Weary

P 3365 You don’t have to think that way anymore. 

/ DVH

Yesterday I spoke about living aware of God’s care. The Lord challenged me later that day about this blog, and He used my own words to do it. Here we go: “Instead let’s proactively remind ourselves that Jesus died to give us His holiness, His right-standing with our Father, and His Grace to finish whatever Father God has asked us to do. So we must lay aside ours.” First of all, it feels kind of weird quoting me to me, but let’s just move on and pretend it’s normal, OK?

In this life I’ve learnt to recognise the signs of someone else’s anger very quickly, because I was once governed by anger, and I didn’t like it much. So, all by myself, I figured out placating people was the easiest way to escape, and I did that! Unfortunately, placating people doesn’t work all that well within God’s idea of His Sovereignty, but I couldn’t seem to stop doing it. Fear of man drove me around like a bus!

If the person who was angry antagonised me enough, then eventually, I would blow up. The disagreement then went on to get very loud and all thoughts of placation flew out of the window. I had not cultivated the fruit of self-control, because I was used to shutting myself up or mouthing off, depending on the day. I didn’t get self-control by using my faith in what Jesus did for me – I got it because I was afraid of punishment!

When we come to Jesus we bring our sins with us, and lay that junk down at the foot of the cross. But, today I realised that we need to bring our own hard-learnt way of doing stuff and put that there too. In the end we can end up with what Jesus said, PLUS what our parents, teachers, friends, bosses, rabbits and relations etc. have said to us, and about us. Or those kind of things will compete for our attention. We can get caught between two worlds – the world of the Spirit, and the old me that used to be. We need to renew our minds and deal with the junk – on purpose. Otherwise we will do the right things for the wrong reasons.

Sin is easy for all of us to identify, because Jesus Himself told us that His primary commandments are to Love God and each other. Anything that isn’t that, is sin! Which, BTW, He has already paid for it. Thank you Lord! Stay with me, and don’t rush to the healing rooms just yet OK? I didn’t need healing, my mind must be renewed and transformed. I was still being influenced by other people’s sins and their actions against me – from when I was too little to defend myself. Those things also need to go to the cross – and I was still being partially governed by my own self-effort in some areas. Everything has to go to the cross, because the bible says: We‘ve moved out of darkness into His marvellous light. 

Before you and I came to know Him, there were things that we did that were sin, and maybe like myself, there were also things that life itself taught us were bad so we exercised our own will, and stopped doing them. I don’t think you could easily persuade me to steal. Years ago, as a child I used to pinch small change out of my stepfather’s money-box, and when he caught me, he taught me quite emphatically that this was a bad plan. Especially when He introduced me to his belt – I never did that again!

I was also clearly taught not to lie, so now I fall over myself trying to make sure I don’t lie. My point is this: both of my parents taught me those things by berating me and using physical force – I did not learn them from the Lord! I learnt THEIR WAY, not HIS. So when I came to know Jesus, ‘don’t steal and don’t lie’ were already firmly established within my list of things I should not do. I forgave my parents long ago but I did not take what I actually learnt FROM THEM, to the cross. I still had a harsh master in my head, and the Lord Jesus is not like that!

I know in my heart that Father God would have wanted me to learn those things in a different way – not involving violence. But learning from the Lord meant I wouldn’t pinch stuff or lie — and the roots of my responses would have come from love and respect for our Heavenly Father, instead of FEAR. And I had to take what I had already been taught to be true before I met Jesus, to the cross as well.

Like the scripture says:“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30. Ergo, if it’s heavy and hard, then it isn’t the Lord! It might be time to revise where those thinking patterns came from.

We don’t have to see those wrong belief systems as sin, unless we still harbour resentment toward the perpetrators. Instead we need to take them to the cross, put down the old way, and pick up His yoke. The Lord wants you and I to end up with a blank slate, not a whole lot of man-made left-over reactions. Obviously it is not good to blame the other person/people/culture … but don’t blame yourself either! So forgive everybody, including yourself, and move on using your faith. Leave behind your old ways of thinking and step into a renewed mind using the grace and righteousness that Christ Himself has already given you. Bye 👋 PS Remember, when you give something to the Lord, you don’t have it anymore! 

P 3250 Stay poor in Spirit.

/ DVH

“Strong to overcome. From Prayers on Fire, written by Brian Simmons and Gretchen Rodriguez.                                                     “Every trial is a divine opportunity for our character to grow. It’s a chance for us to discover how truly faithful Jesus is and how strong we are when we’re fastened to His love. When our faith is tested and fear looms in the shadows, we can reach for the Light and He will come.

Trials are a launching pad for our glorious transformation. Though the enemy creates them to take us out, Jesus shakes things up and turns things around. Ironically, trials become things we can be thankful for. If it weren’t for them, we’d never know how faithful He is. If our love was never tested, we’d never truly know how devoted to Jesus we are. To discover His power, there must first be a need for it. To relish the joy of laughing in the face of adversity, there must be an enemy to laugh at.”

“Jesus, teach me to fight my battles from the posture of confident trust and perfect peace. Help me to remember that the safest place to be is in the warmth of Your glory, where the flames of praise are ignited by Your nearness. Your love casts out every fear and fills me with confidence.” Amen.

