Room

P 3202 No Room.

/ DVH

I don’t think we can begin to imagine what it was like for Mary and Joseph long, long ago. They travelled nearly 200 kilometres, basically on foot, to obey the law and be counted, so they could pay taxes to an occupying army. And when they arrived at their destination, they learnt that there was nowhere for them to to stay. To top all that off … Mary was about to give birth. The very last possibility they had for a room told them: “No room!” But then the innkeeper takes pity on them, and tells them about something they can use. It’s a place for animals to shelter. 

2,000+ years ago, there were no camp grounds, caravan parks, AirBnb, hotels, motels, or resorts. No phoning ahead to make a booking. And even if there had been, this young couple were poor, they couldn’t afford to pay much. So they end up in a shed out the back. It’s freezing cold in Bethlehem at that time of the year – I looked it up (!) and animals probably used that shed to get out of the cold weather. This young couple were in the lowest place possible … yet God chose it for them. He had a bigger plan! 

Mary’s labour started ramping up, and there’s no help coming. Imagine that! This is her first baby. Mary doesn’t know what to expect, and her female family members are 200 kms back the way they came. This means they are utterly on their own for the birth of their child. Mary already knew all about this precious infant, and how and why she is pregnant, and so does Joseph. It might have seemed a tiny bit odd to them that the light of the whole world is going to be born under these dreadful circumstances, but they have no time for reflection, opinions, or alternatives … because it was happening to them, now. And so, God’s precious Son is born in a shed with animals for company. Praise God. The Lord Jesus brought such incredible joy with Him – because you might have a party in a barn, but it is not a place to have a baby! 

Many times we can translate the word joy into happiness, but the truth is JOY is a spiritual gift. Happiness seems to depend upon our circumstances and our reactions to them. This life screams at each one of us – there is no room for you! Your life is awful… God doesn’t love YOU! You are a waste of space. This is the point of my blog today. Those words NO ROOM seem final. But nothing is final to the Lord! He tells us in Psalm 23, that we can walk with Him through the valley of the shadow of death! But even that is only a theory … until it is tested. Boy. Mary and Joseph had it tested, alrighty and they held onto His promise.

There are times when it seems like there is no rest for us from walking around in the middle of some fire or other that has exploded into our lives. We can easily forget we are walking around in the middle of a miracle, despite the circumstances … we will live to tell the tale. Like the three guys thrown into the fiery furnace, things happen to all of us, and those things are not punishment, they are part of an imperfect world. They don’t always make sense!

The specific problems this young couple had, may not have happened to you, but this kind of intense and suffocating opposition and oppression has become very common in our lives today. One difficult thing happens, then another, then just when it seems like it will all be OK …something else pops up that sends us spinning. Someone over-spends on the credit card, or hacks our account, and now the mortgage or the rent is past due. Other people attack us and we have no idea why. Some people seem to have brought their mess or incompetence with them into our lives. 

It’s a bit like that old kid’s game: “stacks on the mill, more on still.” Everything starts to pile on top of you. Bin there, dun that. I couldn’t afford a T-shirt and I couldn’t escape either – I had to go through. Beloved of God we must learn how to go through! What we focus on in these tests reveals our weaknesses, but that’s also where we can freely take advantage of the Lord’s strength! Or we can try to make the best of a bad bargain and slog on. But the very best response is to yell for HELP and hold on. Let’s learn to hold fast to Him, steadfastly believing that nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus. He knows what He is doing! We are not always given room to grow. Like a baby being born, we have to push through, despite how we feel. Birth is painful.

I have had my share of miserable tales from living this life, and it sees to me that most of the bad things that happen to us, are normal. (Meanwhile if you are looking for a blog that talks about sunshine and happiness all the time you are reading the wrong blog!) BUT, if you want to learn how to be an overcomer, you will have to have something to overcome! “He who overcomes (is victorious), I will grant him to sit beside Me on My throne, as I Myself overcame (was victorious) and sat down beside My Father on His throne.” Revelation 3:21. Jesus’ seating arrangements are directly correlated to our ability to conquer self, the devil, and dastardly situations, and still keep on maintaining the Love of Jesus toward others, as we push through.

