Sets us free

P 3486 Jesus is the gift that keeps on giving.

/ DVH

One of the biggest mistakes we can make today, is to allow our own thinking to justify us … instead we need to ask the Lord to help us to see our situations with His kind of clarity. As I see it, Christians seem to vacillate between: “Oh, I am such a bad person” … OR … “I’m trying, I’m doing my best!” That last one sounds like a great answer… but the truth is –  why would we try and try to do our best, when Jesus’ best is available to us? That’s just nuts! 

But as we walk with Him, listening to Him, on purpose — we will discover a whole other way to live. Let’s acknowledge that we might make mistakes— but we should never plan to misuse His Grace. Walking with Him is the entire focus of walking on the narrow way – He is the narrow way. We enter into His kingdom … the one we are told to enter into first! Meanwhile, repentance hasn’t fallen out of the book, it is still there, Jesus Himself taught about it. So is repairing any damage we may do to others. Denial is also a foolish way to try to live a life built on GRACE. It’s the truth that sets us free.

Otherwise we can end up spiritually, living like we have to clean our house in order to get ready for professional cleaners! Boy is that a waste of time, angst and energy. Why try to do the job yourself when it has already been done and paid for? This shows a distinct lack of faith in what Jesus has already done. Let’s get this straight once and forever OK? We are all sinful people. There is no worse sinful, or mostly good sinful people, who occasionally do the wrong thing. There’s just sinful! The people who captured the Lord’s attention were the ones who were prepared to go after Him, and admit their faults, then humble themselves. 

That woman who crawled into a dinner party to wash Jesus’ feet with her tears etc. most likely crawled past the men who had used her in the past! And the woman at the well ran back into the town that could easily have housed her previous four husbands in it! These women did not care what others said, they had found something worth more than position, or ego. Real life. Those Pharisees who turned up their noses and got legalistic with Jesus, had the personification of their rules right in front of them. Yet they yelled at Him for showing mercy because He healed the sick on the Sabbath.

However, the sinner on the cross next to the Lord, saw an opportunity and he took it. This opportunity is always ours to take. Life is short – live for Jesus right now, and keep on doing it day by day. This is an odd thing – the worst sinners often know how to repent better than we do. I sincerely exhort you, please don’t let your pride keep you from bonding with the One Who died to save you. Humbling ourselves helps us with true perspective. It hones our focus. It helps us take His … “…yoke upon us and learn from Him, for He is gentle (meek) and humble (lowly) in heart, and we will find rest (relief and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for our souls.” Matthew 11:29. (Alterations mine.) 

Did you get that? Rest comes from being yoked with Jesus. Walking with Him at the same pace He is going, following His leadership. It doesn’t come from looking inside, it comes from looking at Him, and making adjustments with His help, wherever necessary. Looking inside only muddies the water. We can end up blaming others for our behaviour or endlessly berating ourselves. Neither of those things are profitable. However, the Word of God on the inside is designed to guide our daily thoughts. That’s what renewing our minds means. We exchange our POV for His POV!

The Lord made His participation in that process clear in John 12:49: “For I did not speak on My own, but the Father who sent Me commanded Me to say all that I have spoken …” And in John 5:19,20 we see that He had guidance in everything He heard and did. “Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all he does. Yes, and He will show Him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed.”

The church is living below the standard Christ Himself set and MET. He has already empowered each one of us to meet that standard. We simply need to totally depend upon the Holy Spirit to lead us. Press in, and remember, that our Lord is not a vending machine. Up until now, we’ve been following rules – not a Person! Now we follow Him, just like the disciples did.

He LIMITED HIMSELF so we can follow Him. Living and dying to self, like Jesus did, is possible. Many people have followed the Lord down that same pathway of dying to self and being resurrected into a new life — while they were still here on earth. Their testimonies to His Grace in action in their earthly lives, are filling up the praises of angels and saints in heaven. 

That’s what happens when you seek His kingdom first. He adds a whole lot of things to us as part of the package. He’s the glorious gift from God that keeps on giving and giving and giving. Hallelujah! Bye. 🙌.

