#christian

Why did the Ethiopian eunuch read aloud?

Kristina Trott

1 day ago
3 min

Why did the Ethiopian eunuch read aloud?

Have you ever read something a thousand times and then suddenly read something that you have never seen before? That’s what happened to me the other day when I read this passage: 26 As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and h

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Kristina Trott

6 days ago
2 min

Christians and sin

I’ve been writing about the difference in the life lived before a knowledge of Jesus and the blessed life we have when we live under His reign. Today I want to look specifically at what it is that separates man from God and from living that life of favour – sin. In the New City Catechism, Question 16 asks, “What is sin?” The answer is: “Sin is rejecting or ignoring God in the world he created, rebelling against him by living without reference to him, not being or doing what

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Storms: living in fear or living in trust

Kristina Trott

Nov 24
3 min

Storms: living in fear or living in trust

I last wrote about the different way we can approach life’s calamities when we live under Jesus – that we are now living under a different rule. We are already living under Divine favour and instead of calling out in fear to God when calamity strikes, we can rest assured that our Saviour is in control in His kingdom and we will be delivered. We simply can ask and trust in Him. We could look at any of the calamities of life in Psalm 107 but we will take the peril of the sea a

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Kristina Trott

Nov 21
3 min

The answer to my riddle

In my last blog I posed a riddle –to find the psalm that elaborated on the mission statement of Jesus recorded in Luke. I gave you one hint –that it was about the chesed, or loving kindness of God. I could have made it easier by telling you that the psalm was probably written after Israel had been released from Babylonian captivity. It was Psalm 107 – a psalm all about experiencing God and seeing His love at work. A psalm that is summarised in the mission statement of Jesus i

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A riddle for all you thinkers out there!

Kristina Trott

Nov 17
2 min

A riddle for all you thinkers out there!

I last wrote about experiencing God so that you can know His character – to test Him in all the varied happenings of life to know all the different ways that His goodness, benevolence, kindness, mercy and graciousness are expressed. Today I want you to explore who He says He is. I'm going to pose you a riddle hidden in the Bible. Jesus defined just who He was when He went to a synagogue in Nazareth (where He had been brought up) and opened the scroll to read aloud: “The Spiri

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Kristina Trott

Nov 13
2 min

Masala chai and tasting God

As we sat on our balcony this morning, sipping our masala chai, I reflected on how many times I have changed the proportions of the spices. Not long ago I wanted the cloves taste to predominate. Then it was the nutmeg taste. Then green cardamom. At the moment it is the grated fresh ginger that we are enjoying. The only way you can really enjoy masala chai is to experiment and find what delights your tastebuds for that moment in time. It’s a bit like that with God. There is n

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Kristina Trott

Nov 7
2 min

Love is the antidote to pride!

Why is it that incompetent individuals are confident of their talents and abilities in a certain area and overstate their skills? I have encountered this more times than I care to think about. It’s called the Dunning-Kruger effect. By the same token, those who are competent in a subject area tend to think less of their own skills. People oblivious to their incompetence are often the loudest at proclaiming their capabilities and proficiencies. Perhaps Liz Truss is a recent exa

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Why I like an Anglican prayer-book service

Kristina Trott

Nov 2
2 min

Why I like an Anglican prayer-book service

On a Sunday we enjoy a prayer-book service where we collectively recite prayers that were first written at the height of the Reformation in 1549. The Reformation was a religious movement that resulted in a break away from worship of the Roman Catholic Church into a theology of justification by grace alone through faith alone. The Book of Common Prayer was compiled by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer so that it retained the old forms of the Catholic Mass but had added throughout the

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Kristina Trott

Oct 23
3 min

Surviving shipwrecks

I had a forebear who came as a free settler to the penal colony of Hobart. Having braved ocean travel for weeks in a sailing boat, she was forced to swim to land when the boat foundered on rocks as it tried to navigate the entrance to Hobart harbour. I can’t imagine how frightening that must have been, let alone preposterous, in a Victorian costume. In this day and age such an experience would have invited lengthy counselling for the associated trauma. The apostle Paul writes

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No shadow of turning with God and what that means for you

Kristina Trott

Oct 19
2 min

No shadow of turning with God and what that means for you

Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. (James 1:17). I woke this morning with this verse in my mind, and, in particular, that there is no shadow of turning with God. Just think about it. There are no grey areas with God. What He has said stands the test of time, over and over and over. So when He says He is our Provider, He is our Provider, yesterday,

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Kristina Trott

Oct 16
2 min

Pageantry, ceremony and God

Queen Elizabeth II was laid to rest last month in an incredible display of pomp, circumstance and showmanship from the monarchy, military and state. In my entire life I had never seen such impressive ceremonial pageantry with meticulously choreographed processions, spectacle and splendour. Keep those thoughts in your mind as you turn to look at Solomon dedicating the house that he built for God to dwell in. There certainly was ceremony with singers and orchestra loudly praisi

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What made the apostle Paul really angry?

