Understanidng

P 3180 There is no other way.

/ DVH

Mark 10:48-52 talks about Bartimaeus, a blind beggar from Jericho, who insistently called out to Jesus and was healed, and then he followed Jesus down the road. This man didn’t give up on what he wanted, easily. We shouldn’t either! It appears to me that unlike Bartimaeus – we don’t know that we too are blind and deaf.

Many Christians have stopped seeing, spiritually speaking, and we aren’t always great at hearing the Lord for ourselves either! Hearing and seeing spiritually are a part of God’s kingdom. They are a part of our birthright, and a key into intimacy with the Holy Spirit. There are times when we’ve all walked into a  place of unforgiveness because we listened to the enemy’s ‘poor you’ sympathy line. We all have a sad story – this is a fallen world.

Let’s listen to Matthew 13:13-15. Jesus Himself is speaking to His disciples: “This is why I speak to them in parables: “Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.’

Spiritual eyes and ears are incredibly important to our walking with the Holy Spirit. Even as our everyday human sight and hearing are part of our interaction with the world around us – if we cannot see or hear with our normal eyes and ears, we will be shut out of God’s Ways. What is true in the natural, is also true spiritually. We will be shut off from seeing and hearing the glories and knowledge of His kingdom if we refuse to obey what He said.

Meanwhile the Lord Jesus is never silent, read the book – it’s chock full of what He said! Please stop worrying about discerning ‘voices’ and read the bible instead. A thorough knowledge of the Word of God is the best discerner on the planet! Jesus spent hours teaching His disciples. He was teaching them to see and hear what  was going on inside themselves, and all around them. Things aren’t always the way they look! 

At one stage of their walk with Jesus, two of the disciples – James and John in Luke 9:54 – want to burn down a tower in a Samaritan town that rejected the Lord. How could this awful attitude happen, when they were daily walking with Jesus? These two men had no spiritual sight. They obviously did not understand what Jesus was teaching them! Maybe they thought He was making suggestions, or perhaps what the Lord said was in opposition to what this world had taught them and they tried to marry the two things together. We cannot successfully live in two worlds. That’s like trying to stand still in the middle of a roaring flooded stream. The stream will carry you away. 

Now, let’s look at what blocks our spiritual sight and hearing. The bible says it is a calloused heart. That malady is fostered by sin, and it is definitely not helped when we stop sincerely forgiving others, from our hearts. If we harden our hearts against other people, and stop paying attention to the conviction of the Holy Spirit as He speaks to us,our problem is no longer that other person! We will end up grieving Him because He loves them too! 

The same thing goes for any other sin, we have a free will and our choices matter. We are only fooling ourselves if we excuse ourselves for one reason or another. The Holy Spirit wants us to walk with Him, and forgive others despite their sins against us. It is not about the other person — it is about what will happen to us in our relationship with Him. Meanwhile, He is not just our answer – He is their answer too! Grace flows out when we allow forgiveness in.

Jesus is always ‘other centred’- and therefore a calloused heart is a terrible state to cultivate. A calloused heart can be made unfeeling and numb by repeated actions. We will end up with an inner war, as the Spirit fights to free us as we fight to hold onto our anger and thoughts and feelings of revenge against the other person. Eventually such thoughts become habitual and we have a stronghold to deal with. We cannot fix the past by holding onto it—the way forward is to make the future different. The Holy Spirit is in our lives to help us with those things. 

The longer we allow ourselves to remain in that frozen hardened state, the more it becomes harder to escape. Hatred, revenge and murder begin to infiltrate our thoughts. “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?  But He turned and rebuked them [and He said, “You do not know what kind of spirit you are; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”  Luke 9:54-56. The Holy Spirit will help us with what we need to do, but we need to obey Him and disobedience hardens our hearts. If you have been praying about your sight and hearing and you aren’t doing very well, then perhaps you need to start by searching your heart, with His help. It is astonishing what we hide – even from ourselves.

We can close our spiritual ears and eyes because of our own choices. To be in Christ Jesus – we need to be doing what He would do. And He forgave us all as He was hanging from that tree. There is no other way. Bye. 👋

P 2132 Reading the bible leads to faith in action.

/ DVH

The Word of God, without His mercy and grace upon it becomes legalistic. John 1:17, ESV: ‘For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” The Lord Jesus didn’t change the commandments, instead His life, death and resurrection introduced Almighty God’s GRACE into His truth.

