lackings

STUNNED, SCARED, SHEPHERDED

(October 08, 2023) Robert McQuillan shares a breakthrough experience to encourage others, especially young believers feeling inadequate in serving Jesus…

According to Dr Fred Luskin, Stanford University, we have approximately 60,000 thoughts per day – 90% being repetitive!

Well, I woke up with one repetitive thought going round and round in my mind… and couldn’t switch it off! A simple but so meaningful eight-word scripture that’s had my back for decades. Then I started recalling the time some 50 years ago when that verse’s reality hit me, becoming an inner strength that I’ve never forgotten.

‘Which scripture?’ you ask, probably thinking everyone has some Bible verse that’s so meaningful to them.

  • True… John 3:16 for example: ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ 
  • Maureen,  my darling wife, delights in Romans 15:13 – ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’ 
  • What’s your favourite that you cling to in times of troubles?
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THE CRY OF OLIVER TWIST – AND SOME CHRISTIANS!

(July 12, 2017) Robert and Maureen McQuillan share a challenge on commitment in following and serving Jesus…

‘Please, sir, I want some more’ from Charles Dickens’ second novel Oliver Twist are words so famous that virtually everyone remembers them.

The outraged response of Mr Bumble, the workhouse supervisor, is well known too.  The musical Oliver portrays Bumble’s enraged reaction as ‘More? You want more?!’

In other words, ‘What you have already received is enough, more than enough!’

The Christian catchcry of ‘More’
Some twenty-five years ago ‘More, I want more’ became many a Christian’s Oliver Twist catchcry in various church circles.

Today as we minister around various denominations and engage in pastoral care/mentoring, we still hear another cry for more, and not  just from a mere few Christians.

It’s a cry of longing for something better than …

  • An unsettled heart
  • Discontentment with current personal circumstances or marriage
  • Churches not displaying friendliness and Christian love
  • A lack of taught ‘real’ biblical truths of meaningful ‘meat’
  • Weird so-called ‘new’ teaching
  • No personal relationship with our loving heavenly Father
  • Not knowing the written promises of God, and neither reading or grasping their truths
  • The absence of the supernatural Holy Spirit in church life and people’s lives (even leaders).

The above short list and other things result in that Dickensian expression of ‘More. I want more’ but for more of something precious, meaningful and wholesome. (more…)