Yielding

P 2891 Obedience is its own reward.

/ DVH

People say odd things sometimes. things like: “I can’t hear God.” Here’s a big fat clue. Did you obey the last thing He told you to do? How are you going with putting Matthew chapters 5&6 into practice? That’s a great place to start!  I think the Beatitudes will keep us busy for a lifetime of practising, listening, learning, and allowing His Word to transform us. I must admit I have never quite figured out why we skip those first two commandments, and still feel good about ourselves, because we’ve obeyed all the other ones.

Opportunity came knocking on this man’s door! “Why do you ask Me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”“Which ones?” he inquired. Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honour your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbour as yourself.’“All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” Matthew 19:19-22. Jesus is not talking about our owning stuff, by the way, He’s talking about the kind of stuff that owns us.

Point number one: This young man was on the right track:  when we choose to follow Jesus, we need to ask Him this kind of question. Yes I am serious! There is way too much back-slapping going on in the Body of Christ, and not enough soul-searching. I ask myself questions, because I know I am not done yet.  I know I’ve wasted a great deal of my life so far, trying to fit in, and find approval. However, this young man had approval from the Lord immediately, because he had done his best to obey what he already knew. God is so generous – He values the attitudes of our heart. But, at the same time He’s not shy, He will also expose what’s else is in there too.

Point number two; Never ask a question when you are not prepared to get an answer!! I believe this man was sincere, he wanted the life of God in him and he wanted to be wholly His. Jesus gave him what he asked for – right there, on the spot! There are many times we go to the Lord and all we want is to be petted and patted. Life has gotten rough and we need a big cuddle. If we want to be mollified and pronounced excellent, then we need to go to someone who wants something from us and ask them the above question. Those people will tell us how great we are because they have an agenda!

Personally, I think we are better off asking our enemies to give us their opinion – they may not be entirely accurate, but they won’t pander to our needs either. Our enemies may have a great read-out on what’s wrong with us!  In the interest of full disclosure I must say I haven’t done that one yet…! I’ve been put off because I’ve had plenty of enemies tell me – they volunteered! … what’s wrong with me. My problem was … because they were enemies I didn’t think I had to listen! Ya might want to Selah that thought a while.

Point three: did you notice that Jesus praised the man for his ongoing efforts? Yet at the same time, the Lord actually knew what was holding this man back from his expressed desire to do whatever God wanted from him. The desire to do what is right in God’s eyes, is not the whole ball-game. There is always more, and in this guy’s case the ‘more’ was in his finances! None of us are perfect, so learning what we need to know is a blessing, not a criticism.

Now let’s not miss the punch-line, shall we? After Jesus tells this young man to sell all the profits from his own hard-work and give the results to the poor — then He says the most amazing thing: ’YOU can be My disciple and follow Me.’ This is the reason I wrote this blog today, we all have things in our lives that we want more than God – we just choose to ignore them. We live our lives virtually unaware of what could be holding us back from utterly yielding our lives to Him. Maybe you could ask yourself this question: What is it that is holding me back from giving the Lord all of my life, and choosing to obey Him – no matter what it costs? 

I can’t answer that question for you. I can only tell you that in my own experience, you can never ever out-give God. His plans for us are to give each of us a hope and a future. Sometimes we can stumble over full-surrender, because we don’t know what is on the other side of yielding everything to Him. However, we do know that God is gracious, He is kind, He’s OUR loving Heavenly Father! 

If we only focus on what we will lose … we’ve missed the real point. God is good, what He does, is always GOOD. We just don’t get to define ‘good’ for ourselves! Obedience is its own reward — check it out:  Deuteronomy 6:24; 10:12-13; and Proverbs 9:12; Ecclesiastes 11:5b.  Bye 👋

P 2868 One choice at a time.

/ DVH

You know, if we are not careful we can say yes at an altar, when our passion for Jesus is high, and choose no the very next week, because somebody else is driving us crazy. What do I mean by that? It is much easier to make the choice to serve Him when His peace, love, hope and joy are upon us, and much harder when we are out there in the ups and downs of every day life! The Lord is still there, but our awareness of Him can dim. The Israelites sinned in the absence of Moses’ presence, and Moses was the duly appointed “God” spokesperson!

