Theory

P 2843 Do yourself a favour.

/ DVH

Proverbs 8:32-36 “Now then, My children, listen to Me; blessed are those who keep My ways. Listen to My instruction and be wise;  do not disregard it. Blessed are those who listen to Me, watching daily at My doors, waiting at My doorway. For those who find Me find life and receive favour from the Lord. But those who fail to find Me harm themselves; …”Proverbs 17:16 “What’s this? Fools out shopping for wisdom! They wouldn’t recognize it if they saw it!” … It’s in the book!

We need to show the Lord we value everything He gives us by the way we live, loving Him, others, and applying His wisdom. People rush here and there looking for that thing and this thing to ease their pain, when the answer to everything is in the Wisdom and Love of God. Humanity has learnt to value our own knowledge above His wisdom, that fact is our very great personal loss! 

The thing I want to say over and over again regarding the Lord’s wisdom is that God’s love language is time, followed up by obedience. It doesn’t have to be hours, but we must cultivate our hearts to be listening hearts. Our life-motto needs to be this – don’t go anywhere or do anything without Him!  We choose to daily get filled, so we can spill whatever He gives us … onto other people – His wisdom is for sharing.

This means continually being filled up with His Wisdom, and then we give it away to others … however He says to do it. Wisdom means taking the time to listen for His heart, and that takes patience as we wait for Him to speak – we need a heart that wants to learn and change. A heart that runs daily after Him. Waiting for God to speak is true wisdom. Sometimes I read the same verse in about 6 different versions before I finally get to “OH! I see!”

The people who live all around us don’t understand these things, they don’t have a clue that they are harming themselves, because they don’t know any better. They think we worship a theory – one theory amongst many! Simply because everybody else around them lives without any faith. satan has snuck in a new normal. People don’t know anything else, because Christianity has spent a lot of our time telling them what not to do, and very little about WHO they need to meet. Many people have no clue that Christianity is about a Person, not just a set of impossible rules. This is why we need to carry His Presence with us everywhere we go. – He wants to be with us!

When we pray and read His book, we are interacting with a Holy Person, not a legal document. That Person knows exactly what every single human being needs to hear. This means when we search for and seek His Wisdom, we are going after Him. Read the Gospels carefully, and watch how Christ Himself interacts with people. He is our primary example of how Christianity works. He spent quality time with His Father on purpose, and then He knew exactly what to say and do for each person. He treated people as an individuals, not just a succession of tasks to be done or sins to be sorted out. 

Did ya get the whole ‘don’t disregard His instructions’ bit in that scripture above? When we disregard what He says, we are tuning out from His frequency. True Godly wisdom listens and obeys. Otherwise we are literally saying: “Talk to the hand, the ears aren’t listening.” And then we complain that: ‘God never speaks to me’ — when He could easily say to us: “You are not listening to Me!”  And at the risk of repeating myself, endlessly! … we have a whole book of what He has said to keep us busy.

Living out even one of the gospels could keep us busy for years! I urge us all to tell Him that we are here to spend time with Him, because we really really really want to know what He thinks. That’s what wisdom looks like. It looks a lot like depending on every single word that comes out of His mouth. Father God doesn’t throw His pearls in front of pigs – that’s in the book too – just in case you think I am being insulting. Pigs rummage about in the mud and dirt looking for whatever they can find. Pigs may be smart but they are not even remotely discerning, they eat anything. 

God’s Word is the treasure buried in a field that some smart guy sold everything he had to buy. Don’t skim and skip, instead, read His book like a love letter to you. When it reveals something you are doing wrong, thank Him for telling you, and for valuing your relationship with Him so much that He told you what you needed to know. He never accuses us. That’s the other guy. Father God reveals His word to us so we can be transformed.“As silver in a crucible and gold in a pan, “so our lives are refined by God.” Proverbs 17:3. Our negative experiences are a part of His refining processes. Everything is Father filtered – He never takes His eyes off us.

His wisdom is our treasure. Anyone that takes the time to unwrap and uncover that treasure and buy that treasure with their time spent, will find even bigger revelations inside it than they can imagine. I urge you not to dismiss what you read, by saying, “I know that bit …” Wisdom is available to everyone, it simply needs to be our treasure, not an optional extra.  Bye 👋

P 2811 Selective deafness.

/ DVH

Now there’s a subject we’d all like to avoid. I have a theory … anyone can end up being selectively deaf to some stuff in the bible when they don’t like what it says! How am I doing so far? I am not just talking about the whole …”Go into all the world and preach the gospel …” verses either. Here’s a few other strong and challenging verses to start us off:“I urge you, my brothers and sisters, for the sake of the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to agree to live in unity with one another and put to rest any division that attempts to tear you apart. Be restored as one united body living in perfect harmony. Form a consistent choreography among yourselves, having a common perspective with shared values.”1 Corinthians 1:10 TPT.

