Seize The Day
By Not Known Philip was elected to help serve food from the church kitchen (Acts 6: 1- 6). In our terms, that makes him a deacon. He sets us an important example in seizing the day for God (Acts 8: 26- 40) One day Philip found himself on the road south west from Jerusalem to Gaza. ON the way he met an African civil servant riding in a chariot. The civil servant was…
A Time To Speak
By Not Known Don’t sweat the small stuff. This well-known saying makes a good point. We all have things that we don’t like and may even think are wrong. But most of us have a sense of relative importance. It’s not worth starting WWIII over small things. The Apostle Paul had a keen eye for small stuff. Thus he could write of his willingness to become all…
How should we then give?
By Not Known Some have asserted that giving is difficult because giving requires us to let go and to give up. It means losing something. Our culture tells us to hoard and to gather. When we give up and lose, we are being disadvantaged. Therefore to give is to lose control or to give our power away. Something that is contradictory to what we have been taught. We were…
Effective Church Building
Verbalising Love
By Not Known A Google search of the word ‘love’ produces about 1,810,000,000 links. That’s a lot of words. Love inspires many and great words of poetry, literature and song. These many words take our souls soaring and hearts heaving with their lofty abstractions and grand declarations. But, is love just words? Paul gives us yet more words about love in 1…
The ends of the earth
By Not Known Most religions are tribal and local. This is not our faith. The Scripture teaches that God made all, for, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). All remains under his Lordship, even if in a state of rebellion, for:the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it(Ps 24:1). Further, all are within the scope of his redemption. All…
Free for ????
By Not Known Christianity is freedom. The truth of the gospel sets us free (Jn 8:32). Free from fear and superstition. Free from the penalty and power of sin. Free from a life enslaved by man’s rules. These precious liberties are all established by the Cross and resurrection of Jesus and his gift of the Spirit. But what is freedom for? It’s often freedom to be…
Running For God’s Prize
By Not Known Mid-first century Corinth was a city of runners. Paul was at Corinth when the spring games of 51AD were held at Isthmia which was about 10km away. Perhaps he went to the games on a day-of? These games required training. Athletes could not enter, let alone hope to win, unless they had put in the many days of hard discipline and effort. Winners in the Greek…
Dealing with bullies
The Steps to Salvation
By Not Known People become Christians in different ways. Some believe in Jesus after a slow, gradual and barely visible process. For others, it is a faster, more dramatic and very visible process. Acts 16:22-34 tells the story of a fast conversion. As we read it, we see a jailer walk five steps to salvation. Step one – conviction. The jailer was told to guard some…