steadfast love

P3402 Move from plodding into yielding.

/ DVH

“Let me emphasise this: As you YIELD to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life. When your self-life craves the things that offend the Holy Spirit you hinder Him from living free within you! And the Holy Spirit’s intense cravings hinder your self-life from dominating you! So then, the two incompatible and conflicting forces within you are your self-life of the flesh and the new creation life of the Spirit. But when you yield to the life of the Spirit, you will no longer be living under the law, but soaring above it!” Galatians 5:16-18 TPT.

Paul just said that better than I ever could. Yielding is a dynamic approach to the Word of God. We don’t have to have some sort of passive, informal laissez faire attitude.. We have the Holy Spirit and His book – They are always right!  However, I just want to try to break this stuff down a bit so it is more accessible. If anyone has things in their life they think can’t do without — then that stuff is distracting us from our purpose. I ask Him: “Lord in this area of my life why aren’t You enough? I know You are, the bible says so! But something inside me is pushing me in the wrong direction. Please reveal it to me.” I don’t want head-knowledge to push me into places, where He personally wants to lead me.

We need to remember, that the Lord in His infinite wisdom, sees our sincere efforts toward obedience, and He undergirds us. Our God got His hands bloodied and broken while He cleaned up our lives. He knows our hearts, and our want to – is as good as – we did it. However, we cannot afford the luxury of continuing to return to the same captive place over and over again. The enemy waits for us in those places of temptation and memories of wrong doing. 

Let’s keep on pressing on, facing Jesus and the cross – pushing away those temptations and replacing carnal thoughts with His ways and His way of thinking. Our ‘want to’ counts, because we can be assured He will help us, but that isn’t the final step… Faith comes next! I have sat with Him said: “I don’t want to do this, but I will do it anyway. Please help me to do this without making the other person feel awkward.” It’s called trust – we learn to trust Him as we let Him take care of whatever it is, and bring us through to a new place. And then we begin to take faith steps.

At the same time, we won’t always notice when we are being hindered by something, Have you ever said to someone else: ‘I can’t hear the Holy Spirit the way you do, what am I doing wrong?’ My next question is — ‘who am I mad at?’ I mean, who makes my teeth clench, and I react to them like I just heard fingernails down a blackboard. Who can’t say a word right around me because they set me on edge? Deal with that. Forgiveness is not a feeling – it is a GOD TRAIT. When we haven’t got access to it, something is blocking the flow between us and the Holy Spirit.

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14,15. Forgiveness is not an optional extra that depends upon how dastardly the deeds were against you — unforgiveness puts us in opposition to God Himself! In this modern world, our minds and emotions have been let loose to wander, plot and plan. There are times we can’t hear God, because we’ve wandered onto this world’s wavelength, not HIS. And because we are spiritual people, the enemy will hiss lies into our ears, telling us things that are not true … but they seem true at the time.

The time to yield hardly ever comes up when I feel ready. You and I have been invited to a ‘come as you are party.’ We come as we are, honestly and truthfully, and leave His Presence with a brand new vision of a different way to live. Yielding to His will His way makes it easier to accept the difference. Otherwise doubt creeps in. If I am in doubt then I check things out with my spouse, and if necessary, also my pastor, because they both watch over my soul.

Plodding along playing ‘hit and miss’ with our faith, means we can get frustrated and give up really easily. This world is like being in the middle of a fire-fight, with bombs and machine guns blazing away all around us. We will always need the quiet steadfast love, experience and kindness of Jesus, to keep us sane, safe and moving forward. If you have ever followed anyone you will know you have to keep your eyes on them, or you can easily lose them in a crowd. My favourite question to ask myself is this —’what is Jesus doing right now?“

Here’s a thought: He is not likely to be screaming at the kids, or that guy who just pinched your car parking spot. If we happen to be screaming, then we need to take a breath and stop, we’ve lost our peace. Don’t concentrate on who pinched it! Concentrate on yielding to Him so you can get it back! Ask for the Holy Spirit’s help. I am learning to stop in the middle of a sentence when that sentence is not going to be profitable. A-n-d …. sad to say … at other times I stop in the middle of a sentence when I forget what I started out to say, because it is another senior moment! Getting things right is not our aim, our aim is to stay firmly fixed and grounded within His love. (Ephesians 3:17.)