When we get to phrases like ‘perfect harmony’ it is too easy to say yes but do no. If we aim at nothing we are sure to hit it, so let’s not be intimidated by language!  Today I want to look a bit more closely at that kind of content instead. I think this whole verse hinges on the phrase …”agree to live in unity with one another.”  And I’m pretty sure that “putting to rest any division that attempts to tear you apart”  kind of stretches a lot of people too. In my denomination, people argue with you over the meaning of this verse and its application, but they don’t bother to work it out, instead they quit your church and go somewhere else. Which means nobody learns nothin’! However, trying to put grumbling and discontent to rest, can end up making any chasm of division wider … unless some of the people in the dissenting group are prepared to die to self.

I like this verse from Corinthians, it makes our interaction with each other sound a bit like a ballet. Although I strongly suspect we can keep tripping over each other’s feet regularly! But I like it because this book is His Word and He has given us an Answer before we even asked for one! Like… ‘having a common perspective with shared values’ can help to keep us in step with one another. Sometimes the reason disharmony takes root in our communities is that our common perspective is theology, or the latest trend to come down the turn-pike.

However, I think our common perspective etc. is, and should always be – Jesus Himself and all He did for each of us! Those facts will help our feet to be firmly planted in the soil of His love, and we can be in step with each other again.  We can become so focussed on corporate agreement over what we think are essential things, that we miss the fact that we are only together as a group, because of what He did.  Precious servants of God often leave churches because of differing theology. That’s like my hand deciding that it doesn’t need the rest of me anymore – it makes no sense. Ask someone who has damaged or lost a limb, they will quickly tell you every single part of us contributes to the whole. 

The next verse is another great key to living in love with one another. “Resist revenge, and make sure that no one pays back evil in place of evil but always pursue doing what is beautiful to one another and to all the unbelievers.” 1 Thessalonians 5:15 TPT. Revenge only prospers our enemy’s agendas, but true forgiveness works to find common ground for His sake. I like the phrase; “pursuing doing what is beautiful to one another.” I think this is what separates us from many other religions, that pursuit of ‘building one another up in our most holy faith.’ It seems to me that none of that implies we need to straighten out someone else’s theology! 

Love is the most powerful force on earth – that’s why it is so costly. After all, LOVE saved us! We are told to run after it. Personally I have found if you are running after love – you have no time for anything else. It certainly keeps me fully occupied and it helps me avoid confrontation. Especially about things that may drag somebody else down. The thing is, when we decide this verse is more important than that one we are choosing sides – every single verse is good and profitable.

Last verse for today: “But if we keep living in the pure light that surrounds Him, we share unbroken fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, continually cleanses us from all sin.”1 John 1:7 TPT. This is a great secret. It is not what you or I think about this doctrine or that sermon – the secret is to continue living in the light. People of the light value His Presence above their opinions. His light equalises everything. When He is present, our pettiness and irritability fly out of the window. My advice today is this, if you are struggling to relate to Sister-grumpy-face, or Brother-know-it-all, then just sit and pray together. The Lord Jesus loves ‘together.’ After that we need to forgive and forget all that is past, and press on toward the mark. 

Sometimes, selective hearing comes from a personal desire to hide from the truth, because it is striking too close to home. Sadly it is that very truth that makes us free – so hiding from it is a dumb idea! We must put away our white sheriff hat and stop thinking the other guy is deliberately wearing a black one, and aim at LOVE – anything else is missing the mark. Bye.👋

P 2809 Keep pressing on!

/ DVH

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:38-39. The Apostle Paul really had a handle on something that we need to pick up and wear as a permanent garment! Nothing can take us away from the Love of God. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. His love has been freely given to us, because of what Jesus Himself chose to do for us.

Real love gets down in the dirt … then it writes something in that dirt that shames everybody else present. The people who are standing there, waiting to throw rocks at someone else! Jesus did that. Love dismisses the naysayers and critics because its source is from the sternest, boldest, most magnificent, strongest place of all. The throne of God Himself. The life, death, and resurrection of Christ, plus the infilling of the Holy Spirit, has made that kind of strong, powerful love, available to us.

So why don’t we have it? I mean seriously… we both know we don’t!  All we need is a hard couple of days and love leaks out of us like we are a sieve, and we end up wondering what we did to deserve this next heartache. Sadly I think sometimes we settle for a NICE attitude and hope that will do. Nice and pleasant seem easier …it means  we can make up a bunch of rules and stick with them, and after a while ‘nice’ becomes a habit which seems like love … until it is severely pushed by life’s circumstances!

God’s love on the other hand, in difficult times, can seem a bit ethereal. We need to walk with the Holy Spirit minute by minute to know what His thoughts on love look like. I do know His love is about way more than feelings. It means I give Him my trust and obedience, and I choose to follow His instructions no matter if my world is collapsing around me. I probably won’t end up responding the same way in every single situation – even if those situations are identical. People and their needs are not identical. 