P 2681 Absolute Surrender

/ DVH

“Since Christ, though innocent, suffered in His flesh for you, now you also must be a prepared soldier, having the same mind-set, for whoever has died in his body is done with sin. So live the rest of your earthly life no longer concerned with human desires but consumed with what brings pleasure to God.”1 Peter 4:1-2 TPT. 

And there you go, a fantastic standard that is impossible to reach outside of the governance of the Holy Spirit! This life is always about choices. Unfortunately, the church today is in a bit of a hole, because we have figured out ways to make that choice sound user-friendly, or – we’ve hidden the choices away somewhere in the fine print. The thing is, we cannot legislate, or even subtly obfuscate reality. Doing that will eventually turn around and bite everyone of us on the backside. It’s His truth that sets us free.

I think that the men and women of God in the New Testament learnt this kind of stuff as they went along. The whole idea that everyone was suddenly rendered instantly whole, spiritually sound, as well as personally fabulous, is error. They had a Saviour just like we do – they had to learn stuff just like we do. If you read the New Testament carefully, you will see that there were troubles, strife and skirmishes even as the church was developing and growing.

People still did the dumbest things, even though they had given their lives to Christ and wanted to live their lives for Him. However, back then they knew they had the Holy Spirit,He taught those people personally, He will do that for us too!We need to learn to value and appreciate His Presence more than life itself. The Holy Spirit is not just about speaking in tongues – HE is our Helper, our Counsellor, our comforter, our personal teacher. Cherish Him.

Meanwhile, the Christian life isn’t just about what we don’t do. It’s about what we must do – ON PURPOSE.  We’ve lived for years with rules that are almost impossible to keep, and at the same time we invited other people to join us. Then we got disappointed when they didn’t want participate. “Come to our church and we will actively teach you to obey a whole lot of rules that we can’t obey either!” 😳

The same method that saved us, CHANGES us. It’s called absolute surrender. We do it in faith and we live it out daily. The problems come because we pretend to be something we are not. We will have to die to be these people, His new creation, and that ain’t pretty. Sadly, we’ve subtly altered His life-giving invitation to live a new life IN Him – because: “come to our church and we’ll teach you how to get dead to yourself” doesn’t’ look good on a billboard! 

Today, many people in the West are living in a secular nanny-state that insists we must be politicly correct. I personally believe that particular premise invites deception. I’ve had a number of conversations with people who are working and living out in this world and they cheerfully parrot off: “Oh, you can’t say that now!” or “That’s inappropriate!”  Human beings are never going to be legislated into being changed  – we are way too inherently disobedient! I truly love putting Jesus in charge of me – mainly because my memory ain’t what it used to be, and if you hand me societal rules I will have forgotten them before I’ve even put them in my bag. 

I actually think this PC stuff is all nonsense. We need GOD Himself, active on our behalf, not lists of rules for things we can say – and things we can’t. You cannot legislate caring, unselfishness, and inclusiveness, because there is no underlying core in normal human beings that can support it. Human beings without God are awful. We killed the Lord of all glory and we had lots of words and theories to prove that was the right thing to do. Think about it – God Himself came here and we killed Him. Praise the Lord Jesus – He did not stay dead! Our hope is in the Saviour Who rose from the grave, not rules. The same Holy Spirit Who raised Him up will change us.

The Holy Spirit has incredible, selfless qualities in super, unmeasurable, abundance. All that plus WISDOM! But human beings don’t. Watch little kids in the playground. They will haul off and clock each other. They will snatch things – and they won’t care two hoots about the other child crying. Adults buy guns and knives because they don’t feel safe. They don’t feel safe because this world is not safe … selfishness and sin were born into all our hearts! What we want in and for ourselves is to be indulged, and proved right. However, the assumption that I know what is best for me is, at best, twaddle! The best way for humanity to be changed and transformed is to submit to Christ’s leadership. 

Absolute surrender is the only way to go. Otherwise we will begin to reject any rules, and grow resentment, and that stuff leaks out in particularly vicious ways when nobody expects it. It’s called anarchy. Soldiers do not enlist to have a desk job, they enlist to fight. And if need be – they will die for what they believe. We too, were born again to fight … but not each other. We are to daily fight the selfishness that surrounds us – releasing His love everywhere we go, and if need be, we will die for the people who hate us. At the same time we must stop fighting the Holy Spirit for the right to run our lives the way we want them to be, and simply SURRENDER to His Ways. That’s the way forward, totally surrendered and absolutely sold out for Jesus. 👋

P 2654 Give yourself a break!

