Category Archives: Jesus

2000 years of failure

My former father-in-law was not a religious man. The only time I saw him go to church was when I married his daughter. But for the last twenty years of his life he was adamant that he had literally seen … Continue reading

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‘Come to me and I will be your friend.’

They call loneliness ‘the great modern plague.’ The extended family with networks of relatives close at hand became the nuclear family, which is increasingly being replaced by the single parent family, or the single person living alone. We are also … Continue reading

Posted in emptiness, Jesus, Loneliness, Love of Christ | Leave a comment

Turning things right side up

One of the most puzzling things about Jesus’ teaching was that he constantly took the accepted standards of the world and said they don’t work; and then turned them upside down to show what does work. The people whom Jesus … Continue reading

Posted in Abundant life, Christlikeness, Jesus, Life, Living Life, Standards, Uncategorized, Values | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

What are we ashamed of?

As a teenager, Origen, who was later to become one of the great leaders and theologians of the early church, was determined to follow his father’s example and die as a martyr for his faith. His mother pleaded with him … Continue reading

Posted in Jesus, Ridicule, Shame, Witness | Leave a comment

Transferring rights and privileges

Robert Louis Stevenson once gave a rather odd gift to a friend’s daughter, Annie, who had the misfortune to have been born on Christmas, and every Christmas complained that she never got to have her own birthday party. So Robert … Continue reading

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Intrusions of Peace

A regular feature in many church services is what is called ‘the passing of the peace’ when people are invited to turn to others and say: ‘Peace be with you.’ Friends leave their pews to greet one another and newcomers … Continue reading

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Humility is the key

Jesus began his famous Sermon on the Mount by saying: ‘Humble men are very fortunate, for the Kingdom of Heaven is given to them.’ Those words are the key to his teachings, especially those qualities we call the Beatitudes. You … Continue reading

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Turning beer into furniture

One of the most memorable characters I ever met was a man named Snowy Royal. When I knew him he was an evangelist, but in earlier times he had been a prominent member of the Sydney underworld, a violent alcoholic … Continue reading

Posted in Conversion, Jesus, New Life, Salvation, Seeing Jesus, Spiritual blessing, Spiritual growth, Spiritual Insight, Starting afresh, Transformation | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Six degrees of separation, but only two from God

According to the concept known as the Six Degrees of Separation everyone can be connected to everyone else by no more than six steps. To test this a magazine asked Ben Ghaly, an Iraqi immigrant, to nominate who he would … Continue reading

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Faith is not listening to our fears

An army friend of mine told me that that the only time he’d ever been pushed to the very threshold of fear was when he had to make his first parachute jump. As the aircraft approached the drop zone everyone … Continue reading

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