The Lord loves to helps us, we can always have His input. Plus the blueprint for our own lives will come more clearly into focus. Moving from plodding to yielding is costly. We will have to give up our idea of immediate answers, in favour of learning to wait for His ways to be revealed. However, plodding along does not usher in joy! As Christians we are blessed to create the atmosphere around us, we don’t just plod through it. Yielding to Him opens this world up to Who He is.  Walk with the Holy Spirit – the flesh will fade away. Bye. 👋

P 2895 God’s Love is inexhaustible.

/ DVH

We all need to leave behind the lies we have inadvertently swallowed regarding God’s Love. Our enemy goes out of his way to tell us we can’t have the Lord’s love and grace anymore because we did so and so, and God cannot forgive so and so – it says it in the book. That is a horrible lie sent to torment us. The bible is a balanced book, one thing leads into another – leading us back to HIM.

Today, I am hoping to pass on some reassurance to those of you who have become bogged down in legalism – because I know from experience that our adversary never misses an opportunity to nag at someone – day and night. Many Christians have walked away from what they believe, because what they believed became untenable in the face of their desperate pain-driven reactions to this life. Say this with me: …”there is NOTHING our God cannot do!’

We need to focus on His faithfulness. Here are a few swords for you. 2 Thessalonians 3:3:“But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.“ Lamentations 3:22–23: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” Exodus 34:6-7a.“The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD,a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin …” Fortunately we are this side of the cross, and Jesus took any curses we might pass on to other people with Him to that cross. Read the book.

Confession is often the best solution to accusation. Think of sin as mould, it needs treatment, light and air. Darkness and lack of air will make it grow. We can always have a new beginning. Here’s a verse we all know: “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9. What Jesus did was complete and comprehensive. Deliverance from the enemy’s lies starts with us making a quality decision to stop believing those lies, and instead we deliberately choose to put a verses of scripture in its place. The Holy Spirit will help us find them.

Accusatory thoughts can overwhelm and dismiss the power of God’s Love, together with the grace Christ released by what He did. Many times we do not have a sin problem per se, we have simply allowed God to become too small in our eyes, and Jesus stops being the Saviour Who saved everyone. When He said “…it is finished.”It was a universal statement for all time. However, if you are currently doing something or other and you clearly know in your heart that it is sin, and it is slowly dragging you away from everything you believe then you need to repent!  

Almighty God provides us with a tool to access His inexhaustible love. It’s called repentance. That is the quickest route to restoration. Almighty God is incredibly kind. He will lead us out of temptation, AND He will also deliver us from fast approaching evil. Because we need to withstand further and future attacks from our enemy, our faithful God will sometimes allow him to ‘gnat’ at us, so we have opportunities to develop spiritual strength. We fight back with “God says: …”  This is not about how we feel, it is about what HE has already said. Our job is to believe He is a merciful Father Who has done everything necessary to bring about our redemption.

Jesus made reaching God’s standard impossible without His help.I dunno about you – I’ve wished people dead, told thumping great lies, and worse things – and I’ve fallen down the hole of desperate despair. I think it is necessary to point out that God judges hearts, and none of us fully know what’s in there! Sometimes we can be too lenient, and at other times w-a-y too permissive. We need the Holy Spirit’s ever-present, always current, on-the-spot wisdom.

God lets us learn! That’s not an excuse it is a blessing. Think of repentance like this, as regaining our strength after we have allowed it to lapse. Every action we deliberately take against sin, strengthens us spiritually. It strengthens our faith when we step away from something purely because God says: “Don’t do it.” The Lord advises us in this manner because He knows what comes next. It isn’t always about sin – many many times it is about the kindness of God. He leads us into repentance because He doesn’t want us to end up in the land of WORSE – fighting shadows from the past.

