Recently I went to the cinema to watch the latest Spider-Man movie. Don’t worry, I’m not going to drop in any spoilers! It was a really good movie and once again Spider-Man proved strong enough to save the day and overcome the bad-guys. In almost every scene we could see his super-human abilities. His incredible powers that no ordinary person possesses. Despite his desire to be seen as an average teenager, Peter Parker is not an average teenager. He is a super-hero. Sometimes we unhelpfully make super-heroes out the men and women we see in the Bible. We picture them as some kind of next level Christian with super-Christian abilities, their Holy Spirit senses tingling at every turn, always able to overcome and always having pure heroic motives. However, as we begin our journey through the Gospel of John, it’s important to understand who it is that’s giving us this account of Jesus’ life. John, the disciple of Jesus, who wrote this gospel didn’t have a very impressive list of credentials…  Read More

Vision is vital. When I was a small boy my father worked for Worcester College for the blind. We would regularly have students over for lunch and I marvelled at how these young men with no sight negotiated our home and the unwitting traps set for them by a 4 year old boy. They were amazing, but their lack of vision made life harder. The Bible is clear, a lack of vision, or having the wrong vision, in our lives is even more dangerous. We are created for purpose – Kingdom purpose. From Genesis 1 when God creates humanity in the image of the divine to bring the authority and rule of God over creation, to Matthew 28 when the risen Christ commissions the disciples to take the gospel to all nations, scripture is clear.   Read More

And so we come to the end of our journey through Galatians. What a fruitful journey it has been? Or has it? Certainly it has been an enjoyable time – what is not to enjoy about digging into the grace of God week after week. To be constantly reminded that God loves us because he loves us. That God’s love is not, and has never been, dependent on our religious activity. That we were chosen before the beginning of the world, that before we were even a glint in our parent’s imagination we had a fixed place in the mind of God. This is grace, this realisation that our foundation is secure and that from that foundation we can now live to please GOD. But has this journey been fruitful?  Read More

I want to focus us on that verse because I believe that it’s crucial for the rest of Paul’s message about how we can have grace for one another. We live in a world of conceit, our natural instinct as sinful humans is to be conceited and so if we want to be the family of God in the way that God has called us to be we have to be intentional in fighting against it.  Read More

I’m deliberately going to keep this brief… because while there is loads that could be said about this wonderful passage, I want to give you plenty of space to reflect, confess and pray. These verses speak of the struggle that’s evident in each of our lives. Our flesh is in conflict with the Holy Spirit. That is, too often our selfish desires clash with the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives and in this world. Paul says these selfish desires are obvious. Check out what he lists in v19-21. Recognise any of these in your life? Be honest. This is a time just between you and God. Allow the Holy Spirit to convict you.  Read More

There are certain verses in scripture that I believe I know so well that I don’t need to look them up. I thought Galatians 5:1 was one of those verses. I have sung it, quoted it in sermons and prayed it in prayer meetings. It rolls off the tongue – “It was for freedom that Christ has set us free!” Firstly I know that is not the whole verse – it goes on to say Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. But that is not my point, my point is this – I have remembered it wrong. You see I learnt the verse, or thought I had learnt the verse, from the NIV translation. In the NIV (New International Version) it actually says – “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free”  Read More