Sin

P 2989 Use your inheritance wisely.

/ DVH

We all understand the concept of our salvation — Jesus came and chose to die, and as a man He became our sin substitute at Calvary. It was an exchange, our sin for His purity. Because of the incredible Grace Jesus released, we now have full access to our Father, God. We have been freed from the clutches, the seduction, and the appeal of sin. We are so free now we can choose not to sin! While the Lord Jesus was on earth, He did not sin, in thought, attitude, or actions—and He is our example of how to walk with the Holy Spirit — Who knows the Way through anything!

This morning as I was thinking about the magnitude of what happened for our sake – I saw a different kind of parallel between the story of the Prodigal Son and what Jesus did for us. And, most of all, I saw the Body of Christ’s voluntary response to that gift. I understood how easily that incredible generosity and love can be abused.

In the story of the Prodigal Son, the younger brother goes to his father and demands his inheritance. Then he goes off and does whatever he likes with what he was given. Enter my point for today …this young man does not value what he was given to him, even though it was not his right to have it.  His father was still alive!! Instead he took his inheritance, and thoughtlessly squandered it. Using it to fashion his life the way he wanted it to be without a thought of the cost to his father!

I think this is a problem when we become Christians. Because we live in such a materialistic, hedonistic world, we start to devalue what we have been given. Just because it was free that does not mean it was cheap! It’s a perception problem. Our inheritance belonged to Jesus — He gave it to us, through what He did for us. Sadly, we often use our inheritance to live like everyone else around us, and thereby misuse it. What we’ve been given was incredibly costly. At the same time, we know this inheritance  belongs to everyone, so we need to pass on what we now know to the people we meet. They are the legal recipients of this treasure too! God reconciled them to Himself in Christ.

We can carelessly live ignoring that the point of Christ’s death was total transformation, not just freedom. I am not denying we want to avoid sin … me too! But we can end up misusing what we have been given, simply by living like everyone else around us. That is not what Calvary’s exchange was for! It wasn’t only given to take sin away, and reconcile us back to our Father — it was to transform us into someone who is just like Jesus. We are to live for Him now. We’ve been saved to live to love others, so now we tell them the good news that God’s Will included them!

Let’s stretch the Prodigal Son parable a little further, and take a look at the Older Brother. The supposed good guy. The one who always did whatever he was supposed to do. He was not subject to the same temptations as his brother. His temptation was way more subtle. He too, had access to a gladly given inheritance, but instead of enjoying what he had, he was living his life trying to earn his way. He was not living his life gratefully. He too, was a son and heir, all His father had belonged to him.

My point is that neither one of these young men had  comprehended what they were given. The inheritance they were supposed to gain after their father’s death, was free and clear. It was already theirs by right of birth. But the older brother thought that because he was the good son, he had earned special privileges.

The younger son finally caught a glimpse of what he had done, as he lived alongside the sinful members of this world, doing whatever he pleased. He saw he had laid aside the privilege of His rightful place. When we ignore God’s plan for our lives we are like the Prodigal. Like greedy children we take what we want – the freedom to choose – and ignore the privilege and responsibility of what we have been given.

We will never understand what we have been given if we think we’ve earned it because living like a Christian is so much hard work. Both of these young men’s attitudes are wrong, and neither one should govern our lives now. What we have been given is a gift. It was not given based on attitudes or actions, it was given because the Giver is mind-bogglingly generous! Our inheritance demands a respectful response, because SomeBody else paid for it! 

Almighty God has given us Christ’s position of purity, innocence and cleanliness before Him, in exchange for our previous sinful way of living. It is free, and undeserved.  If Jesus had not come and died in our place there would not be an inheritance for anyone. But God did not punish His only beloved Son so we could be free to go and skip through the daisies doing whatever we like, because now we have a get-out-of-jail free card!  

Everything we have depends on our Father’s generosity. We need to use our inheritance wisely – by gratefully living like Jesus would in this world. We must become His Sons and Daughters who value what we’ve been given, and tell everyone else what He has done for them. Bye 👋

P 2981 I’ll never get this stuff right!

/ DVH

“Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for His miraculous power constantly energises you. Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ—and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity. Amen!” Ephesians 3:20-21 TPT.