Let’s remember that choices like these need to be made over and over again. It is a hard choice to say yes to His Ways and no to how I feel at that moment of impact … when someone else is driving me bananas! When we choose to die at that crucial moment, our journey toward transformation flourishes. Actually the meaner the other person is;  and the more wrong they are about your motivation and attitudes;  the bigger the opportunity to die to self!

Being misjudged is probably one of the hardest spiritual tests to face. When you live inside your own skin and you know that another person in that particular moment has no idea who you are and where you are coming from – that’s when the temptation to escalate the angst and confusion grows. Nobody likes to be misunderstood.

Let’s just think about that idea for a minute. Have we ever seen anyone more misunderstood than the Lord Himself? The contrast between what He actually came here to do, and what other people thought and said about Him, as well what they did to Him is utterly terrifying. Pilate said it best in Matthew 27:22,23 “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify Him!” “Why? What crime has He committed?” asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify Him!” And Jesus said nothing.

Tunnel vision took over. Crowd think. They went so far down the wrong road, they had no thought about going back. Their bad decisions had blinded them to their own faults and prejudices. Anyone can see that in those moments a wicked spiritual force was put in charge. The Jews were so in the passion of judgment, that they ended up cursing themselves. But even though Pilate knew everything about this situation was wrong, he wriggled out of his responsibility to set an innocent man free … by handing Jesus back over to them. 

Choosing God’s way isn’t a once off. In Pilate’s case his wife had already warned him about Jesus, and told the man to leave Him alone – but fear of man, or uprising, or whatever – meant he abrogated his responsibility and snuck out the back way. And before we waggle our fingers in disdain at that man, do try to remember the time when you snuck out the back door and left the boss, or teacher with the blame, or your spouse, or your sibling … The bible tells us sin is mankind’s common defect. 

“No temptation [regardless of its source] has overtaken or enticed you that is not common to human experience [nor is any temptation unusual or beyond human resistance]; but God is faithful [to His word—He is compassionate and trustworthy], and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability [to resist], but along with the temptation He [has in the past and is now and] will [always] provide the way out as well, so that you will be able to endure it [without yielding, and will overcome temptation with joy].” 1 Corinthians 10:13.

So there went all those excuses! The thing is, I know personally what that is like. I’ve done it, I stopped looking for the way out and I’ve given in to temptation instead. I missed God’s opportunity for change. There’s no point in blaming Him for not fishing us out of something we got ourselves into. However!! …I know, personally, that there are times that He rescues us anyway, just because He’s so good and He loves us – He chooses US. The application of the above verse is one of the ways we get endurance – by enduring, by suffering long, by believing for the best in others, when their worst is on display.  Which is not a popular thought really.  

It means we need to pay attention to what we choose all the time. Even in unguarded moments.  Blanket statements about choosing God’s Ways aren’t worth a hill of beans, in the day-to-day muddle of life. What matters is what we choose when we are being misunderstood or provoked. Those choices mean we are valuing our relationship with Him and He is our priority. Things keep getting added unto us when we make Him our priority – stuff like real love, and long-suffering. Bye 👋

P 2864 Don’t go anywhere without HIM!

/ DVH

Luke 5:1-10:“When He (Jesus) had finished speaking, He said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch. Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But *because YOU say so, I will let down the nets.” When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So they signalled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!”  For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon’s partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will fish for people.” So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him.”

*”Because YOU say so” … let’s just let that thought sit there for a minute or two… and reflect upon the ordinary simple fisherman that Jesus spoke to – Peter. I have it on good authority  … Google! 🤣 Hah! How come I can believe Google but sometimes struggle to believe in what HE says. Well, that thought is for another day. Any-way, apparently fishing by night is far more successful. Even hobby fishermen go out really really early in the morning, or at dusk ’til about 1.00 am. Why? Not a clue – feel free to tell me if you know!! 

Here is what I noticed when I read that scripture today, there was something so powerful and appealing about Jesus … PS actually it was the Presence of SOMEONE… and because we have the book we are witnesses of what happened. The Holy Spirit, He came upon the Lord right after Jesus was baptised. Maybe we’ve all undervalued hosting the Presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives! He has promised to be with us, just like He was with Jesus. John 14:26: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My Name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” 

I do know that He helps me type this blog, daily! He reminds me: “There is this verse and that one!” Thoughts like that just pop into my head … like John 14:16-17b:“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth.” Let’s just pause again and think about this for a few moments. Do you think that Father God is going to listen to Jesus’ request when HE asks for us? Yeah, me too! 

