Throne room

P 2810 Discipline is not a bad word.

/ DVH

I wanted to call this blog:“What can you do when life whacks you around the ear-hole?” But then I thought: “Nah! That’s too long for a title.” Bad things have been happening at our house – as well as in our immediate family, and to people we love dearly. This stuff has been going on for weeks, sometimes it feels like forever!  It seems like we are being water-boarded by circumstances! We’ve barely had time to take a breath –  it’s like ‘whack a mole!’  

The latest jolt at our house was my 97 year old Mum being carted off to hospital with chest pains. There ought to be a law against getting difficult news before 7.00am! My mother is fine – she’s still very old – but she’s fine! I had to repent for not trusting the Lord to take care of her. You know when life overwhelms me, and it really does, there are times I have to crawl into the throne room to worship Him. I’m not looking for pity, BTW, we all have things going on that stretch us further than we want to go. 

Actually, apart from the actual circumstances — it’s my response to them that turns things upside down. I have come to love 💕 this scripture. “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” Ephesians 4:26-27. Did ya get that? The bible says it in black and white … it is my all-time fav book, and – it gives me permission to be angry – temporarily! Of course that permission comes with a caveat … don’t sin. Fix bad stuff before the sun falls out of the sky. I guess that means whacking people around the ear-hole is out… sigh. But still … it is not a sin to be angry … BUT it IS a sin to let it go on and on and on, for DAYS, without fixing it.

Lately, as I have mentioned before, I have had to avoid the news. It makes me shouting-at-the-TV-mad! And I can’t even hold onto the mad … I have to get rid of it before night comes!!  I came from an era that believed when kids were naughty or rude you smacked them … not round the ear-hole … just on the padded bit that we all sit on. This whole no smacking kid’s policy is at war with the bible … read Proverbs and hang on to your hosiery… otherwise you just might end up fighting HIS system. 

Where I live 12-14 year old kids, boys and girls, are pinching other people’s cars, bashing up old people, disrespecting the law, and carrying knives and guns. Yeah! I rest my case! BTW, I live in a quiet suburb in a reasonably quiet city. It’s not the location that matters, it is the lack of discipline in the home. We are going to live to regret the new-age idea that children are born blameless. That’s not what the book says.

As a little child I lived in one of the worst suburbs for crime … two of my childhood friends tried to burn their mum’s shop down. Crime bosses walked down the street, and if you were unfortunate enough to meet them, you looked at the ground and said ‘hello’  and hoped they didn’t know where you lived. You also said SIR because you didn’t want to annoy them.  

Consequently, I can get really angry about the lack of discipline everywhere today, because it’s ungodly. Read the book! These poor greedy kids will end up in prison – all because discipline was a distasteful word to their parents. Any bird brain knows that people should not beat their kids up, but a well placed smack on the seat of learning can help little brains realise they don’t rule the world. Start young. You won’t catch them when they get into their teens, they can out-talk and out-run you.

Changing the subject slightly – here’s a great verse that can easily get stuck in anyone’s throat: “For the Lord corrects and disciplines everyone whom He loves, and He punishes, even scourges, every son whom He accepts and welcomes to His heart and cherishes.” Hebrews 12:6. And here’s another one — but this one is guaranteed to bring a huge lump into your throat if you think on it.“Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him scourged.” John 19:1. I think this shows us clearly that Almighty God did not spare His only One-of-a-kind Son– so telling yourself that God will make an exception for you …  ! Well, you do the sum.

It also means that His discipline in our lives shows us that we are cherished by Him. Now ain’t that a rare and precious new thought!! I keep telling people that His ways are not our ways …BTW, did ya get the “everyone” bit in that Hebrew’s verse – no exceptions – not even JESUS! I understand that nobody likes discipline. It hurts. But it is necessary, because we can easily end up going the wrong way.

We must learn to resist the devil and persist in doing good while we still have the opportunity. Be-cau-se we need to be … “making the very most of (y)our time [on earth, recognising and taking advantage of each opportunity and using it with wisdom and diligence], because the days are [filled with] evil.” Ephesians 5:16. Discipline is not a bad word. Bye!👋

P 2647 Hitting the refresh button.

/ DVH

“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to Me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis.” Matthew 11:28 TPT. As I have said many times before, I am very literal when it comes to reading the bible. This means that I tell the Lord, “Please help me Jesus, I am tired out of my brain, I need Your refreshing.” I call that hitting the refresh button. Now here’s a truly great refresh button, from the bible, just for you and me!

“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom we have now received reconciliation.” Romans 5:10, 11 &17. “For if,by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”

So after I’ve read that, I put what it says in my own words. It goes like this, “If one ordinary guy (and his wife) managed to stuff up the wonderful things God had for mankind – then it stands to reason that His own Son, coming here to earth and living this life the way it can be lived – will release grace, and righteousness, plus the ability to rise above our day to day circumstances.’  Amen.

Here’s a heads up. You can’t do what I just did if you are running by the bible with a piece of toast in your hand, on your way to the office! The best thing to do is to pretend you are a tea bag and just sit in the Word until its goodness comes out! If we want to live this life refreshed, we must allow the bible to wash us, and let it soak in. If a stupid computer needs to be refreshed from time to time, then I sure do. Stuff happens in my world all the time and I forget to duck! 