What a fantastic bunch of promises in Ephesians we have today!!  We literally need to drag our eyes away from all the things that force their way into our lives, and focus on His bigness, not on our inadequacies. This is the best advice I’ve had all morning…I can’t—but He can!  Boy, I just can’t do some things anymore… it drives me nuts. I used to be able to do at least four things at once, now I have to ask hubby to repeat what he just said to me, when I am typing. 🙄

My mother is 97, very ill and fading. She used to be the most powerful person in every single room she ever walked into …and … that person is quite simply not there anymore. Instead she’s having trouble holding onto her thoughts and confuses the past with the present. But here we are today, reading that God Himself has said to every single one of us: “I will be your strong right arm. I will catch you when you fall. I can take the mess that you’ve made of your life and make a glorious garden out of it.”  Oh, Amen to all that!

There is a terrible tragedy in allowing our sin to be bigger than the Saviour. My mother has lived for years in the wilderness of not knowing whether God loved her or not. And yet she has always believed in Him, and tried to please Him. That’s a terribly scary place to live, especially when you are old and infirmed. It can totally desolate the soul. I think that kind of theology is one of the reasons I hate religion —I love the Lord!— but boy I hate religion! It puts a dreadful fear in the place of faith. 

So this week hubby and I sat next to her and read from one of the books I’ve made, and my dear mum glowed like a light bulb as she allowed herself to bask in the comfort and approval of God’s love. It is incredible how our precious Father’s loving acceptance can do the things we cannot do. Love is the best communicator in the world, and love is all over His bible.

I still have some pretty wild dreams, plus a far dollop of imagination – and yet Ephesians 3 says: ‘Almighty God’s power can do greater than my imagination, or dreams, or requests.’ Not to mention the whole energising thing thrown in for good measure. I can always do with energising – how about you? His love takes me places that I would never dare to venture. There is a different kind of freedom for all of us in His love.

And energising is a huge thing if you happen to have a toddler, or an infant at your house — or two or three, or… maybe four? God’s help is way bigger than them all screaming at once, and the dinner boiling over and the cell phone dancing across the kitchen bench!  I’ve prayed for myself  many times in the past: “please re-energise me Lord!” It’s when we feel like we are going under for the umpteenth time that we let go of Who He is and start to grab hold of who I am not! Grab hold of Him instead. What you think about you, doesn’t count – it’s who He says you are.

Beating yourself up is quite unfruitful. Instead reassure yourself that the God of all the Universe loves you so much He always has your back! He will take our ashes and make beautiful things out of them. Perhaps you have worked all day and then come home exhausted, and you are trying so hard to be the perfect parent. One of the things we need plenty of in this life is the knowledge that our hope is in Him— Who He is. Guilt must never drive us.

Ephesians offers us an incredibly realistic picture of Who God is. We are all still in transit, so let’s stop should-ing on ourselves all the time … “I should do this and I should be that and I should never lose my temper, and if the kids turn out to be wrecked it will be all my fault!’  Instead let’s choose to remember that God can indeed—‘work all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes…’  He’s already got our sin covered, now we need to let His love cover us in our vulnerability. 

Whether you too have a parent you love dearly, whose faith is wobbly, or your kids have sailed merrily off into the sunset and seemingly left the Lord behind… remind yourself that our hope is in His Character. Putting our hope into our circumstances or our own actions is foolish and heartbreaking.  

“Help” is a prayer.“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, And His ears are toward their cry for help.”Psalm 34:15. “The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy, O Lord, endures forever;  Do not forsake the works of Your hands.”  Psalm 138:8. You and I don’t have to always get this stuff right – we just need to remember that He’s a God Who always keeps His promises! 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 2976 The difference.

/ DVH

There is a difference between who we really are, and who we think we are, and it is extremely useful to know the difference. Our self-perception is often based on self-deception. That is, we can’t bear to think badly about ourselves, so under pressure we hold ourselves away from the Lord and other people and frantically make excuses. We even revert to childish answers. Whenever you notice that – don’t excuse yourself, ask the Lord to show you what is actually happening. Go on to read the bible, wherever you are normally reading it and expect answers. Then act on what you read.

Let’s look at Peter, he very kindly shows us what a human being looks like! Jesus said in John 13:34 – “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another.” Simon Peter asked Him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow You now? I will lay down my life for You.”Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for Me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!”

The Lord knows the true blueprint of who each one of us is in reality, and He has freedom for each one of us. As I see it, we get into enormous trouble the minute we decide that WE are old enough to know who we are. There is no transformation in that stance, only roadblocks. After that we stop praying about things, or won’t consider change. We are selling ourselves short of our Glorious Ideal.

