Surrendered

P 2356 We are filled with fresh oil, to burn.

/ DVH

Exodus 40:9-15 “Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings, and it will be holy. Then anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils; consecrate the altar, and it will be most holy. Anoint the basin and its stand and consecrate them.

“Bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance to the tent of meeting and wash them with water.  Then dress Aaron in the sacred garments, anoint him and consecrate him so he may serve me as priest. Bring his sons and dress them in tunics. Anoint them just as you anointed their father, so they may serve me as priests. Their anointing will be to a priesthood that will continue throughout their generations.’

Christians worship and serve our King in various ways, it is part of who we are now. Some of us have less seen roles —and others, just like Aaron’s oil-saturated garments, are more visible. It makes no difference – whether we are a utensil or a High priest’s tunic – like it was in the days of the Tabernacle – everything and everyone who serves Him needs His anointing. 

In the same way as the altar, the furnishings, utensils, Aaron, his clothes, and his sons;  WE need to learn how to live our lives in co-operation with His anointing. The oil mentioned here is a type or illustration of the Precious Holy Spirit – how He facilitates life and worship, repentance and celebration. We cannot possibly expect to live this new life God has given us, for free — without the Holy Spirit. 

The secret to living in His anointing is to live a life of totally yielded and surrendered love. There is no law against LOVE. You may need to read that last two sentences again – I know I did! That sounds and looks like this – ‘Wherever You want me to go, I will go, whatever You want me to do, Lord,  I WILL DO IT.’ But I won’t just accept every circumstance I find myself in, instead the Holy Spirit and I talk about everything together. Personally, I find that comforting not intrusive.

In Matthew 25:1-13 – in the parable of the Ten Virgins – we can see what happens when we treat the Holy Spirit carelessly. Some of those women did not value Him enough to be able to have continuous supply/fellowship with Him. What Jesus is highlighting here is our need to be ready whenever the Bridegroom calls us. – this parable is not just for the end times – we need to be ready day or night. That’s what it is saying. And to do that … we need to value Him more than our own convenience or comfort. 

The oil of the Spirit … how incredible is the fact that we can partake of such a wonderful Person! The same oil that flowed over Aaron and Co. plus all the utensils etc. in the tabernacle, is to be a part of our lives. And what a privilege we have to be able to know personally such a wonderful treasure. Because the Holy Spirit IS our ever-present treasure, He must not be taken for granted. That’s the point of that parable, the Bridegroom was so important to these five wise women they did whatever they could to be ready for Him.

Yet still every single one of those virgins also fell asleep. Where the foolish virgins fell down was that they did not allow for unforeseen circumstances. They had a shelf-life to their devotion. The wise virgins had the sense to understand that the Bridegroom will come whenever He comes! It was simply their responsibility to stay prepared.

Jesus is telling us here that we cannot make a last minute trip or effort to be in tune with the Holy Spirit, fellowship with HIM has to be our purpose. Staying ready and filled is our responsibility. Our hearts are meant to be looking for Him – no matter what time of the day or night. We need to do whatever it takes to keep our lamps burning with His fire and passion for Christ. Remember living in love with Him and others is the key to walking with Holy Spirit.

It is simplistic to say that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love each other with kind of a lovey-dovey hearts and flowers kind of love. Their love for each other is an overwhelming life-changing FIRE! And we’ve been asked to participate in that kind of relationship with all three of Them. Why would we ignore that kind of invitation? Don’t wait for tomorrow – our heart’s cry daily needs to be ‘fill me now, I need more! I need to burn!’ 👋🏻

P 2351 What smells good to God?

/ DVH

“Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as His beloved sons and daughters. And continue to walk surrendered to the extravagant love of Christ, for He surrendered His life as a sacrifice for us. His great love for us was pleasing to God, like an aroma of adoration—a sweet healing fragrance.” Ephesians 5:1-2 TPT.

Jesus is our own personal visual aid for our lives here on earth. It is a mistake to think we can serve Him and live the same sort of life that the people around us live. We are not from here anymore – we are travelling through this world representing SomeOne Else, with the Holy Spirit’s help. Our home is elsewhere. Now we have eternal eyes, not just eyes fixed upon the immediate. The thing is, to stay in those places we find challenging and difficult –  we must fix our eyes on Him, not our circumstances.

Walking surrendered to Christ’s extravagant love means no matter what goes on around us, or what happens to us, we must never ever forget we are dearly, over-abundantly, loved. As far as this life is concerned, realistically speaking, it is hard to feel loved, when people are being mean, or you are in pain, or your circumstances have gone awry. But the Cross changed everything. Christ’s freely-given Grace is our ever-present help in times of need. The difficulty is this, we must learn how to fight our enemy for our God-given rights, as well as yielding to the Holy Spirit’s leading. 

