Thoughts

We are entering one of the most dangerous times of the year for families. Christmas is approaching and unfortunately the reason for the season gets lost as retail marketing ramps up. Christmas is an important holiday, it is the day we mark the birth of Jesus Christ. There is no ...

Parents have the God-given role of passing on the knowledge of eternity to their children. The parents of a child set the first, and potentially most lasting and powerful example, of what Christian faith is ...

If you have ever been through sustained turmoil, whether it be the loss of those you love, poverty, lengthy sickness, consuming fear, or any other of life’s troubles, you will understand the sense of hopelessness that people experience in these times. The overwhelming shadow of oppression is like a net ...

As Christ is preparing to die on the cross he leaves his disciples with a number of encouraging statements. These are recorded in John chapter 14. One of them is, “…the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will ...

Lots of money and effort is being spent on trying to find a vaccine for the COVID-19 virus. A vaccine would certainly be beneficial and physically save lives. The vaccine alone though is not the cure for the crises we face both now and on the road ahead. Crises of ...

Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise. Without having any chief or officer or ruler, it prepares its food in Summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest. Proverbs 6:6-8 Instructed here to look to the ant for wisdom, we are given an important lesson through ...

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have ...

John 3:16 illiterates in a nutshell the Father’s God’s profound love for the world and his Son’s willingness to sacrifice himself for it: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life ...

…therefore thus says the Lord GOD, See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation… Isaiah 28:16 Until, 1799 archaeologists and historians had struggled to understand Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics as they had no comparison with known languages. However, in that year ...

Children growing up in a Christian home and being part of the Church is a wonderful thing, but sometimes for those who have grown up in the church the experience of the power of God can seem like a secondhand experience. As second and third generation Christians the exciting journey ...

In their book, Introducing the New Testament, Achtemeier, Green and Thompson state that, “…only a small portion of the meaning of any utterance is represented by the words used, whether spoken or written.” This is because when we communicate with others we utilise a certain amount of pre-knowledge: things that ...

Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel and dancing, praise him with the strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Psalm 150:3-6 ...

“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away.” John 16:1 Here Jesus is referring to his previous teaching of the disciples, specifically to his teaching in the previous chapter in which he prepares his disciples for persecution to come. Jesus knows he will not always ...

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1 As I write this in New Zealand the roses are blooming in people’s gardens and the rose garden at the cemetery is looking particularly splendid. As I was walking among the cemetery’s rose garden ...

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1. It is winter here in New Zealand and consequently a lot of the trees in the backyard have lost their leaves. I was looking out at our backyard and noticed that in one of ...

The list of celebrities that take their life by their own hand seems only to increase. Today we wonder in shock why one of the most memorable singers of our generation would take their own life in the midst of seemingly unstoppable success. The news of Chris Cornell’s death immediately ...

Therefore the LORD waits to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you. For the LORD is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. Isaiah 30:18 Here the prophet Isaiah cuts straight to the heart of how Israel can ...

When God looks down and sees dozens of people shot dead in a nightclub he cries, bitterly weeps. He doesn’t dwell on their lifestyle, he doesn’t reason away their deaths, he weeps and regrets the loss his children have inflicted on one another. God knows what it feels like to ...

The fact that the tomb was empty and Jesus was gone doesn’t mean that Jesus has moved on and forgotten humanity. Jesus came down to earth and experienced life as a human being, the divine son of God took on the form of man and lived among us. He experienced ...

“I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.” Jeremiah 32:41 (NIV) “Once again, the perception of reality is more important than so-called objective reality in shaping behaviour.” David Fetterman I recently heard both ...