Daily Life

You feed them!

It had happened again. It was one of those moments where, from a familiar passage of scripture, something new jumped out at me. It was early one morning when I was reading through Luke and came to the familiar story of the Feeding of the Five Thousand where Jesus said, “You find them something to eat.” Why did Jesus ask this question, I wondered and what did he expect from his disciples? Reading back through the earlier verses in the…

What does it mean to be a “spiritual church”?

Exciting things are happening at CBBC. God is at work; lives are being changed. There is nothing more exciting than to see and to know the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. Daniel mentioned that we all come from different Church backgrounds. Never were truer words spoken! I grew up in a generation where emotions were squashed, suppressed.  It wasn’t right to show emotion or value experiences.  It seemed ‘dead’. I’ve been thinking about that this…

Pastors Ponderings

This week’s Ponderings comes via Colin and contains some useful and important IT advice: A friend of mine and his wife are fostering two children aged about 6 and 8. He was doing some repairs and painting for me at the time and asked to have a quick chat. He is a tradie. There have been some problems settling in the children, and he asked me if there was some simple solution to controlling the internet, without tears and angst.…

Will He Find Faith?

I sat back and looked out the window, a barrage of questions tumbling around in my brain. Why hadn’t I thought about this before? What did it mean? Why is this question put on the end of this story? What’s Jesus wanting us to understand by adding this to the end of his parable? I’d just read the parable from Luke which has been titled, The Persistent Widow. You’d be as familiar with this story as I am but it’s…

It’s only a storm

The rain was bucketing down as we drove along. Would it ever end? It’s only a storm, says Julie in her own profound way. It is still Spring… the daffodils bloomed and the trees are in blossom. I haven’t been able to forget that statement nor the amazing truth I saw as I thought about our journey with God. Jesus Christ the same… yesterday, today… forever. God’s faithfulness never ends… his mercies are new every morning! I’m sure I’m not…

Holy Labor:

How Childbirth Shapes a Woman’s Soul By Aubry G. Smith “pains” [itsavon] means anguish not just physical pain.    It is the same word used for Adam’s curse only it’s translated as “painfully toils” with the ground.   We don’t associate physical pain with Adam in the same way as we do we Eve, why? We talk of Adam’s struggle to be fruitful, the anguish or worry whether the ground will yield its crop.  It’s possibly because we know labour can be…

Contained within the walls of God’s sovereign purpose

I’m finally getting it! After days, weeks even, of having new and exciting snippets of God’s truth seep into my dull brain, I’m finally seeing a clearer picture. I need to begin way back when I was a child growing up. All of my life I’d had the security of my parents’ love and the knowledge that they would do everything in their power to protect me. Even at school I had the discipline and boundaries of routine. But around…

Being Transformed into His Image…

Mmm… I’m not sure if I agree with that… I thumb through my Bible searching for a passage I read just a few days ago that will prove my point.  Sound familiar or is that just me? The other Sunday Daniel reminded us that our focus… our desire needs to be to know God more. I don’t think I’ll ever understand how great is God’s desire for us to know him more. It keeps coming back to being all about…

Another Perspective

I hesitate…I stop and start as I try and put this together. Why? Because it’s different…I’m different. Isn’t this what Julie’s been telling us? Isn’t this what makes unity in Christ unique? Yes, I know all that but… I set my laptop aside and wander into the kitchen.  Pulling down my jar of licorice-allsorts I glance through them and suddenly notice that there are two identical ones. Well, guess what Julie, I think CBBC might even beat that! Why? Because…

To love or to condemn?

How do I respond to those living a lifestyle that makes me uncomfortable? How do they see me? What attitudes am I conveying to them? Praise God for leaders with the courage to speak up and put these challenges out there for us to face. Praise God for those who continually make us think, read, pray, search your Word and ponder the questions from which we’d like to run! I’m scared, I’m uncomfortable and yet I’m excited and not wanting…

Salvation… the full story

It happened one day quite suddenly when the pastor was preaching from John’s gospel. I’d been taught from a very young age that the story of salvation began with John 3:16 but something made me flick back to the beginning of the gospel. Why, here was where the story of salvation began; not in chapter 3 but here in the words, “in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Why, I…

How Could They?

I closed my Bible and sat there for some time lost in thought. I’d been reading Jeremiah and a feeling of sadness so deep and so real had come over me. I love the old testament and frequently reflect on the details God gave Solomon for him to build the temple. This temple was the place where God’s people could meet with their holy God. Solomon had a passionate love for Yahweh as did his father, David, and that, combined…