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P 3471 God’s welcome sign is always OUT.

/ 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! For YAHWEH is always good and ready to receive you. He’s so loving that it will amaze you— so kind that it will astound you! And He is famous for His faithfulness toward all. Everyone knows our God can be trusted, for He keeps His promises to every generation!” Psalm 100:4-5 TPT.

Version 2: “Shout with joy before the Lord, O earth! Obey Him gladly; come before Him, singing with joy. Try to realize what this means—the Lord is God! He made us—we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Go through His open gates with great thanksgiving; enter His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and bless His Name. For the Lord is always good. He is always loving and kind, and His faithfulness goes on and on to each succeeding generation.” Psalm 100: 4-5 TLB.

I’ve put two versions of this Psalm up today because it is  helpful to read verses in different versions. It helps clarify the Lord’s meaning. Meanwhile, I think the language in the Passion Translation is so welcoming and positive, who wouldn’t want to be that person? Our biggest mistake when we read the bible is to be swamped by the words the writer used. That can lead to skimming over any old-fashioned terminology that we don’t quite understand. In both versions of this Psalm, the theme is the same – as we praise and give thanks, the Lord’s gates open wide!

However, let’s not also deify the words, I think that would be a mistake. The point of the words is the Subject — Almighty God Himself! Words are simply the vehicles that open our eyes to Who He is and how much He loves us. The Holy Spirit is the One Who takes those words and makes them pertinent to each one of us, day by day. He gives us the Lord’s Grace to act on them, and uses them to challenge, and encourage us. We have access to the glory of God Himself as we meditate on and chew over what He says to us from day by day.

The encouragement and confidence we get in return for our spontaneously joyful attitudes, can become the very thing that sustains us during our mostly ordinary days. Especially as we pause in His Presence, and allow His words to sink in. This is what is meant to happen every single time we pick up the bible. Reading His Word is like going to our Father’s house to thank, praise and worship Him for all He has done for us. Studying the bible is not a chore when you see it from the point of view of messages from the Lord’s heart to ours. “God wants to see ME, His doors fly open when He hears MY praise.” Forget the worship leader with the great voice and skills – He loves your singing, gratitude and love toward Him. He is, when all is said and done — a loving FATHER, proud of His kids.

As I read this Psalm today, the thing that blessed my heart was the realisation that when I spend time with Him, I am never an interruption, or an afterthought or even unknown. He won’t ever say to the Holy Spirit … what’s-her-name again? 😊 The thing about any kind of praise and thanksgiving is that it aligns my heart with what is already going on in heaven. I am joining in with something far bigger than myself! These words may have been written by a man, but it is the Holy Spirit speaking, that’s why this person chose to remain anonymous. The Speaker wants us to see Almighty God, not just their words. 

All of us can tune into our Father’s heartbeat immediately, especially when we make those two things – thanksgiving and praise – our starting place. No matter what else is going on in our lives or how affected by circumstances we may be, those gates and our own personal love and reverence for the Lord, opens our heart when we praise and thank Him for loving us. We know that we are always welcome at His house because the bible tells us so, over and over again. He loves to see us! It is easy to praise and thank the Lord as we discover how He feels about His children. Here’s a word of advice, don’t just read to find information or instruction, ask the Holy Spirit to help you find His heart!

Heaven is the most important place in this world or any other, and when you and I remember His goodness to us and enter His courts to enjoy His Grace, Mercy and love – we are transformed by what we receive there. Praise and thanksgiving are incredibly easy when you get rid of entitlement. Suddenly everything the Lord does for us, becomes an undeserved gift. A heart of gratitude can sustain us through so many difficult circumstances. Like the Psalmist says: “We need to be prepared to be amazed by His responses.” 

Our God is not removed from humanity, that’s why Jesus came here, to illustrate by His life and death the lengths our Heavenly Father went to, so He could have all of mankind for His own people. This is yet another place to pause and give praise and thanks. The good news today is:  “YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME AT MY HOUSE. You can give your praise and thanksgiving to Me, in person, in My Presence! You will find I am always so happy to see you.” Amen. Bye.👋.

P 2400 We are not powerless – we can choose.

/ DVH

We need to accept the reality that as God’s family, we have power. JESUS GAVE IT TO US. Luke 10:19: “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” 

We have the power to choose to obey and work together with the Holy Spirit. That cannot be taken away from us, but it can be voluntarily surrendered if it is unknown, or under-appreciated.  satan can’t make US do anything – but he can tempt us in any area where we are weak … areas in our hearts and minds that are still unredeemed. 

This is why we need to deliberately pay attention to our spiritual lives. Our physical, emotional and mental lives will take over otherwise. Most of the time we do not fully comprehend that the power we have, means we can actually say NO to the devil, or even to the Lord Himself. I don’t recommend the latter but we can! Our God will not force us, but ,,, He may allow circumstances to persuade us to revise our decision. Remember Jonah??  

When we add the power of God, to the power of choice – human beings become unstoppable. I want to be clear about that. You or I might have prayed a prayer for someone to be saved, and so far that hasn’t happened. Even if we die – that prayer is still out there. Almighty God values our prayers. Jesus showed us that, when He prayed for Christians to be One. That particular prayer is awaiting its tipping point — it hasn’t happened yet, but that does not mean it won’t! “There is a TIME for every purpose under heaven …”  Ecclesiastes 3:1. 