That’s what happened to Mary, Joseph and the newborn infant Jesus. This life can squish us flatter than a pancake, and hit us harder than a Mac truck. The secret is to put our eyes on Him, and let the problem fade into the background. We are carriers of His goodness –  remember, goodness makes its own room. Bye. 👋

P 3021 “There is more than one way to skin a cat.”

/ DVH

OK. Don’t freak out. I have not lost my mind, that’s an expression. I don’t secretly engaged in cat-skinning!  EW! That saying simply means: There is more than one way for something to be done. Hopefully the title got your attention. Gird up your girdle Gertie, its gunna be a bumpy ride. 

This world is currently extremely “me-centred” and hedonistic. Today, our society has been forced to make room for all kinds of weird, ugly, and downright disgusting ideas, and it has gone on to legalise them. Some self- expressions are from the pit. However … ”You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one Who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”1 John 4:4.Here’s my point for today:  do we believe that or not? 

Without the Lord Jesus in our lives, none of us could ever know who we truly are, or why we are here. Without Him, all we can produce is dissatisfaction, rage and despair. People everywhere are so busy chasing happiness like a lepidopterist chases rare butterflies – it seems like they think that is what this life is about …grabbing happiness where they can.

We know, from the bible, that what these ?alternate? groups think about this life is chock full of sin — but unfortunately the church has taken a bad stance when it comes to God’s POV. We’ve eliminated many people before they’ve had a chance to change their minds. And at the same time the Father of all light is losing HIS beloved children, while we are erroneously operating on the idea that their sin is worse than ours!  Um…even liars end up in the lake of fire! And yes, fibs count – even well intentioned ones.

Everybody’s sin has been paid for.…including Hitler’s and sexual deviants, and let us remember that Jesus Christ overpaid! Read the book. We are concentrating on the wrong bit – other people’s sins, not the people themselves. I know that some churches welcome all sorts of nasty things from the pit, yet others would never let that sort of person darken their doors. And they wear that attitude with misguided pride.

We cling to bits of the scripture like they are our entire life-raft, when God has given us a whole book! And then we thump it over other people’s heads, because …”we know the truth and it has set us free …”  (Let’s please remember that we were not set free to be judgmental and unloving!) …God Himself is the truth that rules everything. The bible is not a private, or public opinion poll. It’s a book about God, and what He wants from His people.

There is room for ALL at the foot of the cross. Let’s at least give any outcasts an opportunity to find out!  God loves them as much as He loves us. We don’t have to become them to love them! In His eyes, there is no grading system to love. He loves us because HE IS LOVE. Who knows what an encounter with Jesus will do in someone else’s life? Pray for that!

But the lost cannot decide if we won’t allow them to find out there is another way to live. We are keeping our own faith supposedly safe at someone else’s cost. And pretty soon, those other people might be our own sons and daughters! Lot lived among people with deviant lifestyles and still maintained love.

We need to aim higher. Almighty God is bigger than I think He is! And He is bigger than my denomination thinks He is. And much much bigger than this world thinks He is!  Here’s the right attitude from Jude V 23: ” Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” Hate the sin, not the sinner … there’s more than one way to skin a cat! Bye.🐈.

P 2358 Priorities

/ DVH

Following the Holy Spirit and His leading, is the greatest choice of all. I dare to say that it is essential. However, we must get the thought out of our heads that walking with the Holy Spirit means we will always feel something, or get some benefit or other. HOW ABOUT THE BENEFIT OF BEING SAVED while we were yet sinners!! I exhort all of us to leave the idea of constant wonderful overwhelming spiritual feelings behind us, and do what we do because we love Him. That’s what Jesus did for His Father and us.

Here is something for free that I’ve learned the hard way when I walk with Him. When the Lord’s POV crosses my own, often all I feel is grumpy and hard done by. At that particular moment I can give you about 900 reasons why what I think is more right than that other person is. However there is no actual faith exercised when we think we can prove our point by walloping some poor unsuspecting schmuck over the head with God’s book. 

That’s not what His book is for – we have it to get to know our God and His ways, not just to search it for the things I might want make my life better, or to prove a point. The bible is a beautiful story of salvation and redemption, so that now we can live our our lives acknowledging: ‘that without HIM we can do nothing.’ 

You know the Holy Spirit will point out our sins and flaws, but only with the thought in mind of smoothing out the pathway in front of us. You and I are a highway for the King to travel on – we just need to be willing for the Holy Spirit  to smooth out those pathways, by filling in the potholes and removing bumps. There is nothing on this earth better than watching King Jesus reach out to one of His lost little ones ….and He just used our unconditional loving words to do it!