I don’t know if you have thought about this or not, but Jesus took the ten commandments and virtually made them impossible – without the Spirit of the Living God helping us. The Lord made rote obedience harder.

Listen to this in: Matthew 5:22, Jesus is speaking … KJV: “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”

Of course this verse doesn’t apply to anyone out there in blog land – none of US are ever unreasonable, and we never get mad at other people and call them an idiot… well … maybe … not that often, anyway! 😂 Me neither.  I am not going to offer you any sort of personal explanation, interpretation or application for this verse BTW … it’s in my how the heck do I do that (?) file … see below. BUT, I would like to point out the thing that jumped out at me today – the words – ‘danger of.’  Yeah. Some people find that getting mad means reaching for a baseball bat, and I can see that ending very badly. But I still need to apply that verse to me – so feel free to pray for me. Thank you!

Here’s my advice: never ever give up on understanding anything in the bible. If you don’t ‘get’ it, and you can’t figure out how to action it – then put it down, and take the time to go back to it later and ask Him to help you. I have a lot of things in my I-have-no-clue-how-to-action-this file. But just because I don’t know what to do with some of my automatic bad tempered responses, that does not excuse me from pursuing the answer. Instead I pray then go back and reread them, and I remind the Lord that I still don’t get it. In my opinion the Lord loves it when we follow things up.  

I am currently wading through 1 Corinthians. The thing is – I actually don’t need these verses explained to me, I can read English, I simply need to hear His voice in them. I need a plan of action! I wait for Him to speak, but I don’t excuse myself from obeying if I don’t know what to do about it. I want to change, and I’ve come to understand that God Himself has a WAY for me through the temptation to avoid losing my temper. I need to be changed from the inside out – which takes time and patience from everyone around me. We can all analyse the words but that is not what will change our behaviour – our behaviour changes when we have a plan of activation from HIM.

I don’t want to be surprised by any ugly stuff coming out of me when I am under pressure, because that means that things that have only been changed on the surface of my life. Agreeing with the bible, leads to surface change. However, I badly need my heart to be changed. The new attitudes and actions that the bible talks about need to become so much a part of me that I don’t react to stuff anymore, now I respond to it instead. As you know, I recommend doing what it says because reading it is one thing, and memorising it is another, but I’ve found doing what it says engages my whole body, and that forms a bigger memory cue than just reading it or remembering the words. 

Sometimes I am doing something else when the Lord reminds me about whatever I’ve read that day. He talks to me about what I said or did, and then He reminds me about what He said or did about that subject, in the book. Then I can see the contrast for myself. I must be honest with you … I would love to tell you that I smile and jump up and immediately obey whatever He tells me – but the truth is – I need Him to take what He said and show me how it works in the situation in front of me – otherwise I am stuck. Honesty and humility with other people is the only manageable way to deal with being stuck.”I’m sorry” is a part of the process not the end result.

I need guidance. Actually, I need HIS guidance! I need Him to take that “apple of gold” He just highlighted to me, and have Him help me to put it “into a setting of silver.” Because I want to know to how respond to His word and act in faith on it. A Christian book will tell me how it worked for someone else – but, I want to know how it works for ME in my life. When it comes to relationships, most of the time He tells me to fix things … now! This does not always enchant or delight me. 😶 Most of the time it does not even suit me! Obedience is always costly – humbling yourself when you do not think you are wrong costs even more! 

The Lord told me years ago: “If you let Me correct you, you will hear Me when I direct you.” If we let Him speak to the sin in our lives and act upon what He says in faith, we will hear Him more clearly. People often ask me: ”How do you hear the Holy Spirit?” I obey His corrections. When He corrects me, He is showing me HE LOVES ME. However, I don’t always instantly, passionately fall in love with what He tells me to do! Most of the time I have to humble myself, but the bible says that going after humility means I am on the right road. When I feel resistant to this process, I’ve learnt to do whatever He tells me to do, despite my feelings. I have scripture to back that one up BTW.  Read about the two sons in Matthew 21. It’s a real eye-opener. 

When we digest the bible, it is like eating our food with the chef in the room. The Holy Spirit has prepared that daily bread with us in mind, and He knows what we need to hear. He wrote this book and despite the 724 translations of the entire book and 1617 translations of the New Testament – we all still need a Personal Translator. He will daily apply what it says into our lives so we can obey Him. Reading the bible and applying what it says means we will start using our faith, every single day. 👋🏻