My thoughts: some Christians have such beautiful insights it blows my mind. I don’t often read this particular site, but hubby receives regular input from “Encounter God” The Passion Translation. As you know, I’m not big on including things, but this particular piece really challenged and spoke to me personally. Boy there is nothing like the truth to sort out your motivation. In this case my trials can show me how faithful Jesus is. 

Sometimes difficult things continue for a while. Unfortunately, they don’t just disappear on command! Aligning our hearts is one thing, steadfastness under pressure is entirely another.  And we never know which way anything is going to go, so we must be prepared to hold fast under pressure. That takes practice. I must say, I am learning that the Lord is not only stretching our faith to grow our faith, He is also revealing His goodness to us through the tough times. He knows better than we do, how far we can go. That’s called trust. 

The following scripture tells me who Jesus is —it comforts me better than someone else’s words can … Isaiah 42:2-4a “He will not cry out or raise His voice, nor make His voice heard in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow weak or discouraged before He has established His justice on the earth….”

Instant comfort! Our part is to believe what He says and hold onto it, by reminding ourselves that He’s good and He’s looking after us. Then we deliberately give the whole situation to Him, and only do whatever He tells us to do. The we leave it with Him. Don’t try to figure out an answer or oppress or berate yourself for being human and hurting, instead allow yourself to rest in Him. He already won that battle you are fighting! Learn to rest.

Matthew 11:28-30 says: “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  We are bathed in His comfort, as we read and believe His book. The Old Testament or the New Testament – it doesn’t matter! If we actively listen to what the bible is saying, and act on it, treating the scripture as instructions, we will begin to learn His Ways.

So first step – we need His Rest. Our own rest can be kind of seasonal, it comes and goes with whatever is currently going on. Taking up HIS yoke means we are choosing to learn how to respond, from Him, our Personal Counsellor. We don’t ignore trials, we face them leaning on His understanding and we follow what Jesus said or did. We can do this without fear because of Who He is and What He has already done for us. I put what I think aside. This is not the time to figure out someone else’s POV, it is the time to let go. Our ways are complicated, His are EASY.  So, if it is complicated it is not His Way! If what is happening is heavy and it is burdening me, I haven’t entered into His rest yet.

I only do whatever He tells me to do – if He says fight, I fight. If He says rest, I rest. We are not fighting against other people! Our warfare is against principalities and powers and Jesus already beat them. He has a plan for you and I to get through things. So I pick up my frayed feelings and mentally walk away, and continue to thank Him for helping me. His desire is to reshape my thinking so I trust Him more. I love the line in the “Encounter God” inclusion that says: ‘To discover His power, there must first be a need for it.’  It’s OK to be needy! 

Our God always cares about the needy no matter what the need is! My best advice comes from the Beatitudes:“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3. I am learning to stay poor in Spirit!  And I refuse to be satisfied with the things I think I know — otherwise I know I will stop moving. I just keep going back and back to Him. There are people who fall over and can’t get up again, because their ‘system’ isn’t working anymore. I don’t have a system, I just rely on Him! 

Many of us have gone from trusting Him, into trusting what we’ve learnt about Him – we’ve stopped being poor in spirit and became satisfied. And yes, there IS actually a difference. Bye. 👋

P 3229 YOU are His House.

/ DVH

“Here’s the one thing I crave from Yahweh, the one thing I seek above all else: I want to live with Him every moment in His house, beholding the marvellous beauty of Yahweh, filled with awe, delighting in His glory and grace. I want to contemplate in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 TPT.

It is so easy to read lovely scriptures like this one and think of God’s house as being somewhere else. Like in  heaven, or at church, or bible study, or in our worship times. Let’s look carefully at this next scripture, which I’m sure we all know very well, however, I’m not positive we are actually applying ourselves to live it out. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Who is IN you, Whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies.” I Corinthians 6:20.

Yeah! Sobering thought. We, you and I … are now HIS house! If we want Jesus to ‘hang with’ us, we need to make His house a place He would like to inhabit. And we’ve gone about doing this the wrong way in the past. God loves the things that last. “Faith, hope and love,’ that’s what we are aiming at. His temple is not just some hypothetical glorious ideal, far, far away from us. This verse clearly shows us we are individually responsible for the state of His house. Knowing this is the beginning of change, but it won’t actually change the way we think, until we digest it and grab hold of it and act on it. Holy-Spirit guided action can, and it will. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.” 1 Corinthians 4:20.

I can’t tell you what that will mean to you, but I can tell you a few of the kind of things that have affected me, and none of them are about what I eat, or what I watch on TV, or read etc! The first one is something that I call: “feeding the doubt.” FAITH! Doubt happens when I start ruminating over anything that isn’t working out the way I thought. The thing is, God’s temple is dedicated to Him and what He wants, so what I think I need or want, pales into insignificance. His Will His Way needs to be my permanent motto. And our God loves faith. So I repent. 

I may not think I have done anything wrong, but I choose to actively trust the Holy Spirit to know what HE likes. It’s His house, so I want His desires. I need to stir up my faith and talk to the Lord about His goodness to me. Then I ask for His help to remember those times when I have trusted Him, and I’ve seen Him graciously do the miraculous in my life. All those little things that don’t matter to anyone else, but they have impacted me greatly. Remembering His goodness is a great active sword. Whenever my faith falters, I need to stop, and reestablish the fact that He is good.