And the Holy Spirit dearly loves people! Every single time He gets an opportunity, He sweeps them up into His arms and loves on them. It’s His all time favourite thing to do. That’s why He lovingly heals, delivers, and gives each one of us wisdom and insight when we ask for it. It’s because He deeply loves people. He is intimately involved in the things that concern us. He knows exactly what we need and why, He also knows when we need it. Plus He knows what is not good for us. My immediate response when things go bad is to want to escape from the bad … like yesterday!! But I know with His help, I can learn to live His way.

In this busy life it is too easy to forget that Jesus is our role model. I bet He would have wanted to come down from that cross from the very second He was nailed to it!  The pain would be excruciating!!  He is God – He had options! He could have come off it at any second, But He chose the painful way of obedience. God’s love is accessed by faith and it operates through our deliberate, intentional choices. His love actually makes hard, unpleasant choices. It is not weak, it constrains us to push toward good. 

His Love also chooses to love people who simply don’t deserve our approval, let alone our begrudging affections! How we feel fades into the background, when we choose to learn to walk in Love, because what He wants is far more important to us … and that takes over. We are no longer limited into escaping from pain – instead we understand that pain often speaks the loudest. TIME is also factor in our personal growth.“There’s a time for every purpose under heaven …”

Here’s another great scripture: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”Galatians 4:4-7. God’s timing is perfect…we need to gird up our loins and wrestle our feelings of desertion and not being loved by Him, into submission. Praying, reading the bible, joining in with fellowship — all these things give us courage to continue under pressure.   Each one of us, despite our personal feelings, were born again to be His Sons and Daughters — and we all know that sons and daughters have responsibilities!

I’ve found this helpful, when I have prayed the same prayer 100 times and there appears to be no answer — I start asking the Lord to show me what HE wants. He and I could be experiencing a conflict of interest, and as His interest is more important than mine … I may need to talk to Him about it. Always bearing in mind that He is not with us to serve us – we serve Him. His disciples died serving God’s plan. That means they put their own interests in this life to one side, and had a completely different life than the one they had planned for themselves. 

The glorious thing about this arrangement is that we will actually fall more deeply in love with the Lord as we watch Him at work in our lives – or even in someone else’s life. His love is REAL – we need to keep pressing on to experience it as a part of our daily lives.It is not a doctrine or a theory. It is worth living and dying for – Jesus thought so. Bye. 👋

P 2752 Welcome banners for the lost.

/ DVH

I was somewhat concerned yesterday when I thought about linking something from YouTube to this page. Not because I am unhappy with the content I shared, but, because … guys …  … as Christians … we can be so religious! I am aware that if something dubious popped its head up from YouTube, that those people who do read my blog could miss the blessing in what I was sharing.

It’s a fact that there are people in this world who have evil lifestyles, that biblically speaking, put them in spiritual harm’s way. We all know that there are things that the bible clearly condemns. But, we can be so intent on getting across our disapproval of someone else’s lifestyle, we omit to pass on His LOVE to the very people Christ was sent to save. Those things are not mutually exclusive.  Love is a spiritual gift given to us by Jesus Himself, to disarm the lost and help the needy.

How can anyone know that God loves them while we are afraid of other people’s sin? We treat it like it is CoVid or something else highly contagious. Yet we are not exempt from sin ourselves, otherwise the Epistles are irrelevant and Paul was teaching and correcting people who were already perfected! Just because we are saved, that doesn’t mean we know everything. We need to be humble when we approach somebody else who has been caught in satan’s trap – and there are plenty of his traps about! Hands up those people who have never ever lost their tempers… I can’t put my hand up either. 

People, as in human beings, need to be loved. When love is in short supply, and hatred and disapproval flourish, they will find love wherever they can. Just like a thirsty man will drink filthy water. Maybe the reason we are afraid to associate with some people is because we are not walking closely with our King. Jesus wasn’t afraid of anything. because our God can deliver anyone from evil – even us! Once a man with many demons (2,000!) sat in his right mind, at Christ’s feet. Instead of ostracising or alienating people, we should be asking ourselves why the love and Presence of God is not convicting them through US – without us even having to say a word.

We have a responsibility for what is happening in this world – WE ARE HIS SALT. Sadly, I think the church has not loved others well. Instead we’ve condemned them, and made their sin more important than their spiritual well-being. There will always be some people who are given over to a reprobate mind – but God can snatch anyone from the fire. He saved me … and I had no idea what holiness looked like – I still struggle, how about you?

Almighty God IS going to snatch some people out of the fire. How? I dunno! But I think it is time we realise that Jesus touched the unclean, and made them clean because He, Himself was clean – inside and out. Plus I think it is a dumb idea as well as a poor game plan, to let FEAR rule our responses. We are running away from our first responsibility – to tell everyone that Jesus loves them – what they do about that piece of spiritual information is not up to us. And just to be clear, I am talking about living a life of love toward the people around us, as He leads us.

