Pride God walked In the cool of day To visit Eve and Adam And found them Hiding Pride of rivaling God And knowing good and evil, When God drew near, Had made them Tremble God came, and comes, to prideful us Seeking out our hiding places To honour us with his word Of death to pride and birth of Promise So when God’s Son was born To Mary The proud rose up with fearful rage But the lowly found A Saviour Could they then see The awful battle God had joined? This Son would wear our pride And tremble in […]

Knowledge of God Knowing of God we have together… What else when God is love One Father delighting in his Son—the crucified And pouring out for him A blessing on the world And we, endowed in him His Brothers, Bride and Body Receiving in our flesh His Spirit. What else when, together, we are Sealed by Christ, our Brother Who does not think our faults A blemish on the relationship But bound them to himself To awful death And rose with peace for us to share As family. What else when All of us have Died one death Live in […]

Does God Hurry ? Does God hurry? Does he scurry? Is he ever in a rush? He has so many things to do while Looking after us. It seems to me the things I want Should happen in a hurry. There’s always more that could be done So surely God must worry. But our Father is eternal. He’s never short of time, And he can manage everything That he has got in mind. Jesus said he never did Anything at all Without his Father showing What was needed, big or small. God can fit his big things Into little bits […]

Conscience Ah conscience tutored in the ways of Rightness Practiced in the ways of Rectitude Raging until each aberration Is made good And raging too until Each thought is Pure and steady Ah conscience never satisfied Working on until The flesh is limp and Mind exhausted Urging on to kingdoms that will Compensate and camouflage The lack that still remains Ah conscience Meet your Master Even God Not with face all stern And whip in hand But in the face of Christ Sin bearer See there the Thefts, adulteries and murders And many lesser crimes All lovingly embraced and borne […]

There are times when God comes to reason with us. ‘Have I been God to you? Have I done anything worthy of note?’ These are the questions Moses asks Israel as they stand poised between Sinai and their promised land. We tend to live in the light of things that can be seen and controlled but God, who cannot be seen, has left his evidence clearly in our history. His Son has come, and been raised from the dead. We have seen his glory. Can we, like the world, live without God? Can we find love without him? Is there […]

What answer do we have for those who think a Christian’s life is dowdy, defeatist and unsuccessful? Some so-called smart teachers in Corinth are saying that Paul and his message are inferior to what they have to offer. This is much the same as the atheists and sceptics are saying about us Christians now! Paul has given us a number of reasons to be proud of Christ and confident to live, and now adds that a Christian’s life is open ended—looking forward to a renewed body and to being with Christ. The Holy Spirit guarantees this with a new life […]

By Grant Thorpe Christian Basics is a series of studies on the truths that are essential for our relationship with the living God, ourselves, and others. The studies are centred around the theme of God’s call to man, and show not only how man is called from darkness to light, but how he is to live thereafter within the terms of that call, and how he may grow in an appreciation of its riches. CONTENTS Study 1. The Meaning of God’s Call (PDF) Study 2. Called in the Grace of Christ (PDF) Study 3. Called by God to Repentance (PDF) […]

We Christians can easily turn from faith in Christ to faith in something we can see to make us feel we are OK—like the early Christians who were tempted to trust in Jerusalem. Paul says this takes us straight back into the slavery we escaped when we first trusted in Christ. He proves his point by taking us back to our family history (the Old Testament). The way Abraham’s two sons were born describes how we can try to bring about what God has promised, or how we can wait on him to do what he has promised. Then, the […]

It’s easy to be happy with short term success but it’s the big picture that counts. When Daniel is shown the content and meaning of his king’s dream, he is deeply thankful, but not just because he can now save his own neck. The dream assures him that God will bring Babylon to and end, and all other players on the world scene too. God’s kingdom, the one promised to David, will fill the earth. All other kingdoms are going to crumble when Christ appears. This puts them in proper perspective. Clearly, serving Christ as King is what will last. […]

Jesus announced that all authority was given to him, in heaven and earth. How does this translate into daily experience when the world around seems to pull all the strings and take all the credit for our way of life? Has Christianity been upstaged? Shall we mount a campaign against our culture? Rather, Daniel shows that God still reigns when an alien power is in control. He believes, and lives to see God exercising his power. He also shows us how to respond to Christ’s reign of grace and not merely react to our culture.