So why don’t we feel like we have Him? Here’s my peanut gallery thought — because we can’t just look for the Holy Spirit with our feelings – we access His Presence using our faith and obedience, and by the way we choose to live. Faith values His Presence more than anything else. We understand that you and I can do NOTHING without Him.

And here’s Galatians 3:14:“He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.” And there we have it. We receive the Promise God sent us, because the Lord Jesus died to make available to us — as we use our faith. You know, our faith gets severely tested when we’ve done something that we know He doesn’t like. Yet sincere repentance changes that in a heartbeat and we go back to walking with Him. Charge up your faith in His forgiveness and go, go, go again!

Let’s make a New Year’s resolution – no more walking in and out of the Holy Spirit’s Presence – let’s all just stay IN and do whatever we have to do to live that way! We can all live this way, so long as we are prepared to live our lives for His Ways. God does not exclude us, He never will! We exclude ourselves when we decide that we want what we want and we know better than He does. We get out of sync with Him.

Jesus chose to manifest His heart at the beginning of His ministry, to a bunch of fishermen who had worked hard all night for nothing and yet He cared enough to rectify their problem. Does this sound like SomeOne you can trust Who is on your side? Uhuh! The secret to living our lives for the Lord lies in walking around with HIM! Yielding – letting go of our own agendas. We pray, we ask, and we believe that He will not lie, because we have His promises – AND we let the Holy Spirit become our treasure.

My very best advice is don’t go anywhere without Him…  I should listen to my own advice more!! And value Him above all else. Jesus did. Bye! 👋

P 2598 No fake smiles please!

/ DVH

My dear hubby loves the Emoji movie, especially that over-the-top female smiley face that blinds people with its toothy grin. He thinks she is hilarious. You know, that face is actually pasted on – it’s stuck. In other words that emoji has been carefully drawn to pretend to be something it isn’t.  So when bad things happen, that smiley emoji isn’t being REAL — which is just like a whole lot of Christians. Bad things happen and they paste on a smile but inside they feel God, and everyone else, has let them down. 

Most people in this world know FAKE attitudes a mile off. It is so much better to be your real self and repent for stinky attitudes, than it is to hide who you are. Now if you happen to be a grump … then the answer is to be transformed. 😂 The bible covers that! Please note: transformation is not instant. It’s repetitive… it’s re-pet-it- ive … it’s actually quite repetitive! So now we spend our days learning to lean. Getting stuff right is no longer our goal, leaning on Him is! 

If we are not careful we can make living for Jesus … into a future goal. We can live this life hoping that if we fake it we will eventually make it. Yielding, surrender, dying to self – these are all key words.  Otherwise transformation becomes something we work hard towards achieving, but we never seem to arrive!  The bible says we need to be living for Him every single day. 

Almighty God wants us to draw on His strength all the time, using our faith. Faith grows when you use it! So we exchange His beauty for our ashes. His joy for our mourning etc. We are human and we run out quite quickly — but Jesus is rich in these things ! He will give us what we need as we live a life of total dependence. The Lord is not fooled by our positive, Sunday morning smiley faces.

We could see miracles every single day if we stop trying to be what God already made us and learn to yield to and trust in Him! Listening to yourself being kind to someone, when you wanted to smite them mightily a minute ago is a miracle! Success is no longer our goal – because we know can’t do anything without Him and we don’t want to be without Him.“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make straight your paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6.

We need to be changed inside, and honesty matters.  We can’t! … But He already did it for us. Some of our nice attitudes are barely skin deep — so when they are provoked they end up coming out. The Lord is not looking for perfection … Jesus already nailed that, and then He generously gave it to us – for free. Ask yourself this: why would Almighty God – Who loves us – want us to live our lives pretending to be something we are not? But oh! How He LOVES a truly transformed heart and life. Then when someone else hurts us, we feel worse for them than we do for ourselves.

I know some transformed people. They know they can’t do anything without Him, but they yield in obedience to what the bible says daily, so they can change the way that they live. They are not perfected. Not at all! But they enjoy being close to Him, and they don’t want to give that up for living a shallow life that has no substance. Things stay shallow when we stop living by our faith.  We must learn that we are not called to exhaust our OWN patience/love/joy/peace,  first — only to find that we have run out! Here’s a hot tip, let go of your pride and GIVE UP RIGHT AWAY and fall into His everlasting arms. He will supply that need.

