending love looks like: It is clearly explained in I Corinthians 13:1-8. We can’t know if we have it, or even if we are pursing the right thing, if we can’t recognise it!!  First of all, unending love is a love that just won’t quit!  Look we can analyse the word love, by saying this means this type of love, and this one means that …until the cows come home … but His love is experienced as we further His kingdom.

The point is for us to operate in the flow of His Love, and until we start stepping out in faith and practicing that, we will only know Him with limitations. When we act on our faith we step into the flow. Our God is a God of action. Read the book! To serve Jesus and others, we must take risks – on purpose. Every risk we take won’t always produce fruit, or a happy experience. But when we walk with the Holy Spirit, walking the way Jesus Himself walked – we are totally relying upon the Holy Spirit to take us through. As we do that we will get to know Almighty God in a unique way. Intimately. We literally walk a mile in Christ’s shoes!

Now let’s look at what His unending love IS NOT. It is not a tool to showcase our spiritual abilities. As our precious sister Heidi Baker often says: “the way UP is DOWN.” I pray ‘lower still Lord’ as often as I remember to do it. I realise that I must willingly humble myself, and understand that any enemy attack is an opportunity to take me to a lower place. A place where if He doesn’t help me I’m sunk. We all need to be stretched to become bigger.

Meanwhile, it goes without saying that I tell satan to take a hike, but in front of our Holy God I humble myself. Like Paul said: “not that I have already accomplished that but I press ON!”  In my mind this means that maybe I’m not good at it but I’m not going to stop my pursuit of Him. I want to know Him. Not just in the “gee I feel blessed today” moments, but to know Him so well that I will always rely upon Him.

Over to the verses above:“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship THAT I MAY BOAST, but do not have love, I gain nothing…”

We need to know His love to practically combat the temptation to become important in this world’s eyes – that temptation comes because we want to feel good about ourselves. But the above Graces are His gifts, they are given freely to us, for us to freely bless others. Without His active Love these wonderful gifts can be corrupted by our own needs to be seen and appreciated. Next the Apostle Paul tells us exactly what God’s love looks like:

“…Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails …”

If we want His kind of love we are going to have to put away this world’s self-centred idea of love.The sad truth is, the world’s way of thinking means I need everything working out for my own benefit, to prove to myself that He loves me. Instead the Lord and I get to share an experience of His love in action upon someone else’s life. We are the designated pipeline that delivers the Holy Spirit’s grace, and grace and love flow as we draw on those things to further His kingdom. Love takes risks, grace facilitates it. The more you go the more it flows.

That stuff we call love down here on earth, doesn’t have the substance or the stickability to survive this world’s despicable onslaughts. But His love is unstoppable! Unfortunately my human love falls in a heap most of the time when someone hurts me or life gets hard. That’s how I know I need to keep pressing toward the mark. I will have to pursue this kind of love, and repent when I miss it!

Colossians 3 also has a fantastic love description of His love in verses12-14 “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

This scripture shows me that I must PUT these things ON by choosing to actively use my faith. Just like Peter did when he stepped out of the boat, onto the water! Faith is an action word. It exhibits God’s glorious qualities in places that have never experienced them. Living like Jesus did means taking risks for other people’s sake, using my faith to rely upon the Holy Spirit to help me. We gotta get in the flow and go, go, GO! Bye 🥰

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 2575 Part of witnessing is giving away the map!

/ DVH

Christianity can seem a bit obscure to the rest of the world from the outside. WE know that it is not a secret IN-club with special passwords, music, codes, actions, and rules! But the-people-who-don’t-know-Jesus think what we believe is simply another opinion in the many ideas and religious practices that exist today. They do not understand what makes our belief system different from any other.  It is like a foreign language to them.

Meeting Jesus Christ can sound more like a mental exercise, rather than a spiritual encounter. I think that what we believe is often full of old-fashioned words that make no sense to other people. Think about it, what does ‘saved’ mean? ?? Talking to others or handing them a tract is good, but it is not enough.  It is up to us to take the time to digest His word by acting on it. Then the power of the Holy Spirit can speak through us, for Himself. Hubby and I have discovered something wonderful – they know HIS voice when they hear it.  We don’t need more knowledge WE need HIM to speak to them for Himself – through US.

In some countries in this world a mother chews up food for an infant and gives them the food she has chewed up — because infants can’t eat lumpy hard stuff, they can choke on it.  This is quite literally what Christians do when we witness. We hand others our own pre-digested spiritual food. (Chewing is part of digestion!!)  We tell them what we’ve seen, and what we personally know about Jesus. What we believe is not about knowledge, anybody can spout knowledge – it’s about our own personal relationship with Him. That’s what we share with others. That’s what a witness does, they tell what they’ve seen, from their own POV.

If someone asked me how to get to the city from my house I would say: “You can take a train, or a bus, or drive the car, or even walk.” You and I are the people who hand out the proverbial spiritual timetables and maps!  We are not the journey … JESUS is the journey. The bible is their Jesus’ map. Give them a map and talk about Jesus, as YOU know Him. Tell them what you’ve learnt from praying, reading, researching and digesting the map info. Brevity is helpful. This is their moment. Encourage them to ask questions. Say “I dunno” if you don’t know, and don’t be embarrassed by it. Forget about your credibility and reputation – take a risk. Witnessing is about taking risks.