The next is to actively keep my HOPE in His goodness alive, in a primary place in my heart. Because without that hope, I will start trying to solve my problems by myself. His hope is my anchor. Hope anchors me into the bedrock solidity of His never-ending-always-present love. Otherwise I can float about being affected by the wash of someone else carelessly speeding past me. Now I keep on doing whatever my day brings up, I go over everything good in my life that He has given me, and thank Him for those things. I can also thank Him for saving me, and continually washing me with His Word.

This last thing that affects me is equally important – loving other people extravagantly. This bit is where we counteract what other people do. If I do good things for a return, I am expecting a benefit from this world. My hope will be shattered. When I do the things, He asks me to, as He leads me, especially for people who don’t deserve it – It becomes extravagant LOVE. This can sound impossible, especially if the person/s involved aren’t super-duper sweet guys. In other words, we aren’t exaggerating when we say we can’t love them, because they are, humanly speaking, not nice folks.  

Actually, loving not-so-nice people extravagantly is actually easier than loving the people that you deeply love, who have treated you badly. The more invested we are in the person, the harder it gets to be obedient. We can think up lots of excuses to opt out of obedience, when someone we love mistreats us. Things like thinking they should know us better, or give us their best behaviour all the time.  How realistic is that?? 

The reality is, people are human beings. Some things – even if they seem easy to you – can be hard for others. This is the time we need to remember that people will let us down, but the Lord never ever will. We have to switch our focus off them, onto Him. They can’t do everything we need – but Jesus already did!  Loving extravagantly means we lavish love on others, even when it is undeserved. This is the kind of love that blows people away. It’s not just nice, or kind, it is over-the-top love, the kind Jesus gave away all the time. 

Loving others extravagantly reaps a harvest. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Galatians 6:9. I call this kind of verse, the kind of verse we try not to memorise because it seems too difficult to practice! The bible has loads of those. The ones we skip and hope God isn’t looking. Because we are His house – we actually don’t have that luxury. Remember, right here, right now – you are His house. Bye. 👋

P 3216 Obedience is not an optional extra.

/ DVH

Being obedient is the best way I know to walk with the Lord, and it can prevent a whole lot of confusion. I discovered that I needed to purpose in my heart to simply choose to be obedient. I’ve learnt to read the bible, pray and meditate on it and — do what it says. At the same time, I’ve found as I focus on loving other people, suddenly a whole lot of stuff that I needed, was added unto me along the way. “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.

I believe that the depth and purpose we desire to love the Lord, appears when we intentionally, continually apply our dedicated obedience to His Word. Father God doesn’t need our mental agreement with whatever He has said, Jesus and the Holy Spirit agree with Him and that’s a majority right there!! This is what Jesus said about obedience in John 14:15-17. “If you love Me, you will obey My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper Who will be with you forever. That Helper is the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it doesn’t see or know Him. You know Him, because He lives with you and will be in you.”

The Holy Spirit is our Helper, and Jesus specifically asked the Father to send Him to us – to help us to obey the Father. At the same time, the Lord expects us to treat the Holy Spirit with reverence and respect. The Spirit of God is gentle in His heart, like Jesus is, and we need to respect that He will not cannonball all over the place, or even push us along. He clearly knows what truth is, and it is unfortunately quite evident from the above scripture, that a lot of the time, we do not! 

My favourite times with the Holy Spirit happen when He shows me what the truth is, in whatever scripture I am reading. It’s like someone turns the light on when I’ve been sitting in the dark trying to puzzle out what God wants to say TO ME.The precious Holy Spirit will not show us His heart, or what He wants from us, or even share His secrets with us, if we have no desire to be obedient. What would be the point? 

Let’s look at Jesus’ own personal lament over man’s lack of willingness to live their lives close to God. It is recorded in Matthew 23:37, where He says to Jerusalem:“How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” Have you ever tried to cuddle a child that didn’t want to be cuddled? They are all wiggles, arms and legs and cranky with it. That’s what I think about when I read Matthew 23. God wants to love on us, but we want to hold ourselves far enough away from Him so we still have a say. Or we try to wrestle ourselves out of His grasp, as we go as close as we dare to — but no further.

Here are some more specific scriptures about being obedient: 1 Peter 1:14 “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,…” Acts 5:29: “But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.” Psalm 1:1–2: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.”  What we think about matters. The problem seems to be this — when we think about obedience long enough — if the change in our life is going to be hard, we postpone it, or try to go around it. 

Human beings keep their minds busy, trying to figure out this life so we feel more comfortable. So we problem-solve. Many times our minds will keep on returning to the difficulty, trying to figure out another answer, because we don’t like the one we have! The Lord has taught me to give things to Him. He told me to put every problem down, at His feet, and refuse to pick it up again. I give my problems to Him and He carries them for me. 

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” That burden we worry about all night might never happen, and even if it did, what can we do about it? Our King promises to intervene and teach us how to get through things, AS we learn to rest in Him.