My point is, learn to pray “Help help” early! We cannot afford to wait until we are overwrought and exhausted because we’ve been wrangling a problem in the natural. I pray a surrender prayer all the time now. I remind the Lord that I won’t be able to  manage anything at all without Him. I do that at the beginning of the day and I repeat it when I find myself pasting on a fake smile. I could care less about looking incompetent, or inefficient. I cannot tell you how much I enjoy seeing Him active in my life. I feel Him help me to go further than I ever could in my own strength. I know I can’t meet Christ’s standard, what He did was perfect. So I start with surrender and I don’t move from there. 

We have all developed coping mechanisms over the course of our lives and when we get saved, we carry those coping mechanisms over into our faith. Then when we read in the bible and see what we are supposed to look like, who we are meant to be, we increase the pressure on ourselves to be like that. Unfortunately, when we fail in our own efforts – we feel we are letting Jesus down. And if we do happen to succeed, then WE GET PROUD.

All that leads to a level of inadvertent deception, and a lack of transparency that prevents intimacy. It stops Christians from becoming all we can be in Christ. It also leads to a form of religion with no power in it. We need to learn to live our lives dependent upon Him, using our God-given faith instead of striving to reach an unattainable goal. We cannot make ourselves perfect. He has already accepted us.  No more fakey fake smiles. Learn to lean on Him. 👋

P 2555 Boldness/ confidence.

/ DVH

Boldness and confidence are both initiated and fostered by our personal relationship with the Lord. Let’s look at Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” The place to foster confidence in our relationship with the Lord, is in the throne room – in our intimate one on one, time with Him. This is the place where God freely gives us mercy and grace and the will to live new lives. Our desire to walk wholeheartedly with the Holy Spirit will lead us into His new life. 

Yielding our will to His, means we have chosen to learn to love Him through participating in His processes. Selfishness falls off when we love for what we can give, not just for what we can get! Some people believe we approach the Lord only to worship Him. YES! Please always do that! However, our primary reason to be with Him, is simply because we enjoy His company, His POV. We have fallen in love with the wonderful God we are coming to know, day by day.

Boldness and confidence are fostered by intimacy. There is no presumption, instead this precious intimacy becomes so important to us, we start to loathe the idea of any separation. That POV motivates us over and over again. I don’t believe that pretending to live in His love and grace can do that. satan knows each of us well enough to fling something at us and our self-effort will collapse. I know very little in this area, but I can say this, the more you seek the Lord for Himself, the more He will reveal Himself to you. Sometimes there are some questionable things that people have told me God said or did, and my heart jumps up, unbidden, and says: “No! He would never act like that!”  I think that’s a little part of what confident intimacy looks like.

Almighty God always wants us to be confident in Him, especially in His goodness and goodwill toward mankind. His book the bible becomes powerful for us individually, when we take His instructions personally and act on them. Our precious Father doesn’t want us to live in any fear, at all. He sent His perfect love in the form of a Man, Jesus Christ, to show us, in Person, that He loves us. Christ is our source of spiritual life.  Everything in this New covenant is voluntary and our participation and obedience are the result of our passion toward the Lord.

Let’s clarify that. The size of any disobedience is not the issue, the attitude of our heart toward whatever it is – will be the thing that comes between Him and us. Openness needs to prevail, and, in turn that leads to true openness with each other. Confidence in Who He is and how much He loves me will actually release incredible freedom. However, that freedom is never carte blanche to be nasty and use His agonisingly hard-won Grace against Him or others. 

Our Heavenly Father, God, is not a legalist. He took care of every single legal indictment against humanity at Calvary. We didn’t just escape punishment, because of what Jesus did, at the same time we inherited Christ’s status before the Father. We were given Christ’s FAVOUR. That includes the ability/power to resist the devil and overcome the stuff he throws at us, con-fid-ent-ly!

The Lord is not looking for us to tick boxes and get everything right, He’s looking for us to genuinely rely upon Him to help us to do the things He asks us to do. Leaning on Him and His power and wisdom is our birthright – that birthright makes us rich in incredible things this world simply cannot buy. As we live that way we will see Him work on our behalf and gain more and more confidence in the One we love, because what we believe is based on personal knowledge of HIM. We don’t have to live bewildered powerless lives, because we have been given the power to walk away from temptation and to live lives that bless, help, and bestow Grace everywhere. That’s our inheritance.

