suffering

P 3344 Do we love others well?

/ DVH

My dear hubby came up with a great thought for today. When the Lord told us to love one another – it was a COMMAND, not a suggestion. ‘I am giving you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you too are to love one another.’ John 13:34. Boy I can sit and soak in that one for a while. Loving others is not an optional extra, it is the reason we are still in this world – our great QUEST. (1 Corinthians 14:1) 

Here is a question I ask myself regularly: “If I were to be taken to court, could I be found guilty of loving others? Is there enough evidence?” Truthfully, it can depend on the day. But questions like this one can leave me flatter than a cane toad hit by a semi-trailer. Look, I don’t want to know my real answer, anymore than anyone else would, but it is essential that we all understand that a lack of love matters to God. We are looking to walk in His Ways, not ours. Our own way of thinking often excuses us, and accuses the other person!  Some of us have not come any further than the playground at school – we whine: “They started it!”

Well, let’s start today by looking at our responses to other denominations. The bible says in Matthew 25:31-33: “All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left…”  So what qualifies somebody to be a sheep and not a goat? If you read far enough in this passage you will find it all depends on how we treat the poor and needy! Verse 40 says this: “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.” Jesus identifies Himself with the poor, and He is motivated by compassion and love – most of the time we can easily be motivated by partisan attitudes.

The reality is we know we are guilty of merely tolerating other denominations and their doctrines – by secretly thinking our little group has the skinny on God and what He wants.  But is tolerating others the same as love? Self-examination under the Holy Spirit’s supervision is a useful thing. It can lead us out of self-deception into repentance. Getting rid of unloving attitudes will make loving others with His love easier. It starts by asking for His help and … ends in repentance. There is only one thing that can separate us from other people – our own inner prejudices and attitudes. People have to be taught to hate, little ones don’t care who you are, and where you are from.

The disciples walked around with Jesus for three and a half years. They listened to every sermon, saw every miracle and  yet we can see that they had unChrist-like ideas. They all needed to undergo transformation and the Holy Spirit did it at Pentecost. They needed a new heart and so do we! What WE do and think about, it is what matters. In the example below, the people who were bound by satan got free!  Well Hallelujah!!

So here are two verses, in Luke 4:49,50: “Master,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in Your name and we tried to stop him, because he is not one of us.” “Do not stop him,” Jesus said, “for whoever is not against you is for you.”  It is so easy to make Christianity an exclusive little club. We really must stop categorising other Christians as wrong, or right. Because our differing doctrines are ruining the actual message! Christianity is sometimes like the somewhat divisive doctrine about speaking in tongues. Here’s what I think – if you can, then please DO IT often. But don’t make it a merit badge!

A lack of love can also occur when we stop tending the garden of interpersonal love. We can spend too much time concentrating on the other person’s faults … a-n-d … not enough dealing with our own. Then weeds disguised as attitudes and behaviours start to appear, and choke out the beautiful blooms of love in a marriage; or in the love between a parent and child; between siblings; or even in the church. 

We don’t have to like those people who continue to abuse us or treat us badly … Jesus Himself did not say: ‘Thank you very much for pulling out My beard and pushing the crown of thorns onto My head causing Me excruciating pain.” He simply said nothing and surrendered His body to their torture.. Saying and doing nothing is sometimes the best course of action. Suffering often doesn’t have words.

We need to pray for our enemies and those who despitefully use us, but that does not mean we walk around with a target over our hearts, minds, emotions and bodies. Jesus died for their sin too, so we don’t have to bear it by ourselves anymore. Your sin, my sin, their sin, anyone’s sin – just don’t carry it around any longer. That’s a burden that will weigh you down, and keep you from loving others with His love. Give it all to the Lord. Put it down and walk away. Repent if you need to, ask for healing because you need it – but walk away and refuse to worry it with thoughts.

When Jesus Christ said: “It is finished,” He meant FINISHED. Allowing yourself to be battered by satan’s lies will keep you from learning to love, and love is what lasts. This life is passing away … you can’t save others… but He can. Loving others well, means we love like Jesus did — not with indulgence, but truth undergirded by His love. Bye. 👋

P 3343 It’s always a choice.

/ DVH

Philippians 1:27-30: “Meanwhile, live in such a way that you are a credit to the Message of Christ. Let nothing in your conduct hang on whether I come or not. Your conduct must be the same whether I show up to see things for myself or hear of it from a distance. Stand united, singular in vision, contending for people’s trust in the Message, the good news, not flinching or dodging in the slightest before the opposition. Your courage and unity will show them what they’re up against: defeat for them, victory for you—and both because of God. There’s far more to this life than trusting in Christ. There’s also suffering for Him. And the suffering is as much a gift as the trusting. You’re involved in the same kind of struggle you saw me go through, on which you are now getting an updated report in this letter.”

I want to emphasise that we need to make sure that if we are suffering, it is not because we are unaware that we are being tormented by satan in a fake hat. If the Lord is allowing something for a greater purpose, then that is different, but a lot of what Christians put up with is sheer satanic attack — and the tragedy is they think they are suffering because it is about His kingdom, or their transformation, or they are just bad Christians and God is allowing this stuff to teach them something. 

