Shines

P 3044.

/ DVH

“Jesus said to all of His followers, “If you truly desire to be My disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace My ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to My ways. For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for My glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep.” Luke 9:23-24 TPT. 

These verses mean our lives have been whittled down to one important choice – will we live this life we have been given for Jesus’ sake? Or will we continue to choose to try fit Him in around the edges? I’ve noticed that dividing our time between what we want and what He wants, never ever works. What I think and want takes over.

In my opinion this particular choice needs to be presented to anyone who wants to give their life to Jesus – right at the beginning. After all, the Lord’s exchange rate goes right through the roof – we get His loving goodness for our sin! And this type of total surrender should be mentioned before anything else – we need to make it clear that people are giving their lives away.

We are not selling cars, holidays or houses – we are by His Grace, consistently revealing the One we know, to the people-who-have-not-met-Him-yet. I don’t much like the idea of total commitment coming later, as an after thought. In my mind, this needs to be the only thought. This is the choice! I live for me OR, I choose to live for Him. When I mess that up, He’s there helping me back onto my feet again. He’s Almighty God, He gets to make the rules, that means – I follow Him. 

Jesus loves to do great exploits and He wants to do them through all of us. That means we will talk to other people about what we’ve personally known about Him. He isn’t just helping the people on Youtube or the enthusiastic souls who make podcasts or write books. He will help all of us. But our faith levels need to increase. 

The Lord wants to do whatever He wants to do in your life … with you;  through you;  in you – to help others. What He does for us, every single day is so incredible — the sun came up where I live this morning! How about you?! Every single Christian has testimonies about how God’s glory has transformed their lives. But we can become so enamoured with this worlds’ razzmatazz and hype, we miss what He is doing! There is no need at all, for us to ever shift from Him being our central point of focus, because that’s the place we stand on.

We choose to view everything else that happens to us through what He has done. Even our calendars are founded on two abbreviated terms that take Jesus birth as a pivotal date. B.C. means before Christ. AD means Anno Domino(latin) — it means in the year of our Lord… We count time by Jesus’ birth!  Apparently some people have come up with a PC version, but I gave that the flick. If I listen to them I am a descendant of a short-sighted amoeba! Yeah right. Rhubarb.

What Jesus is saying here in Luke 9, is that none of our lives will reach their fullest meaning and potential outside of a totally committed life. God is good, we will always have a choice. So we can self-govern if we want to — but then our responses can be limited by our personal experiences, our intelligence, and opportunities. Deception floats about this world like pollen on a windy day – unseen and dangerous. But when Jesus is our catalyst – the sky is the limit. Let’s remember that this world has no knowledge of what real love looks like and everyone’s lack hurts other people. Love is NOT a feeling, it’s a choice.

The key to the passage in Luke is the word truly. “…If you truly desire to be My disciple…”  That means commitment is going to be needed, whether we feel like it or not. That stance takes bravery! Christianity is not a try now and buy later scheme, it is an all or nothing one. As a matter of fact, I think trying now and buying later is downright dangerous. Many people have decided to try Christianity – and in their view, when God did not met with their untaught irreligious expectations, they dismissed Him with a wave of their hand. They explain that they’ve bin there and dun that and they’d like to keep their options open!

Of course you can ‘try’ Jesus, but please be aware that you just put a giant target from His enemy, on your back. Everything that can oppose you will! Jesus cannot be an optional extra – He has to become the point of our lives. When we give our entire life to Jesus, He takes it. In return, we begin our journey into eternal life, right here, right now. We do that against a backdrop of imperfection, in ourselves and others. That’s why the light in us shines brightly – the darker it gets in this world, the brighter we will shine.

Eternity is not ‘pie in the sky when we die.’ It is perfectly expressed, here and now, by a life lived in faith, following Jesus wherever He takes us. We bring His kingdom down here, by the way we walk, talk, think and act. We can’t psyche ourselves into that kind of stuff – we need His help. And He is always with us, in the Person of the Holy Spirit. All means all. Jesus Christ gave His all, so now we give Him ours. Christianity is not a part-time thing – it is a life-time commitment. Selah. Bye 👋

P 3006 God always has a bigger plan!