In the past, loving Christian families have been tormented and tortured by gossip and innuendo etc. because even though they raised their kids in the fear and the knowledge of the Lord, a member of their family has gone off into a lifestyle that the church feels we can’t approve of. So that entire family is held responsible for something that could happen to anyone. At this moment in time, the world we are living in has a tidal wave of positive reinforcement and approval toward those ungodly lifestyles. Those lifestyles come recommended by a society that loves to indulge the flesh.

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Instead of blaming families, we need to fall on our faces and repent that we have not modelled the love of Jesus clearly enough to those who were obviously searching. I know what it is like to commit yourself to something that you know is wrong – the further you walk down the wrong road the stronger your commitment to it gets, and the harder it gets to back up. People can get trapped by their choices. But our God is so much bigger than than our choices. To most people in this world, God’s love is a theory – we are the vehicles He has chosen to demonstrate that love.

It’s time for all of His children to come on home. We must hang up welcome home banners to the lost. Has any one of us been saved from our sins without God’s love reaching out to us, first?“You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Matthew 22:39. “God loved us while WE were yet sinners …” Romans 5:8 “Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”Jude 22,23.  Bye. 🙏

P 2690 Insight.

/ DVH

The reason I talk so much about the bible being a bigger book than we understand, is because of this subject. Receiving insight personally from the Lord grows our faith. For some people, their only biblical understanding comes through their pastor, or more mature brothers and sisters at church, or a tele-pastor or a blogger etc. There is nothing wrong with doing that, but sadly, that food is second-hand. It is not fresh manna coming down out of heaven daily, feeding you what He wants you to know for that day. 

We need to take in the fact that this is Almighty God we are dealing with, and if we truly want to get to know Him and His ways, we will need to sit and read and spend time with Him. We want to show Him that we are committed to waiting for Him to speak to us. The joy of this kind of dedication is that we can always hear Him speak through His word. The more we act on what He tells us, the more we will hear Him when we need to. (Do you feel inclined to talk to people who don’t listen to you?) In our daily lives we are very used to instant everything, not seeking.

Yes, I know the whole ‘speaking to me’ is a big thing for some people. Like I’ve said before, I don’t hear an external  voice. He speaks to me in my thinking processes. But stuff floats across my brain that I know are not my thoughts. EG: somebody is quite deliberately and maliciously mean to me and the thought, “forgive them they don’t understand what they are doing”- floats through my mind. That thought is not just there to comfort me, or even correct my attitude or response … it is God giving me insight to the way HE thinks. Yay, I just learnt something about Him!  At the same time, maybe I suddenly remember that those words are the words that Christ Himself spoke from the cross. Now I have confirmation that my thought is biblical. We will miss what He is saying if we push the thought away and we don’t give it any attention.

What I want to make clear today is that this personal insight belongs to all of us. The secret is to go after it, and going after it means sitting still and prayerfully rereading at the page or even a line that we don’t understand. Now we INSIST and ask for the Holy Spirit to please enlighten the eyes of our hearts! Insight helps us understand His ways and see and hear Him better. When we decide to honour Him with our time, He will speak to us. We are showing Him our devotion to what He says. Remember to ask questions. 

How do I know that He will answer me? Hmmm. Hard question … NOT! There’s a line of people stretching round the block for miles in the Old Testament. They heard God’s voice and what He said changed everything. Meanwhile where do we think the New Testament came from? It didn’t float down from the clouds! God spoke to these men, taught them personally, and they wrote things down, as they progressively got to know Him and practiced what He said.

We can miss Him speaking because we are scared we will make some sort of weird mistake, and so we hide our own disobedience from ourselves. Unfortunately, dying to self makes a great theory – and most of the time we would rather preserve our public image, than die to self and do what He said. I am not talking about running about doing weird stuff and saying: “God told me to do to, act like I’ve lost my mind!” I am talking about getting to know the inner voice of the Holy Spirit by reading the bible and asking Him what this verse is supposed to mean to you. What He says to you is insight into Who He is — His Ways. Meanwhile it is good to remember nobody is stopping you from doing this – just you!

Our God is true to His Word, so if we are in doubt then we can ask the pastor, or an elder etc. and ask them to pray for us. However, the more we act on the ordinary things we’ve already read, the more our inner ears and eyes will be enlightened. So making things like giving to the poor, tithing, repenting, as well doing good to others normal, not elective things. These things are instructions. Go and seek out that person you are mad at, all this is obedience to His Word. Remember we are stewards. If He sees that we want to be good stewards using what we already know, HE WILL GIVE US MORE. As we press in, we are making Him our priority – in return He will show us what is on His heart.

“The Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward [of the estate], whom his master will put in charge over his household, to give his servants their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed (happy, prosperous, to be admired) is that servant whom his master finds so doing when he arrives.” Luke 12:42-43.