Jesus suffered and died for our sins, but torment can quite often knock on our door especially if we’ve done something that we think can’t be forgiven. But the truth is our view of what Christ did, and what He allowed others to do to Him, is too small. We’ve made our sin bigger than Calvary. Our faith in God’s bigness, His love and His generosity toward mankind needs to grow by reading what the Lord Himself has said over and over. This will help to expand our faith levels and it goes from our heads to our hearts. It is literally, “life and health to our bones…”

Here are some scriptures to stew on: “For Christ [the Messiah Himself] died for sins once for all, the Righteous for the unrighteous (the Just for the unjust, the Innocent for the guilty), that He might bring us to God. In His human body He was put to death, but He was made alive in the spirit,…” 1 Peter 3:18. AND … Romans 6:9-10: “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God.” Hebrews 2:9: “But we do see Jesus, Who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because He suffered death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.”

Jesus suffered for us, so now we need to make sure that we are not deceived. That part is clear. But His suffering had a purpose and it was humanity’s total redemption. Sin separates us from our relationship with God Himself – He’s the Life giver! Sin renders us a pale shadow of who we can be. Because of it, we can become deaf, dumb and unable to see, receive, or accept His goodness. Meanwhile we can’t kill ourselves, we have to let others do it for us – our part is to yield. We resist the devil and yield to God. We fight what satan says, and take what the Lord says to heart and stand on it.

Sin puts us squarely into satan’s territory, a place where he rules, and please remember, he hates people! Human beings can easily be deceived and dragged away from our primary purpose, which is to present Christ to the rest of this world, by who we choose to be now, today. The power of choice is enormous! And thinking that living a neutral, quiet life will hide us from satan’s games is unrealistic. Now we all have the potential to be like Jesus, and so we need our Resident Helper’s help – He is Jesus’ gift to us in this new life!   

It was not just the Lord’s death that impacted our faith – it was also the way He lived while He was on earth! Those two things go together. Jesus has given us the same power to overcome that He had when He walked the earth with the Person of the Holy Spirit. However, you can’t have a new life without dying — you can only get a resurrected life if you are dead in the first place!  Sadly, most of the time we aren’t prepared to die to self to get it. Both things are needed — death to self and a brand new life in Christ. The power to walk in our new life comes from the choice to die. Not just a little bit dead, but all dead. Dead dead. That old life cannot walk with Jesus, it will fail so it has to go. 

Now we surrender our hopes and dreams to His purposes. After we have chosen to lay down the life that we have now, then we choose to live a life of love. We put aside what we need, and let go of all those daily things that can act as abrasions in this life. Our responses to other people, help us to diagnose the places we are still clinging to the old life. That minute by minute struggle against voluntarily choosing His way over our Way, can show us where we are not yielded to Him. Father God will not do this for us – because that would rob us of our freedom. It has to be our choice. 

Jesus Christ chose the cross – He prayed, and then He followed it through by His actions. This is the pattern WE follow. We pray and then we deliberately choose to submit to Him. At Calvary the Lord submitted to every dastardly plot of the enemy – the stuff that was sent to destroy Him. But He chose to stay in Grace toward others. He is our example. It’s always a choice.  However, let’s remember: “God (Himself) is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Our Helper lives to help us. Psalm 46:1 Bye. 👋

P 3315 A monument to a dead past.

/ DVH

“We LOOK AWAY from the natural realm and we focus our attention and expectation onto Jesus Who birthed faith within us and Who leads us forward into faith’s perfection. His example is this:  Because His heart was focused on the joy of knowing that you would be His, He endured the agony of the cross and conquered its humiliation, and now sits exalted at the right hand of the throne of God!”  Hebrews 12:2 TPT.

Jesus, because of His love and passion for us, endured the kind of things that make us shudder when we read about them,  Now HE is our example of what we are aiming at in this life. Let me put that this way: ‘Because our hearts are focussed on knowing He is ours, now WE are learning to endure like He did…’  God wants us to leave behind those things that cripple us, and choose to refocus. We have focussed too much on other people, it’s time to put our focus solely on Him!

When we are hanging around with Him, we are relating to SomeOne Who is so perfect, and so beautiful, His Presence promotes a desire for personal change. Especially when Who He is begins to saturate us. I think I am a nicer and totally different person than I was before I met the Lord – simply because I met Him and He has impacted my whole life.

Before I met Jesus I held grudges. I could only see someone else’s faults. I didn’t even bother to look for their good side. Back then I could be cynical at the drop of a hat and make it sound funny, but there was a sting in the tale of that scorpion. Leaving that behind me was a hard attitude to break, because it had become a defensive weapon. The Lord and His Word have helped me leave that kind of past behind me. But first I had to learn TO LOOK AWAY FROM the things that I had adopted to define myself, and look toward Him instead. I had to see ‘ME” through HIS eyes. 

That junk I had picked up to protect myself, was like a pile of filthy laundry sitting in my heart. It came from my own rotten attitudes and other people’s sins against me. Their actions against me continually weighed me down. Plus I kept going back and digging around in the ugly stuff other people did, and concentrating on how bad it was back then, and my own revulsion of what ‘they’ had done. This meant that I could not see beyond that pile of dirty laundry. 