/ DVH

John 18:10-11: “Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) Jesus commanded Peter, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given Me?”

There are times in our lives when we have a very painful  cup set before us, just like our Lord Jesus did. At those moments, it seems horrendous to even contemplate accepting that vessel  —- let alone drinking from it! Yet in this verse the Lord defended that cup to Peter. It was the one He knew His Father wanted Him to drink. In the light of the cross, we can clearly see the purpose that Almighty God always had on the other side of this awful ghastly time … mainly because we have the benefit of hindsight – and we have the book!. 

But in our everyday lives it is much harder to comprehend what has sometimes been set before us. Our natural instinct is to fight the idea that we are meant to eat and drink some of the things the Lord has allowed to impact our lives. I’ve heard people say: “God would never ask me to do such a thing!”“ I thought that you said God is good – why would He ask me to live through this?” My short answer is this: because He asked it of His Son, first. 

The reality is this, in order for us to be like Jesus, we need to choose to follow the Lord, step by step through the troubles and tribulations of this life, because at the same time we are learning to live resurrected lives. In the presence of death, a resurrected life shines so brightly. However, the bible also tells us we will have times of triumph when we tell trouble and strife to get out of our way! Sometimes we resist, and trouble flees, and sometimes we quite simply need to go through. 

Dying to self is painful, it is utterly impossible without the Holy Spirit’s Presence in our lives. And we cannot live in the fullness of the Christian life without Him. You can’t have a resurrected life without death first! There may be times we are simply asked to contemplate drinking the cup of suffering, and in those times, we learn to yield — but at other times we cannot escape, the only way forward is to walk into the valley of the shadow of death.

However that situation comes upon us  – we need to keep walking through it. He will walk with us, and He asks us to walk through any hardship, and even the kind of destruction that looms against us. HOWEVER – satan cannot design one thing that can bring forth life … But even death itself, under the Lord’s watchful, passionate eye, brings LIFE and more life in abundance. Sometimes the way to get more life is to die!

Acting like Peter did, when he sliced off that soldier’s ear, is the same as taking difficult matters into our own hands. When the Lord does not give us personal intimate instructions, we always have access to His book filled with the Way He wants us to respond. However, cutting off someone else’s ear for retribution and defence — is not the way forward. Anger breeds more anger, revenge breeds more revenge, and hatred and violence breed an even greater desire for the kind of hatred that can lead to murder! 

God always has a bigger plan than we do. Think about it. Do we think that the Lord has ever said: ‘Whoops, I missed that one!?’ We all know that His timing is perfect, even in the worst possible times. Now, hold onto your hat —- here’s a verse that nobody likes much: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”  Psalm 116:15:  I’m pretty sure nobody has ever stitched verse that onto a sampler and hung it up on the wall.

However, if you have lost someone dear to you, then this verse is also not the kind of verse that will comfort you instantly. Instead remember and comfort yourself with the thought that Mary and Martha couldn’t not see the bigger reality when Lazarus had been dead 3 days. We can all falter under that kind of pressure. Their faith was in Jesus doing something about the situation before things got to that stage, but Jesus’ aim was to glorify God through what happened. We need to go past the immediate situation, remembering He is good.

Even in terrible things like death, our response is often about US — our loss, our feelings, our idea of what God should do. When these things happen we have an opportunity to transform our minds by remembering that: “He knows about everyone, everywhere. Everything about us is bare and wide open to the all-seeing eyes of our living God; nothing can be hidden from Him to whom we must explain all that we have done.” Hebrews 4:13.

Lazarus’ sisters, two women who both followed Jesus, could only see their terrible loss. Death takes us all by surprise, even if it is expected. However it can also be swallowed up in the kind of victory that expands our view of God Himself. Sometimes the hardest thing to remember in times of trouble and strife, is the fact that God  has a much bigger far-more-wonderful-than-we-can-ever-imagine, plan.