We can also choose the road of humility and tell someone else so they can pray for us. Other people can lift us up when we feel lower than the ground we are standing on. Always remember, God’s Love is inexhaustible. Bye.👋

P 2821 Wisdom.

/ DVH

Proverbs 4:7-9,13. “The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding. Cherish her, and she will exalt you;  embrace her, and she will honour you. She will give you a garland to grace your head and present you with a glorious crown.”……Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life.”

I would just like to begin by saying that Wisdom is not just being clever or smart or super intelligent. Wisdom is choosing to see this life from Almighty God’s POV. It is deliberately asking for, and then carrying out His Ways, even when those ways appear to undermine our own logic and day-to-day experiences. How many people do you know Who can walk on water and feed thousands with a kid’s lunch? The Lord thinks differently to us.

Today, the people of the 21st Century are getting smarter and smarter. We even have smart cars that drive themselves — which is pretty clever considering the first combustion engine was invented in 1600, and the first car in 1885! Henry Ford invented the first affordable car and he used mass production for the first time to do it. (1908)  The 20th century has totally changed our world – helping us with this, and entertaining us with that.

Before that men were tinkering away in their workshops, plus earning a living. Women were slogging away in their homes … minus electric anything. Electricity became commonly useable in 1880! So there were no washing machines (1868), vacuum cleaners, (1901) disposable nappies (1930) etc. etc. Up until the first world war, women did all the work in the house, and then in 1914 they joined the work force out of necessity. My point is that it is easy to see people are smart …but God’s wisdom is a whole other way to think, and that’s why the writer of Proverbs exhorts us to go after it and seek it out. God’s wisdom does not lie about like a lost newspaper, we have to actively go after it.

The Apostle Paul suggests we renew our minds, all the time, because our minds are ‘me’ centred.  What we believe to be true can simply be our way of making God serve us. And if we are ticked off at someone, then we can easily get to be ‘them’ centred. No wonder Jesus talked about logs and specks, it can be so easy to ignore what’s wrong with me … I often think to myself: “how can you see at all round that blooming great log you are currently nurturing.” Sigh. 

The Lord thinks differently than we do. In His Ways – the first are last, the last first. The guy who works all day in the hot sun, gets paid the same as the guy who just started working at afternoon tea time! The guy whose theology was often wonky and small like a pebble – the Lord called a rock and He put that man in charge. Jesus throws a wedding feast and when the invited guests refuse to come He sends His disciples out to compel anybody going by to come to the feast. Jesus even washed the feet of his known betrayer. Who does that? God – that’s Who!

He doesn’t think like we do! Do I hear a hearty hallelujah?! I know I’ve got one. The sneaky way human beings think, and the way they present things is destructive and deceptive. Many people today are run by money. Even the people who haven’t got any! We settle for pity or attention instead of real love. I think the Lord’s greatest disappointment with His people is that we bail out too easily. The tough not only don’t get going … they get lost … on purpose!! (There’s a double negative in there somewhere!)

The wisdom of God is active – it mends, it creates, it opens new doors, brings about new opportunities, it gives people a chance to make a fresh start every single day.“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end… they are new every morning, new every morning, great is thy faithfulness O Lord, great is thy faithfulness.”  Now there’s an advertising campaign that would make many people sit up! BTW, God doesn’t make empty promises, if He says His love is new every morning, then it is!

His Word gives us the opportunity to seek fresh wisdom every single day, but we have to choose to open the bible and meditate on what He is saying to us, personally. Almighty God speaks human but do human beings speak God? I know One Man Who did! Praise the Lord someone wrote that stuff down. Wisdom enables us to understand His Ways like nothing else can. The Word of our God stands forever – because that Word is a Person – Who paid the price, lived the life, and died an unmerited death. Jesus gives us access to God’s loving Wisdom for free! Bye. 👋

“Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice:  at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you; I will make my words known to you.” Proverbs 1:20-23.

P 2812 Contentment has great value.