Years ago, I kept getting stuck on the way other people I knew were living. What I thought they should do. All that stuff meant I was not meditating on God’s goodness to me! Instead I was whining, grumbling and complaining because my feelings were engaged in things that weren’t anything to do with me. At other times I wanted someone to help me, but I wanted them to do it my way. I didn’t want to consider God’s answers in case I was convicted of sin and I needed to change my attitude. I blamed those other people, because they wouldn’t change their way of doing things, and … make my life easier for me!  Yeah, you heard me! Oy vey!

Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”  I kind of think I might know why we do this… we want all the lovely benefits—but not the training in righteousness. We want a maid, or a butler, or a personal trainer following us about doing the hard yards for us. Jesus did all those the hard yards for us, long, long ago. But now, today, we must enter into the battle of all battles with our old self! The battle to think like He does! 

Obedience is not an optional extra, it’s the narrow way mentioned in Matthew 7! It is designed to reveal His heart to us, and our hearts toward Him. Living for His sake is always a choice, but it is also part of our ongoing salvation. Bye. 👋 

P 3163 Mercy

/ DVH

Mercy seems to me to be the least appreciated spiritual gift! “We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us… …if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. “ Romans 12:6a&8b. It seems to me that everybody wants to be the resident prophet or a leader! And encouragement, giving or serving, come a bit further down that list of desired gifts. In spite of those attitudes – mercy seems to be the last one.  Um when is the last time you heard or read a sermon preached about mercy? This world would be so much better off if we learnt to embrace God’s mercy for ourselves and others! Mercy has been given to the body of Christ for everyone’s benefit just like leadership or generosity.

All those gifts that are mentioned in Romans 12 depend on the measure of faith we’ve have been given by God, but it seems, strangely (!), some things seem to stand out more. I wish I could say I have found a reason why mercy seems to be an overlooked body ministry … but I can’t.  It seems that many Christians want to aim at  leadership or prophetic gifts. Meanwhile I’m pretty sure encouragement flew out of the window years ago. I know about 3 people who flourish in this gift, and one of them is my husband! Encouragement is a transformative gift, the person who encourages others sounds like our wonderful heavenly Coach – the Holy Spirit. And He is always right here, cheering us on.

Has anybody else noticed that each of these gifts are traits of Almighty God’s Character? I mean, how exciting is that? Operating in all or any of them means we will be daily walking in His shoes. So we get to do what He does for US and others. We simply pass on what He gives us, to other people. Meanwhile, maybe mercy seems to be an old-fashioned concept? So let’s look closely at it, because I have this funny feeling we cannot afford to miss out on this gift — bearing in mind what Paul himself said about gifts. He said some body parts don’t seem to beall that special! I think that mercy is incredibly important – it is not just a whole lot of sweet loving old ladies up the back at church knitting socks for the poor!

Here’s a couple of verses to think on: Matthew 5:7: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.” In the Message bible it says: “You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.” Then there is: Luke 6:36: “Be merciful just as your Father is merciful.” See! Here’s a huge bonus! We get to be like Him when we walk in mercy! Last one – Lamentations  3:22-24. MSG: “God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, His merciful love couldn’t have dried up. They’re created new every morning. How great Your faithfulness! I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over). He’s all I’ve got left.” 

Hah! MERCY IS A GOD-QUALITY! It’s revealed in His enormous daily generosity toward us. He makes sure we have new mercy every morning. I like that. I need new mercy!! I can run out of His qualities even quicker than I run out of toilet paper and toothpaste! I have found that our Heavenly Father hides important truths in quite ordinary places – you have to look to find them. This is why we ask questions, and why “we study hard to show ourselves workmen that are approved by Him.’ It’s not for a pass or fail mark. It’s so we can know Who He is and the riches of His glory that He has already given to us – in the church.

The Lord Jesus’ life was anchored into His Father’s Will and Character. We are to be like that too, simply because we are daily given the opportunity to get to know the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. All three of Them anchor us into the Kingdom of God and His kingdom  is realer than anything else. Because of Their ministry to me, I am learning to think in  ‘scripture’ instead of regurgitating rubbish from TV or man-made concepts.

Meanwhile, like I said before – our God loves to hide things! Half the fun of reading the bible is chasing around going after ‘what He wants to teach me today.’ Our spiritual eyes pop open and we go:”Aha! Now, I get it!” One of God’s Ways is to ‘Sneaky Pete’ things in His book. Translation —- He hides the good stuff in plain sight – but when you ask Him He will give it to you. So this means we are going to need to be diligent to find out what He wants from us – after all we are exhorted to: ‘not grow weary and never give up because eventually we will reap the reward.’

In the Gospels there was a widow lady who badgered a judge into submission, and at another time some guy got bread outside of shopping hours – all that happened because they wouldn’t quit. I’ve learnt to insist. I have found the Lord rarely puts a sign on the stuff that He says or does, He expects us to notice it, to be alert and present with Him. A whole lotta people miss a whole lotta blessings because they aren’t paying attention … just saying is all!

Let’s be clear, mercy is a Way God uses to reveal Himself. He doesn’t have to scrounge around to try to find a good attitude. Every single morning He simply hits the refresh button and mercy is there for each one of us. Feel free to cheer! It’s always the same consistent mercy, on a different day. Mercy is something we can’t earn or deserve, just like our salvation. We have His mercy every day, because it is backed up by His faithfulness. Plus it’s demonstrated wonderfully by Jesus Himself in the bible!

