scared

P 2760 Don’t let a ceiling stop you!

/ DVH

Our pastor recently preached about moving mountains the other day, it made me think. Those kinds of thoughts have been bubbling about inside me ever since I heard it. Then this morning hubby and I were sharing about things we’ve seen when we are on the road, giving away bibles etc. and one thing led to another, and then the Lord chimed in with this: “Be like those men in the bible, tear off the roof if you have to.“ (That’s in Mark, Matthew and Luke.) Boy did we get happy!  What a word! Let’s all pray: ‘Dear Lord help us to tear off spiritual ceilings whenever they prevent people from getting to YOU –  You are their Answer.’ Amen!

Meanwhile, here’s the story in Luke 5:17-20:“On one of the days while Jesus was teaching, some proud religious law-keepers and teachers of the Law were sitting by Him. They had come from every town in the countries of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was there to heal them.  Some men took a man who was not able to move his body to Jesus. He was carried on a bed. They looked for a way to take the man into the house where Jesus was.  But they could not find a way to take him in because of so many people. They made a hole in the roof over where Jesus stood. Then they let the bed with the sick man on it down before Jesus. When Jesus saw THEIR faith, He said to the man, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”

As I read it, I began to see that scene with fresh eyes. These men who brought the paralysed man to Jesus were full of faith – they knew if they could get him to Jesus he would be well. But the house was filled up with many people and a bunch of religious leaders. The leaders were all listening to Jesus, and if you keep on reading you will find that these religious men probably weren’t there to cheer! Instead they stumbled over Jesus telling the man his sins were forgiven. They took umbrage, because they did not recognise that GOD was in the house. ‘Oh Lord, please save us all from not recognising when YOU are IN the house!’ Amen!

These religious leaders loved to debate the law and they knew it like the back of their hands. They instantly picked Jesus up on what He said, because they knew from their studies that only God Himself can forgive our sins. After all this was what they did day by day –  sins were forgiven with offerings on an altar. The scholars had invested so deeply in their own knowledge that they had restricted their faith. Even worse – perhaps they thought knowledge WAS faith.

You know there were only two possible answers for what Jesus did. Either He  blasphemed, OR … Jesus Christ IS God – and not just another prophet –  and He could and did forgive sins – as well as personally pay for them!! And aren’t you and I incredibly blessed to know that answer?!

Did you get the part where the sick guy couldn’t get IN to the Lord’s Presence? Sick people need help to get to God. That house was filled up with religious leaders, watching and waiting for Jesus to make a mistake. Isn’t that a terrifying sentence?! These scholarly men were in the same room as the God they cherished and studied, and …they utterly missed Him! And yet, Jesus was so incredibly patient and kind, both to the man on the bed, and his faithful friends, plus the people who were there to prove Him wrong. He healed the man, and explained Himself, then left His critics dumbfounded. 

This story made me wonder … How many times have I left off praying because it seemed as if there was something in my way? Maybe a mountain? Or a ceiling?? It all seems a bit incredible when we look at what it took to bring that ailing man to Jesus’ feet. How much love and faith, in and through his friends, was expressed just for the invalid’s sake? Without an apology, or even a … do you mind? — They actually wrecked some guy’s house! Put yourself there for a minute – maybe at the minute that the roof starts to fall on the floor. I wonder what was going through the owner’s mind in those few seconds? 😶 I’d really like to think that that person thought it was worth a busted ceiling for someone to get thoroughly well.

Now to my question:  how many ceilings has this life put on all of us? How much stuff — like good manners, or respect for other people’s property, wrong theology, or avoiding doing the unpopular thing in front of everyone, has come between us and God’s will in our lives? Yeah. That’s not the most cheery thought. Maybe we have lived our lives so far, scared of what the so-called experts will say – because they supposedly know, and we don’t? The men in that house all experienced God in a remarkable way, which had nothing to do with knowledge.“Knowledge puffs up…”

All I know for sure, is that mere knowledge is no longer good enough for me. I want to tear up some hypothetical roofs and see people set free, and healed, and praising God for His goodness! And most of all I don’t want to care anymore what anybody else thinks about it! As His church, we must not let the spiritual ceilings in our lives stop us from being the kind of people who want to get someone else to Jesus, simply because they need His help. No matter what that costs. That’s called unconditional LOVE!  And …’We will always need Your help with that Lord,’ Amen. Bye 👋

P 2709 We need Boldness.

