Samaria

P 3120 Know what you believe.

/ DVH

“Christ’s resurrection is (y)OUR resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honour, and authority!” Colossians 3:1 TPT. My first question—do you often during your day, reflect on what Jesus did for YOU? Are your thoughts on His kingdom, or yours? I thank Him when blessings come, and pray ‘help,’ when stuff is difficult. Whatever we mull over and meditate on influences our daily walk of faith. Don’t beat yourself up if you forget or overlook His new way to live. Just remember, that  faith, and our awareness of His love for us, will simply melt away IF we lose focus;  or we choose to live in the dark and pasty, unhealthy light of this world’s rejection, ideas, schemes and plans.

Meanwhile, even though we may not actually say – ”I choose this” – we can end up choosing to stew on bad stuff by default. A lack of a positive God-breathed choice will leave a vacuum that satan would be delighted to fill! That guy will get us going round and round and round:  worrying about this, thinking about how to fix that, and concentrating on the lacks we all have … Until we have wasted away our precious time. Time is a gift. And we don’t have to live that way anymore. Just as surely as Peter, (who was in prison at the time), looked up and saw his jail door open – and walked out a free man!  Our jail door is also OPEN. Look up!! Revise your circumstances. We need to walk out of sin’s prison using our faith. 

At the same time we can concentrate all our thoughts and efforts on dying to self, but in the end that will just make us SIN conscious. We want to be Him-conscious, so I pray He will reveal Himself to me during my day. We need to add to our life with Him, by seeing Him at work in our lives, not just concentrate on getting rid of our sin or adverse circumstances. Jesus Christ has already done that for us! Because God’s unrelenting, always available, never-ending kingdom power was released at Calvary – we can NOW live in this world absolutely devoted to Him.  He has a much better plan for your life and mine than either of us can imagine!

“For we know that our old self WAS crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—…” Romans 6:6. Sin, regret, anxiety does not have to be in charge of our lives anymore! Our minds, our emotions will help us when they are fixed on Him;  to do that is not difficult, we meditate on His never-ending love.  We can’t afford to give up our precious time stewing over former things, turn your worry into prayers of thanksgiving for Who He is and what He did for you.

Worry is a habit – habits can be changed. When we gave our lives to Jesus, we put Him in charge. And His response 2000+years ago, was to take our sin with Him to the cross and nail it there in HIS OWN BODY. The urge, desire, and the will to sin has been dealt with, we are now free to choose.“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live IN THE BODY, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20. 

That’s how we walk out our Promised land of becoming a new creation. I don’t ignore sin, or gloss it over, or pretend it didn’t happen, instead I acknowledge it on the spot, and repent and repair things. Why? There is incredible power in redemption! satan can’t make us do anything anymore because of what Jesus did for us. But unlike satan – the Lord will not coerce us or make us do anything. He loves our freely-made choices!!  We were not saved just so we can go to heaven and be with Him one day in the future… He saved us for here and now, today—from this world, the devil and ourselves —so we can live our earthly lives, like He would. 

It was a transaction. An exchange, His life, freely laid down, bought us a new way to live and the power to do it. It was the greatest LOVE GIFT EVER GIVEN. Our sin has been exchanged for His new life overflowing in us, we take on His obedience, His passionate desire to please His Father. It was not God’s plan just to kill off sin!… Instead, Christ defeated its power over mankind! Our Father’s plan was to give us back what Adam and Eve had in the garden … the greatest inheritance ever – Emmanuel, God-with-us. The freedom to choose what is good right and profitable, AND THE POWER TO DO IT.

Acts 1:8:“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”The Holy Spirit fell on mankind at Pentecost and HE DIDN’T LEAVE. He is still here, to help, counsel, transform, and motivate us into our new life in Christ. He didn’t give us  power just so we can raise the dead, heal the sick etc! Those blessings are a by-product of our redemption.We should all live like that. But that is not God’s primary AIM. 

The Holy Spirit came to help us, and live inside us, so we can live a victorious, overcoming life, in a world that is going to hell in a hand basket. The person I was 52 years ago, died the minute I asked Jesus to come into my life. That is also true for you. If you dearly love and want Him — He will be yours, forever. His love is so great He chose to die for the whole world, even those people who refuse to accept Him. Imagine that. We have been bought with an unbelievable price.