Unless we are prepared to choose God‘s kingdom as our yard stick, and not our own opinion, we will become stuck. And every subsequent return of our childishness is like cement. When opportunities come up for change and we refuse them, or excuse ourselves, we are hardening our hearts against the Holy Spirit’s promptings. Change is scary but it means I choose to actively hold up everything in my life to the light and say: “is this what Jesus wants for me?” I stop excusing myself and I no longer tell myself that this is just who I am. 

I treat my personal preferences like I would treat sin — carefully and thoughtfully, specifically, without beating myself up about it. Repentance is not beating yourself UP – it is agreeing with the Holy Spirit’s diagnosis of our hearts and doing something about it. If my attitude involves other people then I go to them and confess my fault. The bible tells us we are to confess our faults to one another, and I have found that one question helps me do this. I ask myself ‘is this love’ the way it is explained in the bible.

My own idea of love will not do, because I will probably excuse myself and blame YOU!  So I don’t stop there, then I ask myself: ‘would Jesus think it’s love?’ In other words would He do it or say it? If the answer is no … then it is time to repent, like I said above. I think we excuse a great deal of aberrant behaviour because we think it’s a personality trait.

Somethings have been adopted as protective mechanisms from when we were too young to understand what we were doing. I call those things Button A —  sadly, our world explodes if some dumb schmuck presses Button A! If you try to tell the exploding person about this phenomenon, they will deny it exists. For them it has always existed. Only the Lord knows how and when to deal with stuff like that and we are always on His learning curve and timing. We also can’t stop participating in His processes simply because changing some traits about ourselves seems to be uncomfortable or impossible! This is the place where we must actively learn to press in – the plus side is we learn faith in the process. 

It is not good to make excuses for our behaviour and continually use the past and the way we’ve been treated, as an excuse. Everybody has a story – and our story isn’t going to be graded by helplessness and sincerity! Sadly, when we live like this, we are limiting God‘s capacity to be ALL He is in our lives. He won’t just barge in and take over — that’s what free will is all about!  Instead He will give us more and more opportunities to choose differently. I have found that if I get the same sort of situation occurring over and over again, in my life… God wants me to pay attention to it.

Jesus is the Limitless One, so He is our benchmark. Just because we are afraid of the unknown, or anxious or proud, that does not give us a reason to stay where we are. Our yielded life is our contribution to our heavenly calling. Our God is kind, loving, merciful, generous, He is not looking to punish us, instead He wants to teach us His Ways. So when things get hideously sticky and ugly, and I can’t stand it, I remember that Isaiah taught me that: “He will not break a bruised reed,’ (Isaiah 42:3). Then I reassure myself that things may seem hard but He will not break me — so I put my faith in that verse, by choice, and hang on. I know from experience it may get bumpy for a bit. 

Sin is not terminal for us, someone else paid for it, and it is part of our faith walk to believe He did. There is no longer punishment for our shortcomings – there are, however, limited opportunities for change. We need to put aside childish reactions even if I reacted that way yesterday! And put on the new self, and we live our lives always willing and ever ready to change. Because the difference between who we think we are, and who we really are… can only be truly resolved by the One Who knows us intimately, and chose to pay for our sins. Bye. 👋

P 2972 Options are an illusion.

/ DVH

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If you truly want to follow Me, you should at once completely reject and disown your own life. And you must be willing to share My cross and experience it as your own, as you continually surrender to My ways.”Matthew 16:24 TPT. The trouble with reading the bible in a modern version is that then we are kind of stuck with what it says. We can’t quit reading just because we can’t understand the language in an older one! What Jesus said here is as plain as the nose on your face. Now there’s a spiritual experience people aren’t keen on! 

I think the place that the church at large got into so much trouble is right here, in the above verse. We’ve made dying to self and taking up your own cross, into an optional extra. Hmmm. Does it sound like an optional extra to you? You know, I’ve tried all kinds of excuses to wiggle out of dying to self.  I’ve said things like… “I had a hard childhood;  people were mean to me;  I’ve been sick a lot;  …”  Sigh. I couldn’t make even one of them fly! You can’t actually successfully talk about sickness, suffering and hardship etc. etc. to SomeOne Who took ALL our sickness and diseases, sorrows and suffering! 😳 He already knows – He’s very kind about it but it isn’t news to Him. 

Thankfully, because of His mercy and grace, He won’t condemn us when or if, we feel sorry for ourselves, because He’s much nicer than we are, and not even remotely religious! The bible teaches us we can make a case and discuss everything with the Lord – that’s in Isaiah. And even if whatever we have done is so horrendous it is as scarlet as blood, He will faithfully wash it for us whiter than snow, simply because He loves mankind, and He personally killed off all the legalities the enemy has held against us.

