REDEMPTION

We may draw aside, turning away from the world, but only to perceive and ponder, turning our faces once again to face the world, reflection and study producing the fruit of enrichment to those around.

Analysis by the few must give birth to beauty, redeeming the lives of many.

COMPLETENESS

Man longs to put the finishing piece in the jigsaw of life, completing what he knows to be incomplete, not content with being a mere piece of the puzzle.

'It is finished' was the cry of Jesus, the Messiah King, God's final piece, who  died and rose again making sense and beauty of the whole, 

It is only those who discover God's purpose who can make sense of their's.

CHRISTMAS

Day by day God is decorating the Christmas tree of life. He decks the tree with many ornaments, some more visible than others as we play our part in beautifying His world.

Jesus, the messiah saviour, is alone the star at the crown of the tree. His birth was celebrated by the angels and we do well to do the same.

LIFE IS LIVING NOT HAVING

Life is a walk. Happy are those who have companions.

READING

Entering a world of treasure. When you come out the world has changed, or is it you?

Perhaps both.

VEIL

Christianity tends to draw down the veil of theology over God's face, dimming His features - 'a cherisher of joys and God of Laughter'.

BABY- BOOMERS

'New atheism' unravels humanity and destroys our dignity. Accountability is to be abandoned but the price paid is that of man himself.

It is no use fighting nihilism. It must be overtaken by a joyous, life-giving story of man remade in God’s image, the cosmos renewed. It’s voice must be drowned by a new song, that sung by the angels announcing Jesus’birth.

Who will pay the price of playing out God's Kingdom come to earth?

A STORY OUT OF AFRICA

Darkest Africa. A dying pagan. A rumour of good news.

It took only a moment to tell the Story of Redemption, but long enough to pass from death to life. A new King, new citizenship. The woman ‘declared for God’ in the midst of death, forbidding ancestor worship at her burial. A seed which bore fruit in a land of rising light in the midst of darkness, godly worship in the place of animism, care for man through education.

All because of the ‘old, old story of Jesus and His love’, a desire for God’s kingdom to flourish rather than man’s.

FELLOW TRAVELLERS

Two men, both with a mission, both lacking higher education but a compulsion to tell the story of God's salvation, setting out to change lives and so the world.

My grandpa Swazi and William Booth sailing to Africa in the early 1900's. What conversations they must have had. My grandmother comments that my grandfather greatly valued spending time with him. Knowing my grandfather I think it was mutual.

Both left a legacy of lives rebuilt and so also the part of the world they inhabited.

THEOLOGY

It has a tendency to dampen man's sense of urgency about the proclamation of God's story of redemption.