There is no room for striving in yielding. We cannot afford to berate ourselves for our dumb remarks and our accidental, or even intentional, lack of response to His Will. Jesus Christ understands humanity – and the Holy Spirit is now with us to continually remind us that we can be our renewed self – with His help. However, we cannot give Grace away if we do not take Grace in!There are times that the way to fight for victory over our circumstances and feelings is to refuse to entertain the thoughts that we are somehow exempt from that GRACE. 

When the day to day earthly realities remain difficult… and God’s goodness comes into question – our resting position is to hold fast to the fact that He is good. Even if we’ve prayed and prayed to no avail, and so have other people, we must learn to stand firm. At the same time we aren’t denying the reality of pain and heartache, rather we face them with the quiet confidence that the Lord has a way through our current circumstances.

I have had many increased physical limitations after those falls I had, now I get very tired. Some nights I barely manage 4-6 hours of very broken sleep. Let’s be clear, I’m still praying, hubby is still praying for me even at 2.00am when I can’t sleep for the pain in my arm. PAIN has a plus, it keeps you honest! Other faithful people are regularly praying for us, including both our families. Yet we are still stuck going round and round. WHY? I dunno but our God is doing something I can’t see …YET! 

I just know that in order to cultivate eternal eyes, I need to deliberately keep my eyes on Him. I know that God is not the Author or the sustainer of my discomfort, but, nevertheless, it is still daunting and exhausting. At these times I have to watch over my feelings and thoughts and focus on the God I know – Who is always good! I can drive myself batty trying to figure out why this has happened or what can I do to escape or … I can yield and wait. 

I have found great comfort in the Psalms because good old King David doesn’t seem to always be cheerful when things go bad for him either. However I cannot recommend the ‘smash them, get them, squish them, kill them all dead … mindset’  he had either. 🤪

Now let’s look at what smells good to God – a life laid down for Jesus’ sake, no matter what our external circumstances look like, and yes, we do that without lying! We need to remember that the Lord God called some things a pleasing aroma. Things like dead burning flesh from cattle, sheep, birds  (Genesis 8:20,21;  Exodus 29 :18;  Leviticus 1:9) —  my conclusion is this —HE DOESN’T LIKE WHAT I LIKE!  My death to self may hurt me, but HE is pleased by it.

Ephesians 5:2 says: ‘Jesus’ death was a pleasing aroma.’ That’s hard to comprehend, but true. If we tell Him “I want to know You more”  then we must remember the journey Christ took – ‘He learned obedience through suffering.’  Hopefully, right now, that is what I am learning too! 👋🏻

P 2312 As He was in this world so are we.

/ DVH

The most important question we can ever ask ourselves is this – WHAT DOES LOVE LOOK LIKE TO GOD? The bible clearly defines what His love looks like to mankind, but how does the Lord God, Maker of heaven and earth, define love – the love that flows from US to Him?

Jesus said in Matthew 22:35-37 “ One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’” That original commandment was given by God Himself to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 6… sadly, in 6,000 years they hadn’t gotten very far had they? Have we?

Our daily question needs to be: “Holy Spirit how can I do that? How can I love God truthfully with all of me?” Many people might answer this question like this: “by loving each other, by serving Him, by reading the bible, through worship, praise, prayer and fasting.” All of these things are great. Do them with the Holy Spirit’s help and guidance! However Jesus Himself said in John 14:15-31 GNT – “If you love me, you will  obey My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, Who will stay with you forever. He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God.’”

It is just like the Lord Jesus to ask a question and give us the answer … all in the same sentence. To truly LOVE GOD – WE NEED HELP! We need the One Jesus specifically sent back to earth to help us. With the Holy Spirit’s help, obedience to His commandments is the way we show God we love Him. When God’s very special, One-of-a-kind-Son came here from heaven, that’s what He did. Christ modelled that kind of obedience all the way through His life, and on through death, into resurrection life.

We are living after the time that Jesus first breathed on His disciples, and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. And then they went out and obeyed Him, and did what He did and saw the same results. Here’s food for thought – Jesus breathed on Judas! Judas did this stuff too, even while he was pinching money from the common purse! We must stop thinking that the people Who have miraculous gifts are somehow holy. Holiness comes from GOD Himself so we need to learn to let Him flow through us, using our faith. His presence in us, with us, and through us, as we obey Him, will do the changing.

The gifted ones among us were given something from HIM – they simply had the faith to pick up their God-given gifts! That’s God’s glory healing someone, not Brother Everybody-knows-my-name. That guy can’t heal a banana without the Holy Spirit’s help! So let’s quickly look at Stephen… who waited tables … he had the gift of helps. “Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.” Acts 6:8. 

