Unlovely

P 3124 Accessing His power to change.

/ DVH

Each one of us needs to choose to grab hold of the power Jesus died to give us to change the way we live in this world. It is always available. We do that by using our faith that what Almighty God has said in His book, the bible, is true. I will not lie to you – living like this is costly at first. We have to give up our right of reply, self-defence, or vindication and trust God Himself to vindicate us. And that whole scene usually happens when you feel extremely provoked and you want to zap a zinger back at the other person! 

But we have to choose to be finished with our old life when we said yes to Jesus. Then we choose to enter this new life to learn how to walk by faith. Sometimes by taking baby steps, or by making big strides. Almighty God loves faith. “…It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that He exists and that He cares enough to respond to those who seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6b MSG.

Here’s an illustration that might help make this ‘faith’ thing clear. Let us say, I have $1000 in the bank, I can’t see that money, it’s just a number on a bank statement. It won’t become viable until I use it, or collect it. I can even  give you $500 of that thousand dollars, and no physical money needs to change hands. All that will happen is that the numbers being recorded will change on both sides – yours and mine. I’ll now have $500 and so will you. With regard to using our faith – the power for transformation Jesus gave us is limitless, it cannot and will not run out until time itself ceases.

Back to my illustration. For you to get the money I’ve given you, you will have to spend it, or somehow use it, and you do that by using your faith that the money is actually there, even though nothing visible needs to change hands! Our God loves it when we use our faith – our belief that He is Who He says He is, and He Has done what He said He has done, is His pleasure. We can do whatever He says we can, it is all written on His bank statement in the New Testament and He has given it to us. When He says we can do it – then we can do it – feelings don’t come into it. We defer to the Holy Spirit’s goodness and wisdom:  then we obey and trust in the Person Who gave you His Word. 

The day we said ‘yes’ to Jesus, we were given Christ’s power to overcome. To use my illustration, that power was ‘deposited’ in our account. It came when the Holy Spirit convicted us and we responded with joy and repentance. While He was on earth, the Lord Jesus overcame sin, this world and the devil. Because of that He has imparted that power to us as His legacy. Just like someone might leave you money in their will – in Jesus’ will, we inherited many blessings including total transformation into His likeness!“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,…” Romans 14:17. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me…” Acts 1:8. Do some research for yourself in the book, and start obeying what you find. 

Even though we may not see anything or feel anything our inheritance is still there. It is a reality. Hebrews 8:12: “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”When Jesus took His own blood and poured it all over the heavenly Mercy seat, He washed away all our sins. and now God has no record of them. They are like a bill you’ve paid – stamped “PAID IN FULL” However, I may not feel any difference, because I’m still living in this world which is anti-God. Now I will have to take the Lord God Almighty at His Word. 

Everything we have been given comes from Calvary, and it was carefully written down in the bible, by the Holy Spirit. These things have been credited to our account, but we will need to access them by using our faith. We don’t need to make big one-off withdrawals, rather we can access the kingdom of God step by step as we ask for His help to obey Him, and then step out and act on what the bible says. That help is with us, right now, from the moment we gave our lives to Him. We began by using our faith and we continue by using it.

This means we can with His help – love the unlovely. We can, with His help …”do good to those who despitefully use us.”We can overcome personal sin, this world, and our enemy because Jesus gave us His power to do it. At the same time, each deliberate act of obedience transforms the way we think. Daily we use our faith to access the Holy Spirit, our personal Coach and Helper. As we learn to walk with Him using our faith, His Way of living becomes more and more natural to us. We’ve stopped looking for our own advantage and started doing what He wants. Jesus began our faith, and He always finishes what He starts!

One of the difficulties of this transformation is that faith is not feelings. It is a deliberately chosen act of obedience responding to what God has already said in His book! The feelings, if they come, come much later. Accessing His power to change our old ways of thinking, doing and being, will now become our new way to live. We live for whatever Jesus wants, and follow His ways. Bye. 👋

P 2994 Love = great grow food!

/ DVH

“I continue to pray for your love to grow and increase beyond measure, bringing you into the rich revelation of spiritual insight in all things. This will enable you to choose the most excellent way of all —becoming pure and without offense until the unveiling of Christ.”Philippians 1:9-10 TPT.

