blog

  • Just a thought... 25 Jan

    When something matters to us enough, we can find ourselves thinking about it all the time. It’s not necessarily that it’s the only thing we think about, but it’s the issue that burdens our souls and fills our quiet moments such that it’s somehow always on our minds and in our hearts. That seems to have been what was happening with Nehemiah and his burden for God’s people and God’s honour that we saw from Nehemiah chapter 1 this last Sunday morning. In vs 4 we’re told “For some days I mourned...

  • Just a thought... 18 Jan

    The idea of mourning and weeping for sin as we saw Ezra do on Sunday morning from Ezra ch 10 may sound strange to us. Yet Ezra understood that peoples’ behaviour had created an offence against God for which the consequences would prove catastrophic. We see something similar elsewhere in scripture: David’s great psalm of repentance in Psalm 51 after he had committed adultery with Bathsheba is a deeply humbling confession that summarises what he had done with the words in vs 4 “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight...

  • Just a Thought ... 11 Jan

    The Bible is an amazing book (actually 66 books!) of the LORD’s revelation of Himself, and what we are like too! It’s much too easy to read that complexity casually and totally misunderstand what’s being said. For example, we saw on Sunday morning from Ezra ch 9 that a casual reader could believe that scripture rails against ethnically mixed-marriage – yet read in its proper context the concern is not racism but syncretism: the mixing of religions. All of us are prone to follow the desires of our hearts and play to the dominant audience in...

  • Just a thought... 4 Jan

    Don’t be deceived by the headlines: “More than 400 churches have been shut down in less than a decade.” It may be that 400 church buildings have closed – but the ‘churches’ (gathering of God’s people) that met in them must have ceased to function as ‘churches’ many years before that. Such news should not lead us to believe that the Gospel is in decline: in most cases, Gospel-preaching Bible teaching churches are growing. The Lord Jesus promised in Matthew ch 16 “I will build my church and the gates of Hell...

  • Just a thought... 28 Dec

    Let’s not forget: the Baby born in Bethlehem is God the son! This is the one whom John sees in Revelation ch 1: 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. 15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. We heard on...

  • Just a thought... 21 Dec

    There is much about the Christmas story as told by our culture that isn’t true: whether or not Mary rode a donkey, quite how many Maji there were (it only says 3 gifts in Matthew ch 2), etc… Yet the account the Bible describes IS true: Luke himself declares in ch 1 of his Gospel account that he has “carefully investigated everything from the beginning…” (Luke 1:3) including speaking to eye witnesses. The point is that when the Angels declared to the Shepherds this “good news that will cause great joy for all the people...

  • Just a thought... 14 Dec

    Well, here we go again? More challenges, more stress, less liberty, the military on standby, etc… The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes says “there’s nothing new under the Sun” and actually before the first Christmas they had a similar experience: though they didn’t know exactly when, many were longing for the Saviour to come just as was promised and suddenly He came! We are waiting for Him to come back a second time, just as He promised, and when He does it we’ll enjoy the amazing new creation! As we saw on Sunday morning from Rev...

  • Just a thought... 7 Dec

    As we approach the close of the year, the chaos has still not declined: from climate, to economy, politics, immigration and of course the ongoing pandemic. The world and sadly so often our own lives seem to jump from one issue to another in an endless stream of ‘problems’. Like the people in Isaiah’s day, our tendency is to find our own answers in the work we can do, standing by whatever is the latest ‘idol’ in thinking, politics or technology to ‘save’ us… but in the end they never can: as we heard on Sunday...

  • Just a thought... 30 Nov

    It’s all too easy to glance at both people and situations and quickly draw vague conclusions. Most of the time outcomes seem to be obvious and even if our assumptions and conclusions are wrong, it doesn’t make a lot of difference. When it comes to God’s Word however, the details are important. All scripture is ‘God breathed’ and He doesn’t waste His breath, the information is always there for a purpose! Last Sunday morning we moved from the ‘big-picture’ of Ezra Ch 7 and we ‘zoomed-in’ in Ch 8 to see...

  • Just a thought... 23 Nov

    It’s happens to all of us from time to time, so what do we most need when we find our hearts being hardened and distracted by the pressures and challenges of the broken world around us? We saw on Sunday morning from Ezra Chapter 7 that as God’s people were being pushed away from Him, the LORD sent them Ezra to teach them the ‘Law of the LORD’. Remember that ‘Law’ in the Old Testament isn’t just ‘do’s’ & ‘don’ts’ but the Wisdom of God revealed for human beings to respond...