Posts from 2009
This is eternal life… (John 17:3)
Throughout this year our attention has been on another of the Reformers, the Genevan Reformer John Calvin, it being the 500th anniversary of his birth. And so it is appropriate we give some highlights to him today being reformation Sunday.
Calvin has been described as ‘the reluctant but willing Reformer’. Though Calvin’s contributions to the Reformation are many, he…
500th anniversary of the birth of the Genevan Reformer, John Calvin
This year of 2009ad marks the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Genevan Reformer, John Calvin. So it makes perfect sense to remember with thanksgiving the life and ministry of John Calvin, pastor and theologian of the Reformation, whose work continues to be influential in the church and world…
James (18) Our Greatest Privilege (James 4:8a)
What is the greatest privilege that you have as a Christian?
Is it forgiveness? Help? Heaven?…
As genuine and as great as all these are, what good are they without communion with God? This is the greatest gift that we have, and is the very essence of what it is to have eternal life as Jesus…
Elijah (20) …with encouragement (1 Kings 19:15-18)
In v.19 we read that Elijah comes out from the cave and reengages in God’s work. What a contrast! From dejection, defeat and crippling even deadly despair he comes out with resolve and purpose. Is that a spring in his step that we can see as he comes down from Horeb? I believe that is how we are to…
Encouragement
I also could speak as you do, if your soul were in my soul’s place. I could heap up words against you, and shake my head at you; but I would strengthen you with my mouth, and the comfort of my lips would relieve your grief.” (Job 16:4-5)
Encouragement – how sweet it is when we receive it – especially if we are facing great pressures or overwhelming trials that threaten…
James (17) Disturbing Trends (James 4:1-10)
Sometimes we have an idealised and romanticised view of life in the early church, with the result that it stands out against what we see in our day.
We tend to think that church life was less complicated in that it was easy to see the difference between the church and the world. As Earl Kelly describes this view: ‘They were a new people who accepted Jesus Christ as…
Elijah (19) MOVING ON (1 Kings 19:15-18)
It must have really been something in the days of the old sailing ships to be circumnavigating the globe, despite all the dangers and storms of such a journey, in what today seem such small ships. And yet for all the exhilaration one can only imagine the relief and joy that greeted such intrepid seamen when they returned to the safe harbour of home.
Upon returning from…
Elijah (18) Spiritual Reality (1 Kings 19:9-18)
The Lord comes to Elijah who was not where he should be, was not doing what he should’ve been doing, but lay beneath the broom tree crippled by spiritual depression, seeking to be released from his burden by death.
The Lord’s response to Elijah in the depth of his despair was not one of disgust,…
James (16) Wisdom’s Garden (James 3:18)
Like the rest of James, chapter 3 has proved to be a very challenging chapter.
Who among us does not have trouble with the tongue? Who among us has not been affected by the wisdom of our age so that we find ourselves sometimes expressing a ‘wisdom’ that is not from above?
It is a chapter that looks deeply at our motives, and one which calls us to respond to the…
Spritual Cataracts
It’s as if Elijah had spiritual cataracts rapidly develop across his heart so that his spiritual sight had become cloudy.
Previously he did not doubt the presence and activity of God in the quiet, in the small and even hidden ways. But now, having experienced a public display in which even the ungodly were constrained to shout “Behold the Lord He is God!’ that…