How Good A Neighbour Are You?

Most adults and, indeed, most of their children know the story of the Good Samaritan. And most of us would have a ready answer to the question, ‘According to Jesus, who is my neighbour?’ Our answer would be simple and clear: ‘Everybody,’ and our answer would be right. But that doesn't close the matter. There’s a further question: Is our right answer surface knowledge or dynamic knowledge? Is it strictly correct information, or does it actually affect and determine the way we live?

That’s the crucial question for us all, and it can be phrased in another way: How Christian are we, in fact? Does Jesus’ teaching determine our priorities, our lifestyle, the way we do business, the way we treat one another, our willingness to forgive, and our readiness to help? It’s a chilling thought to remember that Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini were all baptised Christians who knew their prayers by heart.

So how Christian are you really? Check the patterns of your daily choices, and you’ll know right away. The patterns never lie.

It's Life Jim, But Not As We Know It

When Traditions Become Weights

Anger

As Jesus showed us by His own life, true love takes many shapes. But we are blind to too many of them. We feel comfortable with the Jesus who cured the lepers, gave sight to the blind, healed the crippled, and brought the dead back to life. We feel at ease with the Jesus who gathered the little children around Him and blessed them, and we are comforted by the Jesus who forgave the most notorious sinners over and over again. We like the kindness that Jesus shows to His mother, in changing the water into wine at the wedding feast, just because she asked. And we’re touched by His tenderness to her as He hung upon the cross.

But there is another side of Jesus that makes us want to avert our eyes, because we don’t exactly know what to do with it. And that is the angry Jesus, we see, casting the chiselling moneychangers out of the temple, or denouncing the hypocrisy of the religious leaders who were no leaders at all, or reprimanding Peter who wants Him to take the easy way out and run away.

We have learned to be afraid of all anger and to make no distinction between its good and bad varieties. Jesus made that distinction clear for us. Bad anger contains hate and wishes another person harm. Good anger is always aimed at behaviours not persons. It hates the sin but not the sinner. Indeed, good anger can be for the good of those who are in the wrong, because it can wake them up - if they’re willing to listen.

Anger is a powerful tool and it can be misused so easily, but so can our inclinations toward passivity even in the face of great evils. Hate the sin, but love the sinner, and you’ll never go awry.

Thank You Sarah!

Why Were We Created?

Why were we created?

It's a question, ultimately, that takes us humans all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Our genesis, so Christians believe, reveals deep truths, which can help us navigate through today's uncharted territory.

The Bible suggests that we are all, individually created by God ... not to be slaves, nor for the benefit of other more worthwhile people, but instead to freely 'be' ourselves in relationship with God, each other, and the rest of the Creation.

It also suggests that we were created to be unique; with our own fingerprint and our own unrepeatable way of doing things. 'I praise you,' says the psalmist, 'because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.'

As we take our next, faltering steps into the brave, new world that lies before us, it's important, surely, to remember the awesome responsibility we have - both to live as beings created lovingly by a higher power... and as people, who have the power to create and, increasingly, to re-create ourselves.


Lord in Heaven, as the world around us changes, keep us afresh with a renewed desire to learn, to share, to inspire and to serve Your name. For You alone are the cornerstone of our lives. Amen

It's Life Jim But Not as We Know it!

When We Need a Little Help