/ DVH

Actually, I don’t mean take a holiday – I mean cut yourself some slack. It is too easy to become formulaic in our faith. We think things like: ‘if I do and say this, then He will do and say that.’ It seems like we think the Lord is a vending machine. We stand in front of it, stamping our foot – getting crosser by the minute because we did everything we were supposed to do … and …nothing happened … things stayed the same.  Then we rummage about trying to figure out what we’ve done wrong because God is always active on our behalf and where’s our answer? I dunno … I learnt years ago I am as dumb as the dirt I came from! 

But I do know this … Almighty God is not afraid of inactivity. Between Malachi and Christ’s birth 400 years went by. Here’s something to reflect on — in that time there would have been Godly men and women who died waiting for an answer. Nobody likes that thought! Yet Christ went through everything He did into His terrible death, and His grave and nothing stopped any of it. That shows us that God has greater purposes. We often have to wait for the greater purpose to manifest. Other things simply must be endured, and we will need to learn to do that with faith, grace, and love … However, sadly, those graces will not take endurance off the menu! 

I also know that as individuals we can hold up our own personal change by being disobedient. Maybe we simply refuse to look at things that need transformation, or we feel that change in my life is impossible. Perhaps we even trot out well-worn excuses,…”My family is like this… it’s just who I am … other people are so picky … “  What we are really saying is: “I don’t believe I need to change God… I expect You to change Your mind … OR …You could change THEM!”  We sing songs and read in the book that nothing is impossible with God, but that goes right out of the window when it touches our inner rebellion. We are afraid of change.  BTW, about the excuse:  “My family is like this…” you joined a new family remember? There’s that excuse done and dusted!!

Years ago, I had the dearest friend who used to tell me when she was praying about something really important that she thought God had gone skiing or something because there was no response. What she said was a joke … but, at the same time, it wasn’t a joke … she was referring to the fact that His silence scared her. Rightly so, sometimes silence means NO. The Lord holds the future, and maybe that idea we have won’t hold water in the future He has planned for our lives. 

Jeremiah teaches us that HE “… know(s) the plans He has for us, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11.So what we think we need, or even want, may not be in the plans He has for us. At other times we simply need to live through our disappointment, and talk to Him about that. Either way, He’s always the Answer! The Lord simply isn’t sharing His thoughts with us at that time. That doesn’t  mean we have committed some dastardly sin – it could mean that we have an opportunity to keep banging on the door. Like the guy in the parable Jesus told. That guy needed bread for his visitors.

This is why I’ve learnt to leave things with Him. I ask Him for revelation, and then expect that when He is ready to share with me, something will pop up in my bible reading, or someone will say something, and my heart will recognise His voice, in their voice. And sometimes the circumstances have already changed, it just took me a while to notice it! I’m a bit slow that way …

My point today is, it is not good to beat yourself up and wonder what you did wrong after you have prayed about it and you still can’t hear Him, or you seem to have lost the path. If you know you did something stupid then fix it. Doing that side-steps a whole lot of angst. At the same time let Him be God and you be you. Mistakes are going to be made! He is perfectly capable of redirecting our paths. “…He will make straight our paths …”Sometimes our mistakes seem to be real clangers … I’ve made loads of them! 

Yet, because He is our wonderful Father, the glorious Creator, the One Who sets us free – He can take our surrendered spirit of disobedience or stupid, and make something beautiful out of it. He made the world out of nothing. Taking our sometimes wilfully shattered lives, and making something incredible out of them, is what He does. Give yourself a break – He won’t give up on you, so don’t give up on yourself.

I’ve found that self-flagellation accomplishes very little, surrender accomplishes far more. It softens our spirits and helps us to remain humble. I pray all the time:  ‘Lord, I want what You want.’ Amen. And then I forgetaboudit until He brings it up. Bye. 👋