Category: Uncategorized
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“Things have never been so bad” (Esther 1-3; Psalm 139; Revelation 1
“Things have never been so bad!” It’s a phrase you may have heard people saying. I imagine it’s something that every generation has said at some point. Certainly we get to hear more from across the world today and so it may feel there are more disasters, but as we read the Bible we see…
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An amazing invitation (Ezra 5-6; Psalm 95; 3 John)
What an incredible privilege, we are invited to praise God! In Psalm 95 we are invited to come and sing praise to God. By our nature we could not come into God’s presence, but v1 tells us that He is not only LORD but also the rock of our salvation. We can come into His…
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Medicine for anxious hearts (Zechariah 12-14; Psalm 94; 2 John)
“When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.” (Psalm 94:19) What a beautiful verse, for who doesn’t know the pain of many cares or anxieties of heart? The Psalmist finds relief and even joy amongst all the troubling thoughts in the consolations of the LORD, his stronghold, his rock of…
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Don’t look within, look at Him. (Zechariah 9-11; 1 John 5)
Imagine you see 2 frozen lakes, for some reason, one has a very thin layer of ice, the other really thick, and you want to walk on the ice. This is a bad idea, but for the purposes of illustration, if you were going to do it, which is better, a really strong faith in…
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How do you know that you’re loved?(Zechariah 6-8; 1 John 4)
How do you know that you are loved in a world that is full of so much pain & suffering?We might be reassured by the love and care that we receive from others and see that as an evidence of God’s love. There’s a sense in which that’s true, John tells us “love is from…
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Display the family likeness (Zechariah 2-5; Psalm 93; 1 John 3)
She’s the spit of him! She has his nose! He has his ears!He’s just like his dad! Very often we can’t help but display the family likeness, sometimes it’s in what we look like, other times it may be our behaviour. In our reading from 1 John 3, the apostle John is encouraging the Christians…
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How can I be forgiven? (Haggai; Zechariah 1; Ps 138; 1 John 2
How can I be forgiven? How can there be total forgiveness? Surely for God to be just he must punish sin? Surely if God is light, he cannot tolerate any darkness in his presence? What about the times we’ve lost our tempers, been unloving, unkind, impure, lied, thought only about our own interests? In this…
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How do you know that you know God?(Ezra 3-4; Psalm 92; 1 John 1)
It is such a blessing to know the one true living God, but how do you know that you know Him? That’s what John is writing about in this wonderful letter of 1 John. John is writing to believers who had been shaken by false teachers. They thought they knew God, they were part of…
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Good news for failures (Ezra 1-2; John 21)
Peter must have felt like such a failure, he’d been out fishing all night and had caught nothing. For you and I that may be disappointing, but Peter is a fisherman! This is his job, this is what he’s good at. Then, there’s a friendly piece of advice from the shore “cast the net on…
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The resurrection of Jesus changes everything (Daniel 10-12; John 20)
What is the most significant event in history? Taken together with His atoning death, surely the resurrection of Jesus is the greatest thing that has ever happened. It changes everything forever! In our reading from John 20 we see the disciples huddled together, terrified that the ones who killed their master would be coming after…