Jesus’ disciples didn’t always understand Him and what He did, so not knowing everything shouldn’t stop us! There were some times that the Lord explained Himself, and other times that He didn’t. He loved to say things that turned what people thought, upside down .. it was actually right side up, but that’s a moot point! We need to translate what we read, into actions, and go on to act on it, in ordinary everyday situations. Then what we believe becomes current and alive. The bible is an action book, not just a study-’til-you’ve-memorised-it book. You don’t have to be articulate. I often ask the Lord – ‘how the heck do I say that?’ 

Our bible is a Holy book purely because the Holy Spirit kisses it for us, in ways we cannot comprehend. But we are the beneficiaries of His wisdom and power. He reveals our own road map, (the bible), so we can see the Lord Jesus in any situation. He translates the bible to us, every single day in such a way that it stops being fancy old-fashioned words on a page, and instead, it is the source of His life in us. We do this for others just like we would explain to them how to get to the shops! 

Doing what it says is simply the very best way of digesting the book. We are kind because the book says be kind. Even if we don’t feel like being kind, then we ask Him for His help! Living like that leads us into receiving fresh insight about God and His Ways. Simply analysing what we read aids comprehension, but it does not make the book part of you – your life and your experiences. Obedience does. Our lives become the witness.

Like I said before, the disciples asked questions. When what Jesus told them did not make sense they asked Him questions. Now, these men had prayed for the sick and seen them get well, they’d cast out demons, and seen all kinds of miracles —  but when they didn’t understand what Jesus said – they asked Him about it. We gotta stop long enough to ask questions and wait for His insight. “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom.Though it cost all you have, get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7. We don’t just need to know what it says – we need to know how to become what it says! He will tell us how to apply what we are reading into our own lives. We must move from knowing into experiencing. Then we have something that is living to share with others. 

We can answer other people’s questions simply by drawing from what we’ve learnt from our own personal experiences — without any dry theology attached to the answer. Jesus is the Way to God. He’s the map, the journey and the destination. Tell them what happens to you when you take the map and follow it. It doesn’t rely upon human skill – just willingness. The Holy Spirit will help us, He will speak to their hearts – we just tell them what we’ve seen, heard and know about Jesus. And don’t forget to give them a map! Part of witnessing is giving away the map! The Holy Spirit will work on them even when we are not there. 👋

P 2515 Exhortation and encouragement.

/ DVH

Hebrews 10:24-25 “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

In the above scripture Paul is talking about meeting together for the purpose of helping each other to move on, and grow, and expand our faith. And in 1 Corinthians 15:58: he is encouraging believers not to waiver in what they believe. In 1 Thessalonians 5:14: he exhorts the family of God to be active in helping others with weaker faith. In Ephesians 4:29: Paul also talks about being careful how we speak to one another to benefit each other. These are just a few of many ways that all the writers of the Epistles exhort the reader. And they are also an example of how to exhort others to continue on in faith toward our ultimate goal – to wholeheartedly love Jesus … and keep pressing on … 

The gift of encouragement is supernatural, it instills courage into someone else’s life. That encouragement can include things that need to be put aside because they are a hindrance — as well as telling others what they do that blesses people. This gift can give our leaders courage. Leaders face a great deal of discouragement – very few will talk about the ‘stuff’ that comes at them – sometimes almost hour by hour, daily. We can be a blessing to everyone we know in many ways – such as giving, helping, as well as using words. Prophecy is for the wider church, but encouragement is for individuals. One of the disciples had his name changed because he encouraged others so much. His name was Joseph but it was changed to Barnabas. That name Barnabas means ‘son of encouragement.’ 

Encouragement is a spiritual gift, just like mercy, helps or healing…this gift gets behind others when their spirits are flagging, and it lifts up their arms so they can praise Jesus freely again. It comes directly from the Holy Spirit andit is part of His Character! Two of the Holy Spirit’s 10 Names, are ‘comforter and strengthener.” When we operate in the gift of exhortation and encouragement, we are choosing to flow with Him, moving in His Grace and goodness to build up someone else’s hope and faith. This gift is about things that touch someone’s spirit and go right around their mind into their hearts. The person immediately becomes aware of the Holy Spirit working. He is SomeOne Who is outside our own understanding – BUT whatever HE SAYS rings true. It feels like home! Spirit-given words have eternal consequences as well as earthly ones. They can encourage others to take risks, and grow their faith.

I think the Body of Christ lacks a lot of encouragement and my advice is this — don’t just wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to you, regularly and faithfully go to Him and ask Him to give you words etc. and make you an encourager of others. This world is very negative toward anything that has absolutes, and Christianity is all about absolutes! I exhort us all to practise listening to the Lord, and then share whatever He gives us with others – gently, and with great humility. Let Him do the work. We don’t have to push or strain – He’s Almighty God. He knows which words will touch the downtrodden, needy, or even a flagging spirit in that other person.