/ DVH

We all encounter trials and difficulties. On this trip we have discovered that our health can sap our energy and distract us from the task the Lord laid before us. Plus when you are on a mission trip you can find a reason to argue with each other at the drop of a hat! We have been praying about these things, and asking the Lord what to do, and this morning hubby mentioned this story from the book of Acts. 

I love reading about other people’s faith, especially the faith of people like Peter and John who ended up in jail overnight for preaching the gospel – it’s in Acts 4.  Actually, they were in jail for using the Name of Jesus and healing someone (!), and for causing a public disturbance. Go figure! However, the Apostles merely used the opportunity they were given to preach to the crowd about Jesus. They drew 5,000 souls into the kingdom on the spot.

Anyway, the next morning, after spending the entire night in jail, they were hauled up before the oversight – the elders, the teachers, the Sanhedrin, Pharisees and Sadducees – and they were given an opportunity to explain. Hilariously, God short-circuited the leaders religious intention to silence His men, because the guy who got healed turned up at the hearing! So the powers-that-be mumbled amongst themselves, then they realised they had living proof of the power of God standing there and everybody could see it. That man was quite obviously healed – after all he used to sit in a very public place, crippled and begging! 

Then the leaders warned the Apostles not to speak about the Name of Jesus again. Those leaders were really stuck – what could they do about these two men, with all that evidence standing in front of them? So they let Peter and John go. The Apostles went straight back to the church and told them what had happened. And instead of skipping church that week, after their traumatic experience (!), these guys decided to make the whole thing a prayer point and that gathering ended up a huge prayer meeting. 

The people of God prayed an incredible prayer:“Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak Your word with great boldness. Stretch out Your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of Your holy servant Jesus.”Acts 4:23&24

Hubby’s first thought today was, we need to pray that prayer! So we did. Then I went back looked at the story again, and realised that the Apostles were already in constant danger of falling into the wrong hands … and then they went and poked the bear!! Which means they could easily have ended up in the land of worse! Why would you do that? TO OBEY GOD! So what did they do in the light of those threats? They prayed to be bolder! And then they asked the Lord to help them all to do more stuff in His Name. Think about it. They didn’t run, they didn’t hide, they did not stand down, they quite literally, asked for MORE. We need some of Your boldness Lord Jesus, every single day! Amen.

This whole story really impacted me. Mainly because I can’t ever remember doing that! I ask for His help all the time, but I don’t ever remember asking to be bolder. I figured out ‘why not,’ immediately! I’m scared of jail. Over the years the enemy has heaped ‘worse’ upon our heads quite a bit, and I am not at all keen on more worse stuff falling on us. I’ve quite literally been intimidated by circumstances, and fear has grabbed me. I started repenting right away!! And I praised God for the courage of His servants in His book and their witness. 

The church is barely in the shallow water of what our God will do in us and through us, in Jesus’ Name. And I think we have wandered back into a safer place through our own choices, probably because we saw sharks on the horizon and decided going out there into the deep, was not all that important … and not my job! Now, Thalassophobia is running rampant – we are ALL afraid of the deep!  So we tell ourselves that ‘somebody else can do it – this is too hard for me – God understands.’ 😳

What we actually need to do now is think about it the situation rationally, and realise this — we won’t see any sharks if we aren’t bothering our enemy! A lack of sharks does not mean we are safe, it means we are hiding. What should we do – hide or stand up?! Instead of standing down – we need to stand up! Wow. Food for thought.  Bye 👋

P 2690 Insight.