To get our own personal spiritual food we must be prepared to prioritise reading the book, and take the time to wait for the Holy Spirit’s insight. Then simply do whatever it says – unless you happen to be reading Numbers or Chronicles, then good luck with that! Joking BTW, but they can be a bit daunting! Ask your pastor instead!! 🤣 Bye 👋

P 2627 He is always with us.

/ DVH

“When you pass through the deep, stormy sea, you can count on Me to be there with you. When you pass through raging rivers, you will not drown. When you walk through persecution like fiery flames, you will not be burned; the flames will not harm you,…” Isaiah 43:2.

The bible says – Lord will be ‘with’ us. It does not, however, say that He will always keep us away from dangerous, difficult stuff. I think the reason the Lord does not say: ‘I will make it so you never suffer’ – is because “I will be WITH you…” is SO much better! The very best thing we can do when we are in dire straights, is to look for Him. Why? Because He said He would be there, that’s why! The body of Christ has become spiritually unfit – we stopped doing our spiritual exercises and started demanding God do this and that. That’s what sent the Israelites down the plug-hole!

We can see in the bible, that the fire of persecution could not touch Christ. He stood silently and faced accusation even on the way to the cross. satan couldn’t drown the Lord Jesus either. Even before He was resurrected, He walked on water. He knew Who was in charge of what He did and where He went  He was with those disciples on the water talking to them when they thought they might drown. He stood on the water outside the boat!

Almighty God respects our free will, instead of turning it over to our enemy – we need to remind ourselves Who we belong to. The best thing we can do when things go upside down and inside out, is to ask Jesus to be with us. In His Presence nothing on this earth can bother us – we simply must learn to live in His Presence. Jesus DID it! Kingdom things like grace, mercy, love, and peace etc. are bigger than trouble, they instantly exclude it. Stuff won’t go away – we will WALK RIGHT THROUGH IT.

God’s peace does not sort of kind of shoo trouble out of the door, anymore than turning on the light pushes away the darkness! When His peace is present HE is present. (God’s peace is a Person, BTW – the precious Holy Spirit.) If you and I switch a light on, the darkness instantly disappears. There is no contest between light and dark. One thing simply excludes the other. That statement is our point of faith. Despite how we feel – truth is always truth. Our faith is an ever increasing revelation of Who we know God to be.

The real secret to overcoming in difficult circumstances is to make Him welcome. Tell Him: “Holy Spirit You are welcome in this place” – then point to your heart. It is one thing to do that in church and completely another to do it when stuff starts happening. It’s a faith statement. We aren’t talking about a theory – one that works sometimes and doesn’t others. Jesus didn’t try to walk on water. He simply did it, as casually as you or I would walk up the street. The wind and waves didn’t bother Him one bit. Why not? Because ...“He was going to the other side.” That’s what He said and that’s what He did.

Even on this earth Jesus lived in another kingdom! That kingdom has a different POV than this world does. God’s Kingdom has His POV.“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above; it comes down from the Father of lights [the Creator and Sustainer of the heavens], IN Whom there is no variation [no rising or setting] or shadow cast by His turning [for He is perfect and never changes].” James 1:17. Knowing God can’t deceive you despite the circumstances, is the place to stand. There is no “maybe” or “I hope so” in God’s kingdom. Everything is YES and AMEN. 

The Lord Jesus quite simply didn’t live in a place that included other possibilities. He took the time to know His Father and relate to Him. Just like you and I take a breath without even thinking about it, the Lord Jesus lived to do God’s will. As imperfect human beings we like to entertain other possibilities — mainly to explain why we are shrieking our heads off in a sinking boat, as it goes up and down in rough seas!

In heaven there is no place for doubt. Faith and Love rule. Our job is to bring those things down here – no matter what is going on around us. That cannot work if we don’t practise the skill of trusting God in all things – big and small. We need to immediately get rid of those thoughts that say: “God won’t help me”… “This thing doesn’t matter it is too small to bother Him about” … “I can’t.” I can’t but HE CAN. Dependance upon Him means we lean back into Him and trust He is Who He says He is.

A lack of peace begins in our soul. In our emotions, our thoughts. Fear grabs at us and we start to sink in our emotions and thoughts first. The reason we have to wrangle this or that all the time, is that we are living in the wrong kingdom –OR maybe we are trying to live in both! That means we end up doing the hokey pokey with our faith! When we live by His kingdom’s rules then His life flows. Remember, nobody can kill us without His permission. And Almighty God will not give permission until it is the right time. Why? “Because there is a TIME to be born and a time to die ..” (Ecclesiastes 3) 

Sometimes I want to say to people, take your earthly glasses off and put on the kingdom ones and just leave them there, and please, don’t forget to read the book!! His book reminds us of Who He is, and how much He loves us. He is always with us. We are not of this world … we are His Kingdom people. We talk about it, carry it, live in it, breath it, and do it – and if necessary – we die for it. Bye.👋

P 2571 He isn’t here …

/ DVH

Matthew 28:1-7 “After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.  His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.  The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has risen, just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell His disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see Him.’ Now I have told you.”