“I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts.” Colossians 4:8. The ‘him’ in this scripture is a man Paul trusted. This unknown man, Tychicus, was someone Paul commissioned to carry his letter to encourage a church. If you look at Paul’s Epistles as letters, you will find they are full of encouragement and exhortation – as well as information about what is happening in his life. Including the things Paul is and has already learnt, about his own faith. We need to remember, we are reading this Apostle’s personal mail – Paul had no idea they would end up in the book we read every single day!  

I urge anyone reading this blog to read Romans 12. Clear precursors to beginning to operating in any of the gifts of the Spirit, lie in that Chapter. Meanwhile I present my body to Him as a living sacrifice every single day, because the bible says in verse 1 “this is your true and proper worship!” One of the best ways to grow, is to step out in faith and use our spiritual gift/s. If we are wrong, then …oh well … not perfected yet!! That’s the humility bit. If it blesses others then … Glory to God!! It is such a privilege to have the Holy Spirit flow through us. His life in us is like a pure river of gold flowing through our kitchen taps! Some of that gold always clings to the pipes and then we are blessed too, because His goodness clings to us.

The more we yield to Him, the more the desire to exhort and encourage others will grow! Whether they are Christians yet, or not! Bless you. 👋

P 2506 What is God’s love language? God’s love language is obedience.

/ DVH

“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”1 John 3:18.“Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me.”John 14:21. BTW, let’s not get stuck on ‘but I can’t do that – I get it wrong all the time.’ Yeah me too. Jesus gave us something to aim at – the results come with practice … plus denying yourself and taking up your particular cross and following HIM.

There has been a lot of talk in the past about our own individual love languages … this one means this and that one means that. Yay! They are all very useful when we are trying to relate to one another. However, when it comes to Almighty God, He has ONE love language. Obedience. Funnily enough, if you practise obeying Him, you may not need to know your own love language – you’ll be too busy getting DEAD.

Anyway, this stuff isn’t all that hard to remember is it? Actually, it’s dead 🤪 easy — the problem seems to be about applying it … not understanding or remembering it! Let’s look at what Jesus did while He walked amongst us – after all, He is our Role-model. Oh! And my plan is to jump all over the current theory that Jesus obeyed so that we don’t have to. Rhubarb.

“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to His own advantage; rather, He made Himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:5-11.

You see, first of all, that’s a whole lotta words, and unless we take the time to pull those words apart, and even check on some of their meanings, we can easily read, blah blah blah blah! nice thought …And we conclude — isn’t Jesus ace!? Of course He is!! Thank you Lord for doing that for us. Big sigh. All done now for today, nice thought that one… praise God!! I got that part. And so we move on to the rest of our day, doing what we’ve always done   … 😳

EXCEPT! It actually says at the beginning of that passage … “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus …“ In Philippians we are being exhorted to think about others the same way Christ thought about us. So we’d better pay attention because there are some pretty big obedience issues in there. Remember, our premise today is … what is God’s love language (?) and … I decided it’s obedience. But He said it first.

There are times when we read those words that we have not comprehended that when the Lord walked those dusty roads, and sometimes slept beside one, or ate nothing for dinner, or sat on the side of a hill for hours teaching people etc. etc. … He was obeying God. When He let men do those awful things to Him before He died… He was obeying God! Yeah, I know, that kind of jumps all over a lot of our current theology eh? He did all that to show us how to live – so we’d better pay attention. Because any minute now a TEST is going to show up!

Once, long ago, 120 people waited in an upper room because … Jesus Christ told them to do it. And that obedience changed their lives. We can so easily concentrate on the external vi-si-ble things: like fire falling on their heads, speaking in tongues, preaching a fantastic sermon about salvation. But what happened at Pentecost started with obedience. You wouldn’t want to be some guy that asked to be excused the day before all that happened, would you? You know that guy, the one that got married and bought a cow and had to get back home to take care of them and he couldn’t go to a wedding? Yeah him. Disobedience comes with big risks… just saying is all …

Now, let’s go back to looking at Jesus – because He is the best place to look! “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.” Romans 5:19.“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?” Romans 6:16.

Because we are pursing righteousness – and getting DEAD to self in the process … then that stuff is going to require our active obedience, not just our agreement. We could all agree that the sun is purple but that won’t change the reality and could bring on the men in the white coats to help us out!! Our agreement isn’t worth a load of old washing if it is not backed up by truth. FYI, truth is in the book – not the latest Christian doctrine, fad or fashion!

“Whoever says “I know Him” but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in Him …” 1 John 2:4. Yeah, I wish He hadn’t said that too. But He did! Not liking what the Holy Spirit wrote down doesn’t change a thing. Let’s go back to James and that mirror we would rather forget about. “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.“James 1:23,24. This dumb schmuck has forgotten what a mirror is for!!  

Here’s another one to chew on as I leave for today: “And to love Him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” Mark 12:33. Our Heavenly Father sees our deliberate, dying-to-self obedience as LOVE. Now there’s great motivation – when we obey Him we are showing Him our love.  Just FYI, SomeBody else did that first, remember? Bye. 👋