Walk in the light

P 3191 Find reverse!

/ DVH

The wonderful thing about walking with Jesus is that when I apply His attitudes to my own life, with His help, I can daily learn from the Holy Spirit, how to die to self. I can always chuck my car/my life into reverse and change direction. Why would any of us want to remain in a pig pen, when God Himself has given us access to the Kingdom of His love – through His Grace?

Initially, I learnt that it is much easier to push dying to self aside, than it is to tackle it. In my own strength, I cannot do it. The reality is, I need to use my faith in His goodness, and start doing what He said in the book, using my own power of choice. There are no short-cuts. This life is our battlefield and our enemy is relentless. So if we get knocked down, we pick ourselves up and go again.

Let’s humbly confess our utter poverty of spirit to the Lord — “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3. The bible says being poor in my own ability to conquer the things that pop up in me – is a blessing! Now, I need to ask the Holy Spirit to lead me through the maze of thoughts and feelings that I have constructed internally. I’ve picked up attitudes and ways of thinking that are not from Him. So I need to come out of denial, into the reality that … without Him I’m sunk. Jesus Christ is truth personified. I was saved by Him, for Him. This means those things that drag me about can be conquered —I can change! I can live as His child right here, right now, in this world. God gets all the glory when I trust Him!

However inside my thoughts and emotions, I may have been already set up by my previous circumstances to become a seething mess of anguish, frustration and disappointment in myself and others. So my best choice is to pray fervently for relief and I have put the prayer “Please help me Lord” on repeat, minute by minute day by day! What if things don’t change? Should I assume I am the one exception to the rule? Of course not. I choose  to accept postponement, and allow my faith in Him be stretched.  Accepting NO, not now, is still a faith step.

We were not saved by Him to fail. The Lord Jesus and all He did, made this new life of ours, goof proof. Meanwhile – freedom from sin, is not permission to sin!  We cannot live as over-comers if we try to find the means of overcoming inside ourselves. Our permanent choice is to believe In HIS power within us.  When we discover somewhere in our lives where we are not using our faith, we ask for His help to tackle it. The Holy Spirit has a road-map out of anything. If you are sick you could end up taking pills because He told you to do it.

Sin is not just our actions, it also comes from our own inward cultivated attitudes. Jesus said this:“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” Matthew 5:30. Sometimes these attitudes and thoughts are so entrenched within our beings it will feel like cutting off a hand! But because of what Jesus did for us, we do not have to sin or make excuses for it. We have been given His power to walk away. He walked away, we can too.

We simply have to relearn how to live. That’s what the bible is for, to teach us how God Himself wants us to live. 1 John 1:9 says: “IF we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Jesus is utterly faithful – He can be relied upon to carry out His Word, because He is the Living Word! And now He is alive, in us! Every interaction with the Lord, is an interaction with His Word – here and now. We are writing our own stories of victories in Christ! Our lives will be transformed when we take whatever God Himself says, as truth and act on it, despite how we feel.

His love toward all of us is well and truly established in the bible. It was established before time began, and it will continue on into eternity.  When I choose to follow Jesus: “…the blood of Jesus continually cleanses me of all unrighteousness” – see 1 John 1:7. Lemme say that another way…AS I confess my sin and choose to follow Him, and not my feelings, I will be continually cleansed of my unrighteousness before God. This is how Jesus lived!

“But IF we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from all sin.”  Keep living in the light of His Word, and His blood will cleanse us. Sin has been dealt with. It has no power over us. That stuff that niggles and nags at us, is our old nature. Our feelings can lie to us and tell us some things are too hard and we can’t do it. Don’t you believe them!

Let’s take steps of faith, and put our feelings to one side, and do what He told us to do in the book. The way to get rid of a muddied view of this life is to live humbly, admitting our faults to one another and not excusing them. Let’s choose to forgive, and put aside the fact that so-and-so was bad to me when I was little.  Leave the past in the past. At the same time, I will have to capture those intrusive thoughts that have been sent to remind me of what they did, and conquer the feeling that I can’t help what I am doing.