Choosing to love the unlovely, ushers in growth.However, this will not be a happy little ‘walk in the park’ — it will cost us to learn to love the people who have hurt us, ignored us, and despitefully used us. Especially those people who did it on purpose! That’s the dying to self bit. In the flesh I may want to tell the whole world about the mean things that person did to me. I also want to vindicate myself, as well as give myself valid reasons to live this life as an emotional cripple! That’s called a side benefit BTW.  If I blame ‘you,’ or ‘them,’ then I have no responsibility to change. I can point to other people and say it is their fault I am like this. My sins, errors and missteps become sad, a result of someone else’s unkindness, not my own choices.

Adulthood will not fall on us. Hopefully sooner rather than later, we must choose to grow up and face this life from a mature point of view. Maturity is not about voting, or being able to drink alcohol, or get married. True maturity is taking responsibility for my own actions and responses to whatever has happened to me. Otherwise I am still allowing the person who hurt me to control my life. My own personal choices can take me out of that place of weakness, and place me firmly into God’s place of strength. 

This is why Paul is praying for the Thessalonians to “grow and increase beyond measure.”  Greater offences need even greater measures of love. Instead of sloughing off my responses in my situation onto whoever hurt me … now I stand up, make a choice and let Him take control of my destiny. Because now my aim is no longer just to survive—now I want to learn how to thrive within His unconditional, eternal love.

Living in love, which is the way the Jesus Himself lived, expands my capacity to take more and more of His life, and His ways, IN. If I want to be an overcomer, I must first of all learn to overcome the unnecessary things that tie my life into this world with cords of distrust, anger, bitterness and hatred. Choosing not to excuse my behaviour goes a long way toward changing it. We all know 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 well, but here’s a very different reverse, self-centred view of what Paul said: … 

“Love is not patient because you need to love me! I’m broken, and you can’t expect me to fix my own broken places. My love doesn’t have to be kind because I need people to be kind to me, and my needs are more important than yours. My kind of love is jealous, because I can’t stand for you to get more of anything than I do. At the same time, I’m needier than you! My love totally needs to boast because it makes me feel important and I need to be important, because I have good things inside me that will amaze you, if you would only co-operate with me and treat me kindly. 

Why shouldn’t I talk about you? You don’t appreciate me! When I am seen and appreciated I will be a much better person. Of course I get angry with you, you are constantly showing up my bad side, and I hate you for it. I have lists and lists of things you have done to hurt me. I need to keep those lists! They are my protection against letting you get near me in case you hurt me again. I love it when someone else is mean to you the way you have been mean to me – maybe it will teach you a lesson! 

The truth is what I think and say it is. Because I’ve been hurt, now I have lots of insight into other people’s faults. Why should I protect someone else? I don’t trust other people, they are just out for themselves. My kind of love doesn’t dare hope, it is always scared disappointment is heading my way – again. And my kind of love is too tired to persevere with anything or anyone. Nobody does that for me, why should I do that for them?”

Let’s all pray that this person never ends up in charge of anything!! … Sh-a-ll we? Amen! You know what was really scary, I wrote the above perverted version of 1 Corinthians 13 … so easily. Yikes! None of us can afford to go down that road, we’ll fall into a ditch. Here’s a huge tip to help us on our way — stop waiting for other people to love you and start actively loving them.

Real Love, the God-kind of love, helps us choose His very best way through all kinds of situations. It gives us insight into our own faults and the things that will make us stumble and fall. We simply have to ask ourselves regularly, “Is this love?” And if it is not, then we repent, go back and fix it. That’s not hard to remember! God has a way for things to be done. As we live in His love and give it away to others, we will find we know what He wants us to do. And when we are challenged by love, remember, the result of that challenge is growth. Bye 👋

P 2983 We have a Friend.

/ DVH

“And in a similar way, the Holy Spirit takes hold of us in our human frailty to empower us in our weakness. For example, at times we don’t even know how to pray, or know the best things to ask for. But the Holy Spirit rises up within us to super-intercede on our behalf, pleading to God with emotional sighs too deep for words. God, the searcher of the heart, knows fully our longings, yet He also understands the desires of the Spirit, because the Holy Spirit passionately pleads before God for us, His holy ones, in perfect harmony with God’s plan and our destiny. So we are convinced that every detail of our lives is continually woven together for good, for we are His lovers who have been called to fulfil His designed purpose.”Romans 8:26-28 TPT. Prayer is our investment in someone else’s life.

