so this teacher of the law comes up to Jesus and says, “So what is the most important command in the law?” it’s a trick question and yet Jesus floors the gang of them by summing up the whole law as “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength. and love your neighbour as yourself.” [paraphrase, Matthew 22.37-38] and since then, christians through the [...]
so i was at the beach yesterday which i really don’t do enough and was actually in the water (ditto) which was amazingly warm (or maybe amazingly warm for cape town beach water – i am not really a swimmer type person usually because i find the water too cold but here i had to be in to watch the kids and it was surprisingly not that bad) and i started to watch people i [...]
‘...and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’ [Acts 2.47b] what comes just before the ‘and’ of that passage that caused such huge growth in the early church? was it their amazing evangelism plans or ABC steps of getting people to follow Jesus? none of the above! it was meeting together, eating together, loving God and loving people together – basically just being church – listening to preaching, seeing miracles [...]
it is important for us to realise just how insulting and offensive the son’s attitude towards his father is, because otherwise we will never fully ‘get’ just how incredibly over-the-top ludicrously insane the father’s response is. the father hands over to his son the inheritance (and if it is half of everything he owns then it must be at cost to him and to his lifestyle and comfort/luxury) and the sons heads off and wastes [...]
another excerpt from Erwin McManus 'an unSTOPPABLE force' - just buy it already! 'And though i'm advocating our need to become a movement, I would like to encourage you to give up on keeping up.' then a little later: 'The first-century church didn't keep up with its time, didn't spend its energy keeping up with its time. The first-century church changed time. It rewrote history. It radically impacted culture. The church was the forerunner, not [...]
so i have decided to try and be less judging of people this year - i think a couple of times this last year it hit me how judgemental i have become - i don't think i used to be that way but definitely an area i want to work on - i guess this last week nailed it home as i attended a funeral (my best mates mom in law) and a wedding (our [...]
i remember some kids song that went 'love your neighbour as you love yourself, oh-oh love your neighbour, but don't get caught' and thinking as i write that, i may very well have added the 'don't get caught' on to what was a nice kiddies song of which i still have the tune playing in my head... so maybe scrap that... but it brings to mind the one thing that is hugely on my mind [...]
arr, so last nite of crew before baptist summer camp 1 (1000ish young people) arrive and my friend Craig Fincham leads a devotion/crew-building moment and confesses some stuff to the team and God who has been loudly whispering (well i have been incessantly converting His calls to a whisper so as not to pay too much attention to them) to me decides this is a moment of truth (MOT) moment to SCREAM at me - [...]
my wife, the Beautiful Val often calls me ‘B’ it is weird cos it is just a letter (the letter ‘b’) – but i really like it when she does. “i love you, b” “my b” so SO powerful it amazes me how much love she is able to fit into that one single letter.
so TBV (the beautiful Val, my lovely wife) and i arrive at a pastor's breakfast this morning and as we walk upto one of the pastors there he looks at her and says says something along the lines of, 'So you have to put up with this hey?' or some other kind of jesty vibe dunno-what-to-say-so-let-me-open-my-mouth-and-see-what-spews-forth witty reparte'... he was trying to be funny and it was fine... but a little while later they were [...]