That stuff grew and grew until it filled my vision. The people involved became evil in my eyes – they did bad things to me and somebody needed to pay, so I picked them!! I had no clue SomeOne else had already paid before I was ever born. I focussed on the BAD and it influenced me and I happily excused my own abhorrent behaviour. I used my own knowledge of their flaws to influence other people against them … and told anyone else who would listen to me about their abuse. “Love covers a multitude of sin …”

I couldn’t see the Lord, yet He was always there, standing behind that giant pile of dirty laundry. However when He wanted to talk to me about the person I was furious at, I wanted Him to take my side— agree with me, and authenticate my rotten attitude. Why didn’t He punish these people for doing such terrible things to me and ruining my life? The incredible truth is, He never gave up on me. Eventually, I understood that the people who hurt me were as trapped as I was. Their behaviour had tainted their personhood, and as the years went on, they became defensively stuck too.

That’s when I realised that the Lord didn’t approve of what had happened at all — Instead He was asking me to forgive others and move past it. My new life in Him, was going to be so much bigger than that pile of dirty laundry I kept staring at — and He wanted to lead me out of captivity into a much bigger place. The more I edged around the horrible pile of ‘aughts against any,’ by randomly throwing forgiveness on the top — the clearer the world beyond other people’s sins against me, became. I am an adult, so it was time for the wounded child within me to grow past anger and revenge and step into a brand new mature life. My new life was worth much more than a pile of dirty laundry! 

If I continued to let that stuff torment me it meant I was losing the life I had NOW – today. These people were broken, and I had let grief and anger drag me from the past into the present. It tormented me. I had to learn to say: ”I’m not going to let those things torment me anymore.” In the end the other people didn’t actually change — I DID! I walked out of that prison of bad focus. However, if I even accidentally looked back, the pain would rush toward me like a river. So I regularly asked the Lord for healing and kept right on looking straight ahead, doggedly forgiving others as this stuff came up.

Just like Lot’s wife I had to turn away from the things that dragged me down, or I too would turn into a pillar of salt! A monument to a dead past. Other people’s attitudes were their business and not mine. This stuff still pops up unexpectedly on my radar occasionally, and I take my feelings to the cross and leave them there – I do it because Jesus told us to do it. The benefit is peace in my own life. I left regret, self-pity, sorrow and suffering behind me when I realised the only person I was hurting when I kept on going over what had happened …was me! I had been rubbing salt in a raw wound wondering why it would’t heal, but Jesus healed me when I wasn’t looking as I moved on following Him.

Let’s all look away from the past and leave it where it belongs – behind us. Destroy those monuments of your past! Or perhaps you are currently listening to the Lord Jesus and daily choosing to leaving your past behind you too. God bless you … and WELL DONE!!  Bye 👋.

P 3283 This is our destiny …

/ DVH

“Now, this is the goal: to live in harmony with one another and demonstrate affectionate love, sympathy, and kindness toward other believers. Let humility describe who you are as you dearly love one another. Never retaliate when someone treats you wrongly, nor insult those who insult you, but instead, respond by speaking a blessing over them—because a blessing is what God promised to give you. For the Scriptures tell us: Whoever wants to embrace true life and find beauty in each day must stop speaking evil, hurtful words and never deceive in what they say. Always turn from what is wrong and cultivate what is good; eagerly pursue peace in every relationship, making it your prize.” 1 Peter 3:8-11 TPT.

Yes, it’s the same scripture again! More to think on. First point to remember … um… not sure how to say this nicely, so I will just say it!  Watch what you say. This is hard for me, mainly because I find out what I’m thinking by talking! However I found a way to do it – I let the Holy Spirit help me – and I’ve learnt to give up quickly, and repent a lot. Boy that last one smarts! I’m pretty sure I haven’t hit humility yet. I think Peter has a wonderful way of describing how to walk in the Spirit. Especially the bit about pursuing peace in every relationship. Pursue BTW, means: go after it …like… chase it!

…And this is how Jesus makes it possible for anyone of us to live like this:  ““And I will send you the Divine Encourager from the very presence of My Father. He will come to you, the Spirit of Truth, emanating from the Father, and He will speak to you about Me. And you will tell everyone the truth about Me, for you have walked with Me from the start.””John 15:26-27. The Holy Spirit has already been sent to us! One of His Names is ‘the One called alongside us to help us!’ … He came to earth at Pentecost and He never left! Now let me list His other qualities. Hang on to your socks it’s a big list.  

Helper / Comforter / Advocate (Paraclete): (John 14:16, 15:26, 16:7);  Spirit of Truth: (John 14:17, 16:13); Spirit of Christ / Spirit of Jesus: (Romans 8:9, 1 Peter 1:11);  Holy Spirit / Holy Ghost: (Matthew 1:18, Psalm 51:11);  Breath of the Almighty / Breath of God: (Job 33:4, Genesis 1:2);  Spirit of Adoption: (Romans 8:15);  Spirit of Grace: (Hebrews 10:29); Spirit of Wisdom/Understanding/Counsel/Might/Knowledge/Fear of the Lord: (Isaiah 11:2);  Eternal Spirit: (Hebrews 9:14);  Spirit of Glory: (1 Peter 4:14);  Spirit of Life: (Romans 8:2);  Spirit of Burning / Judgment: (Isaiah 4:4);  The Promise of the Father: (Acts 1:4);  The Anointing: (1 John 2:27);  Intercessor: (Romans 8:26,27).

