holidays are coming….

As we approach August and holidays I am anticipating that these blog entries will become more intermittent than at present. You may be pleased at that thought – you will have less corny jokes to groan at and will be able to spend a little more time doing other things.

Let me offer you one thing that you could do. Last Sunday morning I was preaching on Jesus meeting the Rich Young Ruler (Luke 18:18ff) and was captivated by Jesus’ comment to him that after all he was doing he still lacked one thing. I found myself being asked the question: “What do you lack?” How can my relationship with God be improved? How can I be a better follower of Jesus? If you are interested, you can listen to the sermon on a page on our church website, here.

The answer to those questions is ‘something and nothing’. Nothing – because it is God’s Spirit at work in us who changes and transforms us. Something – because we need to give him permission and there may be things we can do to help him. One of the suggestions I made was for people to read through Luke’s gospel during the month of August – start to finish. At a rate of one chapter a day it will only take 24 days, giving you some space for when you forget or it gets crowded out by other things.

I am planning to do this myself in the expectation that I will discover more about the Jesus I follow, more about what it means to follow him, and more about myself. I am quite excited about the prospect. What about you?

Lesser-known Bible contents
Tennis is mentioned: ‘Joseph served in the courts of Pharaoh’
There’s a motorbike: ‘Joshua’s triumph was heard throughout the land’
There’s a small man: Nehemiah (knee-high Miah)
There’s a smaller man: The man who fell asleep on his watch
There’s a financial adviser: Noah floated his stock while everyone else went into liquidation
There’s a stand-up comic: Samson brought the house down