How do you pray when your soul is overwhelmed with sorrow? Or in the furnace of temptation? We need to know because all of us will experience those things. Recently we concluded a series on prayer in our homegroups. We started with the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus answers his disciples’ request to teach them to […]
We are approaching Good Friday. As we consider the cross of the Lord Jesus we know beyond question that He loves us. “The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Gal 2:20). “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” (1 John 3:16) Rightly […]
Last weekend I was on the Cumbrian coast speaking at St.John’s/Claytonbrook Whittle-le-Woods Church Weekend. It was a joy to spend time with a warm hearted group who had the additional benefit, being from Lancashire, of speaking properly. And I loved returning to my favourite theme for a church weekend- Union with Christ. Now it appears […]
It was my final year at university and I was the secretary of the Christian Union. I served alongside a great committee but there was a point when it became too much for me. That was partly work pressure but also the personal issues I’ve alluded to in the past. Spiritually I felt confused, disorientated […]
A while back, a friend of mine came up with a pithy tweet. “You’re so vain, you probably think this Psalm is about you.” The character limit didn’t permit an explanation but I am pretty confident that this was an argument that the Psalms, like the rest of Scripture, are first and foremost about Christ […]
I have preached a lot on the subject of prayer recently- it has come up in a number of passages that we have covered as a church. My sense is that it is probably an area where we fall short compared with Christians of a previous generation. I continue to be struck by CH Spurgeon’s […]
On Wednesday I had the privilege of speaking at the Chapel service for Oxford Centre for Mission Studies. We have had a number of their students as part of the church over the years. That has been enriching for us particularly to hear from brothers and sisters serving in areas with a relatively small Christian […]
When the great theologian Jonathan Edwards was 18 he had a fascinating experience- it may well have been the moment when he became a Christian. He had come across the description of God in 1 Timothy 1:17- the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God. He thought to himself- “how excellent a Being that […]
I spent last week speaking on John 13-21 at the Oak Hall Mountain Bible School in the German Black Forest. It was a busy time- I covered those chapters in eleven sermons and five interactive sessions. However, there was something wonderful about that. Speaking day after day rather than week after week it was more […]
As well as building up to Christmas this is the time of the year when we nostalgically look back on the past twelve months. We had our staff team Christmas lunch a couple of weeks back and reflected back on the past year. I came up with some highlights such as baptisms whilst my colleagues […]