/ DVH

The reason I talk so much about the bible being a bigger book than we understand, is because of this subject. Receiving insight personally from the Lord grows our faith. For some people, their only biblical understanding comes through their pastor, or more mature brothers and sisters at church, or a tele-pastor or a blogger etc. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but sadly, that food is second-hand. It is not fresh manna coming down out of heaven daily, feeding you what He wants you to know for that day. 

We need to take in the fact that this is Almighty God we are dealing with, and if we truly want to get to know Him and His ways, we will need to sit and read and spend time with Him. We want to show Him that we are committed to waiting for Him to speak to us. The joy of this kind of dedication is that we can always hear Him speak through His word. The more we act on what He tells us, the more we will hear Him when we need to. (Do you feel inclined to talk to people who don’t listen to you?) In our daily lives we are very used to instant everything, not seeking.

Yes, I know the whole ‘speaking to me’ is a big thing for some people. Like I’ve said before, I don’t hear an external  voice. He speaks to me in my thinking processes. But stuff floats across my brain that I know are not my thoughts. EG: somebody is quite deliberately and maliciously mean to me and the thought, “forgive them they don’t understand what they are doing”- floats through my mind. That thought is not just there to comfort me, or even correct my attitude or response … it is God giving me insight to the way HE thinks. Yay, I just learnt something about Him!  At the same time, maybe I suddenly remember that those words are the words that Christ Himself spoke from the cross. Now I have confirmation that my thought is biblical. We will miss what He is saying if we push the thought away and we don’t give it any attention.

What I want to make clear today is that this personal insight belongs to all of us. The secret is to go after it, and going after it means sitting still and prayerfully rereading at the page or even a line that we don’t understand. Now we INSIST and ask for the Holy Spirit to please enlighten the eyes of our hearts! Insight helps us understand His ways and see and hear Him better. When we decide to honour Him with our time, He will speak to us. We are showing Him our devotion to what He says. Remember to ask questions. 

How do I know that He will answer me? Hmmm. Hard question … NOT! There’s a line of people stretching round the block for miles in the Old Testament. They heard God’s voice and what He said changed everything. Meanwhile where do we think the New Testament came from? It didn’t float down from the clouds! God spoke to these men, taught them personally, and they wrote things down, as they progressively got to know Him and practiced what He said.

We can miss Him speaking because we are scared we will make some sort of weird mistake, and so we hide our own disobedience from ourselves. Unfortunately, dying to self makes a great theory – and most of the time we would rather preserve our public image, than die to self and do what He said. I am not talking about running about doing weird stuff and saying: “God told me to do to, act like I’ve lost my mind!” I am talking about getting to know the inner voice of the Holy Spirit by reading the bible and asking Him what this verse is supposed to mean to you. What He says to you is insight into Who He is — His Ways. Meanwhile it is good to remember nobody is stopping you from doing this – just you!

Our God is true to His Word, so if we are in doubt then we can ask the pastor, or an elder etc. and ask them to pray for us. However, the more we act on the ordinary things we’ve already read, the more our inner ears and eyes will be enlightened. So making things like giving to the poor, tithing, repenting, as well doing good to others normal, not elective things. These things are instructions. Go and seek out that person you are mad at, all this is obedience to His Word. Remember we are stewards. If He sees that we want to be good stewards using what we already know, HE WILL GIVE US MORE. As we press in, we are making Him our priority – in return He will show us what is on His heart.

“The Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward [of the estate], whom his master will put in charge over his household, to give his servants their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed (happy, prosperous, to be admired) is that servant whom his master finds so doing when he arrives.” Luke 12:42-43.

