Do you believe in a different way? Yesterday i posted a piece on trying to speak with a prophetic voice which included this status quote of mine from a little earlier: i’m sorry my words make you feel so bad when there are people literally living in devastating conditions and being treated like absolute adjective on a regular basis. My friend Rob read it and seemed to really like it while admitting it is the first [...]
If the Jesus you offer... speak about... claim to follow... ...doesn't affect your money... ...doesn't engage your time... ...doesn't influence your decisions... ...doesn't infiltrate every one of your relationships... ...doesn't require [demand] your obedience... ...then i'm sure we're really not talking about the same person at all. Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit,if any tenderness [...]
i preached at St John's on Sunday about Jesus as king. The passage was Luke 23.33-43 - Jesus on the cross. It was Christ the King Sunday in the Anglican church, also known as The Feats of our Lord Jesus Christ the King. So i decided to look at Jesus as King. The feast was initiated by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and was connected to an increasing denial of Christ as King as well [...]
i have a tablet bible application called You Version where i am busy slowly working through the book of Isaiah [three chapters a day when i get to it] and today was Isaiah 58 which i absolutely love and i find this a helpful checklist for people who say they follow Jesus... This is just part of it: 6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and [...]
i am busy working through a 'Seven Hebrew Words Every Believer Should Know' Bible plan on my tablet via YouVersion and this one by Dave Adamson really struck me: "Too often we pray when we need or want something from God - which is understandable considering the English word 'pray' means to 'ask or beg'. But the Hebrew word for prayer - tefillah - means to 'self evaluate'. So to the Jews of the Bible, prayer was [...]
Yesterday i preached a message at Mercy Vineyard and figured some people might be interested in reading it here: Leading up to the preach one of the people who asked me to preach said it was Pentecost. Then as i was preparing my preach and decided to check, Google told me that Pentecost is on 15th May, a week from now. So i decided to compromise and kinda speak on Pentecost, but also kinda not [...]
Would Jesus be on social media? i believe the answer is no. Would Jesus want me to be on social media? i believe the answer is yes. This Sunday i was given the opportunity by Ben the Priest to preach a message on God and my Social Media at St John's church at both the early morning 7.30am service [where a max of six people were on Facebook to the three on Instagram] and then [...]
Yesterday, i wrote a piece about how important the resurrection of Jesus Christ is to my beliefs and the way i live my life. But at St Johns yesterday, Benjamin the Priest read this passage from edgy theologian Pete Rollins talking about why he denies the Resurrection... And i have to say, i wholeheartedly agree... At one point in the proceedings someone asked if my theoretical position led me to denying the Resurrection of Christ. [...]
For followers of Jesus, today is the most important day. If Easter Sunday didn't happen, then everything we believe changes. Don't get me wrong, if Jesus had just been a good man who had come and lived the life He lived, i still think it would be worth following Him. The man who preached enemy love, who reached out and touched and spoke to and welcomed in the marginalised and the sick and the uninvited, [...]
This is the day when we remember a significant death. And how it changed the world. i began today, celebrating the start of the Easter weekend, watching the dvd from my best mate Rob Lloyd's funeral - a collage of photos and some video set to music... it's been just four months and i miss my friend so much. His death was significant and it changed my world. There is a Rob-shaped gap that remains [...]