Boldness and confidence are also not about shouting or being forceful. Sometimes it means we simply stand our ground, quietly. Firmly insisting. We need to learn to recognise and resist the devil’s wiles, and horrid suggestions of hatred and bitterness. At the same time, we simply cannot afford to let our enemy con us out of what is now our birthright, by bringing up stuff that we’ve done wrong or things we omitted to do at all! Our enemy keeps lists of wrongs  – WE DON’T – neither does our Father. We fix the things we can, with repentance and humility, and own our own bad attitudes. Then we go on to pray confidently for the grace to continue our walk totally reconciled with Him and others. 

Personally I just keep telling myself: I need mercy so I’m going to give it away! I keep on sowing grace because I know I am going to need it every day, all day! Our boldness and confidence comes from our knowledge of Who He is, what He is like, and real-life, personal, intimate revelation of His goodness as we walk with Him. 👋

P 2430 How to live in HIS freedom!

/ DVH

“Now, the “Lord” I’m referring to is the Holy Spirit, and wherever HE IS LORD, there is freedom.” 2 Corinthians 3:17 TPT. Great verse eh? Everybody say AMEN!! Now, what are we all going to do about it? Did we comprehend what that verse says? … It says if we truly want freedom then HE’S IN CHARGE NOW.  Ask yourself – is the Holy Spirit in charge of what you think, do and say? If not, that’s why there is confusion or angst. 

Let me be clear: even when we have chosen to go the wrong way — this is the same Spirit that was in Christ Jesus. He can redeem any dumb thing we do, intentional or not. Ask Him to redeem your mistakes. However, that is not my point for today, this is: — We can’t have a part-time Holy Spirit any more than we can have a part-time Saviour! You might need a minute to digest that bit of info, I know I did.🧐

Never get tied into the panic of ‘I don’t know what to do and the Holy Spirit hasn’t told me anything!’ That will paralyse you. Let’s listen to Luke, he wrote the consensus of the prayerful Apostles down – how they did it in Acts 15:28-30 “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:…”And Luke goes on to talk about dietary stuff. The point I am making is that they consulted the Holy Spirit … even about food and practical things… like … dare I say it ?…sex.

Moving on 😳 rapidly … because we will all turn into pumpkins if I hang around that word.😱 …  That simply means we ask Him for His input into everything. However, we also don’t sit about on a fence interminably waiting. Instead, we ask, then we wait for our spirits to become clear about the issue, then we proceed. I want to pause and explain the phrase ‘my spirit becoming clear.’ Sometimes when something difficult or unusual comes up I get confused, irritated, upset, fearful etc.… you get the idea. Inside I feel agitated and out of sorts. BUT, when my spirit seems clear, I feel quietly sure of going ahead in a certain way. The white noise in my heart and thoughts, disappears. I have peace.

But, if I continue to toss around thoughts, like: ‘will I?’ or ‘won’t I?’ I will quickly get muddled up again. That’s because a double- minded man doesn’t receive anything from the Lord. (Thank you James!) Instead, I hold fast to the place in my heart that remains un-conflicted about whatever it is and I give the whole issue back to Him again and leave it there. I have learnt that going over and over stuff, trying to figure out the right answer adds to confusion. And that double-minded gig James goes on about.

I pray about stuff as He leads me, while I am reading the bible. If nothing stands out to me, then I do nothing. Eventually a relevant verse, will just float through my brain and I accept it. He’s God, He’s bigger than me. I trust Him, so that’s where my faith is. My faith is in… His-never-ceasing-love-and-attention-to-even-the-smallest-details-in-my-life! Sometimes the situation that has had me in a flap-doodle just’ melts away like snow in the sunshine. 

The real issue is:  Who is Lord – you or Him?  This wrestling we do about the things in our lives, the “should I – or not” thought pattern — is not half as important as our loyalty to Him and wanting what He wants. Conflict looms in our lives when we are praying about something we think we need — that means I have an agenda. To deal with the Holy Spirit we must lay our agendas down, and tell Him we don’t care one way or the other, we want what He wants.

