The verses that spring to mind when I read the sentence above are taken from the gospel of John, chapter 6 and verses 53 to 56. The New International Version tells us: Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.” We read of the first century Christians breaking bread on a Sunday ..read more

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” 1 John 4:9-12 ESV It is spring, and all around, the world is turning green. The public gardens near where I live have become a place of delight for all the winter weary people. There ..read more

It is believed that the city of Jerusalem dates back to 2300 BC when it was inhabited (under another name) by the Amorites and then the Hittites. It was then abandoned but is later referred to as Salem in the time of the King and Priest Melchizedek (a contemporary of the patriarch Abraham), in Genesis 26. Sometime after Melchizedek’s death, Salem was conquered by the Jebusites who renamed the fortification Jebus. It was during the time of Joshua’s conquest of the land, under the control of King Adonizedek, that we read the first account in the Bible of the name Jerusalem (Joshua 10:1). It had ..read more

I’m sure there are times in everyone’s life when they need encouragement to see the beauty in the world instead of the ugly. Most of us live with little exposure to the truly ugly things in life, but perhaps in some ways many of us have become so used to beauty that it is more of an expectation than a privilege, or maybe we hardly have the time to really see it anymore, or maybe we have difficult things to work through and everything just seems ugly. Let me take a moment of your time to remind you why beauty is worth seeking out and really seeing. I started the year with a challenge for mysel ..read more

BeforeAfter Sitting on the deck, listening to the crows making a racket as their fledglings are learning to fly and the adult woodpecker with its young at the fat ball encouraging them to eat and breathing in all of God’s creation in the peace, my eyes were drawn to the fuschia plants in my hanging basket. A few weeks ago, we had torrential rain and localised flooding and sadly the fuchsia drowned. I felt sad as it was so full and so beautiful. Even the geraniums had gotten moldy! I repotted both the baskets, cutting back the dead growth and thought I had nothing to lose as I had already lost ..read more

Nutsy: Our live entertainment We have been writing a series of blog posts on coping with hospital stays, when life gets difficult and our faith. Our aim is not really to make the blog about us and how we are doing but rather on what has helped us manage our situation in the hope that we can offer you some hope and support in difficult times. So many of us are living through so much right now.  For us we are managing brain cancer and a palliative diagnosis, and you may have a different story.   A few days before we left the hospital we were labelled as palliative care, no more we ..read more

Recently we had the privilege of attending online, the funeral of a dear brother. Funerals are a time of immeasurable grief for both family and friends and yet loaded with hope also as the deceased persons next waking moment will be in the kingdom at the feet of Jesus with pain and suffering being a thing of the past. One of the reflections was that a funeral gives us the opportunity to take stock of our own lives – the journey that we are on and whether we need to make changes in the way we live our lives. Have we made the most of our lives thus far or could we do better at or be a better pe ..read more

Throughout the Bible there are many examples where God shows Himself to be faithful. Although sometimes it was not possible for the individuals to see God’s plan working, we can look back through those thousands of years that have gone by and see His steadfastness. Every day we are witness to the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father. The seasons continue faithfully year after year, day and night do not cease. God has not abandoned us. He is there faithfully waiting, not willing that any should perish. Faith in God is not weakness. It is strong confidence based on what we know of God. Although ..read more

We live in a world that has advanced in many domains such as medicine, science, knowledge, technology, communication and information to name a few. Today, everything is questioned and there is a pressure for more information in order to make a decision.  The Bible claims that it is the source of truth. Jesus said this when praying to his Father in heaven: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” John 17:17 ESV About one thousand years earlier, King David of Israel said of God’s word, “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, ma ..read more

If you are going to have faith in God, you need to know who He is. How do you find out? Our universe tells us plenty about God. It speaks of order and obedience to laws, of attention to detail in even the smallest aspects. It speaks of wisdom and faithfulness.The Bible tells us that the things God has created give glory to Him (Psalm 19). They are obedient to His design and are what God intended them to be. God’s plan is to fill the earth with His glory (Numbers 14:21). Man was specially created with the ability to reflect the glory of God in his thoughts and actions. However, man was also gi ..read more