I love that line uttered by the angel who was sitting in that empty tomb. “He is not here; …”   My first thought was – “then where is He??”… And the Lord smiled at me and said: “EVERYWHERE!!”  My second thought was that God left that angel there to talk to those women ... he waited for them. Makes you think doesn’t it? Nothing happens to us that is outside of His gaze – the Lord is prepared for any circumstance.  

Man those things are mind boggling. And what Jesus said to me made me think. We want to advertise Him as being at our church Sunday by Sunday but He’s not limited by time and space anymore … HE goes where the Wind blows. Let’s pray: ‘Please Holy Spirit, blow on me!’  Amen. With that end in mind, perhaps we should start asking HIM where He is going to be today? … Instead of expecting Him to automatically turn up where we are. Maybe we need to be more sensitive to His desires? Couldn’t hurt!! Moving on …

These two ordinary little women may have been scared, but they were still able to talk to, and listen to the angel without falling over.  All they cared about was finding the Lord! Unlike those big burly guards installed by Pilate’s order, together with the religious oversight. Those soldiers were scared spit-less by the same angel and promptly fell down as if dead. Knowing Jesus personally makes all the difference. We may be awed sometimes, but we will not be totally overwhelmed. Supernatural stuff should be praiseworthy but normal to you and I. We know HIM. 

Here’s another fun thought:  the disciples, who followed Jesus day after day, promptly forgot everything He said when He died. They were so overcome by grief and fear, they were not expecting His resurrection.  But Pilate, who handed the Lord over to the religious leaders, made a point to put guards on the tomb – because he remembered that Jesus said He would rise again! So they installed guards to make sure nobody could pinch the body and tell everyone He was resurrected. Now there’s the rocks crying out! The non-believers remembered!

Once you and I know for sure for ourselves, that He is risen – then our next job is to go and tell others. I remember the day when the Lord impacted my life, the first thing I was told to do was to tell somebody. So I rang the pastor’s wife and she about came right through the phone at me she was so excited. After that I told everybody! I wasn’t trying to be a smartie pants – I was just so excited because I knew that I knew, that God loved me. I had encountered something real, something worth talking about.

I dunno why many people think that telling other people about what happened to each one of us is hard, I really don’t. It seems to me that most of the time we do our best to avoid it. But it is the most natural thing in the world to talk to others, when something incredible happens to us. Especially when we discover what we thought was a theory turns out to be a reality! If we are asked to tell others about what is going on with our spouse, our friends, our kids, our parents, even our teachers, our fav past-time … we can easily say something! But when it comes to our faith – it seems we instantly get shtum. Why is that so?

Maybe somewhere over the years, other people have made a great big thing about what you are supposed to say or do when passing on the good news that that tomb was empty, and Jesus is alive, today. The further we walk away from our initial encounter with Him – whether we believed the book, or saw Him in Person –  the harder it seems to get. You know, those two women did not have a speech prepared. They were so joyful they simply related what they saw. That’s all our job is! Not to preach at others, or bash them with our church’s theological thoughts … we just need to tell them what happened to us. Nobody else has a testimony like yours.

We all have a story and Father God will pick the people who need to hear it. Not everybody will yell: ‘yippee can I do that too?’ It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to save them – and it’s our job to tell them what we know… I think the simpler we keep our explanation of what happened to us, the better! Something like: “Believe it or not, Christ isn’t dead, He’s alive and I’ve met Him.”  We are meant to be salt – not the whole stew! We are here to make them thirsty… the rest is up to the Lord. 👋

P 2485 God’s word is made visible through us.

/ DVH

Ephesians 3:16-20: “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen! 🙌 Please note: the Apostle Paul just prayed for US!

This ability to comprehend and obey God, that Paul is speaking about in Ephesians, makes God’s word visible.  However, a piece of paper in a book only has one dimension. When what God said is on a page in the bible, it is simply a collection of words on a piece of paper! BUT, because HE SAID IT, when we OBEY what it says, because we love Him and others:  we give it height, depth, width, and length. It is no longer a collection of words on a page – we bring it to life! Those Words become living words not just a theory on a page. It then becomes ‘seeable or visible” to us and anyone else. “The word of God is living …” Hebrews 4:12a. We bring it to life when we love others and obey what He said.