I do love the way Paul says “at times we don’t know how to pray…” He only wrote half of the books in the New Testament!! I feel so much better!  I don’t know how to pray most of the time. I have to ask the Holy Spirit ‘please show me how to pray about this situation.’ And sometimes I ask Him ‘how do I join in with You in Your prayer?’ about this situation? I’ve gotten very picky in my old age, I don’t just want any old answer, I want His answer! I’ve tasted and seen for myself that the Lord is good, and I want to live in much deeper water than that. One word from Jesus and I come alive. There is always more… go after more.

For years I stuffed myself full of other people’s insights, simply because I liked what they said better than I liked what I managed to find for myself. I read this latest and greatest book, and that other fantastic book with the secret of getting your prayers answered. And my poor brain simply could not hold all that extra information and the keys they kept giving me. Just do this … and all will be well … . That stuff kept falling out. That’s when I started to grow tired of pre-digested food. I think the Holy Spirit must have been praying for me about this – I certainly can’t see how I could have been led into learning from Him for myself, otherwise! I was very stuck. And I was sick of being stuck!  

Hands up all those people who think that the Holy Spirit knows how to pray perfectly? Me too! So, what is better than chasing the One Who knows how to pray perfectly? Why follow another person who can get lost just like I can? To start with, I saved a heap of money on books!  It was a no-brainer for me. You know how the bible says in Psalm 103:2: “…forget not all His benefits…” ….Well, this is one of them. The Holy Spirit prays for us all the time, all day, every day, day in – day out. He’s in the eternal NOW and He doesn’t stop. That thought alone just makes me want to cry. Imagine that. Imagine His devotion to our spiritual well-being!

Even the best parent isn’t that good! Not only does the Holy Spirit pray, but when we feel weak, unloved, and unlovely;  He knows how to lift us up in that weakness, back up into the sacred space where we find God’s strength again. He reminds us how much Almighty God loves us. This is a fact — right here, right now. In all our failings and rotten attitudes, we have perfect love pouring down upon us, day after day after day. Not just when we pray. All day, all night, and when we finally open our little eyeballs in the morning again.

He isn’t just praying for us to be delivered from evil either … the Holy Spirit knows how to pray for everything and anything we need. Courage. A new pair of shoes. Someone who is flesh and blood to love us for who we are. In every need we have, He prays for us to be aware of, and strengthened, and helped by God Himself. He even sends out His angels to minister to us. Many times those angels are other people. Listening people. Are you the kind of person who listens carefully to Him, so you can bless others with a word, or an action, or kindness? That’s what He is like. Oh, I am such a fan of the Holy Spirit, the One Who loves to remain unseen.

All sorts of people tell me they are following Jesus, sometimes they are great speakers, or they can prophesy … but until I see a heart that is generous, unobtrusive, and wants to bless others—to physically bless them…I remain unimpressed. I want fruit. You want and need fruit too. Words are not fruit. Actions are. And the Person Who prompts all those actions is the Holy Spirit. Whispering… “why don’t you just go and do this or that …” He hardly ever shouts. That’s why we need learn to listen to Him. 

The Holy Spirit is the only Person I know, Who can take terrible situations, and awful people, plus a rotten personal  attitude and weave it into something so beautiful it will glorify God Himself! I have no idea how He does it – but I love watching Him work. One of the reasons you and I don’t always see the fruit of our prayers is that we cannot see God’s bigger picture. I’ve learnt to look for the good in any situation.  Where God is, there is good! Drag your eyes away from the obvious failures and disasters all around us, and ask the Holy Spirit to show you the good in it. 

I am learning to live with the expectation that there will be good, I will find His good no matter how it looks. God calls that faith … I call it knowing Him, just a little. We have the dearest Friend ever, He knows how to look through any storm and see Jesus walking towards us on the water. Hold on dear friends, the Perfect One is right there … can you see Him? Bye 🕊️.

P 2845 This is what love looks like.

