crushed!

BLACK FRIDAY! BRIGHT NEW TOMORROW!

(April 5, 2023) Robert McQuillan recalls last Easter… 

Why last Easter? you ask. It’s almost this Easter, Good Friday is only a couple of days away!

That’s the very reason I’m recalling last Easter, especially Good Friday. Oh I know we’ll be rejoicing come Resurrection Sunday when we’ll all joyfully praise God for the fact that Jesus overcame death, defeating what’s called the last enemy (Acts 2:24)! Hallelujah!

But… think about Friday, Good Friday, the most solemn day of what we call Holy Week. This is the day when Christians bemoan the fact that Jesus went through so much agony and pain even before He was treated as a criminal and nailed to an ugly cross on Calvary’s hill!

So what was good about that? Who came up with the ridiculous title of Good Friday? So strange, so weird! I would have called it Black Friday! 

Actually it appears no one knows who first called it Good Friday. Some think that maybe somebody first termed it God’s Friday, anticipating all that God was achieving through His Son’s sacrifice on Calvary –

  • All our sins forgiven.
  • A clean slate for us on genuine repentance and accepting Jesus as Saviour.
  • An incredible relationship with God (first one having been broken back in Eden).
  • A guarantee of heaven and home for eternity!
  • God’s public announcement of His love for humankind. (As Dr Richard Winter writes in The Cross-Centrepiece of the Gospel of Christ).
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IN THE GARDEN

(April 02, 2023) Richard Winter reflects…

It’s often said that in the olden days things were different. Some will remember in those olden days that we had a garden at the back of our home… we grew most of our vegetables, some flowers and some fruit trees.

Everybody loves a garden. Whether you like to work in a garden, whether you plant it, or just like walking through one that somebody else has done all the work in, there is beauty in a garden.

The Holy Bible has a lot to say about either gardening or planting, or sowing and harvesting. Gardens feature in scripture from the beginning of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation. All of them are important to God’s plan… three on this earth, one not.

The three earthly ones were places of sadness, although the third became a place to rejoice over! And the fourth? Well let’s look at these four pivotal biblical places that have changed the way God’s people live… and can live.

The first garden was creation…

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