The other day we went to the doctor and she was such a negative Nancy I wanted to go home and pull the covers over my head. However within days, Father God proved her negative POV wrong. Sometimes people will say and do things … ugly, grumpy, faithless things. You know when Jesus is not in charge, none of us are all that great. Life happens and it isn’t always happy happy joy joy! This means I will often need a fresh page to go on with – how about you? I need to pull focus back to what is real, and separate out whatever is shadows from the past, floating through my mind making me angry, unhappy or afraid.

The bible clearly tells me that God is not mad at me, now I have the freedom that Christ died to give me. After I soak in that thought, whatever I need to do is already done, because I am yielding to the will of the greater One within me. FYI, I’ve learnt to let go of my own way – my way ends in death! So … I forgave the doctor and then I got on with what was going on, even though it was a little hairy at our house for a bit. I want His way, the way that leads to life — life and more life. This means I can have His grace for any situation I find myself in, and if I forget to partake of that Grace — then I have His Grace to lead me back into His complete redemption!

Here’s an important key to living this life refreshed … Don’t look at your circumstances and defer hope by waiting for things to change before you enjoy His benefits. “Hope deferred will make your heart sick!”  Start reading about His benefits and then start cheering.The bible tells us not to forget His benefits in Psalm 103:v2. Remind yourself of everything that He has done in your life. The more we pull on that string of remembrance the more good stuff comes to the surface – we start remembering how good He has been to us.  We can preach ourselves happy if we take the time to really remember, read, and tea-bag soak in all He has done for us when we read our Beloved’s words.

The bible is not just an ordinary book. It is God Himself speaking to us from day to day. Imagine this. Suddenly you are pulled up into the throne room, you have no idea how … and Almighty God starts speaking to you from the throne. That’s what happened to Isaiah and Paul … do ya think they might have remembered what He said? To be refreshed we need to give His book more than a cursory glance. We need to prayerfully ask “What have You got for me today precious Holy Spirit?” Then pause, and read. Read until your heart gets happy and you start to think ‘I never knew that stuff was in there.’

Every day we meet the Lord in His book, and we use that book to refresh ourselves. We pray and talk things over with Him, so we can spend refreshing times with Him. We are His kids whether we feel like it or not. We cannot afford to live in our feelings because they change with the weather and our circumstances. Push the refresh button and drag your thoughts out of hell and into heaven. He’s waiting for you … 👋

P 2555 Boldness/ confidence.

/ DVH

Boldness and confidence are both initiated and fostered by our personal relationship with the Lord. Let’s look at Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” The place to foster confidence in our relationship with the Lord, is in the throne room – in our intimate one on one, time with Him. This is the place where God freely gives us mercy and grace and the will to live new lives. Our desire to walk wholeheartedly with the Holy Spirit will lead us into His new life. 

Yielding our will to His, means we have chosen to learn to love Him through participating in His processes. Selfishness falls off when we love for what we can give, not just for what we can get! Some people believe we approach the Lord only to worship Him. YES! Please always do that! However, our primary reason to be with Him, is simply because we enjoy His company, His POV. We have fallen in love with the wonderful God we are coming to know, day by day.

Boldness and confidence are fostered by intimacy. There is no presumption, instead this precious intimacy becomes so important to us, we start to loathe the idea of any separation. That POV motivates us over and over again. I don’t believe that pretending to live in His love and grace can do that. satan knows each of us well enough to fling something at us and our self-effort will collapse. I know very little in this area, but I can say this, the more you seek the Lord for Himself, the more He will reveal Himself to you. Sometimes there are some questionable things that people have told me God said or did, and my heart jumps up, unbidden, and says: “No! He would never act like that!”  I think that’s a little part of what confident intimacy looks like.

Almighty God always wants us to be confident in Him, especially in His goodness and goodwill toward mankind. His book the bible becomes powerful for us individually, when we take His instructions personally and act on them. Our precious Father doesn’t want us to live in any fear, at all. He sent His perfect love in the form of a Man, Jesus Christ, to show us, in Person, that He loves us. Christ is our source of spiritual life.  Everything in this New covenant is voluntary and our participation and obedience are the result of our passion toward the Lord.

Let’s clarify that. The size of any disobedience is not the issue, the attitude of our heart toward whatever it is – will be the thing that comes between Him and us. Openness needs to prevail, and, in turn that leads to true openness with each other. Confidence in Who He is and how much He loves me will actually release incredible freedom. However, that freedom is never carte blanche to be nasty and use His agonisingly hard-won Grace against Him or others. 

Our Heavenly Father, God, is not a legalist. He took care of every single legal indictment against humanity at Calvary. We didn’t just escape punishment, because of what Jesus did, at the same time we inherited Christ’s status before the Father. We were given Christ’s FAVOUR. That includes the ability/power to resist the devil and overcome the stuff he throws at us, con-fid-ent-ly!