This is stuff we stand on. If I need mercy I know I am going to get it, because it isn’t like a new house, which benefits ME, mercy is something of HIM that will benefit everybody!  People don’t have to get what they deserve anymore – we can give them His Grace instead. FYI you can’t have mercy and live in judgment – one cancels the other out. We have a brand new page every single day, and at the top it says: “God’s mercy toward ME is waiting for me to wake up, it was released and manifested through what Jesus Christ did for me.” 

I want to encourage anyone who feels like they might have the gift of Mercy – PLEASE USE IT. We all need it! What we really lack from day to day, are the heavenly qualities only God Himself provides through other people and their ministries. ‘Lord, please help us all to receive and sow Your mercy wherever we go. And please bring Your appointed ministers of mercy out of hiding so they can minister to and help the Body of Christ .. plus everybody else around them.’ Amen. Bye.👋.

P 3082 I AM your oasis.

/ DVH

“Are you weary, carrying a heavy burden? Come to Me. I will refresh your life, for I am your oasis.” Matthew 11:28 TPT.

When I read this verse today the thing that hit me right between the eyes was that Jesus said: ‘I AM your oasis.’He didn’t suggest going on a 4 week cruise, or going to some spa, or theme park or even a Christian conference of some sort – the Lord says HE(!!) is our oasis. We have been misled by our feelings to think that Jesus only goes to conferences or turns up for revivals – He’s IN US – we take Him with us wherever we go! Ya might want to sit and think about that for like a millennium – I know I did – OK so it was 60 seconds … you caught me. 

You know I think we can be really bad at comprehending what the Lord is saying, most of the time. We either overstate it to the point of fanaticism and make it into rules, or we ignore it and hope He won’t mind. We can be so lax with our obedience that we only participate in extending our faith for minor things – like finding a car spot when we need one – or asking God to help us with our day. He wants to BE our day!!

He’s not an add-on. Faith steps are about things we can’t easily do by ourselves — and maybe we kind of step really quickly around things like submission, which is also a faith step. It’s like we think these things are beyond us … so we hope the minimum participation will do …”After all, Jesus knows I am weak!” That’s why He wants you to call on Him to be your strength. We go through this life trying to avoid problems or pray them away, He wants us to confront them with Him!  He longs to be our oasis.

It seems we have yet to work out that His motivation is not just to bring relief, but to usher in permanent change. Transformation of our hearts. Maybe we are hoping the Lord won’t notice because we are embarrassed with our lack of engagement with the things that matter … well guess what?? He knows, because the same Heart that tenderly watches over you, pays attention to everything else. Some problems can be solved by simply changing the way we live. Please do not misunderstand me, He is not watching over us to catch us out in our sins or errors. Instead He patiently waits and watches for us to turn our heads, even just a little bit in His direction – because He knows a better way. 

There is an easier way to live this life we have inherited from Him. But we will have to humble ourselves and submit to Him in order to fully participate in it. Everything in our world’s current view of modern reality suggests submission is not a good thing. Children don’t have to submit to their parents, wives don’t have to submit to their husbands, and nobody has to submit to anybody else’s agendas — unless they pay them well! Submission seems to be a bad word — but that word actually means we have a primary mission which takes priority over other things. Seeking His kingdom is primary – then other things get added on!

It is no wonder that we have left God’s Kingdom behind, it’s because His kingdom is a theocracy, not a democracy. Let’s daily remind ourselves that Jesus Himself submitted to His Father’s will. Sadly it seems that unless human beings can see that it BENEFITS them, they don’t give those ‘other things’ He wants to add into our lives very much attention. So many Christians have cleverly found and featured all the me-first benefits … because the bible tells us“to forget not all His benefits…” I am not sure this response is all He had in mind! 

Off-loading our burdens onto Jesus seems to be a gigantic benefit to me – but we will have to relinquish our anxiety, worry and fear at the same time. Personally, I can’t think of anything better than handing my awful pile of nasty impossible stuff to Him. However, what does He mean by – I am your oasis? An oasis is a place of water in a desert, or a place of refuge in a crisis — or even a place of refreshing. When you view that word this way it begins to make sense. The Lord is not talking about using His Presence like we would drop off our dry-cleaning and return to find everything neatly pressed and clean …He means in this life His Presence is our dwelling place.That’s an AIM – not a suggestion.

I like Ephesians 3:16-19. These 3 verses are great to meditate on because they show us what we are aiming at. 

“I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Being filled to all the fullness of God is another AIM. We need to remember ..these verses are a prayer … the Apostle Paul prayed it for the church at Ephesus. But the Holy Spirit Himself not only inspired it – He preserved that prayer in the bible for our benefit. Paul is praying for US too – every time you read it say Amen! And please –  read it a lot. Now we need to use our faith to believe that Christ actively dwells in our hearts, and we need His power to understand what we have been given! It is not enough to say ‘yes’ — we have to DO yes!

Then our roots go down, so deeply into His love we cannot be moved. This is how and why the saints of old gave up their lives and were martyred. They didn’t do it for an ideology, they did it because they had been internally changed, forever!! His Presence in our lives is our OASIS. Bye. 🥳

P 3074 Use your faith to make withdrawals.