/ DVH

Grace, hope, peace, joy, mercy, patience, kindness, these things are the love of God freebies we are to give away to other people every single day! The bible tells us that giving away this stuff is not even illegal. Galatians 5:22-23:“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” Well, yay!! It’s great to find things that are legal! Sneezing on your kid is now called child abuse, so there isn’t much around us that isn’t illegal. The thing is legal systems can’t change hearts, but He can!

Regarding Love, Father God’s barns are always bulging full – there is no trouble with OUR SUPPLIER! I keep hearing from the Lord, it’s time to feed the poor in spirit! You and I have an all access-pass to that bulging barn of love-joy-peace-patience-kindness-goodness etc. we simply need to use our faith to grow the fruit, and then we can give away what He has grown in us. You get patience, kindness etc. as you lean on Him and ask Him to give it to you. Then you go out and act like you have it… Does that actually work? It has so far … !!! 

The spreading of any sort of excess is a very current subject in our household over the past few weeks. Our mango tree had stacks of fruit on it this year, so we have given away lots of huge mangoes, the largest was nearly 1kg in weight! We gave them away everywhere, to everyone around us. That’s what happens when you have an abundance of something, it means you have plenty to give away. I urge all of us to daily let the Lord overflow your spirit with loads of … lots of … an abundance of … as well as a huge excess of … all these things!! So you can give them all away! But make sure you take in some yourself OK?

The only thing that can take away our knowledge of His incredible excess is our focus. If we focus on our lack, of  patience, kindness, goodness etc. we will always see and feel that lack. That’s a good time to remember that Jesus took 5 loaves and 2 fishes and fed thousands. He can multiply and create anything, even intangible things. He once gave me love for a spoiled brat… strangely — after I began loving this child, I found it was a sweet kid after all! That’s what I mean when I say, most problems are both sides! The Lord has also multiplied bibles in the boot of our car. We counted them about 20 times, and sure enough, there was more than we put in! 

The poor in spirit, the unlovely, the forgotten, will never be hard for us to find because they are all around us. I’ve decided to just love everyone I meet the way He would. I figure that covers it, and makes it easy for a bird brain like mine. That’s not modesty BTW, as you get older things fall out of your ears far more easily than you would like!  I forget words all the time, always in the middle of a sentence. My poor hubby gets to be my memory bank, concordance, and dictionary all at once. And you thought your spouse was a pest! Meanwhile, hubby just shared these thoughts with me regarding God’s love:

“The expression of God’s love toward others is the fruit of HIS Spirit in us and through us. So His fruit is simply an expression of Who He is flowing outward. When we display His fruit of love, through us, it will produce life, simply because it flows from Him. But when we try to mimic the behaviour of the fruit of Spirit, without His help, those things without His love as our source – eventually produce judgment, intolerance, guilt, obligation and religion.” “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”John 3:6. 

The sap of God’s love in and through His chosen vine is constantly flowing … we will receive its benefits as we choose to remain in that vine. Remaining “in Christ” is the secret to living a life of love. Jesus simply can’t help loving people, despite their personal proclivities – He simply wants what is best for them without using force or manipulation.  Remaining in Him means that we learn to want what He wants, instead of living a life that makes us feel comfortable.

That will happen without us even thinking about it. This is what His Love looks like…. letting the Holy Spirit have His Way … and … loving every bit of it!  🥰

P 2755 This is our life now.

/ DVH

Love God first. Love other people well, preach the gospel, and DO the great commission – don’t just agree with it. (Leviticus 19:18;  Luke 10:27;  Matthew 22:36–40;  Mark 12:28–31.) There is no compromise – this is what Christianity looks like.  We live our lives taking what the bible says seriously, and act on it – our job is to tell and demonstrate to others that there is another way to live. This means we refuse to excuse ourselves – we repent and repair instead! Even when we don’t think what the bible says applies to me, then we pray over it anyway. Our God-given reality is clear – SomeBody ALREADY paid for our right to live in His kingdom. He transferred us out of this kingdom into His. We are now citizens of heaven, right here, right now — whether we live like it or not. Our task is to bring heaven down here, by the way we live our lives. 