I personally don’t think that our prayers have an expiry date, but sometimes the content needs to be checked with the Lord, first. Our problem is that it is unfortunately too easy to think that when something goes unanswered after a longish period of time, it won’t be answered at all. In the bible, we see people negotiating with the Lord. Maybe some things need negotiation!  When we pray something in agreement with the Holy Spirit, together with God’s Word, it cannot fail – because our voice is joined to His. 

Sadly, for years we’ve applied this scripture or that scripture as leverage to get what we want —for things that were about gain, to make our lives better. I honestly don’t think that things, no matter how important they seem at the time, matter. Because things don’t last. Human beings, however, last forever! We are eternal beings.  Even when I give to benefit others, I am entering into His eternal principles. But if I only want to gain things for my own comfort in this life, then my prayer is simply to satisfying my desire for temporal things. 

The enemy of our souls has hooked us into caring more about temporal things than we do about eternal things. The result has been great disappointment and disillusionment for many. However the transformation of a human heart from selfishness, strife, anger, lying, cheating, and disloyalty etc. IS, in itself, a miracle. What we allow God to change in us, in our lifetime – is a glimpse of eternity to come, here and now. That is how we become carriers of His glory and partakers of His nature. Rom. 6:11-14; Gal. 5:16,25.

We are not powerless in the Lord’s process of redemption in our lives. But change does not come by osmosis either. It happens as a co-operative. We obey His will, His way, and as we do that, He transforms us. We can still wilfully choose to be bad tempered, and sometimes it has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone else!  Although there are some people who delight in creating what I call opportunities for us to fall into! 

The way to be strong in the Lord, is to learn to resist temptation. The bible calls it ‘overcoming’ and it tells us to “…flee from temptation…”  Unfortunately if we walk too slowly away, then we can also sort of kind of stroll back again! And in those moments we start assessing how bad could those things really be? And then at other times we dive in where angels fear to tread. These temptations are things that we already know will bring only a temporary thrill or satisfaction. Our aim is to walk with Him – so that’s where our focus needs to be.

We are not powerless – we can choose, because we are a powerful people.“(God’s) divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3 NIV. 👋🏻 

P 2163 Fear of the unknown.

/ DVH

Hubby passed this small excerpt on to me today, it’s from ‘Encounter God’s heart,’ the Passion Translation. I think it addresses the issue of fear of the unknown, very well: “Act on faith. When fear has chained us within gates of complacency, it’s time to do something radical. To stop cowering behind the questions and put an end to our internal debates. To face the challenges of “What if this or that happens” and find resolve in our courageous answers.

Sometimes we just have to run as hard as we can into the unknown. To stop letting the fear of what may or may not happen hold us back. When we’re frozen in place and faith feels scary, we need to find God. We need to courageously confront fear by taking a risk and moving forward. When we’re not even sure if we’re hearing God, let’s do the opposite of what fear tells us to do. The Lord’s will is revealed when we confront our questions and stop allowing them to hold us back. Faith is courageous!”

Here’s a great suggestion for prayer as well: “Father, You know my heart’s desire is to do Your will. Fear of the unknown has held me back for too long. I’m going to face the what-ifs. And even if things don’t turn out the way I want them to, my praise will still rise. In the fog of uncertainty, I am choosing to act on faith. Amen.”

This past week has been a trying time for some of the people I know and love, and these ‘Encounter Observations’ were a huge blessing personally. Sometimes I’ve found I can get stuck because of fear – the sort of things that come up that we have not experienced before. This week fear has attacked us as a couple, on a number of occasions. We’ve been unable to sleep well, surrounded by a million thoughts. You know about the sort of stuff that seems like you can figure it out. if you just give it some thought… but you never can!  Hubby needs surgery on his right hand and thumb, and the operation is next Thursday. This is a big deal because he is my full-time carer.

Meanwhile, I woke up the middle of the night at 2.00 am one morning last week, totally unable to breathe. I haven’t got Covid, I had an obstructed airway. Yet at the time this happened, I was sound asleep. This was not a fun way to wake up! Hubby leapt out of bed and rendered the Heimlich and eventually, obviously (!), I took some raspy breaths and then I had quite a bit of trouble going back off to sleep again! 

My husband has to go to hospital overnight to have an operation on his thumb, so our lives have been turned topsy-turvy by the hospital preparations, their agendas and timetables, plus wondering if going ahead with the surgery right now, is such a great idea. The surgery is necessary, but nobody is making him have it, it is just the only pain-free door open to us. So we decided to take a risk and move forward, even though it means our lives will become more difficult in the immediate interim, and we are planning a bible trip right after Easter. This kind of stuff is never convenient!

Doing this has shown us things we didn’t know about ourselves. Well yay! Wot fun. The thing I’ve noticed about unforeseen circumstances is that we definitely do not know, what we do not know until these things stop being a theory and become reality. Or the Lord Himself, confronts stuff!  I think that the way to more faith can take making a leap of faith a very hard thing to do. The biggest thing that paralyses me is that we might get it wrong and end up in the land of worse! Like Almighty God can’t see our blindspots and overcome them… sigh … 

Running hard into the unknown sounds great and faith-filled – until you have to do it and you really don’t actually have a clue what will happen! I know many of you reading this have faced this too, and far worse things than I can imagine …  The prayer I included today also helped me to focus in on the real issue – a lack of faith. It isn’t faith if we are certain of the outcome. Sometimes we need someone else to give us the words we can’t find, to express what we are afraid of … I hope this was useful to you too. Fear of the unknown can be paralysing – but the Lord is always here for us – we can’t grow without being stretched! 👋🏻