Sadly, instead, many of us have used our time thus far memorising all the “ME” verses… ‘I am this and that and I’ve been given this and that.’ Here’s something worth thinking on —Father God has given us Himself – HE is our treasure and gain. Not some promise or other that we demand He fulfil. He is our priority.

I hardly ever feel happy happy joy joy all the time. – I figure that’s in the book too! Nor is this life of mine all sunbeams and rainbows …sometimes its creaky painful joints and  a complete lack of can-do motivation! HOWEVER … I’ve learnt to obey the Holy Spirit, because I want to follow Jesus. This process is not meant to be tried, it is meant to be learnt. All that means is this:  I’m probably going to bump my nose into my own particular cross regularly… and I won’t like it much. I’m not convinced that this life is actually meant to suit us. 

We can easily fool each other with our ‘nice’ smiles and faces that look like we are listening to others. But we don’t fool Him. Living this life as a laid-down, totally surrendered lover of Christ is not easy. Learning obedience through suffering isn’t easy either, but it does become more natural when we practise it. Dying to self means we are making room for Him. I urge you to weigh up those attitudes in this life that act against His unconditional love for us and others. And then go on to think about what we are losing every time we give in to the temptation to look after me, myself and I. I know I lose the opportunity to see God at work IN MY OWN LIFE. 

I was saved to serve Him wherever I am. At my school, job, house, and in my ordinary little unspectacular day-to-day life. That is what is actually really powerful. When ordinary people who serve an extraordinary God – but they have no grand destiny to speak of — when those people choose to give up living for themselves, and they choose to live for Him instead. To them, nothing else matters.That’s called single-mindedness and the Holy Spirit loves it! Jesus had it and it needs to be our great, never-ending quest. Let’s keep watch over our priorities.

We can go through this life praying desperate emergency prayers as needed, or we can choose to walk constantly and ever-increasingly with the One Who knows the way. He not only knows the way, He knows US inside and out! There is nobody better equipped to help us to deal with our day to day problems and heartaches than the Holy Spirit. Make Him and His will your priority and watch your whole life change. 👋🏻

P 2325 Mechanical things and I are not always friends …

/ DVH

… and I don’t just mean this computer I am typing on either! Now, if you give me a paint brush, I will paint you a picture … if you give me a pencil I will write you a story… But computers, or things with technological chips in them … like the kettle, or the car, or the cell phone, or the air-conditioning… those kind of things are the bane of my life. They promise so much, and drive you nuts instead. Tell me you haven’t yelled at some inanimate object that didn’t deliver as promised! 😡 

Life has given me lots of opportunities to discover what I can’t do. I was once given the opportunity to use an electric disabled scooter in a supermarket… that was an absolute disaster! I kept hitting all the fittings. Sigh… I even moved some of them sideways – by hitting them of course. A very nice employee came along after that and asked for the keys back. I didn’t blame him, I wouldn’t want anyone moving the shelves in my supermarket either. It appears I definitely can’t use one of those darn mechanical gismos. 

It actually took me six months of three times a week driving lessons, to get my driver’s licence. I could easily remember the rules but the whole steering/parking driving down the road steering thing escaped me. Sigh. I just ain’t mechanically minded and I’m not excited about the responsibility either. I once tried to ride a Vespa and I kept sticking my feet down to stop it. 😱 That was not a good plan. And never ever let me near your Venetian blinds… I know they aren’t mechanical – but try telling them that! I mean well, and I try hard, but the practical outworking sabotages me. I always pull the wrong string first, and it goes rapidly downhill from there. 

One of the fantastic things about getting to know the Lord Jesus is the distinct lack of any need to feel important – for His sake or my own. The realisation that the God of the Universe loves me … Meh! Everything else becomes superficial trimmings that can disappear in a heartbeat … and they often do! Even things with chips in … and I’m not talking about fish and chips either.

So what am I on about? I’ve learnt, from my own very obvious inadequacies,that we need each other. It is not good for man to be alone. You know, that verse is not just about finding a spouse. It is about us, the brethren, needing each other. ← There’s that pesky FULL STOP. I can’t sing by myself, however I can sing in a choir. I freeze up in a solo, in front of an audience. 🥶  So I suggest we keep me in the choir… and maybe YOU sing the solo instead. I know some people who look so ordinary… but when they sing … I feel like heaven stops to listen.