Of course all that seems impossible, because we know that we cannot change ourselves. We’ve personally learnt  that what we think looks good, ends up with us eating the wrong fruit! Adam and Eve checked that one out. Jesus’ death has already delivered us from rebellion into obedience — so now we have been given the right to choose to produce His fruit! Things like reading the bible, doing what it says, using our faith, not relying upon our feelings – those things help us eat from the right tree and they grow great fruit. That’s the tree of Eternal life. We were given eternal life when we said yes to Jesus saving us. Now our obedience pulls that life, His kingdom, into this world’s reality using our faith. It’s gloriously simple.

I’m just going to let what I just said lie there, to stare at us both for a minute or two. 👀 Why? Because we both know it but we don’t get it!  If we did this world would be very different by now. You and I have been translated out of this world with its value systems, proclivities, ugliness  and actions, because those things don’t belong in God’s kingdom.  Now we are citizens of another kingdom! Our hearts are His holy place now, when we chose His way, He goes everywhere with us. Almighty God’s kingdom has sacrifice at its heart. Christ came here to help us when we least deserved it, and He demonstrated for us, how that kingdom works.

If we were to go and permanently live in another country, we can choose to become citizens of that country. That country’s rules and regulations now govern us and we are no longer governed or influenced by where we previously lived. God’s kingdom is like that. It is not a part-time, depending-on-how-I-feel-on-the-day way to live! Instead it is our new way to live, right here, right now. Christ’s death moved us into His kingdom!  Now we are called to demonstrate that kingdom by the way we live, here and now. To love Him first, then others. Obedience is not optional – it matters.

We have been strategically placed into the middle of grumpy, dissatisfied, selfish, ungracious people who get right up in our faces and tick us off. However, our responses to their provocation will govern where we live. In His kingdom we have been given the ability to see these people through His eyes. Obedience opens our eyes to a whole new way to live and see others – I don’t care who you think somebody is – once you see them through His eyes it will change how you relate to them, forever.  We are now citizens of heaven who live as ambassadors for our homeland. Pray your house will be a little bit of heaven to everyone who comes into it.

God’s kingdom can always be found wherever people need it. You and I are the seed He sowed into our surroundings, and our job is to grow and manifest His kingdom there!  My advice is to repent if you haven’t been living this way, and fix the stuff you can – then pray over everything and give it to Him. Pray that the Lord, Himself will redeem everything in your life. Because God’s kingdom is not common where we live, we will act and react differently than everyone else does, as we prepare ourselves to demonstrate His love to others. 

Here’s today’s question: which kingdom are you and I cultivating every single day? His or ours? To love God with all of our hearts we need to start cultivating our awareness of His kingdom within us. WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, HOW IT SOUNDS, WHAT IT DOES. That’s why we read the book, to identify and spread His kingdom. ‘The kingdom of God is already within you …’ Jesus said that in Luke 7:21. I don’t have to strive to blow my nose, once I know how to do it I just do it! Christians have believed a lie – we are not powerless. Day by day we are taking back the ground the enemy has sown into our lives, and the lives of others around us, as we choose to live like Christ would.

Another question … If His kingdom is IN me then why do I keep doing the stuff I regret or hate? Because we are used to making our own choices. Plus, God’s kingdom is not accessed by knowledge, it is accessed by faith. Faith causes us to act – to love the unlovely, to care for the poor, to yield to Him. Say to yourself when you feel lost or overwhelmed, ‘Christ only did what He saw His Father doing. What are You doing now Father God?’ Then do what you see the Father doing. Trust me, I’ve been living like this for a while and I end up doing a whole lot less yelling and correcting;  now I spend most of my time simply loving others. Loving others despite how they are acting changes things – me, them, and the circumstances. God’s power is released when we act in faith.

Our old life of sin can spin us off into tangents, chasing things that don’t matter. Father God got rid of sin so He could be with us, day by day. When we use our faith to do what Jesus would do, His Presence in us opens doors we can’t even see. I have found if I don’t know what to do, I ask for a scripture. I do this all the time. To my amazement I start accessing a storehouse of scripture I have stored up inside, without even trying! Stuff that I don’t even know that I remember, comes out.

