Features

AN ENCOUNTER WITH THE LIVING GOD

(May 06, 2024) Carol Round encourages… and challenges –

A friend recently posted the following on social media: One encounter with God can change your whole life.

She added, ‘I’ve personally experienced many God encounters that created a 180-degree change in my life.’

Her post led me to ponder my own God encounters. My earliest childhood memories of experiencing God were in nature. I grew up in southwestern Louisiana, where I spent many hours outside inhaling His creation in the branches of a Mimosa tree and hiding from the world.

(more…)

GOD’S TREASURE FOREVER

(May 04, 2024) Norman and Margaret Moss reflect on receiving the comforting blessing of God’s incredible love…

In January an old mother was left in the passenger seat of the car while the owner popped into a shop to get something. Because the weather was cold the engine was left running to keep the heater going… and the car was unlocked.

Suddenly a bad man who has just been sentenced to more than eight years in prison jumped into the driver’s seat and stole the car including the passenger!

Seeing the car disappearing in the distance, the frantic car owner phoned the police. Asked for further information about the passenger it was explained that the mother was 89, had dementia, and was also blind.

(more…)

TRUE LOVE: JESUS MAKES THE DIFFERENCE

(April 29, 2024) Mama Lava tells a delightful story… with a heart-touching challenge.

The Story…
A young couple met young and fell madly in love.

Wife was beautiful and sweet, and Husband was charming and ready to take on the world.

(Photo Henri Pham on Unsplash).

They didn’t have much, but they had each other and their wild dreams for the future.

Disappointments
As the years went by, they experienced one disappointment after another. Business ideas blossomed and withered, and any meagre savings they managed to accumulate quickly dissipated. There were a couple of pregnancies, but none that went full-term. An injury incurred at a thankless job, leaving  Husband dejected and in constant pain.

They each felt empty and in need of something more, so Wife began to go to church. Husband preferred the bar. They lived together but grew far apart.

(more…)

HONOUR THE LORD – RECEIVE HIS BLESSINGS

(April 20, 2024) Norman and Margaret Moss reflect on receiving blessings from God…

Young authors who submitted their stories to the BBC’s 500 words competition were honoured recently at the Grand Final in Buckingham Palace. One of the winners in the age 5-7 group said that the Queen had touched him twice on the shoulder while talking to him.

His brother had said, ‘That means you’re a knight!’ Well not yet! Maybe later… who can tell!

But here’s something we can tell… God’s blessings overflow when we honour Him!

Honouring God
We were meditating on Exodus 20:24, ‘Wherever I cause my name to be honoured I will come to you and bless you’ and we felt the Lord was saying –

(more…)

WHAT IS YOUR DEFINING MOMENT?

(April 11, 2024) Carol Round encourages… and challenges –

Looking back on your life, can you remember a choice leading to a life course change? At some point in our Christian lives, we’ve either faced or will be faced with crossroad decisions.
 
Crossroads decisions are defining moments. Those decisions influence or change our lives and affect our future. Imagine a fork in the road. Depending on the moment, and how you react to it, your life can go in one direction or the other.
 
It reminds me of Robert Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken. The writer is travelling down a road where he must decide which path he will choose as ‘two roads diverged.’  As he debates his choice, he contemplates the differences between the two paths.

Ultimately, he chooses the path less travelled and says, ‘That has made all the difference.’

(more…)

PALM SUNDAY AND THE PRINCE OF PEACE

(March 22, 2024), Alan Higgins shares about Palm Sunday and encourages us to know, honour and follow the Prince of Peace.

Let me begin with a prayer…

‘Father God, as we look afresh in the Bible at the familiar story of Palm Sunday, please speak to us and give us a new insight into what Jesus our Saviour did for us. May we really know that Jesus is the King of Kings… in His name, I pray. Amen.’

Palm Sunday is one of my favourite days of the year.

Declaring Jesus!
When I led St Clement’s Parish Church we used to make it a fun day – we marched around the church with a donkey, me playing guitar and everyone singing – down neighbouring streets – in through the gates – into the church – worship the Lord – and then the clearing up had to begin!

(more…)

TEAM JESUS – CALLED BY JESUS TO SERVE HIM

(March 17, 2024) Richard Winter shares and encourages…

Shhhhhh… did you hear that sound?

Did you hear Jesus speaking even above the cacophony of noise we have in this modern world? Or even in the middle of a great Sunday church service?

For that matter, has Jesus ever spoken to you? And if He has, what did He say?

Actually,  we can hear a voice from our memory. I will never forget my mom standing outside and calling us inside for supper: ‘Time to come home.’ I can remember my dad calling out to me when I was playing football…  Do this, do that, come on! While I can’t remember the cadence of their voice, from my memory I can still hear what they had to say.

Many times you will hear preachers begin some point with ‘Jesus said…’ Well, Jesus spoke audibly to people 2000 years ago and while I wasn’t there I can still hear His voice! How, you ask? Simple –

(more…)

IS YOUR FAITH UNSHAKABLE?

(March 09, 2024) Carol Round encourages…

It was 1987 when I learned Oklahoma has a series of fault lines running through our state. When I heard this, I laughed in disbelief at the agent promoting earthquake insurance. I associated earthquakes with California, not Oklahoma.
 
Twenty-two years later, I wasn’t laughing when our state experienced its first noticeable earthquake, at least in my lifetime! Late one evening, while I was reading a book, my bed began to vibrate. ‘Nah,’ I thought, ‘I’m just imagining things.’

Then, it happened again. This time the shaking was stronger. What was going on? I turned on the TV to a news station reporting we were experiencing an earthquake in parts of the state. Since that time, our state has experienced significantly stronger earthquakes.

(more…)

YEARNING FOR THE LORD

(March 06, 2024) Norman and Margaret Moss reflect on some good news…

Margaret enjoyed her school days. I did not. So I truly know what it is to yearn for the holidays.

‘Yearn’… a feeling of intense longing for something.

Someone commenting on Job 19 wrote that Job had a gut-wrenching longing to see God, and we were led to meditate on verses 25-27 –

‘I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!’

(more…)

WHO WILL TAKE THE SON?

(February 21, 2024) GodReports shares a pointed parable…

In New Orleans, in the mid-1800s, a wealthy merchant, a widower, and his son were known for their rare collection of Old Master paintings, including a Raphael.

Often, after dinner, they would sit together and admire them.  
                                                                                                                                      
Great distress
When the Civil War broke out, the son went away to fight. He was very courageous and died in battle in the Shenandoah Valley while rescuing another soldier. The father was notified and grieved deeply.

A few months later a young man came to the door with a large package. The father answered the bell himself. ‘Sir, you don’t know me,’ said a young man carrying a package. ‘I am the soldier your son died to save.’

(more…)