Daily, with His help, we identify and guerrilla fight all the stubborn stuff we’ve cultivated over the previous years before we met Him. Those things that keep pretending they have a hold over us. Now we can take God at His Word and believe Him. That’s how faith works. we refuse to listen to the so-called evidence that pops its ugly head up, and say to ourselves: “What does the Lord have to say about that? Is He REALLY like that?” satan can no longer use my history to define me – even if I did something extremely dumb yesterday! I have been redefined as alive in Christ. I urge you, take the time to know what you believe. Bye. 👋

P 2379 You shall receive power …

/ DVH

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts1:8. The power Christ sent back to us, through the Precious Holy Spirit’s Presence, isn’t simply the power to raise the dead, heal the sick, preach the gospel, give words of knowledge, serve thousands lunch, or walk on water! That power is with us to help us read the bible, and live out our daily lives bringing glory to God. However, the Holy Spirit is also the power to overcome the daily stuff that often trips us up.

Please don’t quit relying on Him before you’ve won the prize – I am talking to myself as well as you, OK? Learn to press IN when difficulties overtake you – insist. Tell Him you don’t want to go a step further until you start, thinking, acting and looking like Jesus. Risk takers see miracles – in themselves, as well as others. Imagine what this world would look like if every single professing Christian in it at this moment, started acting like Jesus would? What if we all started loving people, and putting others first? What if we all lived our lives for His sake, and obeyed what He told us to do in the book?

Let me put that another way – if a squatter came to your house and sat down in it, and started to say things like: “This is my house now …you have to leave.” What would you do?  Would you sadly pack up your things and head for the front door and leave? NO-OO-OO-OO-OO!!! You’d tell the guy: “What?? Have you lost your mind? I have a piece of paper that legally says this is MY house.OUT!!  Get the heck out of here. Or I’ll call the police to turf you out.” 

WE HAVE A BOOK! That book is a heaven-sent legal document that tells us what God will and won’t do. It tells us what we can do on His behalf. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, we now have His power of attorney. We are legally able to act like He would if He was here … because He IS here – He lives inside US now. Please don’t let satan lie or trick you, by influencing your feelings out of what is legally yours!

Don’t lose your birthright over a bowl of stew like Esau did. That young man gave away his future, to bring relief into HOW HE FELT in the immediate moment. Sadly we can do this often, I know I do! I can easily let how I feel, rule what I do, how I pray, what I concentrate on. We can’t afford to do it. We are giving away our birthright so we can try to deal with the difficult or sad things in this life. Instead of leaning on Him, we lean on our own understanding. Or … we try soooooo hard to ‘look’ right, and feel like a fake.

The most difficult moment there ever was … was that moment Christ died. To the disciples, it looked like hope died. I can’t imagine what the world was like for those three days, but I bet nobody from that group was walking and leaping and praising God! Then, the change slowly unfolded. First the tomb was empty, then someone else said they saw Him, then two other someone’s said they saw Him … BUT in those terrible moments…the disciples valued what they saw and humanly understood – more than what Jesus had told them would happen. Those guys still went back to what they knew. That’s the biggest danger for us as Christians. The old life, the life we are familiar with … beckons.

Nobody was waiting for Jesus to walk through a wall! Let me tell you the Person of Christ got incredibly bigger the moment He walked through that wall!! This was SomeOne Who had defeated death and was even more alive than they were. We cannot afford to limit God. We have to let Him do things the way He wants to do them. Our obedience to what He has said, and what He is still saying today, is paramount. 

For example, He told us to love our enemies, to do good to those who deliberately hurt us. (Read the Beatitudes!) Our journey forward as a Body depends on our willingness to obey no matter what the cost is. Disobedience to His Word makes us deaf. We often can’t hear HIM, because we are listening to self, and then we start making pretty excuses so we don’t have to do what He said. We tell ourselves that that sort of devoted obedience belongs to missionaries and pastors and evangelists etc etc.. Go back to the book. Did it say it was only written for an elite few? We ALL need the mind of Christ – to get that we must stop simply reading, and start doing.