And, I know some preachers who usher in God’s Presence and challenge everything you think you know … in a good way. Afterward you feel like you lost ten pounds of excess weight. It just drops off and you feel lighter. I’ve met people who can say three words and shift your focus off your troubles and back onto the Lord – without preaching at you. There are others who make me smile and laugh  – there is just something about the way they view this life …

… We cannot do Christianity alone. It is NOT GOOD FOR US. We need to stop analysing other people’s theology and just start appreciating their strengths. Having opinions can be vastly overrated. I’ve learnt that the Lord loves it when we make a choice to see the good in each other. He kisses it. Our God loves unity. If we want Him to hang around with us, then we had better figure out how to accept the people who mess up like I do. Who can do somethings OK a-n-d others … not-so-much. Unity is not just enforced agreement, it is having the same heart toward each other. 

That does not come about easily.

God so loved the world … and HE thrives on our differences. Let’s move outside our comfort zones and make room for each other. You can fix my venetian blinds and I’ll draw you a picture.  😂 💻!

P 2322 Grace opens our hearts, as well as new doors.

/ DVH

John 1:17 “For the Law was given through Moses, but grace [the unearned, undeserved favour of God] and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  Unless the Holy SPIRIT is in charge of our actions and thoughts I believe we will accidentally  automatically revert to upholding the law and judging others. We won’t end up doing that on purpose, rather it may be a life-long default button.  

Our relationship with the Holy Spirit needs tending to and caring for … He needs our private and specific attention. Otherwise what we already know, or our previous experiences will take preference over what He wants. He’s so quiet and non-intrusive, we actually need to make room for Him. Here’s what I’ve learnt that helps me to make room for Him.

The Holy Spirit likes God’s LOVE to be in charge. Not the gooey stuff we all think of as love but the kind of love clearly defined in 1 Corinthians 13. So if I am selfish, or defensive or angry etc. I will not be able to hear His quiet voice in my heart. I am learning to do my best to fix things immediately with HIM so I can get His perspective – no matter how right I think I am!  😂 I’ve found that when I make His comfort, His wishes, my priority, it opens my inner spiritual ears. And it also helps keep me humble. 

Galatians 5:22-23 says this: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” If we cling to the fact that He is cultivating and protecting His fruit in our lives, then we are positioning ourselves to walk with Him. It is an inner attitude rather than a law. It means we want what He wants – first. Unfortunately when the above qualities are absent, that means He is not around – no matter how much scripture or intention to do right is present, without His breath on things we will simply end up in law again.

Psalms 40:8 TPT. “I delight to fulfil your will, my God, for your living words are written upon the pages of my heart.”The Holy Spirit is not flighty or huffy. But He can be grieved easily, by the hardness of our hearts toward our Heavenly Father, and others — but, at the same time, let us remember that He wants to be with us.

Human beings have limited ideas of what love looks like because we all have a natural predilection to put ourselves first, and then we look after the people we love, or the people who benefit us. But when the Holy Spirit is in charge … a different kind of love prevails – a love that seeks the best for everyone. 

The Lord’s kind of love is not afraid or reticent to prune the one it loves. In this permissive world, any idea of correction or cutting away stuff for benefit, is totally foreign. But the passionate love of God does not hesitate about wanting to do whatever it takes, and whatever will bring out the best in the one He loves. 

Actually, when you look at what He did to save us … it becomes totally clear He will do whatever is necessary to deliver us from any of the crutches we frantically employ to cope with, sin, pain and suffering in this life. His love is passionate and relentless …all at the same time… and we would be wise to remember that. There are times when we may not even know, notice, or understand when we’ve slipped out of Grace into law. However, as we let go of our desire to get things right, or even the desire to please Him, we will begin to understand that we are no longer living under this world’s system.  SOMEBODY ELSE DID THAT PERFECTLY FOR US. 

So if the Holy Spirit leaves us, then we are doing it wrong, and it is time to stop and reassess where our spiritual train jumped the tracks. His Presence in our lives is our guide. New doors will open when we follow Him and start living in, and by His Grace. 👋🏻