ah, Psalm 46 - if you come for a visit to the Simple Way, chances are good you will be faced by it in some form or other, and particularly verse 10 [a great one to set to memory] which says: He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” So give yourself a minute now if you have time... [...]
Moving on to Mark 2 verse 23 to 28 and the tricky question of whether we obey the biblical law to the absolute letter or whether by sometimes doing that we can perhaps miss out on the heart of the law and the foundational message of 'Love God, Love people' message that Jesus spoke. to continue on to 'Jesus has a death wish?' click here
continuing with Mark chapter 2 we read about how Jesus calls Levi to follow Him and then is part of a very much frowned-upon party gathering... these are the thoughts i had on it... to see the next passage looking at the letter of the law against the spirit of the law check this out
Colossians 3 verse 13 reads, 'Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.' i am not convinced that 'forgive and forget' is a biblical concept altho many people quote it as if it is... for me the idea that God has forgiven my sin and then developed some kind of universal amnesia is a lot less exciting than the picture [...]
i mean this is a pretty easy one, right? i don't think there is anyone out there saying that Jesus didn't pray or that we don't need to pray... this feel like something we all know but few of us do... and so it is really just being reminded once again that if Jesus, the Son of God, felt a need to spend time in prayer [or at least modelled the importance of it] then [...]
continuing the easy access of the psalms - here are the next group of psalms i have walked or am walking through - the idea was always to grab a thought or two from each psalm and comment and hope that others would jump in and do the same so please feel free to add your comments on any of the psalms i have looked at so far - be great to get your thoughts, [...]
so this morning i decided i need to get back into some more regular reading of the Bible again and decided to work through the gospel of Mark - one chapter in and i already have a bunch of notes of things that stood out for me.so i decided that, similar to the Psalms i have been working through every now and then, this could be something that i share with anyone who might be [...]
a number of the simple way staff and residents are currently at the Christian Community Development Association [CCDA] conference in Minnesota which started last nite and is set to be an incredible time and i'm sure i will share a little bit about that here. last nite, Richard Twiss, a native american leader [who also spoke some challenging things last year which i think in part led to this year's theme being 'Reconcile'] started off [...]
this is a short psalm with one of the most powerful endings... in the middle of what is clearly a lonely, worrying, desolate time, still the psalmist realises and remembers where his hope lies and that is with God and so he pleads his case, ending with: 'Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.' [vs.5] [...]
this is a tough little one - david whining about his enemies some more and calling on God for some ensmitement... i don't think i have ever gotten that hectic so i can't really relate but possibly the strongest i have gotten in enemy prayer is 'please God, make them go away'- i don't know, maybe not even that. i don't tend to hold on to enemy definition. sure, there have been some prime candidates [...]