Then we need to give whatever it is to Him and leave it there, permanently. Move on and let His answer become Your answer. Thank Him for it – even if it doesn’t look the way you wanted it to, thank Him.  It’s WHO we have invested our faith IN that matters … not the answer to our prayer. Because… ‘we know that He works all things together for our good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.’  So we can’t lose when we trust Him to make our paths straight. That’s called freedom.

Meanwhile, what is His purpose? To be Lord! He’s good at it!! Let’s be clear. The Holy Spirit does things per-fect-ly.  There is no whoops in Him! And that’s because nothing… nothing … NOTHING!!! gets by HIM. So there is no point in hoping He won’t notice stuff, because He will! “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes, and He is the one to Whom we are accountable.” Hebrew 4:13. Check everything out with Him first, because He knows anyway. 😂 

There is no true freedom in trying to organise or control Almighty God, there is only truck loads of frustration. The result of our prayers, consultations, and yielding to the Holy Spirit is that we will get to know Him better. It is never about getting what I want … it is about getting to know Him and what He wants. Bye 👋🏻

P 2385 Read this at your own peril.

/ DVH

This is apparently what you need to do when a patient seems to be unconscious – you shake and shout!  This world needs YOU. Your family needs you, your neighbour needs you, the people at your work need you. This world needs His Love walking all over it to meet with them. THEY ARE LOST.

Now to my point. There is a god we’ve sort of kind of … made up. This god supports both good and bad – it’s a god in our own image. That’s because we hope that some bad isn’t really that bad! 😳 This god, the one we made up, is kind of a bit ambivalent about sin, and that’s because He understands we are only human and we can’t help it. 😱 After all we know He loves us the bible says so, over and over again.

However, we seem to have created, in some of our popular theology, a kind of heavenly, extremely tolerant Daddy Who is everything our earthly Dad wasn’t … A consequence of a fatherless generation perhaps? But we’ve totally forgotten about the very REAL God of Heaven and Earth Who is featured page after page in His book. He clearly told us the way forward, but sadly, today, we don’t seem to have time for things like that! So what we do have, will have to do. If you grab us round the neck and demand to know who Jesus is – we’ll probably tell you … but … we kind of … hope …you won’t. 😶

Let’s be clear, Jesus Christ did not tolerate sin. Instead He forgave it …and He paid an incredible price to redeem us from it … and that is definitely not the same thing. Jesus didn’t throw the law away – He completed it for our sake. God Himself put that law in place. We can’t just jump over it because it is tough – we need to be transformed from the inside out. Because of Christ’s sacrifice our mission has changed. Sub-mission is a term that means that other missions come secondary to the primary mission. 

Christianity is not about getting stuff right – it is about acknowledging we are wrong, and living HIS Way instead of our way. It isn’t about rules. It’s about WHO WE SERVE and how we serve Him. And tragically, today, for most people, it means that they ‘serve the man,’ they work hard so they can enjoy doing what they like on the weekends. And God comes in around about third.

Jesus actively taught the people around Him to obey what His Heavenly Father said. To be honest with you, I think Christ made what God said, much harder. Check some of it out for yourself. Matthew 5: 21-22 “You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’  But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” 

Now if that doesn’t rattle us nothing will! (Yeah, I’m tempted to skip those verses too, especially if I just yelled at somebody and I’m not sorry – yet.)  God IS good, but He ain’t gunna put up with our stuff just because we think we can’t change, or it’s too hard, or maybe even … I’m too old to change now! Especially when Christ died and was resurrected to give us, for free, the POWER to change. Transformation is the only way, and the people around us who drive us all nuts are His treasures sent to reveal who we really are, in the light of His Word. Hold onto your socks … God calls THAT love. Are you still breathing?

In my opinion we need to spend a great deal more time thanking Jesus over and over again for fulfilling those laws on our behalf. He deliberately came to save us from ourselves. However, we also need to ask Him to keep on saving us! Salvation is not just a one stop shop – it is an ongoing transformation process – with deliberate, conscious, engaged yielding, and increasing passionate devotion. Almighty God deserves nothing less.

Christ saved us from ourselves, to bring us to Himself – not to create an elite people who can have and DO whatever they want in this life but to live for HIM now. My time is not my own now – He bought and paid for it. We need to desperately seek after the kind of Godly love Jesus displayed. It was selfless, and it motivated every single one of His choices and redeeming actions. He paid so much attention to His Father’s wishes –  He simply lived to represent them. I think we got lost along the way because we really don’t understand that kInd of selfless love. 

