Dear Friends, When did you last think of heaven? And do you think of heaven with confidence, hope and joyful expectation? I have just re-read Mark Ashton’s little booklet On my way to heaven, written in his last months before he died last year of cancer. There he writes, “The oncologist estimated I might have
Read moreDear Friends, Admittedly, my title is not nearly as snappy as Dickens’ original ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. However, it is what came to mind as I reflected on the news this week that a Christian couple who run a hotel have been found guilty of discrimination because they refused to allow a homosexual couple
Read moreDear Friends, What is the greatest thing in the world? There are a number of ways of answering that question truly. But we would be wide off the mark if one of our answers wasn’t ‘love’. In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul goes as far as to say that, among faith, hope and love,
Read moreDear Friends, I‘m what they call a ‘late adopter’. That is, I wait to see which way a new technology is going before I adopt it – in fact, it‘s usually on the way out by the time I get around to it! Some people would just call me slow. Being a late adopter does
Read moreDear Friends, It’s a challenge to know how best to encourage and inspire God’s people at the start of this new year. Some of you will be excited about what God may do this year, some apprehensive about what might happen, others disillusioned and not really expecting anything from God. Whichever of those best describes
Read moreDear Friends, We don’t know much about the shepherds who were the first to hear the news that, “Today in the town of David, a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11, NIV). They were simply doing what shepherds do, living out in the fields and keeping watch over their
Read moreDear Friends, I belong to a ‘preaching group’. Half a dozen of us meet every six weeks or so to encourage one another in our preaching. The method is simple: we take it in turns to give a brief sermon outline, which is then lovingly mauled by the brethren (affectionately known as the ‘wolves’). Actually,
Read moreDear Friends, There’s some seriously good theology in the carols we sing at Christmas – which is a good job, or else we shouldn’t be singing them at all! For instance, how about this verse from ‘See, amid the winter’s snow’? (I hope we can forgive the reference to snow!) Lo, within the manger lies
Read moreDear Friends, I am reading a wonderful book called Embracing the Trinity, which has a chapter with the charming title ‘Within the Happy Land of the Trinity’. You may well be thinking to yourself, “Happy? Confusing, difficult, awkward, yes, but not happy.” The point, though, is not so much that we should be happy...
Read moreDear Friends, It would make an interesting and rewarding study to go through the New Testament, noting all the different ways in which Christian believers are described. In fact, here are two already: “Christian” and “believer”. And there are more than single word descriptions. Here is one I found while preparing...
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