Well-equipped

P 3324 Part-time Christianity doesn’t work.

/ DVH

Ephesians 3:4-13 MSG.“As you read over what I have written to you, you’ll be able to see for yourselves into the mystery of Christ. None of our ancestors understood this. Only in our time has it been made clear by God’s Spirit through his holy apostles and prophets of this new order. The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of Him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board. This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.

And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, Who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels! All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in Him, we’re free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don’t let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!”

What a great teacher this man is! Paul really encouraged me with this passage, he puts everyone on equal footing and includes the people who-haven’t-met-Him-yet, as well as each other. There are no rock-stars in Paul’s theology. Jesus Christ is all in all and He is everything! It’s such pure brilliant revelation. This man of God definitely found his heavenly-calling – it was to help everyone he met find God and understand His Ways. Then he says something that just blows me away. “I couldn’t have done what I do without His help. I wasn’t equipped to do this job.”

Paul was brilliantly equipped to preach the gospel to the Jews, he knew the law inside and out. Yet God sent Peter – the fisherman – whose only qualification was that He loved Jesus – to the Jews … and Paul went off to the Gentiles. Do you see that? Neither man was well-equipped to “argue God’s case” to the people they were sent to. God’s qualifying feature is WE CAN’T DO IT.  So if you know you can’t do it, then you are half-way there! The other half is knowing the Holy Spirit and His ways, personally. 

If you feel like you are a failure because you may have done dreadful things, but you have the revelation that God is redeeming you, day by day, then you are equipped. That’s called humility BTW! Paul consented to the murder of Christians, and that horrible thing became one of his greatest assets. It helped to keep this man humble. Everywhere he went, people knew what he had done. He even had problems with the Lord’s disciples because they knew his reputation for murder! 

Don’t let the past dictate your future. Our God is brilliant at do-overs and He does them so well, they stop being do-overs and become new beginnings.  Please don’t give up on yourself when you fail either, go to Jesus and begin again. I tell myself daily: “Just one more time. I need to get up one time more than I fall down!” He’s the God of second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth chances etc. He won’t give up on you, so don’t you give up on your faith in His goodness.

Paul knew he was ill-equipped for the job God gave him, but His faith in God’s goodness was bigger than the things that happened to him along the way. Having a big faith IN GOD matters. The trouble is, most of us scrounge about trying to make our faith bigger. Set your EYES on our big God! Did you know that there are 3,600 types mosquitos in this world, and there are over 25,000 -35,500 kinds of fish, and 90 species of whales. Does our Father sound limited to you? 

The only thing that can limit God is sitting right above your shoulders. That 28-35 cm bit of skull, brain and flesh, can distort our thinking and deprive us of our part in Jesus’ plan for our lives. That’s why the bible says: ‘renew your mind’ … it needs renewing!  Have you ever caught yourself thinking something and then you suddenly realise you still have a childish view of reality? We all do it. Things happen and we get stuck. Our brains are definitely not perfect. 

But His love is. That’s the bit to remember. That’s what kept Paul going through so many trials and tribulations. Plus the wonder and joy that he discovered as the Holy Spirit revealed God’s plans for mankind. This greatly admired and learned man found out he knew nothing, and he accepted his ignorance with great joy, because it meant he could rely upon our God even more! We have nothing to contribute but ourselves and a total surrender to Him, daily. Part-time Christianity doesn’t work! Bye. 👋

P 3024 The sky is the limit.

/ DVH

How many people today have been boxed in by this world’s interpretation of their ability to learn, or their mental condition, or emotional or physical skills? Today’s so-called experts analyse people and put them into categories, with more labels on the outside than a misdirected parcel! This one has ADHD .. that one has Autism …  the kid is three and someone has boxed it up and classified it for life!  Our kids are actively being “categorised” before they have left High School. We need every member of our Father’s huge family and some people are just plain late bloomers.

It is a very bad idea to put this world’s ceilings on what we think someone else can do – no matter how many letters they have after their name. We must appreciate what each of us has been given for the benefit of others  “… preferring one another in love…”  There are times we try to use someone else’s differences against them – that’s ungodly. Almost half of the recorded disciples were fishermen and Jesus chose them! Today, in order to manage humanity, our societies’ categorise people, so we don’t have to deal with each person, one at a time. 

Thank GOD! He is not even remotely like that! He sees every single one of us and loves each one of us as His very own individual children. He doesn’t look down and think; “This one is broken” OR –“That one is no use to Me.” We are all incredibly dear to His heart – no matter how this world sees us. And we are all incredibly important to His Body too. We are going to need every single member of the Body of Christ standing in their place, because the enemy of our souls is at the gates and he is trying to pinch our kids by writing “not acceptable,” “don’t expect much” and “broken at birth” all over them. Don’t you believe it.

Our Heavenly Father is a redemptive Father, Who longs to reveal Himself to all of us. Every single one of us has a place in His plan! Yes, even the so-called broken ones!! We are all broken one way or another— some of us are simply badly broken inside where nobody else can see. Occasionally some of that ugly stuff leaks out every  where and that person gets put in jail. We must not disqualify people on the grounds of what this world thinks about them. Jesus clarified sin: “…but I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.” Matthew 5:22.

