The door

P 3479 Fix your eyes.

/ DVH

““Stop dwelling on the past. Don’t even remember these former things. I am doing something brand new, something unheard of. Even now it sprouts and grows and matures. Don’t you perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and open up flowing streams in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19. This is one of those keys we need to pay attention to, because the past should not affect our future. When Jesus made a way when there seemed to be no way, He died to give us His power to overcome those things that can trip us up or weigh us down.

I have been caught up in eddies from the past — those  things that go round and round and get nowhere. We can’t afford to define ourselves by stuff like that. It will grab hold of here and now, and destructively head toward the future! We need to remember that God does new things all the time. Just because something was fruitful last time, that doesn’t mean it will always be that way. Relationships are moving things, to last they need to grow, change, continue to become new and fresh.

The Lord wants a relationship, not a system. He gave us a system. That system, the Ten Commandments, only failed because we weren’t up to our end. Thank GOD our God is a God of generosity, grace and mercy! There is nothing wrong with the Ten Commandments, they are all about Loving God and loving others! That’s why Jesus said what He said in Matthew 22:38&39. “Jesus replies, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” Jesus adds, “And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.” It’s a synopsis, not just a new commandment!

Transformation flourishes when we read what He says and live it out, day by day. God made it easy to obey Him, because He took punishment and fear out of the way. Now we do not need to wade through desperate times alone, the Lord has already provided the most wonderful Person we will ever need — the Holy Spirit. He is our Helper. Living this life, with His help ushers in the kingdom of God, right here where we are. And remember Jesus died to change our past – even if it was only yesterday, ten years ago, or ten seconds ago! 

The past will hold us down if we keep clinging to its ways. We must lay aside those things that go after our peace and freedom so we can love others from a pure heart — and keep walking on. Some of us might end up limping. That’s not a bad thing! Jacob encountered God’s Kingdom and he limped after it happened. That limp reminded him of his encounter with heaven. It’s our chosen participation in the kingdom of God among us that will transform this world around us. Thousands of wonderful people have made all sorts of incredible efforts, and sacrificed everything, to change whatever is going on where they live – they left the past behind, and followed Jesus.

However, if the Spirit of God Himself is not doing it, whatever we do cannot last or produce fruit. Only God Himself does the things that last. In the Western World we like to think that God is on our side. But the reality is … the Lord wants to know …. ‘Who is on the Lord’s side?’  ‘Unless the Lord builds the house we are labouring in vain.’ (Psalm 127) Father God cares about what is in our hearts. He wants our hearts perfect toward Him and each other. (2 Chronicles 16:9; John 13:35.) That means we keep short accounts with Him and other people.

We simply can’t afford to let our past, affect our future, no matter how awful that past may be. My advice about former sorrows, is this — prop open the door to the past, clean out everything in that cupboard of guilt, pain, shame, revenge and hate, and deal with it bit by bit, including exercising reconciliation, forgiveness and repentance, then close the door! Write: do not enter! … on it. And give the key to the Holy Spirit. Walk away. Go out from that place and live your new life in Jesus. Do not be tormented by the things you can’t fix, give them to God and leave them there.

I urge all of us to start seeing faith as a commodity stored in heaven and when we prayerfully use it to live, we are bringing that faith into this life. There is a portion we have each been given, and as we give it to Him and start using it, I believe our faith grows, incrementally. “… faith comes from listening to this Good News ….” Faith comes from reading the book and doing what it says, because doing what it says takes FAITH. 

So today, I want to urge you to put the past behind you. Getting rid of any past sins we have done, as well as the ones against us … lines us up with heaven. We are so blessed, the Kingdom of God is a storehouse of every Grace we will ever need on this earth. We simply access it, using our faith, and we must discontinue using it to greedily grab the things we know that can’t last.