You can take a breath now!  Yeah. And He is here with us, right here, right now as you are reading this — and He walks with us to help us be all that God designed us to be. We simply cannot transform ourselves, it doesn’t work! Human beings become proud because we are doing it right, or lose hope because we are lousy at it! We need His transformation – WE NEED A HELPER. And this beautiful Person is here to assist us at any time, in any place, anywhere. Ya might want to just meditate on that!

We can short-circuit His help etc. by choosing to stay in and cultivate, sinful attitudes. The fear of the Lord is with those who are humble. They weep at the very thought of losing His sweet Presence. He has a way of looking at this tattered and torn old world that is beyond our imagination. He sees hope in hopelessness, freedom in captivity, beauty in heartache. He knows the way through anything that is plaguing you. And He will show us God’s way, one step at a time. Why one step at a time? Because He LOVES to walk with us. We are His passion and He is the same Person Who helped Jesus complete His mission … He saw every pain, all the suffering, all the hopelessness, and yet He flowed out through Christ to the needy – endlessly. 

He was so present with Jesus, one woman just touched the Lord’s clothes and she was healed of an ailment she had had for twelve years! He loves 💕TOGETHER — it is His greatest joy, to be one with us. When we begin to function as a Body under His guidance, we will also begin to understand a little bit of what it is like for the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit’s union and unity. They simply never disagree because They all have the same goal.

Jesus clearly told us we were better off with the Holy Spirit, when He left here and went back home to the Father, because the Holy Spirit can be everywhere. We are better off because the One Who lived within Christ, in Him and through Him, can be IN us, and work THROUGH us to bring forth the Father’s will for others.This is why we are called sons and daughters, we now have our Father’s DNA and that DNA brings forth fruit that is good and sweet – it will bring life all around it. This is our destiny, to learn to walk with the Holy Spirit, all the time, everywhere we go. Bye. 👋

P 3271 “Blessed are those who mourn … for they shall be comforted.”

/ DVH

Here’s another version —of Matthew 5:4. “Blessed and enviably happy [with a happiness produced by the experience of God’s favour and especially conditioned by the revelation of His matchless grace] are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted!” (AMP)

My initial thought was, how can it be blessed to mourn? After all you are suffering. Perhaps somebody died, or plans were made and lost, or maybe your world went upside down overnight? I read through about a half a dozen versions to try to understand what this verse is saying…and they all said the same thing! So I was as much in the dark as I had been before. When I get verses like this one, I pray over it until I get some clarity and then I follow through on what He says with prayer and action.  

I looked at the verse again, and my first observation is that this is a promise. The words “shall be comforted” stood out to me. I have got be honest with you, that has not always been my experience so far. I’m not saying it hasn’t ever  happened … but not always, and very rarely right away. This means my understanding of what the Lord is saying, is actually incorrect. I came to the conclusion that I am using my experience as a yardstick. Big mistake. 

I must start from the premise that God’s Word is true, and that means it’s my knowledge or experience, or lack of it, that is at fault. What I am saying is—I don’t authenticate His Word, it authenticates or convicts or transforms me. Because Romans 3:4 says: “Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “ So that You may be proved right when You speak and prevail when You judge.”  There’s that sorted.  

But I can get stuck, because my own experience with grief – so far, is that you go in – by force or by circumstances – and you come out the other side … eventually! You can also get to stay there way too long, which is on my list of things to avoid at all cost! Grief does not seem like much of a blessing, at the time …either before, during or after … this means the Lord has a different idea of blessing and comfort to mine. Blessed is used over 500 times in the bible, depending on the version you read, and comfort appears approx.150 times. God is saying something I am not getting, and I know it isn’t Him, so it must be me. “Help, Help!”

Here’s a little snippet. The basic concept for comfort in both the Old and New Testaments is encouragement:  whether it happens by words, or the presence of another to help in time of need. Synonymous words are console, help, give relief, cheer up, exhort, and fear not. The Lord is promising us His Presence is going to be our comfort – not necessarily an exit from what is happening. Psalm 91:15: “He (the believer) will call upon Me and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honour him.”

Our Heavenly Father, Almighty God, promises to be with us. This means, despite our feelings, He does not withdraw His love and support, He stands with US. Now there is another aha! moment. One of Jesus’ own Names is Emmanuel, which literally means …”God is with us.” Because our Heavenly Father, is utterly faithful, and He cannot ever be otherwise — we can rely upon Him when we are thrown into mourning, whether we feel like He is there or not. Here’s a quote I found that explains that better than I can.

“So when God is with us, it means HE’S LITERALLY WITH US. You just can’t see Him. It’s like the wind. It’s there, and it LITERALLY MOVES THINGS YOU CAN SEE, even though you can’t see the wind that moves them.” (Caleb Jones, Reddit.) I liked what this person said. God is not making me wait because He is too busy or can’t be bothered. In these circumstances, I need to remind myself that He is doing something else. Something I cannot see or comprehend – YET.  

This means I will have to use my faith at a moment when I want to feel sorry for myself, or I am too exhausted to be bothered. That’s OK, God is still there with me. And grief, IS by nature, exhausting! I need to give whatever has happened to Him, and leave it with Him. Ephesians 5:13 MSG bible says:  

“Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.”  

