We serve Him

P 3440 We need EYES.

/ DVH

Jesus gave us His power to impart His life, healing, deliverance into other people’s lives. We need His power, otherwise we will end up trying to love others without His input. We must be filled with His love over and over and over again. I’ve met many people who inadvertently get this concept around the wrong way. Maybe they think that being loving is meant to come from inside us. Well, they might have lots to give away – but I plumb run out – all the time! 

When we realise we’ve run out of love, we need to go back to the Source — or like a broken down car, we will be running on empty. Unfortunate things can sometimes happen when we do good for the wrong reasons. We must go to Jesus our Supplier, ask for His Grace, and then go and do whatever He tells us to do, using our faith. Our reliance is upon God’s POWER, not ours, that is a key factor, not an optional extra. We must lean on Him.

Love comes from God Himself. It can come in many forms but it always includes the grace to share it. The grace to even see other people and their needs comes from Him, and the grace to meet those needs also comes from Him.  We don’t have it and we can half kill ourselves trying to dredge it up. If we cannot be persuaded to engage with Him and then others, then we will expect someone else to do it and step back. 

But engaging with other people’s needs, requires prayer, then action. Meanwhile, we can be running toward something while we are praying, but please remember we need to PRAY. The Lord has so many miracles for us to share with others — we can’t do them, but He can. Let’s do things the way He tells us. We also can’t afford to postpone our participation in the works He has prepared for us for a time when we feel up to it. I know I fight that all the time, when I feel unwell, and I am tempted to withdraw.

 “We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love He has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.” 1 John 4:16 TPT.  The secret to our participation is to choose to live in love – then we can see other people’s needs. I’ve been reading a lot of written prayers recently – do you know that they all sound the same? “Please Lord help me with this, that, and the other. Please fix this and that about my life, please help my life.” Amen. It’s like we are ordering take-out! 

He is Almighty God, we serve Him and others. We cannot afford to allow any of our own needs, doubt, anger, disappointment, frustration, opinions to separate us from the Love of God. If we are not actively participating in His love then we are not truly living.  

Father God knows the end from the beginning – He knows LIFE wins! However, our faith will contain mystery – it can’t be faith without it. If a thing is a certainty then no faith is needed. But our little steps of faith responding to His love can move mountains. As we spread His steadfast love around us, we will help those who have never known or seen it before. And in the process we get blessed as well. That’s what God’s economy does – it blesses everyone it touches … we need eyes to see what is going on around us. 

We will also need to give up compromise. What do I mean by that? Perhaps we can see someone who needs help, or a bucketload of God’s love tipped over them, but we know them and they can be so grumpy, especially when it comes to the things of God. Nobody wants to run into the back of the truck of someone else’s prejudices, or hit the edge of their rage, because that person thinks the Lord didn’t do what they asked Him to do. Maybe rationalise away what we can SEE, by telling ourselves we don’t want to make things worse. We can’t afford to take that kind of risk, we could alienate someone we care about – so we don’t say anything.

We must look at others through His eyes of love and see them the WAY Jesus sees them. Which is impossible without the precious Holy Spirit’s help.  All we can see is the bluster or their external disguises on the outside, those things are put there to protect the person. Jesus can go right around the external and wave at them, and sometimes He says: “peek-a-boo.” 

Hubby and I have seen Him do it. We even had one person ask us: “What was that?” We explained it is a WHO not a what … and that led to an interesting conversation. Looking at this world through His eyes can give us a fresh perspective on the way this life was designed by God Himself to work. What we see as bad, our Heavenly Father has designed for our own good.

Let’s continually pray for love’s eyes to see what is really going on, because His eyes can see things we can’t. Otherwise our prejudices regarding what is good and what is bad … get in the way. I need more input from the Lord Himself and His eyes to see and understand what He wants from me, as He sends  me. Bye. 👋.

“And great crowds came to Him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and they put them at His feet, and He healed them,…” Matthew 15:30.

P 2974 Wake-up!