Kristina Trott

Oct 13
3 min

What made the apostle Paul really angry?

“You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a spell on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough. Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this crazin

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Kristina Trott

Oct 10
3 min

Have you come to bitter waters?

“22 Then Moses led the people of Israel away from the Red Sea, and they moved out into the desert of Shur. They travelled in this desert for three days without finding any water. 23 When they came to the oasis of Marah, the water was too bitter to drink. So they called the place Marah (which means “bitter”). 24 Then the people complained and turned against Moses. “What are we going to drink?” they demanded. 25 So Moses cried out to the Lord for help, and the Lord showed him a

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Kristina Trott

Oct 9
1 min

Some good things God says about you

Today I want to do a quick summary of what God says about you. God has written your name on His hand (Isa. 49:16) so clearly He values you very highly. The Bible is full of God’s feelings towards you but here are some quick thoughts: You’re His beloved, His child. (Gal. 3:26). You are born of God. (John 1:12-13). You’re a new creation in Christ. Your past is wiped out. You’re forgiven. (2 Cor. 5:17). God put your sins on Jesus and He gave you His righteousness (2 Cor. 5:21).

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Forget our false stories - what does God say about us?

Kristina Trott

Oct 5
2 min

Forget our false stories - what does God say about us?

In the light of my writing about the false stories we tell ourselves, we can freely and graciously look to Jesus to understand God’s truth and not entertain any false ideas about who we are and who God is. Only by focussing on who Jesus really is will we cease to be in bondage to our own ill-conceived, repetitive, monotonous and dreary stories. It has long been said 'Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes'[1], but the apostle John (1 John 5:13-21) assures

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The stories we tell ourselves about Jesus

Kristina Trott

Oct 2
2 min

The stories we tell ourselves about Jesus

If we continually have life experiences and then we make up stories about people and events in our lives, then it should come as no surprise that people make up stories about Jesus. Someone may see Christians singing worship songs on TV and decide that Jesus is dull. Another sees Christians protesting outside a cinema that is showing a movie that denigrates Jesus and they decide that Christians are small-minded. Just like a lot of the time the stories that we make up in our l

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Kristina Trott

Sep 30
2 min

The stories we tell ourselves

Over 20 years ago an elderly pastor suggested to me that he believed that God was trying to speak with us all the time but our minds are so full of noise that we can’t hear Him. I’ve often thought about those words, especially when the only time I found I was hearing God’s voice was as I drove along the road and my mind was switched off from the stories I was telling myself – my own vivid imagination, what I had been taught about God, the opinions of those surrounding me, the

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A good man (or woman) loves himself (or herself)

Kristina Trott

Sep 28
2 min

A good man (or woman) loves himself (or herself)

“To acquire wisdom is to love yourself; people who cherish understanding will prosper” (Prov. 19:8.) There are lots of ways in which we can love ourselves. Shakespeare in Hamlet famously wrote: ‘This above all: to thine own self be true.’ In other words, Shakespeare was saying to only do that which you think is right, to always act according to your own true nature, and all will be well. The trouble is, the heart of man can’t always be trusted to do that which is right. A qui

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What does it mean for you that Jesus sits at God's right hand?

Kristina Trott

Sep 22
2 min

What does it mean for you that Jesus sits at God's right hand?

“When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honour at God’s right hand” (Mk 16:19). I worked for decades in a Chinese owned company and was familiar with Chinese dining etiquette and the seating arrangement around a round table at a dinner. In short, the seat of honour, reserved for the one with the highest status, faced the entrance and each guest was seated thereafter according to their ranking. The next most

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Kristina Trott

Sep 17
2 min

Why did God make you?

Do you ever wonder why you are here and what life is all about? My husband, Pete, spent 12 years traipsing the cultures and religions of this world trying to find this answer. Humans conceive and birth children and then watch children grow to maturity. We tend to feel like we are the centre of a creative hub but this isn’t the reason we were created. Imagine we are at the beginning of time. God had a purpose and intelligence with creating the whole universe. For 6 days God cr

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