I literally cannot fix the existing problem with my blog, I have to leave it in the hands of the server – who is in Denmark BTW. And I need to give the people I write for, and pray for… this means you! … to Him. I must deliberately trust that He has your best interests in His heart, because the bible says He does. That’s what I am aiming at.  Bye. 👋

P 3248 Let joy REMAIN.

/ DVH

“Yahweh, you are my soul’s celebration. How could I ever forget the miracles of kindness You’ve done for me?” Psalms 103:2 TPT. “When You speak to me, I devour every word. Your word brings me such boundless joy. The endless delight of my heart is in knowing that Your beautiful name is attached to me, O  Yahweh, Commander of Angel Armies.” Jeremiah 15:16 TPT. ‘I have told you these things, that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy and gladness may be of full measure and complete and overflowing.” John 15:11. First of all we let JOY remain by remembering Jesus has chosen to walk with us here and now – and the Holy Spirit is here to lead us.

Joy is like peace, don’t lose it! If you lose it I urge you to go and find it again. His joy, in us, makes this life worth living. It is precious and costly – it cost Jesus His life. Let’s treat our lives like an operating room. Nobody operates on a patient without first thoroughly scrubbing themselves clean, so we must make sure we ask Him to help us look after our hearts. This means if and when, we get angry etc., we need repent quickly. Nurturing anger and feeding irritation, facilitates letting our hearts harden against that other person. Sorrow and suffering are joy murderers, unless our joy is permanently in the One Who saved us. Then circumstances can’t rule us.

Our enemy comes at us with whispers about this and that, and before you know it, there is no joy, no peace, no reconciliation – there is only RAGE and SORROW left. To let JOY remain, we need to guard our hearts against pride, self-satisfaction, revenge, bitterness, self-pity etc. And deliberately repent and remove any reason to justify ourselves, our actions and words. Take all that ugliness to the cross and leave it there. Humble yourself and fix things with others. We can’t serve two Masters … we will end up with divided hearts. Let’s choose Who we will serve and permanently settle it inside us. 

Then we need to deal with the state of our hearts, and the all pervading feeling that we are entitled to be angry, because the other person did or said this and that! Rehearsing other people’s sins is not only a dead end road, it’s a disaster! When we go to the cross we leave our entitlement, our judgment, our need for retribution there – my best advice is this – don’t go back and dig it up!  

Baptism isn’t just a ritual, some people go under the water and come up exactly the same! That means the water of the Word has not washed them clean of this world’s attitudes and systems. Instead this life continues to feed them entitlement and anger – over and over again. There are others who like to think of themselves as wounded beings, and they feel the rest of the world owes them something, because this life has wounded them. Here’s a big revelation for all of us, we are all wounded one way or another. Hurt is not a reason to indulge ourselves.

Thankfulness in the face of adversity is one of the biggest keys to allowing our joy to remain. Meditating on what someone else did or said, feeds the wrong spirit. Eventually that becomes a defensive way to think, and the habit of not seeing the good in things, will drag us under. But God is bigger than the spirit of stupid we can so easily succumb to – cry out for help, and He will rescue us, over and over again. Consider this life to be a journey, and point yourself in His direction and don’t allow detours. 

This is what the Lord said in Matthew 26:53 when people were deliberately murderous, vicious and cruel to Him.“Do you think I cannot call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”Right there, is the well-spring of our joy. The Lord didn’t try to save Himself, instead He chose to rescue us. Our choices are also powerful! We can help each other immeasurably if we simply stop putting our expectations onto other people. Other people cannot hold us up, that’s like putting your expectations on a badly broken chair. You’ll hurt yourself when you fall down! 

There’s real joy in what Jesus did. JOY is one of God’s glorious traits. Jesus didn’t sail through His earthly life without conflict and confrontation, He walked carefully, prayerfully through it, sometimes one step at time. And every single time He did that with that with US in mind. Our focus matters! “Keep your eyes on Jesus, Who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how He did it. Because He never lost sight of where He was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—He could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now He’s there, in the place of honour, right alongside God.” Hebrews 12:2.

The joy we experience here and now, when we see what Jesus can do with one ordinary little changed life, that is our way through to the finish line. Where incredible eternal joy awaits us. We need to put immediate gratification, or instant relief from annoyance and irritation down … In favour of the greater good. Jesus looked through the pain of the cross, the separation from His Father and the Holy Spirit, and He saw us —- all of us together, in His Father’s house – forever. It is HIS joy we are learning so we need to learn it HIS way.  The Lord Jesus is the best reason of all to choose to learn to let joy remain. Bye. 👋

P 3233 Here’s hubby!!

/ DVH

1 Corinthians 14:12: “So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church.” Today I want to introduce a very special guest speaker. My husband made these remarks to me a couple of days ago, when we were sitting talking together. What he said was so good, I simply had to share them with you guys. So I asked him to write it all down. My dear husband loves to see people like you and I stepping up and using their gifts to help others. Today I’ve  made it his turn to help you. I pray you will be blessed by the wisdom and clarity of what he said to me. 

“There is a gulf of real difference between 2 paradigms — the world’s way and God’s way.  One is about procurement of information to ‘better’ the self — and the other is about God’s kingdom activated and working through our lives. 

