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He was truly terrifying. Over 9ft tall he towered over everyone. He had a simple challenge, come and fight me! If you beat this giant all your enemies will submit to you. It is a favourite Bible story for many young children – who hasn’t imagined that they could be the hero! There have been…

Samuel had told Saul that he needed to listen to God’s Word (1 Samuel 15:1). To listen to means not just to hear it, but to obey it. God’s Word can be hard to obey, normally because we think we know best. For Saul it was a hard word because it involved wiping out the…

“If it had not been the LORD who was on our side…” …we would have been toast! That is what David recognises in Psalm 124 as he recounts that they would have been swallowed up if the LORD had not been on their side. We don’t know which particular rescue was referring to, but our…

How precious are persecuted Christians to the Lord Jesus? In Acts 9 we get to see a glimpse of how Jesus feels about those who suffer for being Christians. We see that Jesus identifies so closely with his suffering people as to say “when you persecute them, you persecute me.” That’s so helpful for those…

So much hangs on the resurrection of Jesus. As the apostle Paul tells us, if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins (1 Corinthians 15). So how do we know Jesus really did rise from the dead? What other explanation could there be? 1. The women…

The persecution of Christians is an awful thing. Christians have faced everything from cold shoulders and harsh words to beatings, imprisonment and death. Stephen was the first Christian martyr, it must have been horrific for him and his family. It’s hard to describe something like this as light and momentary, and yet that’s how the…

Sometimes we cause our own troubles, and tragically for those who refuse to turn to Jesus, the troubles are not achieving a glory that outweighs them all. Israel wanted a king. Their motive was not good. They wanted to be like the other nations around them. This was the very opposite of what God had…

How awful it is when the church is led by people who do not believe. How awful when priests use their position to exploit and abuse those they are meant to serve. Tragically it’s nothing new. In yesterday’s reading from 1 Samuel 2 we read what the priests were up to, and today we find…

Hannah suffered for years with the pain of childlessness. It was so hard, everyone else seemed to be having babies, and then there were the insensitive comments by others. There was no anniversary to grieve, but a continual emptiness. What made it even harder was that her husband had taken a second wife and she…

Ruth had been left a childless widow, she was in a foreign land and had sought the protection of the LORD. Our Psalm (written by one of her great grandchildren!) for today tells us “delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4) and “those who wait…