That’s what the bible is about, it is not just about stories, or nice sayings, it comes alive when we act. It is to be experienced as the Lord leads us, and that means other people can see and experience it, too. What we have been given by God through Christ’s sacrifice, is not theory, it is highly practical – other people experience the love of God and see Him loving them! When Jesus walked this earth as a man, (Who was just like us), the Kingdom of God exploded all around Him. He took what God said and acted on it. (John 5:19)

God’s Word became real: it fed people, it diagnosed and healed what was wrong with them, it healed physical illnesses for others, it even challenged those who were stuck focussing on those pieces of PAPER, trying to analyse their meaning. Plus it got rid of evil just by the Lord turning up! The kingdom of God is more than a piece of paper in a largish book with great promises written on it – it comes alive when God Himself flows out from INSIDE YOU AND I. We are carriers of His Loving Presence. That’s why His kind of LOVE is important! Ya might want to pause and think on that! 🧐

I love this scripture: Philippians 2:13: “[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energising and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.”  We can’t do anything lasting without Him, but when Christians act on what He said in the book, His love is released and the world around us transformed.

We need to stop living the same-old, same-old life we had before we met Him, and simply take the instructions we read in His book seriously. Start by forgiving everyone you can think of … teachers, friends, work mates, spouse/s, children. Forgiveness is powerful. Ask Him and them to forgive you for holding grudges etc. as well. Christ’s death proves to all of us that forgiveness is powerful. We are all saved from hell because of what He did as a pure, loving, blameless, obedient human being. Then after we forgive others, we need to move on into doing good to those who despitefully use you. That just means you ask the Holy Spirit for ways to bless the people you used to curse, or try to avoid!

God always has a better plan than we do. It’s that simple. When horrible things happen, tell Him that you know that even this … awful thing … can be transformed by His Grace for good. That’s the hope we carry, we know that trouble is not fruitless, it bears astonishing fruit when we water it with love, faith and hope. We can transform evil into good by holding fast to our belief system, if we hold on tight to Jesus and refuse to give up our hope …”And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”Romans 8:28. His purpose is for us to obey Him and love others. Our inner attitude matters – it needs to be transformed by obedience and His Grace.

It never even occurred to Jesus that whatever He was doing wouldn’t work. Jesus Christ had incredible faith in His Father’s goodness and He remained true to His Father’s Words. That’s why we need to pay attention to, and use God’s book to renew our minds, so we can always have, and give away, a heavenly perspective! What we give away to others, using our faith – is not a theory – it is life-changing. The words on the page become living realities when we use our faith.

Our God is way more than just approximately 1500 pages full of nice sayings and interesting stories. We have the privilege of bringing His multi-dimensional glory into this ordinary realm, by acting on what it says, for ourselves and others. We make His Word visible to everyone around us by letting that Word transform us. Bye. 👋🏻

“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

p 2429 Bless others and be generous.

/ DVH

“Those who live to bless others will have blessings heaped upon them, and the one who pours out his life to pour out blessings will be saturated with favour.” Proverbs 11:25 TPT. Boy that verse paints a great picture, especially at a time like this, when things everywhere are so difficult. You know, when things are tough we can tend to look the other way, and hope any other people who are suffering, will look after themselves. There’s another way to look at tough times. “If it is this hard for US, what must it be like for THEM?” 

I want to be clear right at the very beginning of this blog – generosity is not just about money, or goods etc. or service. Being generous and blessing others, these are heart things. Things we voluntarily do to enrich someone else’s life. This life will never be about who has the most – it is about who loves the most. Jesus told us when we do this stuff we are doing it for HIM. This means anything we do for others is not related to their relationship to us. Under the Holy Spirit’s guidance we care deeply about what happens to strangers. It happens because His love wells up inside us, and we start praying He will show us how to help.

Sometimes living like this means we will text or phone someone just to see how they are doing. It means becoming involved in the day to day issues that many people face, but doing that…without taking over. Blessing others means offering support, and letting the other person know that they are not alone. It also means not storing up our wealth down here on earth, but instead we share it with those who are less fortunate – and Jesus says that is storing it up in heaven!

It also means spending time on our knees, as we hold up someone else’s plight before the throne of God like it is our own issue. God’s love in us does not stand back and wait to see what will happen next. Nor does it wait to see if it is going to be needed. That’s because His love is not afraid of rejection. Jesus was always incredibly generous with His time. He sought to bless others, simply because it is a part of His nature. As we follow Him our goal is to become a people whose generosity increases.  

We need to continually ask Him for His help so we can make practical and caring suggestions. We do that because in times of trouble people have enough to cope with, and thinking up something for you to do to help me, when I’m drowning, is too much work! Plus that isn’t actually helping!! The only thing that kind of action helps is our own conscience. “Well I tried to help them, but there didn’t seem to be anything I could do.”  Suddenly it is their fault if they are going down for the third time, because they couldn’t think straight under pressure!

Suffering people need somebody to lift the rubble of this life off them, and stop their proverbial bleeding. Somebody who cares enough to take them into their hearts until that injured party can stand up again. Love looks like something. In things like this it looks like commitment! Generosity, and blessing others looks like something concrete.“Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds.” 1 John 3:18 TPT.

