Tag: god
-
Sorrowful yet rejoicing (2 Chr 34-35; 2 Cor 6)
How can you be sorrowful yet rejoicing? Surely you are one or the other? Yet the apostle Paul tells us that his experience is that he is continually sorrowful and yet always rejoicing (2 Cor 6:10). This is a wonderfully realistic way to live. He is neither annoyingly positive, nor depressingly negative. He says, life…
-
Secure in Christ (2 Kings 2-3; Ps 48; Matt 4)
Have you explored and meditated on the security that Jesus offers? Psalm 48 invites us to do just that. It’s a Psalm that praises God for who He is, how great He is, and how great His place is. The Psalmist invites to walk around and see (v12). When God is your God, you don’t…
-
What’s the point? (Ecc 10-12; 2 Tim 4)
What’s the point? Why keep going? Solomon wrestled with these questions 3000 years ago as he wrote “vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” As we have seen this means life is like a vapour or mist that disappears, if you try and grab hold of it, it just disappears faster. How can we make sense…
-
Isn’t Scripture out of date? (Eccl 7-9; Ps 46; 2 Tim 3)
“Times have changed” someone might say, the Bible is out of date with our culture. What would you say? Yesterday we heard the need to guard our steps as we come to worship, the need to listen to God (Ecclesiastes 5). Today we fast-forward 1000 years and discover the Apostle Paul makes a similar warning…
-
Guard your steps (Eccl 4-6; Ps 125; 2 Tim 2)
My wife hates bananas! If I decided I wanted to show Dorothy how much I love her, I wouldn’t buy her a bunch of bananas! If I did, it would show that either I didn’t know her or just didn’t care what she thought. Sometimes when it comes to worship, people don’t think about what…
-
When everything is not enough (1 Kings 10-11; 2 Chr 9; 1 Tim 6)
Solomon had everything, yet here in 1 Kings 11, we see it wasn’t enough. His striving for more and more led him to turn away from God, and tragically that led to a split in the kingdom as we’ll see as we read on in 1 Kings. The apostle Paul began his letter to Timothy…
-
A Psalm for when you’re in hospital (2 Chr 5-7; Psalm 121; 1 Tim 4)
Our daughter was born two months early and needed life saving surgery within 48 hours of being born. She was our firstborn and we thought we were going to lose her. I still remember the doctors giving us a side room in the hospital while our daughter was on a life support machine. Everything felt…
-
Enduring suffering with joy (Proverbs 16-18; Romans 15)
John Flavel lost 3 wives, and at least one child. He knew a thing or two about suffering. Yet as you read his writing, he is full of joy. He exemplifies the truth of one of our Proverbs for today: “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” (Proverbs…
-
How will you read the Bible in 2024?
As we head into a new year, it’s always a good time to plan your Bible reading. If you have a plan that works for you, stick with it! But if you don’t, now is a great time to get one, there’s a really helpful plan that you can get here. If we want to see…