Tune and Prepare!

A well-known parable of Jesus is found in Matthew 13. It is the story of the weed /darnel /tares found among the pure wheat. But do we understand the original message? Jesus put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat,... So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well... the slaves of the householder came and said to him: ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ ‘An enemy has done this.’ ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers: Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn‘ Mt 13:24-30 Jesus' par...

I - II - III from the book: "God Knows You’re Human" by Terry Virgo Having seen the Architect’s plans, how do we turn them into reality? David did not say to Solomon, ‘Be nice and laid back,’ but rather, “Be strong and courageous’ (1 Chronicles 22:13) . The call to build is also a call to battle. The house of God will not build itself. Its construction requires courage, skill and perseverance. Rugged stones have to be fitted together; beams and pillars positioned to take stress, doors built to give access and to bar intruders, windows put in to give light. All this has to be done in the face of opposition. The devil will brutally attack church building from the beginning, but building a house has to go ahead on wet and windy days as well as on bright and sunny ones. Your flesh doesn’t want to get up early in the morning to pray. It doesn’t want to fast. It doesn’t want to resist temptation, so you must show your flesh who is boss! The devil will als...

I - II - III from the book: "God Knows You’re Human" by Terry Virgo ‘I have taken great pains to provide for the temple of the Lord’ (1 Chronicles 22:14). David had fought hard in battle and now he was giving the spoils of those battles to his son to build the temple. He had amassed ‘a hundred thousand talents of gold, a million talents of silver, quantities of bronze and iron too great to be weighed, and wood and stone’ (1 Chronicles 22:14). You can imagine David’s words being spoken to you by Jesus: ‘Now, My child, I have with great pains made available to you everything you need for the house of the Lord.’ Jesus has conquered death for you, provided at terrible cost everything that you could possibly need to get the job done. ‘From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another’ (John 1:16). The supply will never run out. It all seems so difficult, until you realise that Jesus’ resources are available to you without l...

I - II - III from the book: "God Knows You’re Human" by Terry Virgo God had told David, “Solomon your son is the one who will build my house ... for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father” (1 Chronicles 28:6). David encouraged Solomon by reminding him of that choice. “Consider now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a temple as a sanctuary” (1 Chronicles 28:10). Since God had chosen him, he could be bold. So David exhorted his son, “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you, He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished” (1 Chronicles 28:20). But just a minute - who was this person that God had chosen to build His house? Wasn't he the son of Bathsheba, a woman who should never have appeared in David's history, at all? Why should she be honoured as the mother of the future king? Who was Solo...

From the article: '7 Reasons Why the Gospel of John is So Special' by Michael Krueger “One of these things is not like the others.” That was a classic segment on Sesame Street, as well as the title of a popular children’s book. It proves again that everything you need to know in life you probably learned in Kindergarten. After all, when it comes to the four gospels, it has been long recognized that “one of these things is not like the others.” There are three Synoptic Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—with very similar content, tone, and pacing. And then there’s the gospel of John. From the very beginning, the church fathers even recognized that John was notably different than the others. In fact, Clement of Alexandria famously referred to John as the “spiritual gospel,” as opposed to the more “earthy” Synoptics. Ok, but what exactly makes John so different? Given that John loves the number seven—as one example among many, his gospel is structured around seven...