That’s the key to who Stephen was right there, he was – ‘full of Grace!’ How do you get this Grace? You live your life openly and honestly, acknowledging your faults and flaws, repenting, fixing things, and receive His forgiveness —and then you give that away. “…freely you have received, freely GIVE!” If Jesus Himself could do nothing without the Holy Spirit – then without Him WE are sunk. But the other side of that coin means if Christ lived that way as a man, then so can we. 

What we all need, what we must cry out for – is what occurred in ACTS 2 … after the Holy Spirit came to stay there were only DEAD MEN WALKING in the church. His Presence changed them – they valued His Presence above all else. The Body of Christ needs to be changed – and we’d all better get a wriggle on too! 

There were no schizophrenic Christians back then … people with one foot in this world and one foot in the next. They surrendered everything for His sake. Before Pentecost, they were all over the place, but they came out of that encounter with the Holy Spirit resurrected. Their old man, their old way of life was DEAD. Paul died on the road to Damascus, the resurrected new man went on from there.

Our struggle in this life is to die daily …one decision at a time. It’s a choice and Christ died to give us the freedom to make that choice. Together we must learn to constantly rely upon the Holy Spirit.  Time to wake up church and chase after your destiny. “…as He was in this world SO ARE WE!“ 👋🏻

P 2297 Decide how you will live.

/ DVH

… Living a life of surrendered love is a decision we must all make. It is a lifetime decision and it’s a tough one. However, I cannot conceive of another way to enter into true intimacy with our Lord Jesus Christ. Study doesn’t encourage intimacy as much as relying on Him does. We learn His ways when we live the same surrendered life Christ lived … for His sake. He told us to … “follow” Him. That’s now our job. Following Him, into transformation and our true purpose. At the same time, we go out to seek and find His lost sheep. The Chief Shepherd is always seeking out His lost lambs.

Jesus avoided fame and popularity, and embraced His Father’s will, He had no other desire except to make His Father’s will known and celebrated. If the King of all creation thought it was necessary to live a humble ordinary life, loving and helping, and teaching everyone He met … then … how can we live differently? If His disciples had not walked away from what they knew to follow CHRIST, we would not even have the bible as we know it today. 

Jesus Himself left everything He valued behind, to come to earth and live like we do. “Instead He emptied Himself of His outward glory by reducing Himself to the form of a lowly servant. He became human! He humbled Himself and became vulnerable, choosing to be revealed as a man and was obedient. He was a perfect example, even in His death—a criminal’s death by crucifixion!” Philippians 2:7-8 TPT Jesus Christ did not do miracles and bring extraordinary revelations to mankind simply to prove Who HE is – He also chose to do what He did to reveal His Father’s heart toward ALL of us! 

That veil of revelation was torn open briefly on Mount Tabor for three ordinary men – Christ’s disciples. Those men saw Christ as He really is, IN HIS TRUE GLORY! Jesus went on from there however, to complete His Father’s assignment as a human being, by choosing to obey God’s plan to His death. He took our sin onto Himself and died for our sake. He is now a glorified man … the firstborn of many. Christ is the perfect example of what our God can do with utter and complete and perfect surrender to His will, HIS WAY.

God’s expressed love is not what we think it is, or even what we have been taught it is. It is so much incredibly bigger, deeper and wider than we can imagine! And it expands way beyond this world’s self-serving self-centred ways into eternity. Sometimes I think today’s modern church is mankind still trying to build the tower of Babel … We are still trying to prove to each other, and ourselves, and to Almighty God, how smart and spiritual we are.

However, our Father’s love has pulsated toward each one of us since the moment He created us inside our mother’s womb. Because of Christ, each one of us can be transformed into a tiny expression of Who Father God is, and what He is like… if we are willing to give up this world’s ideas of success and fame, DIE to what we want, and then follow Jesus. The bible reveals the heart of Almighty God toward humanity. HIS WORDS IN HIS BOOK CARRY TRANSFORMATION!

We need to quit deciding WE know who we are and humbly submit ourselves to Him. Only then will our true purposes be revealed … in the light of His love for us, in us and through us. Human beings blossom into their true identity when they hang around Christ. They start to smell and taste etc. like heaven. We simply must start using the power of choice. I think, as we surrender and yield our lives to His purposes … … 

…“Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.”  2Corinthians 2:15.  Figuring out just who is perishing is not our concern … smelling like CHRIST and loving our enemies is!  If all we ever do is live this life we have been given like Christ did and LOVE others like He did –  It is enough. THEN LOVE PREVAILS … it did at Calvary. 🤗