Let’s study the bible to find out what He says about this day – today. As we comfort ourselves with the fact that we can rely upon the Lord to hand us the right tool at the right time. The sad thing is, the past is our enemy’s favourite tool of distraction – he drags our eyes off the Lord and distracts them with the things that have hurt us. Instead, let’s fix our eyes on Jesus and ask ourselves, what is the Lord doing today? Bye. 👋.

P 3215 Eternity starts now.

/ DVH

“Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.” Romans 12:2 TPT.

What we think about affects how we handle our days, and so this transformation process is a progressive thing. The more we act on what we believe, the more our thoughts become tied into what the bible says. Eventually this process produces an automatic response in us, and in the end, transformation is seamless, and we don’t even notice it is happening – now we are too busy falling even more in love with Jesus. 

I hate to rain on anyone’s parade, but the biggest problem many people have is that when they read what the bible says, they agree with it, maybe even smile because it is so accurate …but THEN –– they don’t take the time to find out how to apply what they’ve read, into their everyday life. Application is the key that opens the door so we can participate in His kingdom. Let me put it this way, the language of the Lord’s kingdom is faith – we don’t need faith to do what we can already do! We need it so we can participate in the impossible!! And change can seem impossible.

OK, let’s look at some verses. The bible says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit …” Matthew 5:3. In order to ask for help you need to know that you need help! We must recognise that knowing we are poor in spirit is not a bad thing! Doing nothing about it, however, is not good. God says we are blessed when we live aware of this reality. Poverty of spirit looks like this: you can see what is required is beyond your own ability to change yourself. We need His help – this is a good time to remember that we already have it! Just don’t wait to feel like you have it. Step out in faith.

Now, I want to look at another scripture and it’s about holiness. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8. This means we make a quality decision to choose to become aware of where we have not lived in purity of heart, and talk to the Lord about it. Then we repent and repair things. At the same time, we need to be real and aware of the kind of pressures we live under in today’s society — ghastly thoughts tormenting us don’t make us a bad Christian, it’s what we DO about the torment that matters. 

Part of transformation is the realisation that just because something exists in my life now, that does not mean God is not dealing with it. It also does not mean He likes it or wants it!  Timing is a key factor in God’s Ways. Let’s remember that Jesus never let what was going on around Him sway Him from His God-appointed ministry. I picked purity today to look at, because in today’s atmosphere it is impossible to remain pure without His help! 

Jesus’ devotion to what His Father wanted was His priority – so we also need to continue to assess our priorities. Because we follow Him, purity needs to be our priority too. Jesus answered His enemy’s remarks with God’s Word, because He already knew what the bible said. The Lord has the right word to give us when we are attacked too. However, we can quote scripture up one side of the hill and down the other. Remember, we will always need His help! We need a specific word from Him, for us, at that moment … ‘an apple of gold in a setting of silver. ‘

When our aim is to hear from God about whatever He wants from us, sometimes we will have to wait. He is not at our beck and call, we are here for Him. Our Father knows what stretching does for our faith. He will never postpone His answer to hurt us, but He does want to see growth in our character and hearts. Often all we want is a short cut that shows us the way through these learning processes quickly. Most of us are ‘allergic” to difficulties – not hardened to them. (See Isaiah 42:10) 

Let’s look at another scripture that I think ties in well with the one above: Psalm 24:24:4-5: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation.”  So what do we ACT on? We need to watch what we say, and be careful to be truthful. 

Here’s another one: “And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.”  Philippians 1:9. Loving others has to be a tangible, seeable, thing – not just a theory. And our knowledge of what is excellent also requires our participation but the bible has lots of suggestions! So we need to step away from things that will contaminate a pure life. 

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8. Discipline in our thinking helps, and that part is up to us. Our Wonderful Father does not just say, ‘don’t do this,’ —instead He says: “DO, DO THIS.” 

He is always preparing us, helping us to live in His Presence. He is not just interested in us living with Him in eternity, down the road when we are dead. ETERNITY STARTS NOW.  We will all be pure of heart in heaven because we will be changed to be like Him. It’s what we do TODAY that’s important.. Bye.👋