The thing is if you try talk to the Lord about avoiding dying to self thing you will get nowhere. He actually knows what is good for us,  so we haven’t got a leg to stand on. Maybe that’s because He is the expert at ‘love bears all things… hopes all things … love never gives up.’ And He refuses to give up or let go of us – His primary aim is transformation not comfort.. Here’s a secret I have learnt – you can postpone growth, but that means you are postponing change. We often look at other people and hope they will change, when WE are actually the problem.  

I think that sometimes the reason we feel we can’t die to self is because we are dragging ourselves around struggling with religious rules, and ought-tos, plus all the politically correct junk we have to give lip-service to nowadays —so the thought of dying to anything else is just way over the top. Have you noticed that Jesus   simply treated everyone lovingly, no matter who they were, or what they did, or what they had already done.

There was one time when the Lord called the religious leaders a “brood of vipers.” These leaders made it clear that they didn’t like Him, right from the beginning … but He didn’t care about what they thought, His Father’s opinion was the only one that mattered to Him. Make me like that please Lord! His aim was to stir them into thinking about the way they were affecting other people’s lives.

Sometimes I sit with the Lord and start chucking all that religious PC stuff over the side of the boat, into the sea of His glorious forgetfulness. We don’t need it. We’ve already decided that we will treat people with love — and He will help us to do it. And that’s a lot easier than remembering all the dos and don’ts! The bible clearly tells us that we have better things to do with this life we have been given. In my thinking, there is nobody better than the Creat-or, to tell the creat-ed how it works. Just saying is all …

Take the time to delight in the fact that we are living and breathing with the One Who made everything we can see … and a whole lotta stuff this world hasn’t even found yet! Did you know that there are“… about 15,000 to 20,000 new species discovered each year. This equates to approximately 40 to 55 new species discovered every day.” Doesn’t that just blow your mind?! God has better things for us to think about.

When we live this life His Way it changes the way we relate to others. So with His help and our choices, we can be loving, kind, patient etc. and accepting of people, despite what we think about their faults! When Jesus gets involved, our spiritual eyes help us to see the power of love transform US, and all the lives around us. 

Let’s face it, we all have a choice. We can be ourselves, with a rotten stinky self-aggrandisement attitude, or we can be like Jesus! The book says so. And all we need to do to enter into this new place of be ing a blessing to others is —DIE.  However, God is NOT the ultimate party-pooper, stealing away all the so-called fun things. Instead we can study the fact that He loves a good celebration like we do. Read about Jesus’ birth again, or the Holy Spirit’s arrival on ordinary men and women… Father God knows how to have an occasion better than we do, and there are no hang-overs either.

You see the problem for me in the past was this:  back when I was young, we thought we had to fight the establishment in order to be free. We were wrong. We can be in a prison and still be free — because freedom is an inside job, and options are an illusion supported by copious advertising. Read the book. Bye. 👋

P 2971 You can find Jesus anywhere and everywhere!

/ DVH

“My heart and soul explode with joy—full of glory! Even My body will rest confident and secure. For You will not abandon Me to the realm of death, nor will You allow Your Faithful One to experience corruption.” The Lord Jesus is all over the bible! Right here, for instance in Psalm 16:9-10, hundreds of years before the Lord arrived – there is a wonderful statement where we can clearly see His hope in God’s faithfulness. Obedience, hope and faith took our Lord to the cross. And faith in His Father’s Word kept Him there, until God’s plan was completed. Imagine that!

Our Lord has not ever asked us to do anything He has not already done Himself, and He did everything fully co-operating with the Holy Spirit, in obedience to His Father’s wishes… Jesus cultivated and lived in Love, and He didn’t move away from there…He had the Grace of total obedience. I pray for that a lot!. Some of the things that the Lord Jesus did are beyond words. Like this one:

John 13:3-5“Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He had come from God and was returning to God;  so He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.  After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.”

This scripture sets a precedent for each one of us — Jesus showed us two ways to cultivate humility. The first is this …we can deliberately choose the lowest place. I don’t think there is a more beautiful action than this one. The God of the Universe sent His Son to serve mankind and redeem us all, and yet right before his crucifixion occurred, Jesus humbled Himself even further, by washing His disciples’ feet. Astonishing!