Romans 8:14 TPT“The mature children of God are moved by the impulses of the Spirit. “ The Holy Spirit is the wind in our sails – He is everywhere, for everyone, all at the same time. Oh, how I love watching Him and what He does with my feeble efforts. He does everything so beautifully, fitting together the broken pieces of my life in ways I cannot possibly imagine. I’ve seen Him do it. Here are my last few thoughts, love the Lord first, then other people, and tell others how His Presence in you has changed your life. Always remember, you’ve moved – you are a citizen of heaven now – this is your life now! It is your destiny to bring heaven down here to earth.  Bye… 🙌

P 2715 Learning to love means learning to obey.

/ DVH

“This is how we can be SURE that we love the children of God: by having a passionate love for God and by obedience to His commands. True love for God means obeying His commands, and His commands don’t weigh us down as heavy burdens.”1 John 5:2-3 TPT.

Because we love the Lord — we need to consistently remember that to Him, obedience is everything. Seriously, I know I flog this concept almost to death, but it is the truth. The way to show the Lord that we are utterly and totally HIS — despite any current circumstances — is to read His book and deliberately find the things that He has asked us to do, or not do – and then act accordingly. In His book God is imparting His heart and His will for our lives. I believe that we particularly need to pay special attention to those things we haven’t done before! Those things that we quickly read around, or glance at, hoping it doesn’t apply to us! 

While all this is going on — we simultaneously need to bear in mind one of the prerequisites to participating in everything the Lord has for us, is that we don’t care if we look like an idiot to other people! We will definitely die to self when self doesn’t get a say! Daily we understand that because we have chosen to follow Him, this way to live is part of the cost. Remember, He will not leave us, we have the joy of His Presence every minute of every day. Today and every day, our love for the Lord looks like obedience.. At the same time loving God also means we love His kids, in ways that they can see and experience. ‘Not just in words, but in deeds …’ 

Here’s a fun story from this trip. Hubby had toddled off to buy himself a pie in a country town we were passing through … when a much older lady walked by our car. She read the sign on the car door: ‘You are God’s happy thought.’ She smiled at me, then she carefully read the licence plate on our car. She waved, I waved, and she walked slowly back to her own car. Meanwhile hubby came back with his pie and the Lord said to me: “That licence plate says ‘Love looks like something.’ She read it. So what does love look like to her?”  🤪 Quick as a flash I told hubby what had happened, I held his pie for him and he chased after the older lady and he gave her a bookmark. She immediately wanted to pay for it and he said told her it was free. Love looked like a free bookmark to her. She waved happily at us as we left. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

That day was long and arduous but we kept on smiling as we remembered that dear lady. The Lord has taught me to look for the good. Basically what the Holy Spirit said to me was this — ‘This life IS difficult. And IF you only enjoy it when everything goes the way you want it, you will waste a lot of the time you have been given by being miserable. FIND THE JOY I send you in every day and you will win.” So now I’ve made it my quest to find the joy!

It’s good to remind ourselves that God’s kids aren’t just the people who go to our churches or attend other denominations. His kid can be an enemy who keeps on hurting you! He wants you and I to reach out to them – this is how we learn to love the unlovely. His kids are also people you and I have never met before. We met Steven, a former Chinese national who owns a motel. Hubby gave him a pen and a keyring for his lovely wife. The dear man was worried the keyring was too expensive, but hubby reassured him it was a gift. The result was Steven heard the gospel for the first time, ever. And we left him with gospels for his motel – we are hoping to see him on the way back home. 

When I think about it, I am not sure that we have taught our kids that following Jesus will probably mean that this life will have battles sent to destroy their faith. We cannot keep teaching the popular theology that says the Lord is supposed to make our lives happy all the time, and expect our kids to take our faith seriously. They will become disappointed when they discover it is not true. In our efforts to be fair and reasonable to all and sundry, we have lost the kind of absolutes that matter eternally. 

We can end up failing the Lord if we don’t take His command to love Him and others seriously. At the same time we need to love and tell the people in our particular corner of this world about Him! What we preach will never win popularity contests, and it will not lead us into a quiet life of ease. We will find our rest in Him, alone!  But when we said yes to Jesus we said yes to a different kind of life. A life of sacrifice and love for those who do not deserve it. It’s part of the cost of obedience.

