Take God seriously

P 3286 Cling to Him

/ DVH

Jeremiah 9:23: “This is what the Lord says:“Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.” V25-26: “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will punish all who are circumcised only in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon, Moab and all who live in the wilderness in distant places. For all these nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.”

This is the Lord’s pronouncement over Israel, He is throughly sick and tired of these people who say ‘yes’ but do ‘no.’  He makes it perfectly clear that being rich, popular, strong, and wise in this world’s ways, is not for His kids. What He is looking for is a people who know Him, and know His ways, and love Him so much they will follow Him wherever He goes.  And because of those deliberate choices then His ways will show up in every attitude and action they take. First of all let’s look at what delights God and what is His benchmark, because the Holy Spirit very kindly gave us a list!

He loves kindness, righteousness and justice. He operates from those things. It will never be enough to read the words and nod and smile, or even wipe away a tear. Crying is easy, changing is not! However, whenever  God speaks, He is telling us about Himself and we need to listen to Him. The Jewish people were not wrong in their desire to please Him but pleasing quickly turned into placating. They carefully implemented 613 laws to make sure everyone did what He wanted – and woe betide any Wally that tried to do anything else! They were punished by the religious. These dear people put Almighty God into a box of His own design. The glorious box He called Mercy and Grace, they misused the Mercy Seat and then they walked away from personally knowing Him. The Mercy Seat is a place of meeting, not just dropping off your sins like a dry cleaner! The thing that is heartbreaking is, He is so easy to know. He told us what He likes and doesn’t like. 

 
Where His chosen people missed what He was saying, was that they legislated something that was meant to flow out of willing obedience, compassion and a desire to honour Him. He wanted the Jewish people to love His Ways —not just salute the flag and run back into their old habits. Only to front up at Yom Kippur and pay the set price for their disobedience, lack of loyalty etc… once a year!  He is saying that lovingly, and willingly honouring His ways is the way we love Him. “But He’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.” Micah 6:8.  

You might want to pause and think on that.  Almighty God isn’t just looking for a transitory relationship— a sometimes on, sometimes off again, depending on their mood — a girlfriend. He wants a pure and holy wife for His Son! Father God is a parent. He wants someone worthy of His Son Jesus, and all Jesus has done for us — to be His Son’s precious Bride. Someone who is willing to have the Lord cut away everything that has taken up residence in our hearts that can defile us. Sadly, sometimes those things also define us – yet we are proud of them. His people back then were circumcised to show to the world around them that they were His children, but their hearts remained unaltered. The question I want to ask today is this: has our heart, life and attitude been altered by following the Lord Jesus? Or do we settle for the outward appearance of being ‘church people’ without any inner conviction and subsequent changes to our lives.

 
Do you want to truly delight God? Then let Him circumcise your heart. Not just fill you up with more information, more rules, or sadly, even more failure. Instead, surrender your whole life to Him, like Jesus surrendered His whole life for you – willingly, joyfully, devotedly. Falling in love cannot ever be a set of rules, it is a process of choosing to get to know each other, enjoying the other person’s ways. The Lord Jesus is totally acquainted with each one of us, who we really are. He already knows every single thing there is to know about us — and yet He picked us anyway! Amazing. Next time you sing: “Amazing Love, how can it be?” Please remember that. Gratitude is our only response. 

When we meditate and act on His words, HE becomes our focus. This is a lovely side-effect of loving the Lord that will improve our view of His kingdom, this world, and other people. We will lose all of our judgment and gain compassion in this process. But at the same time we cannot circumcise ourselves. That’s why we have the New Testament, to explain to us that He has, in fact, already done that. Praise God that He knows exactly the right time and place to put His loving finger on something that is holding us captive to our old way of thinking. The Holy Spirit longs to help us as we cling to Him and get to know His Ways. Bye. 👋

P 3097 How to live.

/ DVH

“But He’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbour, be compassionate and loyal in your love, And don’t take yourself too seriously— take God seriously.” Micah 6:8 MSG. 

