Acts 13: 1-12. Islands always seem to provide for good destinations. It is the first place the newly commissioned Paul and Barnabus (with John Mark) went once commissioned and they travelled the length of the island, 150 miles, (how long would that take? What would the terrain have been like?) taking the gospel message. Along […]
Acts 29. “Be a church that’s willing to take a risk for Christ and so step up, step out and so step into all that God has for you. The church in Acts was unleashed in its power and potential as a carrier of God’s presence. But it was also unleashed from its old thinking and […]
Acts 1:37-41; 9; 1 Cor. 3, 5, 12:12-31 As the church in Acts began to move outwards, those who were convinced by their message wanted to know how they could belong. They listened to what the church said to them, accepted their words, believed, and were baptised. Huge numbers were added to the church and […]
Acts 2:1-41, Acts 4, 8, 10, 16. The scene in Acts 2 is one of a church that was growing and developing through the power of the Holy Spirit. That was completely intertwined for the early church with purpose, authority and prayer. The Holy Spirit holds everything together and the church is powerless without this […]
Acts 1:1-11, Acts 3-6, 8-10, 15, 28. Acts 1 and Acts 28 are like book ends for the whole theology of Acts. We need to notice that there were times of retreating to safety away from the threat of the world and times of house arrest (sounds like what we’re experiencing during lockdown!). Yet, God’s […]
Genesis 1:31; Jeremiah 29:11; Luke 4:14-21; James 1:2-8. Sometimes the answer to something doesn’t bother us too much, but there are plenty of other times when it does, and we’re desperate to know, we’re longing for an answer. We need to know, we need to understand, we need to work things out in our minds […]
John 21. Do we ever believe, or do other people tell us, that because of something we’ve done we can never be forgiven or restored? Surely that’s how Peter must have felt? He had declared in the hearing of his friends and his Lord that, “Even if all fall away on account of you, I […]
John 20; Luke 24:1-12. Today we get to look again at “life in all its fullness” through our risen Lord! Hope is renewed for those who thought they had lost Jesus forever, and proven to be true for those who had doubted. “Life in all its fullness” is no longer out of reach for ANYONE. […]
John 19. It seems at first that Jesus is hold onto full control of the situation – Pilate really didn’t want to hand Jesus over to be crucified. Jesus confirms His sovereignty – not as a king in the sense that those around were thinking, but as King for all people through His sovereignty as […]
John 13. John 18. The move from Jesus setting an example to His disciples of the fullness of love, faithfulness, and being self-giving (John 13), to all that happened in the garden of Gethsemane (John 18), is a huge shift. It takes us through a claim of loyalty, prediction of denial, and on to the […]