The King of all Kings, and Lord of all Lords was kneeling on the floor washing those grubby, travel-worn feet. (22 of them!) I prayed about this brief episode, and it occurred to me that in the bible it says that the ones who take the gospel of good news everywhere —have beautiful feet. The disciples went on to take the gospel everywhere. I think this was a prophetic action – a statement of things to come. He is everywhere, in the lowest position – except for the last book, then watch out!

Another example I want to mention is at the cross, He submitted to His tormentors without a word.  Speaking for myself I’ve always got plenty of words … sigh! Jesus suffered the incredible pain of utter separation from both of His constant companions, the Holy Spirit, and the beyond words loss of His Father’s Presence for us too. “He Who knew no sin, was made sin for us…”

During His time on earth, the Lord Jesus walked in complete intimacy with both The Holy Spirit and His Father … minute by minute, day by day. I believe this means we can walk with Them like that too. We simply need to put the Holy Spirit’s needs, and ways, above our own. As each one of us eventually approaches death, we can do so with great confidence, because we remember that Jesus has already walked through death’s door on our behalf. He’s waiting for us and we will not die alone, our Saviour went there for us too.

He flung that door open for every human being that has ever lived on this planet. Death cannot hold any of us captive.. I used to explain it to my kids like this – death is simply somewhere else where we can’t see people for a while — like another room. People are not gone. Some will sleep and some are already dancing through the streets of heaven.

The enemy has no right to hold any of us captive to the fear of death because of what Jesus did for us. It goes without saying that we should be spreading this info around to anyone who will listen while we still have the chance! Death is a door not a destination. Even if we have spiritual unhealthy thoughts about hell, let’s remember that Jesus also went there too, and He held a parade when He came OUT!  

And my last example is this:  Jesus’ glory knocked Saul His persecutor to the ground.“As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.He fell to the ground and heard a voice say tohim,“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me?“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” He replied. …” Acts 9:3-8. There is no place we can go that He will not be there with us… He’s the Good Good Shepherd, remember?  Bye 👋

P 2970 Religion can kill our faith.

/ DVH

“Beloved ones, God has called us to live a life of freedom. But don’t view this wonderful freedom as an excuse to set up a base of operations in the natural realm. Constantly love each other and be committed to serve one another.”Galatians 5:13. We’ve been set free to love one another and to serve God, of our own volition.  

When we read the Gospels, if we look at the hawk-eyed big brother attitude of the Sadducees, Pharisees, Teachers etc. we can see they pounced on anyone who broke even the smallest of the man-made rules. This included some poor schmuck who was born blind. These religious leaders picked on the guy because he was healed on the Sabbath! Like the man chose that day!? He was offered healing and he said yes … wouldn’t you??

Then there was another man who spent 35 years of his life lying by a pool, and he got into trouble for carrying the bed he had been pop-riveted to for years!  All because he was also healed on the Sabbath. There were others and Jesus healed them all on the Sabbath too. But as soon as these healed people were out in public, some enthusiastic religious enforcer immediately demanded to know why they were breaking this law or that one! Sadly these legalistic men skipped right past the joy of those amazing healings and went straight to the so-called infringement.

The Pharisees etc. lived to point out other people’s sinful actions and attitudes. Their laws consisted of hundreds of add-ons to the Ten Commandments that God gave Moses. Father God paid an incredible price when He gave us the freedom to choose! His aim was REAL reconciliation not lip-service or more laws. Today we are free to choose LOVE. You simply cannot legislate against sin. 

After all, the bible says that sin itself, can give our misdeeds a greater appeal! The religious laws of Jesus’ time, alienated and distanced the people from their God. You simply couldn’t afford to even appear to make any kind of mistake, you would get caught and punished. They even had sacrifices for the things people might have forgotten they did! 

Mercy flew right out of the window, rapidly followed by grace. Healing etc. had to be legislated into a suitable time and place delegated by the religious rulers’ discretion. People had no choice, they either obeyed the law to the letter, or they were punished. Sometimes they had rocks thrown at their heads! Or they were beaten within an inch of their lives. Or they had to fork out money they didn’t have to pay for grain offerings, doves, sheep and cattle. The religious rules had been around for so long, they had slowly been perverted away from loving God and each other, into legalism.

I think the very worst part of all this is that God Himself became even more estranged from His very precious children – why wouldn’t you avoid a god who appeared to require punishment for every single misstep? We know that sin starts with an inward attitude, which can result in an outward action against what God has said, but I think the complete truth is when we sin, we sin against LOVE, not rules. When what we do is not from love we’ve sinned. Which makes categorising sin a waste of time. Instead of focussing on outward actions, our hearts need to be changed. They need to have an attitude transplant and God has given us the perfect opportunity to have one!

