In case you are wondering. Who do people say you are? It’s a similar question Jesus asked the disciples of Himself. Comparisons can throw a few odd things into the mix. What about a present-day comparison of Donald Trump with King Jehu? It’s probably a bit unfair on Jehu and may incur a higher trade tariff on the… Read More »
What If God Let You Know What He Knows? We don’t know what we don’t know, but have you ever thought about what it’s like to be God, who does? To know everything! Something occurred to me as I bantered with my friend Paul on Sunday. Open your bible app to 2 Kings 6:15-17 in the ESV. There’s… Read More »
And Why It Will Bring the Best Out in You My last post was about the dark side of the moon, the other side. In the last few days the astronauts have been floating around the press calls, amazing pictures have dropped and now we wait for the film! Until then, have you considered that there is actually… Read More »
252,756 miles from home. God was there. Already. Three days ago, four human beings were 252,756 miles from home. You read that too quickly. Not 252 miles. Not 2,500. Two hundred and fifty-two thousand, seven hundred and fifty-six miles from everything you treasure, find reassuring or familiar. Breath-taking and at a distance from Earth greater than any human… Read More »
What you can and can’t roll away. Easter is just over our shoulders. The tomb is still fresh in the imagination, the pre-dawn silence, the women moving through the early morning light with spices in their hands, braced for grief and tears. They had come to do something. Something tender and necessary. Something that, as it turned out,… Read More »
What happened to it? What have you borrowed recently? There is something quietly familiar about the idea of ‘borrowing’. In Christianity it seems to be the rule that when someone borrows your books, do not expect to see them again. The books, that is. Not stealing, not quite owning. Just having for a time, as if the world… Read More »
The moment it happened Britain’s Got Talent – it’s that time of year again! In case you don’t know it the overview is simple. Four judges. A stage. Thousands of acts who have been practising in living rooms and community halls for years, hoping this is the moment. And a fair number of acts that are not from… Read More »
Fully trained and capable? I’m always intrigued as to how the disciples felt ministering alongside Jesus. Noone seemed to be saying, “Jesus, I’ve got it!” Over in Luke 10, Jesus sends out seventy-two people. Not just the Twelve or even the the inner circle. Seventy-two ordinary followers who have seen Jesus ‘do His stuff’, sent ahead of him… Read More »
Do you have a good excuse? Paul wrote Romans 7 as a cry of anguish but sometimes I wonder if we have turned it into a ‘permission slip’. Somewhere between the writing and the reading, one of the most transparent, vulnerable and honest passages in Scripture became the most theologically ‘convenient’. A heart-felt confession became a comfort blanket.… Read More »
Have a different spirit. It’s not something I imagine you read often, but the text in Numbers 14 is worth thinking about a few times today. Turn your bible app to Numbers; Caleb and Joshua have returned from the same land as the other ten men sent to spy out the land, but what do Caleb and Joshua… Read More »
more than taking a risk. I’m one of the dwindling number of Christians who met and sat under the ministry of John Wimber prior to his death in 1997. One of the things many remember him saying during his ministry of stirring the body of Christ in signs and wonders was that Faith is spelled ‘R-I-S-K’. As a… Read More »
The manifest presence of God I’m genuinely excited for the under 30s. They missed 1994. They weren’t in Toronto when the Spirit moved through that little airport church and the world felt the tremor. People fell under the weight of God. Laughed until they cried. Wept until they laughed. For those who were there it felt like something… Read More »
And why not? Here’s a thing, there’s a woman in Mark 5 who has been bleeding for twelve years, and we don’t know her name. What got preserved for two thousand years of church history is her medical condition. We call her the Woman with the Issue of Blood. Not her personality, not her family. Just the thing… Read More »
Don’t hold back… honestly. There’s probably a few a moments in your life when you look back in retrospect and know things could have worked out better, if you had put just a little, tiny more effort into it… #tshirt King Joash did. And he didn’t. And it cost him more than he would realise. Over in 2… Read More »
Fresh direction for weary hearts I know you can relate. Every so often we find ourselves in situations that didn’t work out in the way we expected. We’d done all the right things, pray, think, seek advice, adjust the plan and then, just to make sure – pray again. We actually knew what to do and how to… Read More »
Leaders know that room. It’s a new day and as far as last night is concerned, God watched over you. And as the old Jewish prayer says, your spirit has been returned to your body. Another day. Another long day. Before your feet touched the floor, the world is already pressing in. Ukraine. Gaza. Earthquakes carving fault lines… Read More »
When the gap won’t let you look away Have you ever done everything right and still felt it wasn’t whole, kind of incomplete, unfinished? You know that feeling. You’ve given it your best. You stayed late. You prayed hard. You held your tongue when it mattered. You made the call. You had the conversation. You did what integrity… Read More »
Omniscience in personal space Thomas. We have not been kind to him. We gave him a nickname that has outlived him. Doubting Thomas. It sounds tidy. Memorable. Almost affectionate. But labels have a way of shrinking people to their weakest line. And if we are not careful, we end up misreading Thomas, and risk mischaracterising Jesus. We do… Read More »
Both of them. I dream often, most nights. Some grab me and drag me from my sleep, others are just me working through life. Chess dreams where I try to move a pawn diagonally and I know that’s not how it goes. You’ve probably had a stirring, emotive dream too. You can’t explain it, but you know it’s… Read More »
We’re all standing on the edge of something. Can I ask you a question? Have you ever had someone ask you a seemingly innocent question that sounded simple on the surface – but you knew, deep down, or at least suspected, it carried more weight than they realised? The gospel narrative in John 12:21 has that air about… Read More »