Sinfulness is our common denominator, not so called beauty, athletic prowess or intelligence! Right now we are reaping what we have sown into this world through our own ambition, and greed for more. Sadly we have sown into the whirlwind. Our children are growing up believing that to be pretty, handsome, athletic, gifted and/or highly intelligent is something to be greatly desired. Who says that? 

Manufacturers, fashion gurus, universities, teachers, people in political arenas — the people who will make money from what we do … THAT’S who is saying it! Give me one reason why we should trust their judgment? Unless making money is your god, these attitudes are poisonous vapours. They come, they go. Even the best athletes get hurt, highly intelligent people go wandering off into abstract land, and supposedly beautiful people are constantly criticised. What are we doing to our kids? Why are we not teaching them to be who God made them to be? We are a gift to each other. 

Even in the church we fail. We can easily make too much of one gift over another …“But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or, Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”?

As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honour just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?” 1 Corinthians 12:21-27 MSG.

I think the bible tells us very clearly how we need to treat each other – we need to encourage other people’s potential to serve the Lord. Let’s look for Jesus in others, watching for the Grace of the Holy Spirit on each life. I’m not talking about positive speaking either. I’m talking about having a genuine prayerful appreciation for someone else’s POV. You never know, if we all do that we all might learn something!

We need every single member of the Body of Christ, even those gentle, timid souls who hide up the back and hope nobody asks them a question. We are limiting a limitless God if we limit His kids based on our own opinions and experiences. Instead we need to proclaim – the sky is the limit and the heavens beyond it! Bye.👋

P 2874 Our attitudes help define our understanding …

/ DVH

Luke 8:15 “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.”Jesus is teaching the people who choose to follow Him around, about God’s kingdom, and how it works. First, He uses a story about a sower, and then He explains that further. However, His meaning is only clear to those passionate souls who want to truly hear about God. We, have been incredibly blessed – we get to hear both versions!

After the sower parable the bigger crowds dispersed, then the Lord took the time to expound that story to His disciples. He treated these people differently than the crowds who followed Him around, because they were the people who were going to take His place! He wanted to teach His disciples, His dedicated followers, the ways of the kingdom. He was incredibly wise and He knew that those people in the facebook crowd can have hard hearts and little application! 😶

So after the crowds had left, Jesus expounded His allegory and made it clear and applicable for their lives. The Lord wanted His disciples to see, through His loving insight, that the gospel can fall upon deaf ears, or busy ears, or hardened hearts, as well as being subject to other unforeseen things which can literally pick up our knowledge of God and carry it off! Plus the real eternal life which is in what He tells us personally, can be choked out by our own fear, doubt, carelessness and disobedience.

He is showing us the way to ensure and increase our participation in the things of God. To do that, we need to learn to take note of the dangers, and make sure we are not involved in the sort of stuff that will drag us under. Our default settings are not getting the job done – we get distracted and the birds of the air, the cares of this world, are picking off our potential. Jesus has taught us that today, right here, right now, we need to pay attention and participate in the Ways of God.

To do that we are going to need dedicated obedience and prayerful watchfulness established in our lives in order to be able produce a good crop. He explained that we have a great need for hearts that will not swing about all over the place. Add to that, the ability to listen carefully to whatever He tells us, and esteem what we’ve heard, and ACT on it. Without HIM we are nothing. We can come up with great schemes, but only God can bring us through tough times.

I strongly believe it is essential to retain the word by making it a part of ourselves, so that we are transformed by ingesting it and becoming it. Did you know if you eat too many carrots for days you can turn ORANGE? That ingestion leads to an outward change everyone can see. As we live out what the bible says, it becomes part of the way we think, and act – it stops being a theory, or even a great admirable teaching, and becomes our way of life. Who we are.

The circumstances of us living this life – on again, off again, in and then out – can conspire against us and leave us fruitless when we finally stand in front of the Master Gardener. He has given us two options in this parable. Believe it or not both are useful. The first story shows us that life can and will conspire against us, plus circumstances can occur that can harden our hearts.

The second story shows us how incredibly important it is to walk daily with Him. The people who wander off from following Jesus do not plan to wander off. The cares of this world overwhelm their devotion to Him. And His teaching becomes story-like – interesting, instead of LIFE-GIVING. That’s when we are less likely to hear what He wants to say to us, right here, right now!

And obviously this parable shows us the need to choose the right way, if we want to be fruitful. That often comes at a very inconvenient time!  We must never forget we live in enemy territory and that means we are subject to other people’s agendas, and life’s circumstances – they can steal away the reality of what Christ has said. Only by progressively allowing ourselves to be changed, will we stay available to His heartbeat. 

Christ has already provided the answer to these difficulties that haunt us every single day. His death on the cross is the single ingredient that makes our ongoing spirituality available and viable. We dare not factor Him out – otherwise we will become groupies instead of disciples. Groupies follow someone for the fun, for the excitement and notoriety.  Disciples lay down their lives. Our attitudes define what we understand, we must choose to press in and press on. Bless you 👋