If you are working person, you will already know that workers can get Professional development days. They are paid to do courses to improve their professional status and expertise. Or perhaps someone might buy self help books etc.  Alternatively someone else has been encouraged to gather more information, to gain a greater advantage, or knowledge of a subject – as a person or a professional. So the self gets ‘better’, more improved, stronger, to gain an advantage in this world. This system glorifies man himself.

However, God’s way is to die to self, to serve, to prefer others to yourself, and constantly rely on Him. That aim is to glorify God alone. If we take the methods of the world’s paradigm into Christianity, we too will begin to gather information, and be deceived into thinking that we are progressing in the faith life and equipping ourselves to be a ‘better’ Christian. But in reality, we are piling in more knowledge – without the power of God working in us, and through us to others. We will have more reliance on self, instead of on the Holy Spirit. More insight from human knowledge, instead of revelation from heaven. 

Christians have learnt to gauge their ‘growth’ on how much we know, instead of allowing Jesus to teach us “through the kind of active obedience that can only be learnt through suffering.” This means yielding and allowing the Holy Spirit to divide our soulish attitudes and actions by deliberately choosing to use the scalpel of God’s Living Word, in and on our lives. At the same time, we also make quality choices to love others … even those who are not with us.”

…I’m not going to play ‘top this thought’  today— quite simply because I know I can’t. Hubby is saying a whole lot of stuff that I know I have said in various ways for the past 8+ years – except He took ONE page … and I have taken 3,232 of them! Is my face red? Ho-hum! I think this is what Paul meant in 1 Corinthians 14:12, when he exhorted us to excel in gifts that build up others. This means we will know it’s a spiritual gift when it benefits other people! That, BTW, is our Godly criteria. 

Let’s choose to be a people who don’t care about all kinds of spiritual hoop-la, the kind of enthusiastic stuff that turns up in our churches to try to attract the-people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet. We want Jesus to come and be with us, to do what He wants to do. He loves to set people free. We want true, genuine joy and wisdom from God Himself because He always changes lives. Those things can only come from the Holy Spirit, not from our own clever self-improvement think tanks!  Plus we want all of us to thrive in the Holy Spirit’s Presence, and go out and do whatever God has set for each one of us to do, for His glory.

I won’t say anything else today, I will leave you to think on what hubby said. Man I love clarity and he’s got bags of it. Such a blessing! Bye and bless you! 👋

“I pray for you that the faith we share may effectively deepen your understanding of every good thing that belongs to you in Christ.” Philemon 1:6 TPT. “But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” James 3:17

P 3199 Real life.

/ DVH

At our house, we like to watch endless Christmas movies before Christmas. My dear husband loves them… ME? … not-so-much. He likes the soppy, sappy, sometimes sad ones the best. And if we find a funny one, it becomes a classic, and it comes out year after year, after year … …Unfortunately, I’m a Big Bird meets Bambi girl myself, I like to look for movies in the kids department … well, I did, until they became nasty as well!

My daughter explained to me that this situation could be much worse. Lots of men like exploding, guns blazing, blood and gore movies …I think those blow-everybody-up movies should be piled in a heap and burnt. Now there’s a strangely telling response to violence if ever there was one. Any-way … we were suffering through… sorry …’happily watching’ … some totally inane junk … and somebody in one of them actually said something that was worth our attention. 

It took me a little while to recover, because what they said was vastly unexpected!  It actually made sense to me, but we will definitely need His help to do it! When you are watching soppy movies endlessly, the most ridiculous things suddenly seem quite brilliant. It’s called brain damage, and should be listed under the heading of things you should never do to your wife! Hmm, I may have a slight problem with resentment there, I’ll have to look into that.

This is what was said, and it really got me thinking: “Let’s act like the person you want to become.” I mean, like WOW! … Like how cool is that?  U-oh! Please hold…I’ve just realised that I may have been spending wa-ay too much time with my adorable granddaughters, and I’ve picked up the habit of over-using the word “like.” That word now seems to be the new comma. I wonder whatever happened to ENGLISH, and peculiar things like Grammar. Meanwhile it seems good to keep up with the younger generation, they’ll be in charge one day soon. Now, where was I? … ‘acting like the person I want to become’. Well, that got lost in the wash fast didn’t it?  Maybe it is easier said, than done. 

Yet this sentence still has a clear ring of truth in it.  So, today, I want to look at something I learnt from some dumb movie I recently watched to help my spouse enjoy Christmas. After all, hubby endlessly does all the work and all the cooking so that everyone else can have a lovely Christmas. That is now my motivation. However, at the same time, I must honestly say that a teeny tiny bit of the rest of the movie did make me laugh …. 

Here’s the bit — one of the main characters in the movie is asked by their small granddaughter. ‘why there are so many Santas?’And, then she wanted to know all their names because they couldn’t all be Santa! Of course Grandpa didn’t have a clue so he said whatever popped into his head. ‘Santa, Janta and Mylanta…” For some inane, utterly ridiculous reason I found that hilarious. Probably because Mylanta and I have more than a nodding acquaintance. Meanwhile, I think some of my marbles may have given up on me.