The Lord is not looking for us to tick boxes and get everything right, He’s looking for us to genuinely rely upon Him to help us to do the things He asks us to do. Leaning on Him and His power and wisdom is our birthright – that birthright makes us rich in incredible things this world simply cannot buy. As we live that way we will see Him work on our behalf and gain more and more confidence in the One we love, because what we believe is based on personal knowledge of HIM. We don’t have to live bewildered powerless lives, because we have been given the power to walk away from temptation and to live lives that bless, help, and bestow Grace everywhere. That’s our inheritance.

Boldness and confidence are also not about shouting or being forceful. Sometimes it means we simply stand our ground, quietly. Firmly insisting. We need to learn to recognise and resist the devil’s wiles, and horrid suggestions of hatred and bitterness. At the same time, we simply cannot afford to let our enemy con us out of what is now our birthright, by bringing up stuff that we’ve done wrong or things we omitted to do at all! Our enemy keeps lists of wrongs  – WE DON’T – neither does our Father. We fix the things we can, with repentance and humility, and own our own bad attitudes. Then we go on to pray confidently for the grace to continue our walk totally reconciled with Him and others. 

Personally I just keep telling myself: I need mercy so I’m going to give it away! I keep on sowing grace because I know I am going to need it every day, all day! Our boldness and confidence comes from our knowledge of Who He is, what He is like, and real-life, personal, intimate revelation of His goodness as we walk with Him. 👋

P 2361 What’s next?

/ DVH

“You can pass through His open gates with the password of praise. Come right into His Presence with thanksgiving. Come bring your thank offering to Him and affectionately bless His beautiful name!”Psalms 100:4 TPT.

I believe we need to take verses like this one literally, instead of simply reading it and nodding our heads in agreement …  we actually need to do what it says. We must get into the habit of seeing the bible as a book of instructions, and not just a book of nice thoughts, interesting stories and stuff that God said to other people! I use His own words to form my prayers as He reminds me of an appropriate verse for my current situation.

The verse above is filled with instruction. It is a road map into the throne room for a personal interview with our Father!  A bunch of people can participate together, or one person can apply it just for themselves … it doesn’t matter. This means we stop what we are doing and use the password! I never thank Him for the problem … instead I thank Him that He is going to get me out of it!  “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them ALL, …” Psalm 34:19… Man, how I love those little words!!! Learn to insist no matter how long it takes.

At the same time I truly believe our fantastic Father can use any verse in His book to bring somebody to Himself! Sadly, I think we have limited our own comprehension by making exceptions. “Oh, that’s just for the Jewish people. Oh that’s just for sinners. Oh that’s just for people who never met Him.” And we miss the blessing and the deeper knowledge of His ways. 

Praising God means we will get blessed too, it’s just an automatic flow-on effect. So when it says, bring your thank offering to Him, do it. And if you find it hard to think of something to be thankful for, ask the Holy Spirit for His help… and then thank Him! And then … repent, because you obviously have not been paying attention to what God is doing in your life! No I am not joking. 

Almighty God uses His book to tell us how we can have fellowship with Him, so we’d better be more concerned about His thoughts than someone else’s! You might wonder: ‘will my fear of failing God ever go away?’ Here’s my answer –  does satan ever fall asleep? 😳 That war inside our heads is normal, it wouldn’t be FAITH if we didn’t get stretched in the process! 

“Whatever He says to you, do it.” Mary said that to some servants at a wedding once. She had a right to ask them to do that – she knew Father God’s ways first hand! She put her body on the line. I’ve practiced doing that scripture for 50 years, ever since I first read it. Boy, I’ve done some monumentally stupid stuff, trust me – I’ve mentioned that on this site … but I’d rather try than excuse myself, and miss the blessing of seeing God do what He does best – He loves to surprise people!  Including me.

How can we affectionately bless His holy Name if we are standing way off in the distance, too scared to be seen??Maybe we are scared He will bring up something we hope He doesn’t know we’ve been doing, or something we have already done?! Get over yourself, and fix the things that need fixing. I know other people are difficult, I have a bunch of those people in my life. He knows how to handle them. We need to just follow the prompts and watch what He will do with our obedience.

Personally, I have a bunch of awkward messed-up things in my life that look like a cat got at my knitting! Stuff is tangled up so badly I have no confidence it can ever be untangled, unless He does it. But I know my God, and I’m not taking my faith back, because I know, that I know that – HE IS GOOD and His mercy endures forever. (That’s another Psalm BTW.) I learnt that stuff by using my faith – especially at times when things didn’t work out and I could see no solution. Our God loves the impossible. I loathe the impossible, I get so stretched by stuff I feel like I am going to break – but so far … He just keeps bailing me out. However, you probably won’t ever hear me say: ‘Oh goodie! Another terrible test for me to trust God with.’ 

But those moments are the time to enter His gates with thanksgiving and go right on into His courts with praise. Why? Well, first of all, praise and thanksgiving won’t change God’s mind –  He is always for us. Praise and thanksgiving changes ME! We all need to stop paying lip-service to what He says and act on it instead. The bible is a book filled with instructions, plus stories about other people who followed instructions! It ain’t rocket science. 👋🏻