/ DVH

Here’s a great source of contentment for us from the Bible: “His love endures forever” — that’s in Psalm 136, it is repeated 26 times. Now there’s something we can attach our contentment to! In this mixed up world we need firm anchors for our faith, and the fact that God’s love is never-ending is a great anchor! Jesus freely gave us His access to contentment.

Let’s look at one of the Lord’s servants and see how this grace worked out for Him. Paul teaches us that we can learn to be content In any circumstance. In the book of Philippians, he clearly tells us he lived that way himself. Yet this saint’s life was full of more ups and downs than a giant roller-coaster on steroids – with a death wish! I have always thought that any guy with a theory is completely disadvantaged by the man who has experience, and Paul had heaps of experience.

We will begin by reading Philippians 4:9-13 “Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”

You know I am constantly learning, often the hard way –  that when I am not content with what I have, and worse stuff happens, life quite quickly seems like the sky is falling. Ya might want to think on that one. We are now look at the Apostle Paul’s life very briefly — he was beaten three times with rods. Stoned once. Thrown in jail, and wait for it – shipwrecked three times! I mean can you imagine that? He tells us he was hungry, thirsty, cold and not clothed, dragged in front of governors etc. to ‘please explain!’ Plus he was once bitten by a poisonous snake! Meanwhile, in his spare time, he only wrote 23% of the entire Epistles!! That’d be funny if it was not so weird!

It can be easy to think that this was Paul, and he was specially gifted. But if we look at his life carefully we can see that he learnt to be content through … or even because of, his circumstances and suffering. You know, I’ve tried the popular system that says we are meant to claim this and speak out that – and I found that I was just going round and round, spiritually speaking. I didn’t actually grow! Instead, I kept fighting the same battles over and over again. The only sign of growth I had was grow in the wrong direction! I grew impatient with the Lord for not recognising all my efforts to follow Him! Boy, that’s not a good place to land! Self-effort promotes self … and …discontentment, and discontented people make allowances for repeated dumb responses!

Real growth started to happened when I chose to learn to be content no matter what was going on. Now let’s be clear, I would hate to think that you think, that I am saying: “Look at what I did all by myself.”  Hah! The thing that utterly changed my whole walk with Jesus was when I learnt to be obedient to His word, His way and started to rely upon Him to help me do it.  I stopped making excuses for myself because “my life is hard, blah blah blah, boring boring boring,’ and I chose to forgive others, put bad stuff behind me, I believed He could save me from all of it.

Father God grabbed me in my heart one day when I was merrily rehashing someone else’s faults and He asked me this question. “How do you think that they can make up for all they have done to you?”  I was stumped. None of us can redo yesterday! It’s gone. Plus these people had no clue about what they had done over long periods of time. But that was the very thing that had skewed off my thinking into ‘poor me.’ Actually the people thought they had done well and I was the difficult one. 

I learnt a couple of useful things that day – only God knows human hearts, plus He’s the only One Who can change them. To do that He needs co-operation, and that can’t happen when the person doesn’t think they are wrong in the first place! I am still regularly tested about forgiveness, but something amazing has happened that is worth noting. I have become far more generous toward others when they annoy me, as I continue to acknowledge my own humanity. Given their circumstances, I could easily have taken some of the same roads they did…if it weren’t for God’s enduring love and what Jesus did for me.  

Here’s a piece of trivia that may change the colour of your day – the word “let” is used in the bible 1,511 times. In order for change to come we must let/allow God to change our perspective. The Lord has never said what happened to me in my life so far was OK with Him – instead He reminded me that sin is common to man. So instead of exacting verbal, emotional, physical, and mental retribution from someone, I have learnt to pray over it and let things go. 

The secret of contentment is to remember God always loves us and His love is enduring, steadfast and eternal. I urge you to focus on that – not on someone else’s sins, deliberate or not. Their sins against you and I are as forgiven – just like ours are. But when I focus on what someone else did to me, my ability to remain content disappears. That’s how I discovered that contentment is a thing of great value.  Bye 👋