Your gentleness made me great: reflections on Psalm 18
‘Your gentleness made me great.’ Sometimes a line in God’s word really strikes you. This one did me. But number eighteen in the divine songbook is not a nice, lovey-dovey psalm. David was on the run from many enemies. He wasn’t exactly enjoying a quiet, easy life. Psalm 18 is a psalm of war, not peace.
Give God the whole orange
Are you or have you ever been a glory thief?
Spurgeon says glory thieves are like those who suck all the goodness out of an orange before giving it to God. Instead, we need to give the Lord the whole orange, juice and all.
The H word
Hell. It’s probably the topic that Christians, myself included, least want to talk about. But is there a more needful topic in our day? Jesus spoke of hell more than any other person in the Bible.
To death with respectable Christianity
There is a form of Christianity that is very respectable in its own eyes.
It doesn’t swear or make rude jokes.
It wears a nice shirt on Sundays.
It’s quite middle class and quite comfortable.
But is it right?
Taking time to stop
We live in a society like no other. Our phones are never more than arm’s length away, and every other minute there is some new news, notification, podcast episode—you name it—information is readily at our fingertips. But information overload is not wisdom. We need to take time to stop.
Hark! the herald angels sing
The group of scruffy shepherds on the hillside huddled closer around their campfire. It would be a long, cold night, keeping watch over their flocks of sheep and goats. But their night was about to take a fateful turn.
Tips on reading Christian books
Things happen when people pick up books and read them. Books fire up the mind and awaken the imagination. When we put down our phones and pick up books, especially good books, our lives are changed.
Bochim: rediscovering a theology of lament
Today it seems that followers of Jesus have largely forgotten what it means to lament. But there is much to lament, in our own hearts and lives, in our churches and in our land. Life is hard; so many people are suffering because of the curse on us due to sin. We need to rediscover a biblical theology of lament.
By prayer let us wrestle: encouragements from the Welsh Methodists
In the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist revivals of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Lord worked powerfully in answer to the prayers of his people. It is said that the prayer meeting is the powerhouse of the church. With this in mind, here are three encouragements for us as believers to wrestle in prayer.
The key to Christian dating
There’s much that could be said about ‘dating’ from a Christian angle. There are many things lads and lasses perhaps need to be told or reminded of. Gents leading a ‘bachelor’ lifestyle perhaps need to take care of themselves by way of personal grooming—being clean, hygienic and presentable can go a long way! But Christians don’t date as the world does.
Paradoxical providences
Sometimes when it seems like things don’t go our way, we can wonder what the Lord is up to. We get it. It’s a long, narrow road, and all will end well ultimately. But sometimes it sure does seem like everything is going to pot… How can God make ‘all things work together for good’ out of the carnage we see all around us or even inside us?
11 Bible resources every Christian needs
If the best book to read is the Bible, then the next best books (and resources) are those that help us read, understand, meditate on and delight in the Bible. If I had to choose a football (or cricket) XI out of these, here are my top picks which I think every Christian should use.