Especially when hardship does not disappear quickly. Our biggest challenge in those times is to remember that He’s a good God, and He will walk us through these things. Faith continues to grow when we trust Him in that dark valley. My prayer for all of us is that we can continue to walk, no matter how slowly, using our faith, and reminding ourselves that our Saviour is always right there with us … even when grief clouds our sight. Bye. 😢

P 2979 Saturated.

/ DVH

To be saturated means that when life squeezes the daylights out of you — all that comes out is love! The Holy Spirit’s Presence in us, transforms us, and touches everyone around us. He attracts people, and He knows exactly what every heart we meet needs to hear. We are not called to pat down or pacify other people’s sin – we are called to shine HIS light into sin, without destroying the person captured by it. Love shines into the darkness with such a brilliance that even grumpy people are surprised.

We don’t seem to understand that He is now in all of us, and it is our joy to co-operate with Him. We make our hearts, His home, with the Holy Spirit’s help, otherwise we will get progressively deaf. That’s what disobedience, and carelessness does. Because He is now our dearest, most trusted Friend, the Holy Spirit can put His finger on anything He sees that is clogging up our flow of His love, in us and for others. As He flows through us that is the normal Christian life. 

Peter told the lame man in the book of Acts: “I don’t have money but what I do have I will give you.” He knew the Holy Spirit was in him and with him. Peter’s focus was on walking with God not ministry, or avoiding sin. The secret to flowing with the Holy Spirit is to allow Him to lead you. He is not some kind of emergency spare Friend sent to bail us out of trouble or make us look good! Life is so much easier, when He is in charge. Meanwhile, I can guarantee you that whatever He wants us to do, we will need to use our faith to do it. 

I find it incredibly interesting that Jesus Himself did not teach the disciples about what we call “the anointing.” He did not speak about God’s Presence with these men as a method—because the Holy Spirit is a PERSON, not a method! He simply taught these men God’s ways, then He demonstrated them, and then He told them to go and do it! 

The Lord’s importance and proximity in their lives had an overflowing effect – they were able to do what He did because they were living in His Presence. Ya might want to stop and think about that one! 🤔 Yet these men, who walked with Jesus, weren’t perfected in their personal faith – until their spiritual debt had been paid, and the Holy Spirit came to each one of them at Pentecost. After the Spirit’s arrival, they would’ve gladly died for what they believed instead of running away, as they had previously done.

The bible tells us that the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. We already have it, so we must stop checking out our feelings and instead follow His prompts. God loves it when we do what we do prompted by faith – every single day. Including TODAY! … “Today when you hear His voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.” Hebrews 3:15. When you hear Him—obey Him. If He says you should apologise and fix things, then that other person’s response has nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome… even if they snarl at you! We are here to please Him, other people may be touched by Him as we obey, but that is not our priority. Our obedience releases our faith.

The source of His life in us is never US—it is His Presence IN us. “Christ in you the hope of glory..”  As we daily choose to use our faith to allow God to redeem our lives from fleshly habits—like holding apathy, offences,  bitterness, bad attitudes, wrong relationships and carelessness, we will become increasingly more free. Even seemingly unimportant things, that can trip us up — things like lying to save someone else’s feelings must go.

The love of God needs to fill us daily with the purposes and things of God. We can’t just pray: “Fill me now please Lord” and then walk out of the door and get grumpy because somebody parked across the driveway. And we don’t just go to work to do a job – now we work for Him! As we walk with Him we will move away from those things that are distracting us from our true calling and purpose. 

At the same time, the love of God captures our hearts. We begin to see Him do things through us that we cannot do ourselves. And I’m not just talking about walking on water! I’m talking about a bad tempered person finding that as they yield to the Holy Spirit’s promptings, and obey Him in faith, they are transformed. They experience the growth of the  fruit of self-control. Because of their obedience, they are choosing to remain in the vine.This love lifestyle doesn’t just work on things like a bad temper, it works on anything that keeps you and I from being distracted by this life. We remember how much God loves us! 

Our proximity to Jesus minute by minute, grows exponentially as we live aware of Him. The Holy Spirit is with us to remind us we are not guided by our flesh anymore.“Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell Him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will guard your heart and mind through Jesus Christ.” Philippians 4:6-7 TPT.