I just love that this verse says don’t take yourself too seriously. In my life as I follow His instructions and learn to live by them, I’ve discovered accidental times of sheer bliss. It is as if heaven comes down in a little bubble of joy and hubby and I and the Lord are right in the middle of it. He’s laughing and we’re laughing – and we have no clue why we are laughing … we just are! And it feels so good! Eventually you end up wondering why you were worried, harassed or upset in the first place. That’s the place to stop wondering why, and just enjoy the moment! You and I ain’t getting out of this life alive!

Here’s an interesting thought that might help with that. We cannot spend the life we now have, trying to punish any previous generations for the mistakes they made. This life is not meant to be lived retrospectively – it’s too short. I’ve also learnt that deliberately avoiding someone else’s mistakes means I’m just going to make different ones! And I did! Groan!! Judgment always leads to a worse place than we started at.

Hubby and I have just returned home after a little time away in a peaceful place. I’m always glad to get home again, but boy I will miss the view. (See above.) We met a new group of tiny friends here. A small flock of sparrows appeared on our balcony. The bible says that the Lord feeds birds! I distinctly remember that God once fed His little birds my homegrown, much anticipated raspberries. I was pretty ticked off about it too! I didn’t even get ONE! Yes, I repented!

Back to our sparrow visitors. These dear little birds kept arriving early in the morning, and peering hopefully through the big glass window. I’m a sucker for any bird that sits on the back of a chair and sings its heart out! Meanwhile, those little birds really know how to eat, they sure can sock it away. The way they ate you would think they were emus!

OK – it seems it is time to be spiritual! Did you get that instruction in the above scripture? Right at the end, it says: ‘don’t take yourself too seriously, take God seriously instead!’ That’s the whole point of course. That’s why we are all still here, we are here to learn to take the things of the Spirit, seriously. Here’s a question I don’t much like to ask myself, but it has been helpful because it diagnoses my own attitudes rather quickly. What if you were the only person left in circle of family and friends who knows Jesus? Is your life a witness? Yeah, I know. Bring that up!

Meanwhile, we don’t just witness by what we say – we also witness by WHO we are – especially when people are looking, and …even when they aren’t. However, somebody, it seems, is always looking – I’ve learnt that the hard way. Living this life, the only one we have, for His sake, is part of taking Almighty God seriously. The same God Who heals the sick and raises the dead, makes the deaf hear and the blind see – is living inside you. Our job is to let Him out for the world to see. That’s what Paul did.

Paul often ended up in nine kinds of trouble because nobody could shut him up! Everywhere he went he found a public place and started telling people about Jesus. He told governors, kings, religious people, important people, business people, ordinary people, and some listened and some didn’t. Some hauled him off to jail, and he took that in his stride and witnessed to the guards instead!  Paul didn’t wait for revivals – he started them!

The thing that Paul’s life clearly shows me is that half-hearted won’t do. Whatever the Lord has in His plans for each one of us  – we need to make sure we listen, stay humble, and simply go and do it.  Paul was so brilliant, he could do more than one thing at a time. He witnessed, preached, founded churches, and wrote a huge chunk of the New Testament. But all of the Lord’s disciples, with the exception of Judas, gave up the rest of their lives serving God. 

It seems to me that we can sit about waiting for the Holy Spirit to do what He has already done, many many times before in the church’s history – or we can take God Himself seriously and get on with His kingdom’s business. We still have the book and that’s plenty to go on with! I would hate to think that we will spend our whole lives knowing we are saved, yet ignoring the many who are not. What Micah is talking about here is our attitudes – our attitudes are meant to lead to actions. 

We were saved to serve Him. Look! I’m truly sorry if nobody told you that you were actually giving your life away when you first said ‘yes’ to Jesus — but I just did that, right here, right now. So what are you going to do about it? That’s the real issue. How to live this life now, is all over His book. Bye. 🤪 !