Yes, God loves us so much He sent His Son to die for us … but the value we have to our Heavenly Father, is shown by the price He paid. Our Heavenly Father reveals HIMSELF when He shows us what He was willing to pay. It has never been about US, it is all about Him! His actions show us His incredible passion and loving kindness.  Let’s just step back and look at it. Only a passionate Father Who has a bigger plan – would have done what He did.

We need to give Him nothing less than the same kind of devotion back. The Lord’s absolutes are not some sort of request to be ignored at will or convenience. Repentance is a normal way of life … it is not an optional extra that we can ignore, because we feel embarrassed and we can’t express ourselves! We can’t live His Way WITHOUT the Holy Spirit – we need Him to help us! Transformation comes by submitting to the process.

This life is temporary.  Great men and women have gone before us, giving all for His sake. People whose names are recorded in His book, but nobody wrote about them, or featured them on TV. They just lived their little lives for His sake, and many died dreadful deaths, also for His sake – simply because He was worth so much to them. I don’t want a god after my own image, I want the only wise God our Heavenly Father – whatever the cost. He provided all of us with a Saviour, because His loving heart is that big. Let’s live for Him.👋🏻

P 2351 What smells good to God?

/ DVH

“Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as His beloved sons and daughters. And continue to walk surrendered to the extravagant love of Christ, for He surrendered His life as a sacrifice for us. His great love for us was pleasing to God, like an aroma of adoration—a sweet healing fragrance.” Ephesians 5:1-2 TPT.

Jesus is our own personal visual aid for our lives here on earth. It is a mistake to think we can serve Him and live the same sort of life that the people around us live. We are not from here anymore – we are travelling through this world representing SomeOne Else, with the Holy Spirit’s help. Our home is elsewhere. Now we have eternal eyes, not just eyes fixed upon the immediate. The thing is, to stay in those places we find challenging and difficult –  we must fix our eyes on Him, not our circumstances.

Walking surrendered to Christ’s extravagant love means no matter what goes on around us, or what happens to us, we must never ever forget we are dearly, over-abundantly, loved. As far as this life is concerned, realistically speaking, it is hard to feel loved, when people are being mean, or you are in pain, or your circumstances have gone awry. But the Cross changed everything. Christ’s freely-given Grace is our ever-present help in times of need. The difficulty is this, we must learn how to fight our enemy for our God-given rights, as well as yielding to the Holy Spirit’s leading. 

There is no room for striving in yielding. We cannot afford to berate ourselves for our dumb remarks and our accidental, or even intentional, lack of response to His Will. Jesus Christ understands humanity – and the Holy Spirit is now with us to continually remind us that we can be our renewed self – with His help. However, we cannot give Grace away if we do not take Grace in!There are times that the way to fight for victory over our circumstances and feelings is to refuse to entertain the thoughts that we are somehow exempt from that GRACE. 

When the day to day earthly realities remain difficult… and God’s goodness comes into question – our resting position is to hold fast to the fact that He is good. Even if we’ve prayed and prayed to no avail, and so have other people, we must learn to stand firm. At the same time we aren’t denying the reality of pain and heartache, rather we face them with the quiet confidence that the Lord has a way through our current circumstances.

I have had many increased physical limitations after those falls I had, now I get very tired. Some nights I barely manage 4-6 hours of very broken sleep. Let’s be clear, I’m still praying, hubby is still praying for me even at 2.00am when I can’t sleep for the pain in my arm. PAIN has a plus, it keeps you honest! Other faithful people are regularly praying for us, including both our families. Yet we are still stuck going round and round. WHY? I dunno but our God is doing something I can’t see …YET! 

I just know that in order to cultivate eternal eyes, I need to deliberately keep my eyes on Him. I know that God is not the Author or the sustainer of my discomfort, but, nevertheless, it is still daunting and exhausting. At these times I have to watch over my feelings and thoughts and focus on the God I know – Who is always good! I can drive myself batty trying to figure out why this has happened or what can I do to escape or … I can yield and wait. 