Blessing people is not just restricted to helping those who cannot help themselves or even people who have little or no resources. All kinds of people can be spiritually and emotionally poor. We can open doors for the spiritually hungry by loving them in spirit and action. In prayer, words, and also practical ways. Being generous toward other people is also about the way we view what we actually have. Is it ours … or is it HIS? Do we bless the people we know and like, or will we help anyone? A life poured out for others is a life well-lived. Jesus modelled that.

Sometimes our time given to someone else includes weeping with them. Then we pray. One by one we hand all the things that are concerning that person back to the Lord, without preaching at them, or imparting condemnation. Always remembering that we are there specifically to bless, and we want to bring forth “An apple of gold in a setting of silver” — not a baseball bat and a lump of coal! 

A generous person who blesses others is selfless. Their aim is to leave the other person better off than they found them – closer to God and each other. Our generosity with our time, and care, as well as our finances can utterly transform someone else’s life under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. It opens inner doors. 🤗

P 2362 Practical issues – Walking like Jesus …

/ DVH

The bible uses both practical and pictorial language, so it can be hard to go beyond the metaphorical and find the practical outworking. But this is why we are exhorted to study the bible. Today we are looking at: “Walk in the light as He is in the light.” 1 John 1:7.


When I’m reading the bible I say out loud … ‘What the heck does that mean??’ Or … here’s one of my favourites … “Why is that there?!” Let’s be clear, there is no audible voice from heaven that explains stuff like that to me, but often another verse pops into my head, and when I take the time to look it up, I’ve found that now I’m looking at everything from a totally different angle.

If we want to take what the Lord says out of the theory area, where we nod and agree, and go on to to change our ways with His help, then we will need to get further wisdom. That’s where the study to be an approved workman part comes in. You study so you can do what it says – that’s what workmen do! Here’s today’s 2nd verse. Jesus says this same thing quite a bit, and it varies each time – so when you study the subject of Jesus being light you will start to see the many-sided wisdom of God. 

In the Passion Translation: John 8:12  it says: “Jesus once again addressed them: “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows Me stumbles around in the darkness. I provide plenty of light to live in.” So when I read that I think:  ‘I have kind of stumbled over whatever I am meant to DO about this verse.’  So I repent, on the spot. It’s obviously me with the problem and a lack of interest, or …I’ve somehow wandered away from walking with Him be-cau-se . … ‘HE provides plenty of light to walk in …!’ If we take the scripture as a fixed point it changes the way we read it – make the bible your absolute!

At this point I need to say that I am rarely interested in yesterday’s bread –  I love fresh bread. And I want fresh bread from His word every single day. So I go after it. I may chew on stuff all day waiting for His light to illuminate me – but He and I know that I want to change, to be transformed – so I am more than willing to renew my mind and change my behaviour, with His help. The bible promises us daily bread, we just gotta ask for it. (Check out the Lord’s prayer.)

Here’s some of the stuff I realised while I was doing that about these two verses. Following Jesus means I am walking in the same light He had. He thought studying the bible (the Torah) was important. The Lord Jesus always had way more light than everyone around Him. I can see that because, when He talked about scriptures He didn’t just see instructions – He saw His Father’s heart and revealed it.  So here’s another great question to ask the Holy Spirit when reading the bible. ‘What do you want to say to ME, Lord?’  “What do you want to show me about my Father’s heart toward me and others?’ 

I know that our Father wants to protect us from stumbling. It says so over and over again in the book. In all those verses about walking, living, and staying in the light He is showing me a way I can live underneath that protection. There is more than I will ever need in His light, so, if I follow Jesus, consciously – not in a haphazard way, I am choosing to stay in His light. This means I need to hone my focus and let what Jesus already said be a light to me, a lamp underneath my feet. I need to fix my attention on it by walking it out.

If I don’t know what to do or say in a given situation I need to stop and ask Him: ‘What would YOU do Lord?’  I must put aside my own natural wisdom and the conventional wisdom of our day, and seek His kingdom first. I am asking the Lord for His light –  so His wisdom probably may not appeal to me.  EG: I would much rather have somebody else come to me and ask for forgiveness, than I would like going to you and asking for yours! That attitude means that Jesus and I are not on the same page, and we need to be if I am to walk in the light AS He is the light! Somebody is standing in the wrong spot – and it isn’t Jesus!  

However! I also know a great short-cut!! Ask yourself: “Is this LOVE? Am I hoping all things, believing all things, being patient and kind etc?” So long as I don’t fudge my answer to make ME feel good – this short cut works. Love doesn’t ask what is that other guy doing – instead it asks what the heck am I doing?? And it doesn’t excuse itself either – it doesn’t have to my ‘self’ knows that I have a Saviour.

When I think like this world does I am leaving HIS light behind and wandering off into the dark imaginings of my own mind. BUT …!!! Because I have His book, I don’t have to lack LIGHT – I just have to be humble enough to ask for His help and ACT on what He says. 👋🏻