Jesus did it for us – He is God’s love in action. He is the perfect example for us — unfettered by profit, agendas, prejudices, judgment, appetites and selfishness,. Meanwhile those snarky I’ve-got-a-right-to-do-what-I-want attitudes we cherish so much in this modern age, can go from choice to entitlement in a heart-beat. Sin is a heart condition. We were born with it but Jesus took the huge burden of personal responsibility for mankind’s sin, past, present and future, upon Himself and He met every legal single requirement. He overpaid!

Almighty God sent Jesus to save everyone, even the guys who killed Him. God chose to sacrifice His own Son willingly—to give US back our freedom, and give US the opportunity to walk with Him. Religion takes our choices away, it sets our minds on an impossible task … remaining sin free. And it totally ignores what Jesus already did for us. It also removes Love from our midst. Loving one another is our only hope of thriving instead of just surviving. “Beyond all these things put on and wrap yourselves in [unselfish] love, which is the perfect bond of unity [for everything is bound together in agreement when each one seeks the best for others].’Colossians 3:14. (AMP)

Unless we choose to live in Love, like Jesus did, the law will continue to haunt the church.  We need to do what the bible says, and put aside gossip, resentment, criticism etc. etc. and pay far more attention to our own hearts, than we do toward other people’s sin. Religion chokes the life out of faith. Bye. 👋

P 2965 We owe Him our choices.

/ DVH

I want to be perfectly clear today. The Lord Jesus was tormented about the cross – even though He knew it was His Father’s will for His life and it would benefit mankind – He had to make a hard choice. He prayed for hours that the cup that He knew He would have to drink on our behalf, would be taken from Him. And at the same time, He shed blood thinking about the ramifications of what He was about to do! He became sin, for us.

Let’s just try to imagine what it would be like if every single one of your motivations were pure, right, and just — and you were living to benefit others, but you had to live amongst men and women who had embraced a strict religious regime. Love is the only vehicle that will reach them. They are locked into systems that cause them to strive and worry and lie. Yet Jesus knew His Father’s aim and the ongoing love story between God and mankind. He knew His Father’s heart toward us. So He chose to come here, He chose to live here, and He chose to die, here.

Now He is asking you and I to do the same thing, to make hard choices and choose His Father’s Ways over our own. So the next time the Lord says to us;  ‘forgive this or that person’ we need to remember that He is not doing that from an uninformed, inexperienced place. HE KNOWS the cost of forgiveness because He paid it all. That’s why He sent us the very best HELPER — the Precious Holy Spirit. 

Jesus could never be called ill-informed, or uncaring about mankind’s daily difficulties. That’s why the Heavenly Father sent Him here, to us, in an unheard-of tiny village, as an infant. Oh how I wish we would study the Lord’s attitude toward sinners more — He was a Friend to sinners. He loved to restore people, body, soul and spirit. Right now there are people in your life who keep saying spiritual things you would rather not hear … they keep saying this stuff because they ARE your friends.They have learnt there is better way to live. Jesus Christ hated religion, not people. 

Religion robs people of their God-given birthright to be God’s Sons and Daughters. The Lord Jesus was lovingly, passionately loyal to His Father, and He knew His Heavenly Father was being misrepresented by a system that burdened people. “The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, NOT DESIRING THAT ANY should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.”2 Peter 3:9. Amazingly, Almighty God can do something we can barely understand  – He can love the sinner and hate the sin.

Unfortunately, if we choose to live in satan’s camp from day to day, indulging our own selfishness, then the other guy has a legal right to push us around. But fortunately!! … We have the best Saviour, and the most informed, pure and brilliant Lawyer/Advocate that there ever was, to represent each of us before God Himself. Jesus Christ is God’s righteousness personified. He is our example. We also have examples of the way our God deals with all kinds of people in the bible. The Old Testament is not just a group of stories about how other people who lived long long ago — we need to watch how God Himself perseveres and is long-suffering toward them. He is not a God Who stands a long way off – He came here in Person to reveal His heart to us!

This is why our day-to-day choices matter. The Holy Spirit Himself wants to walk you and I through each part of our personal transformation, daily, until we shine with the light of God saturating our very beings. From the inside out! We must stop thinking of choices as something that are meant to appeal to us … and understand that as each choice is made … we will die a little. That’s the aim! This is why the Apostle Paul said: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:21. And he also said …”I assure you, believers, by the pride which I have in you in [your union with] Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily [I face death and die to self].”

