An increasing proportion of the population of the world is single. According to the latest census figures (2016), 24% of Australian households contain only one person. That percentage is rising sharply. There are a number of reasons for this, of course. An ageing population means there are a larger number of widows and widowers. A …
Have you ever slammed your finger in a door? Or stubbed your toe? The pain is immediate and significant. At that point in time, you cannot think of anything else. The whole world is reduced to the pain in your finger or toe. Nothing else seems to matter. After a while, when the pain subsides, …
‘Faith’ is one of those Christian words that everyone assumes that they know what it means. However, it is one of those words that people mean different things by. So let’s start by seeing what faith is not, before we see more clearly what faith is. Faith is not blindly hoping something is true. I …
I want you to think about your friends for a moment. Who do you spend time with the most? What kind of people do you most easily call your friends? For most of us, our friends are actually quite similar to ourselves. University students tend to spend time with other university students. Mothers of young …
Christians all love the idea of being forgiven. We love to sing of our sins being paid for and know how kind our God has been to us. That is 100% correct. If we trust in Jesus, we are secure knowing that Jesus paid our penalty for us. This has led many to struggle to …
When Christians think about sin, often it is in the context of our sins being forgiven. We know that we are sinners and that we do all kinds of things that disobey God, some of them unknowingly and some of them intentionally. But we have been forgiven for our sins, right? Jesus died for our …
In Lancefield in Victoria last year, some people found a lost sheep. This sheep had once belonged to someone, but she had obviously been living by herself for several years. She looked like this: Those who found her called her Baarack. No-one knows how Baarack came to be the way she was, but it was …
Matthew 18 is a chapter with a theme: Jesus is speaking about what the Christian community should be like. And the fundamental thing we have to understand is that our stance should be one of humility. When we think of others in the Christian community, we are to realise that we are like little children. …
What would Jesus do? It has turned up on bracelets now for decades, and many Christians find it a helpful thing to consider. After all, Jesus was without sin, and if we want to live a life that pleases God, surely Jesus is a useful example! And yes, of course we see aspects of Jesus’ …
In 1 Kings 22, King Ahab had a decision to make. The king of Syria had promised to return a series of cities to him, and after three years one key city had not been returned to Israelite rule. Should he ignore this breach or go to battle over it? He sought advice from four …