"And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!" (Est 4:16 NKJV) If you read her story, Esther is presented as hesitant, as hiding her faith and her cultural identity for fear of personal backlash, and then as a self-centred coward....
I remember well the day I came into the New York aiort from a trip overseas. I faced the baggage checkers knowing I had lost the key to my suitcase. Just ahead of me they had allowed some people to pass on through but as I followed them a very stern looking clerk...
We looked through an antique shop and a small writing desk imprinted itself on our wishlist. Dad wanted it for me because the workmanship was superb. But the cost was prohibitive. Instead, he made over a chunky little old table for me, salvaged from a scrap truck on...
In the final part of our series on God's "balance" and "imbalance", let's firstly look at yet another incident in the Master's life, which brings to the fore, His perfect balance: Commending but… Scene one… Jesus is whole-heartedly appreciating the impulsive Simon...
I gathered a handful of greeting cards from the table and sought somewhere to keep them. They were precious and I wanted to keep them safely. “I need a box,” I said to thin air and there was an immediate use for one of the cardboard boxes I can’t bear to throw away....
She watched him leave, something impressing her she would not see him again He had vowed to fight her poverty, brought about by the greed of bureaucracy, and he was so sure he would succeed, there was a swagger in his step. Surely they would listen when they...
It has been said so often it is a bit of a cliché; ‘you get out of life as much as you put into it,’ or, said another way, ‘you get what you deserve.’ So, if life works that way, by definition Stephen, the first Christian martyr, deserved to cop a stoning to death....
Moses had one of the toughest lives in the Bible. Born into slavery, under death sentence at birth and again in his maturity, leading a rebellious nation out of an evil regime; and finally dying in sight of the land he would hand over to his people. Educated to the...
Part 2: CLOTHING YOU CANNOT BUY I have a snapshot of a figurine on a rock in the garden with the sun rising behind it. The figurine is almost obliterated, it is clothed with light when the sun rises behind it. It reminds me of why clothing was important when God set...
Last Saturday, in LESSONS ON REBIRTH FROM THE CHRISTMAS STORY, Part 1, we saw that the Christmas story, the birth of Jesus, is a beautiful symbol of a vital part of every Christian life: The rebirth process that we must undergo to enter into the new life in Christ...