To get our own personal spiritual food we must be prepared to prioritise reading the book, and take the time to wait for the Holy Spirit’s insight. Then simply do whatever it says – unless you happen to be reading Numbers or Chronicles, then good luck with that! Joking BTW, but they can be a bit daunting! Ask your pastor instead!! 🤣 Bye 👋

P 2453 We have such a powerful Friend …

/ DVH

I found these notes in my files this morning, and it cheered me up so much I thought it might bless you guys too. Message Bible Psalm 23: “Even when the way goes through Death Valley, I’m not afraid when YOU walk at my side. Your trusty shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.” I must have read this Psalm about a jillion times in the last 50 years.  The 23rd Psalm is so comforting  – but then I saw something from a different perspective, and it was so cool! 😎 …

The Lord Jesus walks with us through death valley. (That doesn’t mean actually dying btw, it can mean the death of a dream or a hope etc. or even a planned future)  This is OUR Shepherd Jesus, right?  And He is right there beside us walking.  But He isn’t chatting folks, or aimlessly wandering along – He’s looking out for US! He is on high alert watching to protect us from the dangers of that dark scarey place. The Lord is used to protecting sheep, He’s our great Shepherd, and we know that is true, because He went looking for a lost lamb once!

In other words, Psalm 23 tells us that this is our beloved Lord Jesus …. with a crook or … as I like to call it … a whacker.  A whacker is a big fat shepherd’s crook that shepherds use to whack predators etc. Because he was a shepherd boy David taught us about being a shepherd – and yes, I remember he also had a pretty keen sling-shot. On different occasions this young man killed a lion and a bear. Now, in my mind, Jesus is not just carrying a sort of kind of a stick, it’s a weapon with a big knob on the end of it. It is the nob that does all the damage!  It is solid, and strong and used to thump things with the intention of cracking skulls, and killing, maiming or disposing of whatever it is. Well … ya-a-a-a-a-y!!! Some things need whacking! Go Jesus! … 

In other versions it says: “Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me …” well, those things would, wouldn’t they? You now, up to now, I always had this picture of Jesus walking with me in this dark nasty place that I didn’t ever want to go to – on purpose or by accident -. and He’s so kind … He’s comforting me. He’s speaking reassuringly to me –  you know what I mean! Jesus is saying “Don’t be afraid, I am right here with you, I won’t let harm come to you.”  He’s kind and loving;  but not so much with the strong bit. Rhubarb. Shepherds carry weapons. Think about that. 

Until today, I did not think about the POWER of the One I am walking with.  I have erroneously thought of Jesus Christ, the Captain of the Hosts of Heaven, as appearing in the finale of the bible, when He is coming again etc. on that glorious white horse. But this Psalm tells me that the Resurrected Christ walks with me through every single valley, He’s on my side and He will do whatever He needs to do to get His precious little sheep through that valley to the free food He has prepared at the other end! (Feel free to shout Hallelujah right here because I did!) 🙌

The reason David, who actually wrote this Psalm, is not afraid … is because he is walking with an ENFORCER THROUGH A DARK PLACE.  And this Enforcer knows how to use His power!!  I saw that my faith previously had been in my ability to hold onto His Hand, and that He would always, very kindly, help me muddle through the hard bits. However, after today, I really, really do not think this is what this verse is saying!!

I’m saying when you have the Enforcer with you there is no reason to be scared at all, no matter wherever you are, or what comes at you, because HE can definitely take care of the bad guys and get you safely to the other side … to the free food! That your enemies aren’t allowed to eat!  <giggle> If something attacks us, He WILL whack that thing on the head! ‘Take that, wolf, 💥 and that, bear, 💥and that, you ferocious lion that wants to eat My beloved!’ 🤯 Jesus walks with you and I and He’s going to bash up anything that wants to hurt us. “You’ll be sor-ry you messed with Him!!”  Our King protects His people.

The bible says: “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee…” which means … whenever I am afraid or feel alone, Jesus is right there. That threat is a lie from the pit of hell. WE ARE NEVER ALONE, BE-CA-USE OUR BELOVED SAVIOUR IS WITH US a-n-d He has a big heavy whacker that can take down anything that wants to hurt us or steal our peace. So whenever something bad does come at us, Jesus knows between Him and me – we can beat it!  I will leave you with that thought today. Blessings and hallelujah! 👋🏻

P 2241 Now where did I leave my peace again?

