Faith for life

1. Be an imitator of Christ As the Coronavirus continues, you may be wondering how you can glorify God whilst practising social distancing and staying at home more. The first thing you can do is to imitate Jesus, by focusing on Him and doing the things that He did. In Matthew 22:36-40, one of the disciples asked Jesus: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”  Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’   All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” You see, if we have fulfilled these two crucial requirements, then we have done what is pleasing to God. Love God - use this time (and I’m speaking to myself here too) to deepen your love for God. Spend time with Him, talk to Him, listen to Him and be led by Him. Read the Bible. Ask Him to help you grow. Praise Hi...

This third post of my 'God is' series will be looking at the love of God. I want to emphasize that my aim is to explore the biblical observation that a part of God's personality is that He is loving, not that God is only loving. I hear a lot, from many, many people, that 'God is love'. They declare this happily, joyfully and... finally. And, of course, one way of looking at that statement is that God created love and love comes from God. Which I completely agree with. God's love is an awesome, amazing, miraculous part of Him. What worries me, however, is that a lot of people fall into the trap of believing that God is only loving and then they disregard all of God's other personality traits. I think that a lot of people do this, because they believe that it will make their lives easier; that their relationships with God will be stronger and more enjoyable if they accept this part of who He is, without searching for anything else from Him. This is a dang...

The scriptures are very confident of this, simple, fact: God is wise. Throughout both the old and new testaments, God's wisdom is glorified and exalted. And because He is wise, we also read of His understanding, sympathy, kindness, righteousness and that He is all-knowing.  Desiring wisdom is something that all people strive for. In fact, many people sacrifice a great deal in order to gain wisdom; even if the wisdom they are pursuing is foolishness in the eyes of God. Many people desire wisdom, because they desire everything that normally comes with worldly wisdom: power, money, authority, control, love etc. Yet, they do not see what they are missing. In fact, they do not know that they are missing anything at all... And what they are missing is the most precious of human possessions; Jesus. Therefore, not only are they without true wisdom but they are also without salvation. That's a scary thought. The scriptures below highlight a variety of the characteristics o...

If you want to know yourself, why you have the gifts you do, why you are where you are and what your purpose is then you need to get to know who God is, first. Who Jesus is. Get to know His personality and through that He will, in turn, reveal who He has made you to be. This is the beginning of my 'God is' series. Over the next month, each one of my blog posts will be exploring a different element of God's majestic personality. Each post will reveal what the scriptures have to say about God and WHO He is. With these revelations, not only will we come to know our heavenly Father better, but we will also come to know ourselves better as we strive to look more like Jesus.  The first personality trait I will be exploring, is the 'fire' of God. The fire of God appears in many different forms, in the Bible. And below, I have listed what those forms are and the scriptures that explore them. In many ways, the fire of God is a joyful, beautiful spectacle to behold. ...

The Bible tells us, over 400 times, to ‘fear not’. It is the most common command given to believers in the Bible. If the word of God tells us the same thing, so many times, then we need to realise that it must be important. That we need to learn from it and obey what he has asked us to do or not to do. ‘ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’ Philippians 4:5-7 It is important here, that we do not confuse mere ‘fear’ with the fear of God. We are told numerous times in the Bible to fear God, because our fear leads to understanding, knowledge, wisdom, goodness, God’s protection and, ultimately, salvation. To fear God is to respect God and know that he is a God of justice. He will not let evil go unpunished. Therefore, when we fear him we respect him and keep his c...