Third try to go back to my point… let’s act like the person you want to be.  I have to say that I’m not big on acting at all, because actors get paid incredible amounts of money to LIE for a living! But, I believe the Holy Spirit is delighted to help any one of us, as we begin to take teeny tiny faith steps out onto the choppy dangerous waters of this life.  He can take our intention and make it real.. What would happen if we decided to ignore any and all provocation, and respond with love instead? It could go like this:  someone says something mean because they are angry, but we choose to say something sweet instead: “I’m so sorry, I seem to have offended you,” I have to say I’ve tried that one and it works beautifully.

At the same time there is a chance that others can take great offence if it seems you are able to be more gracious than they are feeling at that moment. That’s why I pray help a lot! I pray like that because everyone needs it. All by myself I can make things far worse than they were ten minutes ago. The Holy Spirit is a wonderful Helper, and He often tells me: “Time to be quiet now.” He’s way too kind to me to tell me to shut up! There are other times when He reminds me that I may be mad in that immediate moment, but I do actually love that other person, so it is not good to injure our relationship by flinging my uncensored opinions about all over the place. 

He is, without a doubt, the very sweetest Person I have ever met. He gently reminds me about what the bible says too. My advice is to watch out for His whisper. He says lovely things like: “Love suffers long… it bears all things …” You know, all that stuff that we can say by heart — but then we find that what we believe is only skin deep. And right now it seems I am tempted to run on hurt feelings, so I’m probably going to choose to go with, ‘I wanna hurt you back!’  That’s not a good plan.

Here is a scripture to refresh everyone’s memory, including mine, about the kind of Love the Lord Himself,  extends to us, all day every day.“…that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people’s sins against them [but canceling them]. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation [that is, restoration to favor with God]. …” 2 Corinthians 5:19. In real life, we may feel like we are pressed hard on all sides. But actually we’ve left our faith behind. Let’s go get it again and choose to find our inheritance and use it instead. Bye. 👋

P 3164 Take up the wrap God has given us.

/ DVH

We need to daily wrap ourselves up in His LOVE, reminding ourselves that love is the best language of all. That means we deliberately remember that He loves us, that our sin can’t separate us from Him. And unlike everything else in this life – His love is not only totally unconditional – it’s free! Love is the heading under which every other grace and gift blossoms. I have put my version of 1 Corinthians 13 down below because it is essential that we remember that this kind of love is not just given away – GOD GIVES IT TO US EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Here’s a thought about outgoing love that is familiar. 1 Corinthians 12:31b – “And yet I will show you the most excellent way.”  I often ask myself when I get stuck: “what would love do?” I’ve hardly ever come up with the kind of answer that says: ‘punch that guy in the face!’ Jesus didn’t, and He had every kind of provocation to do so! Our Lord is love Himself personified and He gives us that kind of sacrificial, personal love – the kind of love that consists of undivided attention. I have put my version of 1 Corinthians 13 down below because it is essential that we also remember that this kind of love is not just to be given away – God Himself freely gives those things to each one of US and it is always unconditional.  HE is patient, kind, faithful, enduring etc. toward us.

In my mind’s eye, I can see the Lord when He squatted down on the ground, talking to a woman no-one else would bother to speak to. Or the desolated father who needed His help because the man’s little girl was sick. Jesus did everything for us, with us in His heart. He walked up that awful hill carrying a cross that was too heavy to bear. God’s love inside Him attracted people. Jesus went to His death carrying everything that separated us from God, staggering under the weight of this world upon Him. 

I enjoy old-fashioned words. I think “consider” is a very interesting word —  this is what it means: ‘look attentively.’ Let’s consider the facts given to us in the bible, never let the cross fall out of our attention. Christ’s death and resurrection totally encompasses and exhibits God’s incredible love for us. On that day, in that dark hour, Jesus Christ personally became man’s proof that our Heavenly Father God dearly loves us. Paul explains this to us so carefully. He tells us that we have a better way to live, and that means we are to live in love.

Let’s live every single day knowing we are loved by SomeOne so glorious, that we can’t even look at Him without being utterly transfixed and transformed! The very best gift in the list of spiritual gifts is LOVE. Any other gift mentioned will totally flourish in the warmth of that one gift. We need to consider the fact that it is easy to ignore what God Himself calls – THE BEST GIFT.  Love. God’s love won’t leave, it won’t betray us, He knows and cares about what is happening in our lives. The bible tells us: ‘He takes all our broken, shattered pieces, and works them together for our good!’

You know, just because we think that we can’t have that kind of love in us, that doesn’t mean we should ignore it! Instead let’s chase after Love Himself, not gifts. Let other people identify your gifts —just allow your life to continually release the sweet fragrance of His love into your family and the world around you. And if you want to know what it looks like — right after 1 Corinthians chapter 12, comes chapter 13 with a brilliant summation of what love is. I think Paul gave us this so we can’t be misled by the kind of love this world engages in. 

The bible clearly tells us love is patient, it has the kind of endurance that does not end;  it is always kind, so you don’t have to be afraid of it. It’s not envious, it could care less what you have, or how clever you are;  instead love is enthralled and captured only by Jesus Himself, and His love for you. Love won’t boast, because it knows it has nothing to boast about!  Nor is is proud, because this kind of love wants Jesus to get all the glory. It wouldn’t dream of dishonouring others because it values other people more;  it chooses not to protect itself; and it won’t get angry easily either. It doesn’t have a record of your past, or my past, or anyone else’s past! It is not happy when an enemy suffers, because it loves the truth more than revenge. It will go out of its way to protect others, and trust God with them. Love always hopes for a good outcome. It has a never-ending source of hope in Christ, and what He did for us. And it quite simply refuses to give up on anyone.