Our new-life-focus is about staying attached to the Holy Spirit, doing things HIS way, This life is a series of choices, often made on the hop –  IF we stuff up and make the wrong choices, we throw ‘our car…our lives’ into reverse, repent and restore the Lord to the driver’s seat and drive on! Bye. 👋

P 2943 Signs of spiritual death

/ DVH

1. Lack of breathing –

We can easily ‘run out of breath’ as we walk with the Lord, especially when we do things in our own strength. Genesis 2:7:“And the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.” Without the Holy Spirit’s breath on and in us – we will die. He is the breath of life and He is our new best Friend. John 15:5 says:“We can do NOTHING without Him.”

2.Pupils fixed and dilated –

I don’t know about you but nothing ‘fixes my pupils’ like watching TV or playing a video game! You can stare at it for hours and lose half your life doing absolutely nothing! Matthew 13:13:“This is the reason I speak to the crowds in parables: because while [having the power of] seeing they do not see, and while [having the power of] hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand and grasp [spiritual things].” We need new eyes to see and new ears to hear. Ephesians 1:18 says: “… the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, …”

3. No heart beat –

Hearts grow cold and stop functioning when we hold onto grudges, or bitterness toward others, we short-circuit the new life blossoming within. Ezekiel 36:26-27: “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” When we are born again we are given a brand new heart – we need to watch over our hearts. Proverbs 23:26 states: “My child, give Me your heart and let your eyes delight in My ways,…”

4. Rigor mortis – stiff and cold –

Boy this one is far too easy, we can become so accustomed to other people’s hardships we don’t see them anymore. The passion of God thrives in a ‘red hot heart.’ Jesus said in John 10:10b:” I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”We cease to really live this new life when we stop following Him. Matthew 24:12 says: “And the love of the great body of people will grow cold because of the multiplied lawlessness and iniquity, …”

5. No response when shouted at and shaken – 

Some people once heard God Himself speak, but they only heard His voice as thunder because their hearts were far from Him. Romans 13:11 states:“And this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for NOW is our salvation nearer than when we believed.”The repeated, every day rhythms mean we are often lulled off to sleep. We need to be awake at all times, because temptation can sneak up on us. Ephesians 5:14-16: “This is why it is said:“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”

6. Cells and organs start to die –

Our relationships with other Christians get weaker and weaker. Church becomes a chore to be performed, instead of a meeting place of refreshment. Psalm 118:17 says: “I will not die, but live, And declare the works and recount the illustrious acts of the LORD.” Our destiny is not to live ‘dead’ lives, but to be living testaments to the goodness of our God. John 15:1&2. “I am the True Vine, and My Father is the Vinedresser. Any branch in Me that does not bear fruit [that stops bearing] He cuts away (trims off, takes away); and He cleanses and repeatedly prunes every branch that continues to bear fruit, to make it bear more and richer and more excellent fruit.”

7. The blood has ceased to flow –

We stop even thinking about the state of our spirit and just keep right on doing the same old same old, every day —one thing following another. Hebrews 9:14 explains, the blood of Christ, shed for our sake, cleanses  “… our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”1 John 1:7 states: “but if we [really] walk in the Light [that is, live each and every day in conformity with the precepts of God], as He Himself is in the Light, we have [true, unbroken] fellowship with one another [He with us, and we with Him], and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin [by erasing the stain of sin, keeping us cleansed from sin in all its forms and manifestations].” 

I urge us all to live this life, the only one we have, in the cleansing flow of His blood, filled with His Spirit.  Our new life in Christ transforms everything that would make us into ‘zombie’ Christians, as we leave our old dead life behind us. Wherever we go – His glory follows us instead. Don’t be caught DEAD with these spiritual ‘signs.’ 🤣 Bye for today.