As you can see, God’s peace is the final umpire. Our task is follow His peace. We have to protect our peace and be guided by it.  Living this life saturated with His love is not a pipe dream – it is our new way to live.

Bye. 👋

P 2844 Into these times!

/ DVH

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. …”2 Timothy 3:1-17.

“If we are faithless, He remains faithful— for He cannot deny Himself.”2 Timothy 2:13. WE SERVE A FAITHFUL GOD. That fact never changes. He is looking for people who will believe in His faithfulness. Sadly, the verse above in Chapter 3, reads like today’s news! How scary is that? And then Paul says to Timothy “… avoid such people!” I mean really? HOW? Join a nunnery?? That’s the thing about the bible, it has contradictions in it, and we desperately need our Helper to sit with us and explain His book. He’s the Author and He knows what He wants to tell US as individuals. Don’t just read what others think … ask Him yourself … then insist.

Our bible is a unique book – it’s not just full of instructions, it is chock full of God’s words, there on the page for you and I, every single day. What I hear Paul saying is this: “don’t pick up this world’s ways of thinking, doing and being.” And my thought bubble goes like this: “I will definitely need to hang around with the Holy Spirit, more than I hang around with this world’s ideas of what life is meant to be like.” Speaking for myself, that’s a tall order! I am stuck inside all day – and I’ve exhausted all the Big Bird meets Bambi movies. Sigh. One thing is for sure, I can’t do anything He wants without His help.

I permanently need His assistance for my mind to dwell on things that are good right and profitable. However, at the same time I have also discovered that a lot of supposed ‘Christian stuff’ makes me cringe. It’s like eating a terribly sweet icy pole … total brain freeze! Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that Christians can’t make Spirit-friendly movies unless they are being led, step by step by Him. And I don’t just mean that He inspired the movie maker – I’m talking about Him inhabiting what is said and done right throughout the movie! Otherwise our clever ideas make the church look weird, and a le-etle bit soft, and wimpy …! We need His power present, everywhere. In every industry, place of employment, schools, hospitals, trains, planes and automobiles! And love is the vehicle we travel in. 

At the same time, when Jesus shows up people are instantly affected by His Presence. I’ve seen that happen with my own eyes. Our job is to invite Him to come with us. Then we listen, then we obey!  People start crying their eyes out. They say: “I don’t know why I am crying.” And we tell them: “That’s Jesus, He’s here, He wants to talk to you because He loves you.” Neither of us are clever, or insightful enough to touch and reach the lives of the people we meet everyday. That’s the very thing Paul is talking to Timothy about – we must see, for ourselves, that this world is in a desperate way, but not condemn it. We must reach out. We need His guidance, direction and help – because our God cares about everyone.

I think Jesus is saying to all of us today: “Don’t go anywhere without ME.” The Holy Spirit is our filtering system, so we need to learn to run everything by Him. I believe that through these verses the Lord has given us a glimpse into this world’s future, to help us understand the times we are in. These times have not taken Him by surprise, Paul wrote about them nearly 2000 years ago! Are we in the end times? I dunno! I’m not that smart. I just know that my life will end one day, and I want it to count for His kingdom. 

I may never meet some of you guys this side of heaven, but I write this stuff in the hope that you can hear His voice through mine, and that will make you thirsty and hungry for more of Him. Living this life from day to day, going nowhere – except for making money – is the total pits. I exhort everyone I meet to yield to Him because that’s the way forward. In my heart I know that the coming generations are going to go so much farther than my generation will ever go, and do things I have never even dreamed about. Remember, the darker the darkness, the more HIS light shines. 

Just don’t be afraid to share what you know about Him with someone else. Who knows what that person will remember if their ceiling falls in and this life betrays them? Our trembling little faith-steps give the Holy Spirit something to work with! Maybe they will remember someone telling them that God loves them so much, in moments of quiet desperation. We’ve been born here, into these times, to be blood-bought containers of His love, visible illustrations, of His love in action. We show other people, what Love looks like, what Love sounds like, what Love acts like.