/ DVH

Sometimes I think the body of Christ in the West no longer has a song of deliverance, because we have our lives so busy and organised, there is no time to find out what’s really going on around us. It seems to me that a lot of the difficulties we face are seen as an interruption to our own personal definition of how this life should go! We pray ‘deliver us from evil’ and hope that will cover it. What a luxury we have!

We all live somewhere:  maybe we have a job and kids, their school stuff — this thing and that to do. We are so busy that we simply must continue to do things to maintain the rhythm of our lives.  Unlike our brothers and sisters in conflict areas all over this world… today more than ever, Christians are living their lives like a people who have forgotten Who He is, and what He has done, and what we OWE Him! Instead we sing “Live for Jesus” then go home and live for ourselves. We spend our  precious time here maintaining the things of this world.. 

I wonder what happened in Lazarus’ life after he came out of that tomb? You see this man knew, first hand, what it was to die … and then be given a new chance at this life. Are you sure your ‘new life’ is making a whole lot of difference? Maybe we need to become more acquainted with other people’s suffering and sorrow, instead of wallowing around in our own disappointment… all because we missed out on the brand-new bargain TV on sale! Our wonderful God is so much BIGGER than the Person we’ve made Him out to be. We see Him as SomeOne Who is supposedly hanging about waiting for bad things to happen to us  – so He can bail us out of them!  We serve HIM, it says so in the book.

After all, this is Almighty God we are talking about, and I don’t think it is appropriate to fit Him in around the edges of our already well-established lives, do you? I know, we have plans, things we aim at … but what about His plans? Did He just save us so we can go to heaven in the sweet bye and bye? Or does He have something for us to do with this new life He has given us?

How can we ever know the sweetness of His deliverance from hell and death, when we are often too busy, or scared, to be obedient and take a risk?  The Lord needs a people who are prepared to take risks all over the place just to bring glory to His Name. We cannot have our cake and eat it too – we must DENY ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him. That kind of life is never going to be convenient, the time is never going to be right, and … obedience is not an optional extra!

Here’s something to rattle everyone’s cages: “Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easy going formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires total attention.”  Matthew 7:13. MSG. I wish someone would tell me why we all work so hard to be on the wide road of ease, when the bible is quite clear, that road is the wrong road. This life is not meant to be easy!

Jesus Himself also said this, through Peter in I Peter 4:12.“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test you [that is, to test the quality of your faith], as though something strange or unusual were happening to you.” They are a big part of this new life we’ve been called to embrace. They are not interruptions to the routine of our household, even though they sometimes seem like that! They are opportunities to stretch and strengthen our faith.

Hardly any of us are interested in being missionaries to Africa, or an Asian country, or our local suburb! Most of the time we can barely manage the day to day difficulties that pop up regularly — those things that keep us distracted from our main purpose. Our main purpose now is to live for Him not just survive! Did Jesus settle down in a little flat somewhere in Jerusalem and hold bible study meetings every third Wednesday? He did not! He fought for us and died and then He left us in charge. Boy does HE know the meaning of faith!!

If this world is a mess then it is because the church has been silent for far too long, because we are afraid of the consequences of speaking out. We need to faithfully pray for those dear brothers and sisters who are living in conflict areas all over this world. Those people who are still faithful to their heavenly calling. These people face horrors beyond imagining, simply because they have chosen to follow Him! These are the real heroes of the faith today. They live by faith daily. And they are not just victims of geography either … Unlike us, they are unable to think ‘ aren’t we lucky because we live somewhere safe?’  

The Bride of Christ in the West is enjoying an enormous indulgence – we are asleep in the light. Sadly we’ve sometimes been known to pitch a fit if we can’t get eggs at the supermarket this week. It’s time to wake up and do the things God previously planned for all of us to do.“My old identity has been co-crucified with Christ and no longer lives. And now the essence of this new life is no longer mine, for the Anointed One lives His life through me—we live in union as one! My new life is empowered by the faith of the Son of God Who loves me so much that He gave Himself for me, dispensing His life into mine!”Galatians 2:20 TPT. Bye. 👋

P 2775 The best kind of knitting.

