Reflection of the Week - 20 July 2021
Paul must have lifted the spirits of the Church of Ephesus with this letter!
Paul must have lifted the spirits of the Church of Ephesus with this letter!
Paul must have lifted the spirits of the Church of Ephesus with this letter!
Give God the first moments of your day. ‘Early will I seek you,’ Psalm 63:1.
Psalm 130 is also one of seven penitential psalms in the Bible.
Whether running a home or building a house, working at a factory or supporting a ministry there is one vital principal that is all-embracing, all our undertakings require a total dependence upon God.
Farming is a purposeful activity. A combination of watching and waiting, listening and learning, living with creation and responding in hope.
We often hear people bemoan that the Church is dying. Is it? Or is it looking differently to how it was? And is that okay?
I can remember speaking at an ecumenical conference some years ago and mentioning the Trinity. During the question time a Methodist minister commented ‘oh that’s the Sunday Methodist ministers have off and the service is left to the lay preachers.’
Life is a spiritual journey. Contemplative living is a way of responding to our everyday experiences by consciously attending to our relationships.
On this coming Sunday we celebrate the day of Pentecost. Our remembering of the time the Holy Spirit come upon the believers in Jerusalem, empowering them to become witnesses, to Judea, to Samaria, teaching others to know that the knowledge of the good news of Christ, of the kingdom of God, will be passed down through the generations.
Psalm 1 proclaims truths echoed in the book of Proverbs: that following the wisdom of God is the best and wisest way to live.
The core of the Christian message is love, God loves me!
In this lyrical text, Jesus introduces us to the great mystery of God sharing his life with us: I am the vine, you are the branches ... my Father is the vine-grower.
The very fabric of everyday life is changing before us; these are unprecedented times. In the midst of this, we are invited to find God and some have little more than their Bible to help. We reflect on Psalm 23 and its implications for our lives—now, more than ever.
Not everyone is called to be a preacher or a missionary, but everyone is called to pray.
With Easter just gone and the school holidays now started, for many it is a time when people take a break and spend time away from their usual commitments.
When confronted by what is hard to hear, shocking to consider, grieving to know, difficult to understand, it is often much easier to not believe it at all.
Thank you Jesus for dying for us, for giving your life that we might live, forgiven and free.
Easter is a time of hope, a time of new beginnings. As we approach Easter this year, our hearts go out to people, all over the world, who have been living in darkness and fear and uncertainty and continue to do so.
As the end of Lent draws near for Western Churches there are indeed many challenges to distract us this season.