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 …
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 …
The Old Testament is rich and full of useful things for Christians to think about. We see how God relates to his people, his faithfulness to the promises, and instructions about how to live. All of that is true. Yet there is a real danger that we don’t see the Old Testament in the right …
When Jesus was transfigured in Matthew 17, the disciples heard a voice from heaven. The voice said: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matt. 17:5b ESV) This is the second time the disciples heard a voice from heaven; the first one was at Jesus’ baptism, and the …
The apostle Peter had been through a lot in Matthew 16. He had confessed that he believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus had made promises about his involvement and importance in establishing the church. He was then called ‘Satan’ for rebuking Jesus for his speaking about suffering and …
In 1 Kings 19, Elijah is having a hard time. He is on the run for his life from Queen Jezebel. He has been working hard to proclaim the message of God but has had little response. He is alone, far from home, hungry and tired, and he doesn’t see hope for the future. What …
Many of the songs we sing in church are happy songs. We sing of Jesus being Joy to the World, of the wonder of Amazing Grace, and of how great our God is. And yes, of course, these are great things to sing about! But if that is all that we sing, we might be …
The confrontation between Elijah and the prophets of Baal atop Mt Carmel ended with drama: the fire of the LORD fell and consumed the wet sacrifice. It was clear who the true God was. Elijah was a true prophet, and the prophets of Baal were false prophets. So what should be done with the false …