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“Everything we could ever need for life and godliness has already been deposited in us by His divine power. For all this was lavished upon us through the rich experience of knowing Him Who has called us by name and invited us to come to Him through a glorious manifestation of His goodness.” 2 Peter 1:3 TPT.

Our Heavenly Father’s goodness and generosity is glorious! It has forever changed the whole of human history. Humanity went from an exclusive club, to an everything-included open-door policy that flourishes and grows as we all get to know Jesus! Knowing Him continually opens new spiritual doors. Whether you are at the beginning of your walk with Him, or you’ve been walking with the Lord for years —there is no greater joy than to know Him and follow Him, by serving Him and others. 

The Apostle Paul says this in Philippians 3:10.“That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death;…” Knowing Him includes suffering. We are bound to suffer when we don’t get what we want, because to serve Him, we must die to self! However, there is a huge plus — now we enter into true fellowship with Him. We have a shared experience! He is our chosen Leader in and through every situation.

Whatever we need to gain transformation, and greater intimacy with Him we already have. He already gave it to us.1 Peter says that in verse 3 Chapter 1! We didn’t even have to earn this honour. Feel free to raise a ruckus and jump about, because if that thought doesn’t want to make you cheer, maybe you’ve fallen a bit behind as you are following Him. May the Lord fix that! I’ve found astonishing things happen when we start yielding to Him. The more we lean our head on His chest, and listen to His words, the more we understand that this world has nothing lasting to offer us. 

If you were to give me a hundred million dollars and show me that you deposited that large sum in my name, in writing, all I would need to do to participate in what I have been given, is to turn up at that bank and start making withdrawals. And that’s the problem for many Christians — they don’t make withdrawals. That’s what our faith is for – to make withdrawals. We have been given everything we need for this life, but we need to use our faith to access it. 

We are going to have to put our whole selves into this new life we’ve been given, in order to experience transformation, because these holy, heavenly things won’t fall on us. So there is a pathway we tread, as we follow Him. That pathway leads down, and it will take care of pride. We learn to practice repentance and reparation, even when we think the other person should apologise. Now we are choosing to value peace above being right. The by-product is that we stop judging others by one standard, and myself by another. There is a far greater blessing when we walk through difficult things with Him.

Back to my thought above:  If I want to access that deposit Jesus died to give me, I will have to exercise my faith. Belief means I will act on what He has told me, whether it seems too amazing to be true or not, simply because Jesus Himself has told me. He tells me I can live life proactively instead of reactively now. I don’t have to wait for proof! It’s all in the book. I have chosen to live this life differently and I stick with it. I don’t try to weasel out of what He says, or excuse myself because of some reason or other — instead I ask Him to show me how to obey Him and then I do it. I don’t do it for YOU, I do it for Jesus, because that’s what a life laid down for His sake looks like!

When He says I don’t have to conform to this world, because I am no longer captive to its demands and threats, I step into what He said, rather than check with my feelings or previous experiences. When He tells me I can love the unlovely, I don’t wait to feel like it – I start loving them. I follow His instructions from His book daily, and I know He will teach me:  ‘this is how I want you to love that person.’ 

I might wait for you to bring that mythical 100 million dollars to my house, but I could have a mighty long wait. The way for me to access this blessing is to go to where the provision is – the provision is in activating our faith, and JESUS IS OUR PROVIDER. I go to Jesus and learn from Him how to repent about sin, and fix things with others, and then I obey what He says in His book.

The Lord has already told me that every other yoke I can pick up, apart from His, will be too heavy for me to bear.“Come to ME, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30.

Ask a bible-believing Jesus follower if they have experienced transformation, so they can live like He did – without His input. I’ve tried. I got fed up, then I gave up. My desires and needs were too great for me to manage. But when I asked Him to help me, I began to make withdrawals on the deposit He has already put into my name.“…Everything we could ever need for life and godliness HAS ALREADY BEEN DEPOSITED IN US by His divine power.” Amen. Use your faith to make withdrawals. Bye. 👋

P 3060 Times of refreshing …

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“For I will refresh the weary soul and satisfy all those who have given up on life.” Jeremiah 31:25 TPT. The thing with verses like these is that it is easy to look at it, and then look at your own personal experience and think … maybe I keep missing out on that.

Here’s what changed the way I read things like this — I stopped seeing my own experiences as the plumb-line and I chose to take His Word literally instead. Now I look up to heaven and say: “Dear Lord, Thank You for refreshing me. Thank You that You are so faithful, You always keep Your promises.”Amen.

Life today is hard. It is so easy to want to give up on it. The people all around us choose to surrender to the rapidly increasingly, flooding disaster of foul media water, which sweeps away everything else in its path. So we have people who doubt their sex, or people that think that killing a bad person is justified, or that  lying is OK so long as it doesn’t hurt anybody. Apparently stealing is not stealing when it is only on paper and nobody knows. And sleeping around is just normal.  

This filthy stuff can daily wash over us and constantly demand our opinions, our participation and our judgment. Big mistake – huge! We must choose to yield to His greater wisdom. There are times when those awful things push themselves right into our own homes. Right here, right now, there is only one body of water that is safe to jump into and that’s the river of life. It’s in the book! We cannot afford to agree with the people who are being swept along by a torrent of filth, and go on to join them by jumping into the miasma. His life in us has something life-giving to say in every single circumstance. Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding:  in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Amen.