Learning to love others through obedience is tough, but fruitful. However, if we have a part-time God there is a chance we will never know what shift He is on! Bye … 🤪 👋

P 2686 The way we see others …

/ DVH

makes all the difference!! 

For years I had quite strong expectations regarding the people who are close to me – people like family, friends and relatives …I hoped they would be nice to me because I had a broken-heart because of a difficult early life. That’s what you call an unwise expectation!  I was very immature and quite dependant on other people’s approval. My time recently has been spent growing UP!

I think I kind of expected other people to be nice to me because I was abused as a child. And those people who hurt me, were still in my life. Some of their personal faults and proclivities meant they actually formed my world-view in the first place!  But I’ve learnt over time, that unless Jesus is in charge we all remain the same, and sometimes … we can get worse! Putting the key to our happiness in someone else’s pocket is a very dumb idea.

This was kind of like a giant chip on my shoulder, but I didn’t know it was there, I thought how I felt was normal because of my greatly disrupted early life. I saw myself as broken and it was someone else’s fault, not mine, so I couldn’t help it. Meanwhile I totally ignored the fact that as an adult I now had the power to change! Everyone else seemed so normal, and it often looked to me like I was the odd man out. I did not make allowances for the fact that others are as broken, if not more so, than I am. We are all broken in different ways.

When we choose to view life through pain, sorrow and suffering, it can result in a distorted view. I was a very disappointed, broken-hearted, and sometimes angry child – now walking about in an adult body, with a warped view of others. Sadly that meant at that time I was making a choice to go round and round in a little whirlpool, instead of advancing up the river, under the Lord’s loving Eye. Meanwhile, if these people happened to hurt me again, then that was often the final straw. That action meant that they would never change, they would never be nice to me! And despair joined the party.

I wish I could say that Christianity totally healed me from any of those thoughts and ideas, but it didn’t. It sort of kind of fed them, by telling me over and over that I was fine, God loved me, but I was definitely broken, it was not my fault and I desperately needed healing! I was one of those people who were never going to triumph in adversity purely because of my back ground. That meant that I chased healing up one hill and down the other, using pretty messed up faith. Unfortunately what I believed at that time actually cemented me into the very place I wanted to escape from!

That’s when the Lord began to deal with me. He was gentle and kind, but firm and unrelenting. He made it clear that I could no longer go forward excusing my behaviour whilst I was holding other people to account for theirs!  I love these words from the bible  “…but God …” because HE is always the real reason we keep moving on. He is so patient, and many times I’ve clung tightly to the words in Matthew 12:20, that say this about Jesus:“He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle. Finally He will cause justice to be victorious.”

I started to understand just how broken everyone else is. We all need healing, and the people I was interacting with didn’t know Him at all. That meant if I wanted to see real change then someone was going to have to co-operate with Him! He gave me this strategy: “What if you choose to see those people as human beings – not as someone who owes you something?” That meant viewing them as lost, broken, damaged human beings, just like me..

You know in all those years in the wilderness wandering around desperately looking for someone who could heal my broken heart, it never occurred to me that I had the power for change already …but I wasn’t using it. I could choose to forget the past and simply love the people I was avoiding or I disliked. He gave all of us that power at Calvary. He chose, and now I can too. So I did. I chose to believe Him and not how I felt. I let go of any expectations that the other people would EVER change and grabbed hold of His hand – because HE will never change. Now He’s teaching me to love the unlovely, the people who persecuted me, and those who were supposed to love me but they didn’t or couldn’t.

When I made that choice, it opened my eyes. I already knew lots of scriptures about forgiveness. The reality was I read them, and I prayed and I meant it. However, I got disappointed over and over again because forgiveness didn’t seem to help me with how I felt – and the other person did not change. It was then that  I saw that my forgiveness was conditional, it relied upon the other person changing.

Praise God my feelings eventually caught up with His reality. The way we see others, makes all the difference.  God  is gently teaching me His Way to love, how to look and see others the Way He sees them. If I don’t expect things from others then I won’t be disappointed if they lack the ability to love. I have to see everyone through His eyes and leave my expectations with Him. This life is about learning to love, even those people who don’t love us. When we live that way – we are truly free.

“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.” 1 Corinthians 13:11.👋