...us believers are in an impossible spot then, because we know following Christ involves suffering, but we hate suffering.How do we get past that?The answer might be in these 3 things that the Apostle Paul believes are worth suff...

How I used to wash cars as a kid... that is an example of someone not working smart. I was working, but I wasn't working smart. There was some endeavour, but it did not achieve the fruit that my effort may have led to...This brings us to ou...

Last week, we started our exploration of how to be useful to the Lord. This is the second of our 4 obstacles - and we cannot finish our course if we are not meet for the master’s use.We can and will finish our lives, i.e. get to the end of ...

In this study of Finishing Our Obstacle Course, we have left behind obstacle 1 in chapter 1 (fear/shame) and are now sizing up obstacle 2: being useful.We are going to hang our study of chapter 2 on this phrase:…meet for the master’s us...

Today we get the final piece of the puzzle we need to overcome our first obstacle of fear and shame. We have seen that we're fully equipped, we have seen that we need to be involved on His terms, today we will see that we need to keep going.

Giving is the practical basis of every love relationship.Giving is a doctrine that nearly every culture gets wrong.Giving is the foundation of all worship....so pretty important we get this one right! What does biblical giv...

Being scared of spiders, heights, needles or whatever, may or may not have that great of an impact on our life. We could probably be scared of one of these things and go on to live a pretty happy and "successful" life.But, what if the th...

Two people were crucified on that day with Jesus, but only one thing was different about them. What was it? And what does it mean for us today?Take a listen & find out...

My wife has many gifts, but one of my favourites is her supernatural ability to create a delicious meal out of nothing. A couple of days before the next Tesco delivery, I’m looking in the kitchen thinking “we are going to starve; there’s not fo...

In Matthew 13, there are 7 parables that reveal what the Kingdom of Heaven will be like.What will it be like? Why is this important to my faith? What does this mean for the mission of the church? Let's jump ...

We often think of as life as a race, which is appropriate as that is how the Apostle Paul describes it. But, more specifically, I would propose we can think of life as an obstacle race.We think and maybe hope it will run smoothly, but in re...

What is the storyline of the Bible?This week, we get into more detail about the story of God's kingdom. Crucially, we'll see how it is divided up into two concepts: the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven.Which is which? And ...

What is the storyline of the Bible? As much as we would like it to be about us, it is not. The storyline of the Bible is a story about a kingdom...Welcome to our special mini-s...

Huz? Buz? Kemuel? And don't get me started on Chesed, Hazo and Pildesh...Today we’re closing out our study of Genesis 22 with the final reality of worship: a life of worship leads to a life building the church. We will see that, though l...

For our message today, you can imagine eating a sandwich. There is a filling on offer, but, as with every sandwich, it has to start and end with the slice of bread.The bread in our sandwich today is Abraham’s obedience; the filling, i.e....

We’ve got trust issues people. I once bit into what I thought was mint chocolate bar in school, aged 5, and it turned our to be not full of chocolate but full of raisins. Took me a long time to get over that.More seriously, a...

Apparently our noses have 400 scent receptors and can detect trillions of different smells. What happens when we smell is we inhale molecules, which send signals to the brain, to create physical responses from our body... some smells we love, s...

Last week we drew our first reality of worship from Genesis 22 (we have to understand the test) and this week we are going to draw out our second (we have to go and do what God has said).And it is going to be so helpful for us because we ar...

Last week we looked at Isaac and saw the picture of the Cross: this provided us with the reason for worship. This week we're looking at Abraham, seeing how he responds to God’s call in his life: this is going to give us some realities of worshi...

Last week we saw how we don’t want to be left behind with the ass, we want to go yonder & worship. Vital to us doing that (i.e. worshipping God) is understanding WHY we should worship him.Today we'll see that our reason for worship i...

The Old Testament and the New Testament conclude the same: ultimately, in the end, everyone is going to bow down and worship Jesus. The question is ‘who am I going to bow down to in the meantime?’Genesis 22 is going to instruct us in the...

Colossians 1:9 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;10 That ye might walk wo...

As we have seen over the last few months, Paul has been instructing and exhorting Timothy to ‘war a good warfare’ and to ‘Fight the Good Fight of Faith’.What is different about this war?It is unique compared to any other battle that has...

Final two verses of 1 Timothy... what does Paul have to say to his spiritual son, his young soldier in Christ, before he signs off his letter and the fight continues?He says: ‘O Timothy’! An exclamation of feeling and concern and exhortatio...

There is an old fairy tale about a character called Rumplestiltskin; a made-up creature who had the ability to spin straw into gold. He was able to take something of relatively low value, and turn it into something of extremely high value.T...