Here is another verse of scripture that helps me with life. It goes like this: “We do not have the audacity to put ourselves in the same class or compare ourselves with some who [supply testimonials to] commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they lack wisdom and behave like fools.” 2 Corinthians 10:12. Jesus is always our yardstick.

I have learnt that who YOU are, and what you do, cannot be my standard. I cannot afford to take my standard from the rest of mankind, because the bible tells me that all have sinned, they have fallen short of God’s glorious ideal, and Jesus is God’s glorious ideal. He met every single standard and requirement that was necessary, when He overpaid our debt. The best measuring stick is Christ, in every single situation. We no longer have to see each other through that yoke of slavery, when I see you, in Christ, I am blessed.

When I am reminded of verses like this one in Jeremiah 31:25, I stop using my feelings, or peering at the circumstances, or even the manifold activities around me, to try to satisfy my own need for validation. I don’t have to blame YOU, Jesus validated me with His love. I would not go to the barbers to buy JAM, I need to go to the distributor of jam, the supermarket.

When someone is annoyed with me, my bible says:“My God shall supply my needs according to His riches in glory.”So I go to God to supply patience, long-suffering, joy etc. I have access to this blessing because of what Jesus has already done on my behalf! He has plenty of the stuff we need, and He loves us. We can just ask Him for it!

Our God is out-of-this-world rich in all those things we desperately need daily. He can’t run out – heaven rests on Who He is …

Plus, I have been promised my needs in writing. Who needs a Lear Jet or a mountain of gold, when you can have Grace whenever you need it? And boy do we need it when somebody gets all-up-in-your-face and you know that it’s their problem not yours. God promises us times of refreshing whenever we need it, and personally, I need His refreshing daily. Sucking it up buttercup does not work well when you are mad. You are likely to get indigestion instead of refreshed. 

There is nothing more life-changing than asking Him for patience, or long-suffering, or joy, or hope, when you need it. You will find you can go further than you ever thought you could, when your motivation changes from: “Please make me happy and comfortable” to “I want what you want Lord.” ←That BTW is a great prayer – but do gird up your girdle Gertie, because this ride can get bumpy before it becomes FUN. When we think of this life as the only life we have, we can make very poor decisions. Yet the glory of God, and all of heaven awaits us. 

Stephen, was a church deacon in the book of Acts. He was given such a clear look at Jesus standing beside our Heavenly Father in heaven, that I doubt he felt the rocks whacking into the side of his dear head, breaking his poor body. He was refreshed when He was dying!! When you are struggling, when you are fed up, when you feel like giving up – ask for times of refreshing from the Lord. Bye. 👋

P 3051 The meaning of Commitment.

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The word commitment appears 127 times in the bible.“Overall, the Bible teaches that commitment to God is an all-encompassing devotion that requires both action and faith. It means dedicating our efforts, enduring through challenges, and holding steadfast to the promises of God, ultimately leading to a fulfilling and purposeful life aligned with His will.” (Would you believe it – that came from Google!)

When we talk about being committed to Christ what do we mean? Is it merely about the idea of SomeOne saving us from hell? That’s not a bad thing – but that’s not all commitment means, as you can see in 1 Kings 8:61 above.  Aren’t we blessed to live in a time where we don’t have to remember 600+ laws like others do? Galatians 5:22,23 states:“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.” There’s no law against living this life like Jesus did, everything He did fulfilled the law perfectly.  

Icky question time. Ask yourself… are you kind and forbearing, can you put up with anything? Do you love others, in thought, and deeds? Are you filled with joy, and peace? That’s good, there are no laws broken there. Are you gentle with others? Can you control yourself ?… No law against that either. Do you like absolutes? Then 1 Corinthians 13:8 is just for you …“Love never fails”– everything else will one day fade away, but love will remain. Living a life of love positions us to be obedient. Now we have just one commandment! Loving Him and loving others.

More not-so-random questions. Psalm 37:5 says:“Commit your way to the Lord;  trust in Him and He will do this:…” Here’s a thought – do we remember to give our burdens to Jesus? That’s part of committing our way. Do we pray for the sick? Are we witnesses showing His love in the way we speak and act? Part of commitment is to acknowledge Him in ALL our ways. A divided aim means a double-minded life. The real problem is always our decision to commit to Him and obey His Word. This is how God showed His commitment to us – He gave us His Son while we were still sinners!

Colossians 1:29 says this: “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in Whom we have redemption.”  Did you notice that scripture from Colossians 1:—is in the past tense? It’s all done! Jesus Himself said:“It is finished.” Now we are to live using our faith to activate what we’ve been already given. If we are not doing that, then we are believing a lie and our faith is not active on our behalf.

Maybe someone has convinced you that you are not eligible. Perhaps you feel you cannot control the things you do and you live an out-of-control existence, and so you feel condemned all the time. But:“there is no condemnation for those who are IN Christ Jesus.” That means we need to stay connected to what Jesus already did for us. Self-control was deposited into our lives when we said “yes” to Jesus. Just like all the other fruits .. we don’t have to find them, or make them up — we simply need to live like what He said is true … BECAUSE IT IS. Trees produce fruit because it is in their DNA. Our spiritual DNA has changed. Don’t let the enemy trick you out of your legitimate inheritance.