Jesus is not asking us to do something He did not do Himself. He is asking us to follow Him through the land of many choices into the solitary possibility of ONE CHOICE…. HIM. He’s looking for passionate dedication to His mission from His followers.Yes, He saved us, once and for all, but He saved us to serve Him, and serve others. I write this blog to exhort you and encourage you to remember that God is always on your side. In His heart He wants the very best for you. He wants to help you and I into the kind of transformation of character and spirit that we can only dream about.

This is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit back here to help us. He’s here, right now, with us, to help us make the kind of choices that will prosper our life spiritually. Instead, we are going to be made rich in the things that LAST. Forget physical prosperity … that stuff has to be protected and fought for … what the Holy Spirit gives us, He gives us for free. It’s free because we didn’t earn it or deserve it.  Because of what He did for us, we owe Him our choices. Bye. 👋

P 2963 Quick sand.

/ DVH

One of the quick sand traps we can fall into as we learn to walk with the Lord, is that we can get stuck regarding sin. We try to explain things away. When we focus on what we think happened and why — that’s when a ‘sin’ focus takes over and we stop thinking like we are children of the King. My advice is in all situations, focus on the Lord. Dismissing our sin is like stepping into quick sand.

What we intently look at, has a tendency to grow larger, and we need the Lord to be larger than the dumb stuff  other people do. Focussing on the cross and everything He chose to do for us, produces clear focus and gratitude. I’ve found that ‘self’ will lie to you. It is not interested in dying … because it is afraid it will cease to exist if it dies. But death to the ‘old’ self is always the desired outcome. We can only LIVE for Jesus to the extent that we are prepared to DIE to self.

Otherwise we will start explaining why we did this or that, trying to justify ourselves. Let’s just level the playing field shall we? “ALL have sinned!” This means we can’t possibly justify ourselves – all means all!  Don’t fight humility or give self any credence, confession is the answer to sin. Renewing – or changing your mind – means our focus will change as we focus on His thoughts not ours. Otherwise we are trapped, but the minute we confess our faults – that trap flies open. Sin is a deceiver. It wants us to identify with it instead of leaning on and relying upon what Jesus did for us. The reality is, sin can no longer hold us, it can only take hold when we believe its lies.

Trying to justify ourselves means that we have been tricked into giving away the ground that Jesus died to give us. The efficiency of our enemy’s trap depends upon the personality of the individual person. For many people, He can grab them because of an underlying sense of guilt or shame. This means that we haven’t yet totally grasped what we have been given. Jesus Christ gave us His justification, His stature before God. We have it credited to our account. God gave us something that we could never do for ourselves – for free. But it cost Him everything – that’s the kind of wonderful God we serve! 

This what what this incredible exchange was all about – Jesus took our sin and gave us His holiness, His righteousness. To walk in those things we need to treat other people the same way He treated us. We were His enemies! We were against everything He stood for. We need to do this generously. Unselfishly. Not just the people we like, but even our known enemies. Now we are free to choose to follow Him down the road of sacrificial love, compassion, kindness etc.

The Christian life is about choices. It is often about choices that need to be made under pressure. Jesus chose to be a servant. So we choose to follow Him and live the same way He did, with thanksgiving and obedience. Our day-to-day choices provide us with a mirror – they show us how much faith we are living in. When we choose to give into our flesh, ourselves, our old nature, we are empowering our old life. That old life no longer has any power over us – we can only enliven it by giving it our allegiance. It is a mirage, a memory, a shadow of what was. We will find the attitude or actions that seem to imprison us, actually cannot hold onto us when we begin to use our faith to walk away from them.

The more we have indulged our flesh the harder the enemy will fight for us to return to that life. he never stops tempting us, because Jesus Himself said: “… in this world you will have trials…” When we are tried, by self-interest or difficult circumstances, our true self comes to the surface where it can be identified and dealt with. Instead of excusing that behaviour as ‘only human’ or ‘normal under the circumstances’ — we need to own how we’ve reacted so we can walk away from it, back into the freedom Christ has given us.

Then with the Holy Spirit’s help, we begin to take our renewed mind’s faith-steps away from the things that drag us down and step into our new life, our new identity, in Christ. We are now who He says we are. This means instead of giving you a piece of my mind, I give away His PEACE to you instead. Instead of punishing you because you don’t suit me, I choose to love you. Loving you is not giving you permission to continue to hurt me, instead it gives YOU a chance to know what unconditional love looks like!