I have found great comfort in the Psalms because good old King David doesn’t seem to always be cheerful when things go bad for him either. However I cannot recommend the ‘smash them, get them, squish them, kill them all dead … mindset’  he had either. 🤪

Now let’s look at what smells good to God – a life laid down for Jesus’ sake, no matter what our external circumstances look like, and yes, we do that without lying! We need to remember that the Lord God called some things a pleasing aroma. Things like dead burning flesh from cattle, sheep, birds  (Genesis 8:20,21;  Exodus 29 :18;  Leviticus 1:9) —  my conclusion is this —HE DOESN’T LIKE WHAT I LIKE!  My death to self may hurt me, but HE is pleased by it.

Ephesians 5:2 says: ‘Jesus’ death was a pleasing aroma.’ That’s hard to comprehend, but true. If we tell Him “I want to know You more”  then we must remember the journey Christ took – ‘He learned obedience through suffering.’  Hopefully, right now, that is what I am learning too! 👋🏻

P 2318 Keep His sap flowing!

/ DVH

… We are the love of His!

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness etc. Another way to say that  is this — the visible fruit of OUR connection with the Holy Spirit is patience, kindness, goodness etc. IF you don’t got the fruit then guess what? YOU’VE LOST YOUR CONNECTION! 

Jesus taught about abiding in and staying in the vine;  which means that the sap of the vine is constantly available to grow fruit. Love joy peace etc. all these things come from that connection.  The connection produces the fruit – it is not who we are, but Who He is! Staying connected to Him, means I will die daily. It’s automatic. Disconnection means I’ve chosen my own comfort, my way, my control … over what Jesus wants!

How do we stay connected to the vine? At the very moment that we want to give in to suffering or despair or anger or retaliation, we ask for His help and choose Jesus and connection with Him, over self expression. Then we shut-up and wait to see what He will do. When we choose His ways we are choosing to let the sap of the Holy Spirit keep flowing into us and through us in an ongoing fashion. His sap does us good. Fruit comes as a result of that connection to the vine. Self-control is one of His fruit – this means we choose to do things His way, asking for His help — which means we are controlling ourselves.

Ordinary FRUIT like apples, need work. It needs tending, Every time you give in to your feelings, your anger, your need to be vindicated, you’re short-circuiting the fruit cycle, you are stopping the fruit from ‘setting.’ Good fruit needs that constant supply of sap. This is why sometimes the fruit in the supermarket can be bad in the middle or taste terrible, — it hasn’t been connected to the tree for a VERY long time and it is starting to rot from the inside out. No sap = no fresh fruit.

We also know this from our own experience if we’ve ever tried to grow tomatoes and we have compared them to the ones in the supermarket, the ones in the supermarket have little to no flavour. This by the way, is why they are now selling tomatoes there for more money as ‘on the vine,’ so any residue of sap in the stalk will help to keep the tomato fresh. 

Sap needs to flow. Any obstruction to the passage of sap simply needs to be cleared away. Spiritually speaking, here’s what I do: I acknowledge my fault to the Lord, and whoever else is involved, then I repent, and because I have no confidence than I’m not going to do the same the dumb thing again 10 minutes later, I ask for help. 

Asking for help does not mean that God will take over. We are not glove puppets with someone else’s hand controlling us. We are real life, wilful, opinionated human beings, who like control more than submission and yielding. Humility is needed.Tell the other person/s that you are having a hard time holding your tongue and ask the other person to pray for you. That’ll fix it immediately! 

We ask for His help and then step out in the right direction. The right direction = what Jesus said, what the bible says. And then act USING YOUR FAITH. It is way too easy to ask for help and then go on to blame God when you are still the same nasty grump 10 minutes later. Intentions matter, but they are not everything. Our intentions need to be turned into actions.  Keep looking at Jesus, keep on walking – keep doing what He would do.

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Expecting the other person to make the difference is just plain stupid. It is way better to ask the Lord, “What do I do now?” I can’t tell you how many times He’s told me, “Shut up and listen.” By the way, listen doesn’t just mean understanding the words, it means hearing the other person’s heart, and their anguish. 

Please note you will hardly EVER feel like letting go of your comments and opinions – especially if the other person is still going on at you … OR even WORSE, GLOATING over you.  Other people’s actions and reactions are on them. That single fact has taught me heaps about CHOICE. We are the Lord’s great love … everything else fades away when we look at that …our fruit makes His heart glad 👋🏻

“May my Beloved come into His garden And eat its choice fruits!” Song of Songs 4:16b