‘Abiding in the Vine’ means living this life convinced and convicted that what Jesus said is the utter and absolute truth. It means I know, from experience that what He said is truer than how I feel, or what you do, or whatever is going on around me. The Vine does not have to pray the sap will keep it alive …the sap is already part of the Vine. He came in when we said “yes.”

Right here, right now, He’s IN you and me. We need to live this life using our faith that He WILL NOT break His Word – or that connection, EVER.. As we live a life of faith we are transformed. The Holy Spirit promises to direct, guide and help us with His Eye upon us and our circumstances.So when we fall over, we get up asap, and repent to Him and others. We repair whatever we did to hurt someone else and re-establish our connection with the Lord and … then … we go on again. 

In Galatians 6:9-10 it says: “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” Don’t get tired in the hard bits … press IN. The secret to overcoming is to keep on keeping on. Persevere. This world may tell you that you must get this and that right, but God says:“Just keep trusting Me and treating others the way you want to be treated – let love be your aim.” LOVE IS THE SAP! Let it flow.

Commitment is about choosing to have our obedience to Him first in our lives, thoughts and actions. We refuse to do anything without Him because loving Him, has become our entire life. Bye. 👋

P 3043 Learning lessons.

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It is always good to share the places where your faith fell over and bumped its head. I know people love positive testimonies, especially in times like these, where we don’t hear a lot of ordinary Christians standing up to testify about something the Lord sovereignly and graciously did in their lives. But today I want to share a bump in my road that loomed up at me unexpectedly.

Do you ever have those moments when your faith appears to be broken and you pray and … no answer. So you wait on the Lord, and  … still… no answer? I had one of those this week. My faith didn’t just wobble, it fell in a ditch and I couldn’t find my way out of it. I asked people to pray, I read the bible, I talked things through with my husband, yet disappointment continued to prevail. You would think that something cataclysmic happened. Nope. When you hear what it was, you might easily say: ‘well that’s a dumb thing to get upset about.’ You’d be right – it was. 

I lost my wedding ring. To make matters a lot worse for both of us — it was our wedding anniversary! We’ve just celebrated 38 years of marriage – so my timing was pretty off. But it was just a ring. Except it wasn’t … And I had no idea that such a small thing could cause such enormous grief. After all my exhortations about giving stuff to God, I sat down in the dirt, figuratively, and wept my heart out. I felt like a cardboard box in a violent rainstorm. Soggy, wet and broken. Often lost little things like that eventually turn up, but it hasn’t …

I blamed myself of course – which was completely ironic after writing a couple of days ago about blame and shame!! Hullo!! Un-awareness and over-simplification anyone??? The thing is, I am always taking off rings etc. and leaving them in obscure places, because they irritate my fingers. We looked in all those dumb places immediately, then hubby did the hard yards and looked in truly out-of-the-way places … like the vacuum cleaner bag. The rubbish bin. Behind cupboards etc. The whole house – twice!! No ring. I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore and I still didn’t know why I was crying. 

Yes, this sad little tale has a happy ending, and no! I did not find the ring! But we’ve kept pressing on anyway – who knows what the Lord will do with the things that happen in our lives? So I kept praying and listening. I sat down with the Holy Spirit and asked Him what on earth was going on. Mainly because my reaction was so out of proportion to what had happened. It is only a ring right? Like my hubby said: “You still have ME, I’m still here. The ring is a symbol that’s all.” It turned out the ring was a symbol alright – a whole lot of pent-up grief found an exit.

You would think I could easily get a handle on losing something relatively minor, but I couldn’t. It turns out the ring was one loss too many. I shan’t bore you with my turbulent  background but it is filled to the brim with a whole lot of loss. Some of those things were my own sins, and some of them were other people’s choices.

And of course recently, we found out my dear Mum, who is 97 and was aiming at reaching 100 – has cancer all throughout her body. Praise God she is not in pain, but she is a shell of the person who used to fill any room every single time she entered it. It is hard to watch. She is my mother, and mothers are special people. 

That’s when Father God said to me, in His great mercy: “You have come this far, with those burdens you’ve been carrying, but you must go no further with them.” Amazingly a lost wedding ring uncovered a whole lot of suppressed grief. Who knew?? God did! And He used it for His glory to heal many broken places in my heart. 

That’s when He reminded me of a parable Jesus told once in Luke 15:8-10:“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” This dear woman tore her house apart trying to find one coin because it was so valuable to her.

Eventually the Lord’s full point finally dawned on me. I was distressed about a ring, but that ring is a lesson. It helped to give me insight – a glimpse into Who He is. It actually shows me how deeply He feels about PEOPLE. The following two parables talk about people. Those thoughts blew me away – that lost ring is merely an illustration of how the Lord feels about human beings – and Jesus explained His passion this way. The lengths He will go to find one lost soul!

If a woman could not stop looking until she found a coin, and my husband and I spent three days looking for my ring –  can we even begin to imagine what it is like for our Heavenly Father to lose just one soul? And He is losing millions of them! I was totally awestruck that He would reveal His heart to me through something so simple. He so sweetly spoke my language to explain His Heart to me. I will probably always remember losing this ring, mainly because it has become a vehicle that taught me more about Him. Bye. 👑🙏