The reason I can forgive you or you can forgive me is because of what Jesus did for both of us. We are standing on the same ground. Our issues are not people, our issues are attitudes and subsequent actions.“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment.” Matthew 5:21-22a. See? Attitudes matter!! Anger is clearly out of God’s order. It’s not just a bad day, or a stinky attitude, or a suitable response to someone else’s sin, to warn them off.

We know something that the other person may not know – He died for their sin too. Sin, or holding onto resentment or bitterness, or shame or guilt, is like stepping into quick sand. We will drown and smother our burgeoning faith. Our best combat attitude is to continue to renew our mind, and act on what we read. Then we begin to think about this life like Jesus did. We ask for His help – and use our faith to be obedient. Bye 👋

P 2962 What ARE you wearing?

/ DVH

When my kids were little I can remember uttering the above words to them many times. One of them insisted on going out with a jumper inside out and backwards. 🙄

We’ve all heard these words from Colossians 3:12, but applying them has become a priority. “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” I think it is appropriate for us to ask ourselves daily — what does compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience look like? Personally I do that with prayer and a whole lot of help from the Holy Spirit, with great truckloads of His Grace. Unfortunately, I have an awful feeling that these things that we are meant to wear, every single day, are the absolute antithesis of what the world all around us says we should wear daily to survive.

So let’s remember first of all, that survival by this world’s standard, is no longer our aim. Our Saviour set the example for us. Jesus led the way. He had so little personal stuff that the soldiers played ‘two up’ underneath His cross to own it!  At the same time, no matter what kind of a fancy slant we put on the way we live, we cannot disguise a lack of compassion, or kindness, humility etc. This means we will go out into this world naked unless we choose to wear the clothes that Jesus Christ bought for us. Ya might want to pause and think on that one. 🤔

Romans 13:14 talks about the origin of our brand new faith clothes. “Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” The secret to wearing His clothes is stop worrying about what we wear, or how our life will go – or even what we can do to cheer ourselves up, because we’ve had a bad day. We just leave everything with Him.“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? … Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”Matthew 6:25-27… well, sort of … I left bits out OK?

Worry steals our God-given clothing. So does anxiety, or anything else you care to call that stuff we all do at 3.00am — when we can’t sleep and we are trying to figure out what to do about something that seems insurmountable! We are exhorted by Paul to put on Christ. Put on His attitude to this life. That’s the answer! After all, Jesus never worried about anything. By the way, let’s remember that the Lord Himself had a great deal on His shoulders – He only came to save the world! Plus there’s Isaiah 9:6 … Talk about expectations!! 

You can check what He did out for yourself in the Gospels. Jesus knew the value in trusting God in all things. He walked on the same dirt you and I walk on, probably a great deal further every single day than we do! He needed to eat etc, just like us, but He did not worry about those things – not even about where His next meal was coming from – He quite simply gave thanks for the meal in front of Him!

“… put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbour, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger,…”Ephesians 4:22-26. There are a whole lot of clues about our new clothing in these verses, and nodding our heads and agreeing with it will not make it happen! Restraint is invaluable. These things aren’t suggestions, they’ve been given to us to help us become an overcomer. Please note the big clue that we can be corrupted by our own lusts.

The thing is, we can’t fit into our new clothes, if we feel we must lie to protect ourselves, or make ourselves look good. Plus there are no good reasons why we should be angry with others. God turned His anger away from us and now it is our turn to do that for those people who live around us! Instead we are to live our lives grateful for the gifts of His righteousness and holiness  – these are the clothes Jesus personally paid for us to have. And we use our faith in what He said, to choose to live like that.

At the same time we must deliberately choose to stop revising and reviewing someone else’s faults and ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. We don’t give up until it comes. It’s called perseverance, and it’s in the book! When somebody or something annoys us — we choose to see that as an opportunity to cultivate the spirit of self-control by remaining silent in the face of provocation.That takes practice. In the meantime we can be grateful to God that the perpetrator has given us an opportunity to practice a skill we don’t have… yet. 

Maybe we think it is too hard to change. Here’s a verse: “You have not yet struggled to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;..” Hebrews 12:4. So … I look around me and at my clothes and say to myself —If the answer is negative then I conclude that someone has hurt my feelings but … I’ll live! Ask yourself, what are YOU wearing? Bye 👋