Then we read in 1 Corinthians Chapter 13, how Paul goes on to say that grown ups think one way, and children think another. He cautions us to stop thinking like children and move on into maturity. Living in Love is seen as maturity in Christ. It is the most excellent way. Everything else pales into insignificance in comparison. Who cares if we can prophesy about glories unknown, or that we should beware because danger is coming? Love is always in the NOW, it sees the best in others, and calls the best out. Living in love covers everything. 

All the other stuff will disappear, but love will always remain. Unconditional love is the quality that introduces other people to the Character of God more quickly than any of the other gifts. Let’s take off our old coats of inadequacy, obligation, and ‘ought to,’ and wrap ourselves in the wrap of God’s love instead. It is like Joseph’s coat of many colours: dazzling, varied, unique and different. Even though each piece can sometimes include suffering, solitude, and rejection, we know we are following our Saviour WHO LOVES US.. 

That coat of many colours symbolises all the favour of God, all His divine grace, power and love, plus all the gifts and fruits of the Spirit. Learn to live in His Love then give it away. Bye. 👋 

P 3154 Understanding is important.

/ DVH

We all know that the joy of the Lord is our strength. But man’s worldly idea of happiness is transitory. That stuff disappears like a badly needed pay check. Plus happiness can also be postponed. People do that all the time. They say things like: “I will be happy when I’ve paid off my mortgage. I will be happy when we finally get the kids married off. I will be happy when my baby starts to walk and talk. I will be happy when I find a job/home/spouse!” This is what I mean about when I talk about postponing happiness.

There is such a benefit to be gained by learning to enjoy every moment we’ve been given. Life is short – let’s not postpone enjoying it, by holding our lives hostage for something we may not get! Living for the future is a futile pursuit – nothing ever works out the way we plan it anyway! In the Lord’s kingdom His joy and peace can, and will, fill and sustain us. It will gently lead us into believing in Him no matter what our circumstances are. 

Knowing this can put a smile on your face – even if you do have to blow your nose, and wipe your eyes for bit! Father God wants us to know His Ways, because He has plans for each one of us. And when He talks to us through His book, He talks to us to usher in His joy and peace. Simply because He loves us. Those miserable, terrible things that seem endlessly to hang around in our lives will eventually come to an end. Especially if we stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, and just enjoy any joy-filled moments that He sends us – no matter how briefly they appear to last. This is how we can learn to prevail over adverse circumstances, by accepting joy in those moments.

Psalm 16:11…”You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”John 15:11…”These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Psalm 30:5…”For His anger is but for a moment, and His favour is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”

Finding joy can take practice but we must learn to grasp hold of it, even in the smallest moments. Those things are honey to our aching souls. Let’s look closely at Psalm 30, verse 5. On the surface this does not seem to be a fun verse. We need to remember Who our Father is when the ceiling falls in! IF and WHEN we take the time to remind ourselves that Almighty God spent all His anger on Jesus, then even in the darkest times that should start up a joy bubble. “Weeping may endure for a night — BUT JOY COMES IN THE MORNING!”Joy needs to be recognised or it will pass us by. 

When we are in the middle of hardship and suffering, let’s remind ourselves that our God is no longer mad at humanity. He has reconciliation toward every single one of us in the centre of His heart. When He says He loves us, it is not just some casual, quickly-passing, uninvolved affection. No! Jesus Christ dived straight into this life, giving His ALL. Our God’s love involves great passion. It took incredible passion and great sustaining grace and purpose for our Father to allow His precious Son to die in our place! Now… joy is our portion. The bible says: ‘He will turn our mourning into dancing …’

The world around us lives with a deep level of despair, because the bad guys seem to be winning. There are people who have the things we think we want or need. But money can’t save anyone from hell ‘cos ya can’t take it with you when you go! This is what God says: “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14;12. There is a worse kind of death than no longer breathing! It’s waking up in the next life, with all the possibilities gone. Eternal life without God Himself in it. The Lord invested Himself in everything that surrounds us – we need to take the time to soak these things in and let them do us good.

Let’s deliberately choose to stop dipping our toes in this world’s way of thinking, being and acting, and learn to think like Jesus did. John 15:11: “I have told you these things so that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy may be made full and complete and overflowing.”  Do you want to live a joy-filled life? I do! Joy comes when we choose to listen to what He said. Jesus never focused on Himself, and His needs – He focused on His Heavenly Father’s will – as He spread God’s love to everyone around Him. We will find joy when we stop grabbing and scrambling for our own happiness, and accept the biblical premise that our delight is to do His will! 

We can experience some of our greatest moments when Almighty God paints His love in great glorious colourful strokes across the backdrop of our own personal cyclone. Look for Him in the storms. The Holy Spirit loves to do this — He loves to colour our lives with peace, joy, His faithfulness, gentleness and self control, and He is generous with His paintbrush. Ask Him to reveal Himself right in the middle of the next difficulty that plops on you unexpectedly. 

Understanding God’s Ways will help us to discover new ways to praise and worship Him. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.” Proverbs 4:7. Bye. 👋