These are the days we can give glory to Him… wherever we are, whatever we are doing. Christ was GRACE under pressure – He died for us so we can be grace to others, no matter what is going on around us.

Bye …👋

P 2617 Thinkaboudit. Prayaboudit. DOsomethingaboudit!!

/ DVH

“But how can people call on Him for help if they’ve not yet believed? And how can they believe in One they’ve not yet heard of? And how can they hear the message of life if there is no one there to proclaim it?”Romans 10:14 TPT.  Quote: “There would be no sense in saying you trusted Jesus if you would not take His advice.” (C.S. Lewis – Mere Christianity.) 

Jesus Christ told us, as His disciples, to “go.” It was not a suggestion, or a happy thought, it was a direct order! The Lord wants us to go … individually, personally, and corporately. Whatever He wants us to do when we get there, is between Him and you. However, we all need to obey what He said when He said GO! And here’s a very good reason why we should go, that many people aren’t aware of…

… the plain fact is, most Christian people are stuck in a rut when it comes to their faith. They battle doubts and fear all the time, but especially when life gets difficult. And life, nowadays, gets difficult OFTEN! Jesus Himself is speaking here: “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace and confidence. In the world you have tribulation and trials and distress and frustration; but be of good cheer [take courage; be confident, certain, undaunted]! For I have overcome the world. [I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.]” John 16:33. He said, expect trouble!

Here is a fantastic secret I have discovered about go-ing. Go-ing means we will have to use our faith. Well, that seems like a duh! thing right? But it’s true. In order to obey Him, we will have to take what the Lord Jesus said seriously, and move out of our comfort zone and into the battle zone. The thing is, if we look carefully, we are already living in a battlefield every single day, anyway! However, daily using our faith makes it stronger!

satan doesn’t just want you and I to be inactive – he wants us dead. So, every day we fight for our faith as well as our lives. But, at the same time, we can also use up what little faith energy we may have developed, by striving to live in a neutral place — seeing only occasional evidence of our faith’s reality. Most of us live pedantic, sadly disappointing lives, and we never experience the joy of being in God’s right place, at His right time. Trust me there is NOTHING like that in this world. Instead of doing the same old, same old, every day – spend your life for His sake!

There is no surer way to kill off faith than to live this life only dusting off and dragging out our faith Sunday by Sunday. Or using it as an emergency cord, when things get bad. We either believe what the Lord said, or we don’t. Practically everyone I know believes what Jesus Christ said is the truth … the whole truth and nothing but the truth! But most people do nothing about what they believe. How tragic! You and I have God-given appointments to fulfil.

We all have a destiny. I discovered that there were actually things that only I could do, that didn’t involve setting up a tent somewhere and hiring an evangelist! I read in His book that I am destined to usher in His kingdom everywhere I go! So I decided to believe what I read. Now, I live this life aware of the kingdom of God in me and around me. You and I carry His life within us. All we need to do is to let His life out every day – instead of saving it for a chat around the urn, slurping on a cuppa tea at church!  We are all full of faith round that urn! There are people all around us daily who have no idea that Jesus Christ is alive – today.

Yes, it IS dark out there, but remember Christ Himself said: “The light shines more brightly in the dark.” At the same time, please, don’t let fear stop you. Fear is the antithesis of faith. Fear will make you self-involved. I’ve found out personally, that even tiny little things matter – they sure make a difference to people who have heard nothing. The truth is, people will be drawn to His light in us.  Kindness and love toward others can make a huge difference. We don’t have to give them the whole gospel in one sitting, sometimes all we need to do, is to say: ”Jesus loves you so much. He cares what is happening in your life.” Then they cry, and you get to explain why they are crying – it’s a piece of cake!

The bible says: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you …”  Along the way in my life, I’ve discovered that faith gets ‘added to’ when you use it.  Don’t let anything stop you from entering into any God-given opportunities He will send your way. Look for them, they will build your faith. Tell Him, daily: ‘Lord, I am available at any time, any place of Your choosing.”  Thinkaboudit. Prayaboudit. DOsomethingaboudit!! Bye 👋