/ DVH

“He Himself carried our sins in His body on the cross so that we would be dead to sin and live for righteousness. Our instant healing flowed from His wounding.” 1 Peter 2:24 TPT. This verse shows us that Christians have been totally restored in God’s sight through Christ’s selfless act. When Jesus said: “It is finished …”  — the exchange of His life for ours was complete, signed in His own blood, forever. When He rose from the dead He proved, once and for all, that He had the authority and power over death. He authenticated His claim.

You and I don’t have to be trapped, or sucked into sin anymore – because Christ’s death has taken us out of the kingdom of darkness and put us firmly into the Kingdom of God’s marvellous light. This is a fact, it is already established in heaven. Our job is to believe Him and start spreading this good news around. God is not angry with mankind – SomeBody else PAID for our sins. We are to introduce, and display God’s kingdom, down here, in Christ’s absence. However, we have His Presence, the Holy Spirit –inside us. He is always with us to help us accomplish the things He tells us to do.

God said way back in Genesis, that the sun, and the moon and stars, were put into the sky for a sign. They are there to exhibit His faithfulness. Human beings know that the sun will come up again tomorrow, but before that happens it will disappear temporarily, and night will come. In the same manner, we know that we are as eternally saved, today, as we were yesterday. The sun and the moon are there to remind us that what God has established cannot be changed, until this world passes away.

As Jesus’ followers, we really do need to make sure we understand what Christ did for us. When He died – we died. Even if we don’t feel any differently, we can no longer legally be held captive to death anymore. Our old life is gone. We’ve been given a new life and that means we no longer have to sin. Sinning was part of our old dysfunctional life. Now, we can choose to operate in His power and overcome our old ways. Christ’s death gave us the power of choice.

Before Christ did what He did for mankind, people were trapped by their proclivities, heartaches, family habits, and lacks. But we’ve been taken OUT of that life and given powerful, eternal choices. Our sole thought now, is how do we live this new life the way HE would?  We gave away our old way of life, when we said yes to Him. We serve Him now. Christ died voluntarily, and now we serve Him voluntarily. Simply because we love Him and we are grateful to God that His Son saved us from the previous life we were trapped inside. Now we live in freedom – one decision at a time.

We useour faith in His truthfulness and goodness to believe that we are free from the impulses and attitudes that bound us in the past. That’s why we read His book, so we can see His faithfulness and truthfulness in action, with other people who are just like us. We probably won’t feel any different when we begin to live like this, because it will take a while for our feelings and thoughts to come into line with what the bible says. We don’t have to live in that old kingdom where feelings and circumstances run our lives anymore! Instead, we choose to obey what we read in His book. Jesus Himself taught us that this is the way God has chosen to release His Kingdom into this world.

“When someone curses you, bless that person in return. When others mistreat and harass you, accept it as your mission to pray for them.”Luke 6:28 TPT. This verse from Luke shows us that the way Jesus did things is not at all like the kind of response we would expect in this world. When somebody’s sin, or their attitudes against us come up in our minds, we need to take those thoughts captive … Why? Because what God said is the greater reality! Then we act upon His Word, rather than our feelings. The Kingdom of God has a language, a culture, a way to treat others that is foreign to this world. We are now ambassadors of that Kingdom. That is our mission. To bring heaven down to earth.

The language of heaven is LOVE. Love recognises no boundaries, no faults or sins, no personally inflicted pain and hurt –love loves others, simply because He received us, first. His love is powerful! It has an ongoing effect in the lives of those who receive it. That love motivates and propels us forward into serving others. Even people who hate us. By choosing to live a life laid down for His sake, we gain continual freedom to release the power of God in extraordinary ways. As we walk in this kind of selfless love, the Body of Christ will grow. It is knitted together. Bye. 👋

“From Him the whole body [the church, in all its various parts], joined and knitted firmly together by what every joint supplies, when each part is working properly, causes the body to grow and mature, building itself up in [unselfish] love.” Ephesians 4:16.