“Please Lord Jesus we want our hearts be on fire like Yours! Help us to use Your power in our lives to defeat our own personal enemies and failings.’ Amen. It’s OK to realise you are spiritually poor, because our God is so rich in the things we need – and that’s a good place to live! Depend on Him. Just remember we have the power of heaven behind us to be transformed choice by choice. 👋🏻 

“What happiness comes to you when you feel your spiritual poverty! For yours is the realm of heaven’s kingdom.” Matthew 5:3 TPT.

P 2338 Live willing.

/ DVH

We’ve been isolated at home for 11 weeks so far … and the saddest part is that we love being on the road for Jesus. We like to go where He says to go, and talk to anyone we meet along the way. It is the most fun you can ever have, and we have been doing this over and over again for the past 18 years.

But the Lord has decided we need to be home, laid aside while we are waiting for this bone in my upper arm to heal. Hilariously, since then, hubby too has fallen UP the stupid stairs – TWICE. But fortunately he skipped the bouncing all the way to the bottom part. Our dog has also nearly had the same accident as well. Someone is coming to check out those stairs next week. Yay! Now our back stairs are against us!

What might be a holiday could easily feel like a prison. It’s Covid all over again. Now here’s some fun facts for you. We’ve interacted with so many people since we have been stuck in this Cul-de-sac of injury, even though we are, hypothetically, marooned. OT’s, administrators, PTs, doctors, radiologists, specialists, hospital clinics, government provided home assistance etc. These people, and the things we literally have to do as part of the healing process, have been thrust into our isolation. 

Of course there has been a whole lotta pain, no continuous sleep, and HEAPS of waiting waiting waiting in those very appropriately named waiting rooms! But let’s just skip over that part. With home help alone we have met a total of five different helpers, with three more government assist persons coming this week.These are all strangers that we’ve never met before, and each time we have had opportunities to talk to them about the Lord. 

Hubby asked one young man to open up his heart to Jesus last week, and invite the Lord in. He did. This particular young man talked non-stop all the time. The first time he came, I got so mad at him. He was completely non-compliant about the work he was supposed to do, and he argued with everything that normally happens. It was a total nightmare. I was so incensed by his lack of sensitivity in a hurting household. So … tada! JESUS SENT HIM BACK AGAIN! 😂 Goodie. Now we are praying for him and his life and having fellowship together. And only God can organise that …!

One young lady helper came from Burundi – which, BTW, is the poorest country in the world. Horrendous things happen there. We blessed her and her family with all sorts of stuff and had fellowship together. And another lady covered in tattoos is about to get married, so we had books and a bible for her. Everybody has been delighted to listen and take stuff, and our front door is like a revolving door. We’ve never seen so many people come into our house in such a short time before. 

I said all that stuff to paint a picture. First of all life never goes the way you plan it. Almighty God has His own ideas and He probably won’t consult you – or me either! It has been fascinating to see how something so painfully awful can be worked together for everyone’s good!  And I mean everyone. It seems to me that hubby and I are currently stuck in Jerusalem, and we haven’t been able to get to Judea, or Samaria, let alone the uttermost parts of this world! Anybody can live like this – we simply have to stop seeing other people as a service industry for our lives, and see them as people Christ died for. We need KINGDOM EYES.

All this has caused me to be more reflective, if our Christian lives remain undisturbed and we continue to live our life routinely, we can easily think that we are doing sort of, kind of, OK.  (See Luke 17:27) The same old same old is dangerous. When trouble comes and we are no longer ‘on top’ of anything, rather we struggle to be pleasant in unpleasant circumstances … and fail. That is when we start to understand just how deeply we’ve been lulled off to sleep. Business as usual is deadly for Christians.

Personally I found all sorts of bad stuff in me that I didn’t know was there – until somebody pushed the right button. I have also found I must constantly revisit my desire and intention to remain willing, in spite of my circumstances. Life is about moving – people who don’t move are often DEAD, and not the good kind of dead either! 👋🏻

Acts 1:8 “You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

2 Corinthians 11: 30 ‘If I must boast, I will boast about things that show how weak I am.’