/ DVH

Losing our peace is a bad thing. To be honest with you, in the Western world, I am not sure we value inner peace from the Lord enough! Losing it is like opening the door to the bad guys and saying: “Come on in, and bother me with heaps of stuff that is not always true, because I want to live in anxiety, bitterness, turbulence and agitation!” Meanwhile if you turn that coin over you will suddenly discover if you actually have any of those greeblies I mentioned above – guess what? YOU LOST YOUR PEACE. Time to go and find it again!

Let’s start with what the bible says. Peace comes from and through Jesus Christ – however it is not a cessation of hostilities or trouble. Peace comes from the inside of our heart – out. Because we now have peace with Him – nothing else can disturb us. John 16:33 “I have said these things to you, that IN ME you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”Yeah, not so much with me liking the tribulation part of that verse(!) 😳 – But we can definitely have peace in the middle of any kind of terrible situation that can plague us in this world – because His peace is spiritual peace. Spiritual peace can be lost – by embracing the problem, and not the Saviour. (Help help!)

Jesus explains to us that the peace He brings doesn’t look like this world’s idea of peace. Anyone who has lived in a country where there is war, the threat of war, or even internal ructions of any sort, knows that this world’s kind of PEACE is not permanent. It often depends on the actions of others. But in John 14:27 it says: “Peace I leave with you; MY peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. LET not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”We can refuse to be drawn into all the guff going on around us – because we know the end of the story! This kind of peace needs to be embraced, appreciated and allowed to flourish. Treat peace as a priority, because a lack of peace is a slippery slide that often leads into doubt and unbelief.

Isaiah 26:3 says “You will keep us in perfect peace, when our mind is fixed on You: because we trust in You.” The biggest snare that leads to losing our peace is that our mind is not fixed. Renewing our minds daily help fix that problem! 😂 We are probably not trusting in Jesus, ALONE.  If we lose sight of our Saviour, and focus on our troubles instead – peace starts to become a vague idea, instead of the place we live in, internally. We might even blame other people for stealing it from us.

In those moments we need to drag our minds away from blame or trying to fix things ourselves. Or even going from one person to another, trying to find a solution. Peace came from Jesus and He can restore it for us. It gets reestablished inside us, first. Then the peace that is established inside us, affects everything outside us. So we do whatever we can, and then turn everything over to the Lord. Christians need to value their relationships with others above everything else but the Lord Jesus Himself, because anger etc. will rob us of our peace. 

In order to wrangle our emotions in desperate or difficult situations we will need His strength. ‘His strength is made perfect in weak people.So – admit your weakness! Pray – “I can’t, but You can.” In 1 Peter 3:11 it says: “They must turn from evil and do good; they must seek peace and pursue it.” Peace does not fall on us – we will have to treat it like a lost treasure and go after it. When we lose our peace, the first place to go is the cross – then PRAISE GOD! We go to the tomb!!

We need to value His peace. It’s a gift as well as a fruit. Romans 12:18 says: “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” Sometimes it is just not possible to facilitate real reconciliation with someone else. Our job is to manage our end, not try to micromanage everyone else. This means all we can do is to restore our end of the relationship, and make sure we have arrived back at LOVE. Love is not about feelings, it is about being prepared to die for the other person!

Lastly, other people cannot steal our peace – but really motivated ones can give us loads of opportunities…!! 😂 God bless them! However, the reality is – we actually have to give up or relinquish our peace in order to lose it. It’s a choice. My advice is that we need to go back through the day in prayer, and revise what happened where, and with whom. Then repent for not valuing something so precious. Admit you lost it.

To sum up: if you are mad… you’ve lost your peace. If you are scared … you’ve lost your peace. If you’ve mislaid your hope that God is with you, helping you … you’ve lost your peace. That which is lost can be found again. 👋🏻