Posts from September 2022

How many times have you heard people on TV express surprise when “the man next door” was arrested for heinous crimes? “He was so nice,” they say. “No one would ever have thought he was capable of such things.” The thing that makes these criminals so hard to catch is that they blend in so well. Their devilish ways are masked behind the smiles, nods, and pleasantries of brief encounters. Most of these neighbours go through life asking themselves, “What…

Those loving eyes that looked upon that new-born babe never imagined that her son would go down in infamy as a thief, betrayer, and taker of his own life. She would have trembled to know that her little boy’s name would become a byword for treachery for millennia to come. However, not everything about the life of Judas Iscariot was a disaster. How many men could claim to have been handpicked by Jesus to be one of his chosen apostles?…

With the deep love and contentment that came with having three children in four years, also came enough change to render us broke and exhausted. And of any luxuries that we were blessed with along the way, boredom was not one of them. Like parents of small children, the average Christian has so much to do that they can only hope to stand still long enough to claim boredom. “…There is work on every hand.” Boredom in the Christian walk…

A preacher friend told me about a couple in his congregation who flatly refused to pick up a young Christian for church. The reason was simple in their minds: “The young sister could be seen walking all over the city from Monday to Saturday, but somehow couldn’t walk to church on a Sunday.” I got to know the couple, but never met the young lady concerned. Surprisingly, I found the couple to be generous, kind, and free of any baggage…

They were called, “Block Courses.” Apprentices were sent to Technical Schools for a few weeks a year and put through several Theoretical and Practical Classes associated with their trades. One of the courses involved soldering together the six sides of a small metal box. A high-pressure hose was then attached, and the instructor ceremoniously pumped each box full of water until it “exploded.” The pressure gauge was consulted, and the best soldering won. The instructor seemed to know which box…

Have you ever noticed that the madder a person gets the more they talk and the less they listen? It doesn’t seem to matter that they don’t have all the facts. It only seems to matter that they can verbalise how they are feeling as they are feeling it. Naturally, there are issues, and there are ‘issues.’ And you as a disciple of Christ must decide how to respond to such outpourings of negative emotions. If you are an innocent…

These, as you know, are the words spoken by the angel Gabriel to Mary, the mother of Jesus. They were said to assure her that she, even though a virgin, would give birth to a baby boy who would be called the “Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32). And miraculously, as promised, nine months later, Jesus drew his first breath in a tiny town, in the tiny country of Israel. Surrounding that thin sliver of land on the shore…

Everybody has their ideal Jesus, and they tend to congregate with those of like mind. Though the church that you attend probably has a Biblical emphasis on worship and fellowship, you will find others that emphasis one specific “virtue” to the exclusion of all else. Suffice it to say that various churches use Jesus to promote their health products, charity funds, addiction groups, educational institutions, and personal development programmes—to name but a few things And it is true that the…

Hope is that thing that gives purpose to your life. It directs your energy into meaningful pursuits and inspires others to seek out the reason for your confidence. With it you bring the joy of expectancy, without it you carry the gloom of uncertainty. Living without hope is no life at all. One of the reasons that our church Elders must be “old” (it’s assumed in the name), is because their wisdom comes from lives lived over a good many…

When you speak truth, your critics do not answer you as an equal. Emotions rise, and their air of superiority is only surpassed by the disdain in their tone. They will not abide the light shone into their darkness. They have no space for you. When Zachariah’s eccentric preacher-son come back from the wilderness he drew large crowds. Though he baptised the repentant and preached that the Messiah was near, his critics dismissed his extreme diet and sobriety as proof…