Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God’s Good News. “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!(Mark 1:14-15 NLT). Jesus asked people to repent. The ultimate evil in us is to make ourselves the ultimate authority, to worship the self rather than look to God. Repenting means to reject belief in the self as sovereign of our lives and believe in Jesus as Lord and Saviour. To do th

There are gifts from the Holy Spirit such as gifts of healing, discernment, wisdom, miracles, prophecy, tongues and interpretation of tongues and these are wonderful when you see people using these gifts. I particularly want to focus on the gift of healing today. Only last week I witnessed a man use the gift of healing to pray for numerous people to be instantaneously healed of accident damage and chronic health conditions. Such gifts all advance the kingdom of God because th

How often have you gone to a funeral and heard the officiator say that that person is in hell? Never, I bet! It has always amazed me that when I have gone to the funeral of a professed atheist or anti-Christian, it is always said that they are in a better place or up there in the sky enjoying themselves or looking down on us smiling. Heaven is Jesus’ house and what makes people think that Jesus will let them into His house when they haven’t even read His letter to them? If yo

What is it you are thinking about? Did you know that the way you think will actually affect the way you act? If you think toxic thoughts, you will behave in a toxic manner. Many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices (William James 1862). In other words, many people think they are being objective but they are not examining the facts and forming a judgment independent of their pre-conceived ideas. So what I am saying is that people ten

Zacharias was told he would have a son and he was fearful and disbelieving. As a result he was made unable to speak until the baby was born. Jesus couldn’t do many miracles in Galilee because of their unbelief. If you are not seeing miracles when you pray, check for unbelief being present! Look at Mary’s response when the angel told her when she was probably 15 years old and unmarried that she was going to have a baby. She wondered at the process but she wasn’t fearful even k

“21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and while he slept, He took one of his ribs or a part of his side and closed up the [place with] flesh. 22 And the rib or part of his side which the Lord God had taken from the man He built up and made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23 Then Adam said, This [creature] is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of a man. 24 Therefore a man shall lea

My friend’s father was a Jewish inmate in the Dachau concentration camp and he was telling me on Saturday that his father had to stand in thin clothing in freezing conditions, ankle deep in mud, for hours on end. He witnessed many of his fellow inmates giving up and dying. His father, on the other hand, stood there, imagining he was standing on a Viennese chocolate cake and it was that kind of thinking that kept him looking forward to a positive future. The idea of filling yo

Someone needs to hear this today. I hear, from time to time, people saying that they have gone too far in sin for them to ever be able to return to God. This is a lie and totally dismisses who God is and how He saves. Today I want to look at a verse in the Bible that I had overlooked until now but it has a powerful message for anyone who thinks they can’t be saved. “And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s c

How can a fallen, flawed, broken, sinful person have a relationship with the exalted God? What does it take to be a believer and follower of Jesus? I want to go back to an ancient prophet writing in 722 BC for the answer. Micah 6 opens with a court scene and God bringing a charge against unfaithful Israel and warning of upcoming judgment with the mountains and the foundations of the earth called on as witnesses. Micah then outlines God’s faithful actions and Israel’s unfaithf

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16-18 NKJV). God so loved the world. John used a word to describe humanity without God, the fallen world. It refers to a system that developed to cover our imperfections. It’s the root of the word ‘cosmetic’ – a system of adornment to cover our blemishes. So intense was God’s love for us sinners that He sent Jesus to get us out of

“Looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works” (Tit. 2:13-14 NKJV). As I lie on the beach, listening to the waves and soaking in the sunshine, my mind turns to the oceanic Divine love that was made incarnate among us because God yearned for you. He didn't yearn for the you on your best

Almost daily our lives are changing under all the Covid mutations. One minute we are completely free of masks and the next we have to wear them even outside. One minute we can travel hither and thither and the next we are blocked from travelling to other states let alone other countries. In all this changing world, one feature has never changed — God, and who He is. Have a look at this section of the Bible that I was looking at this morning: 4 But God’s mercy is great, and he

Jesus came and kept the law in every respect so that He was said to be without sin. He was pure in mind and heart, yet the whole time He was on this earth He didn’t hang around the lovely, the good, the “holy” – he hung out with the worst of sinners, the “unimaginable and egregious” abusers of mankind (to use a phrase in today’s news). We aren’t pure yet we recoil in horror from such wicked characters yet here was Jesus being affectionate towards them, a “friend of sinners” (

The fact that God’s grace is crazy and unfair was brought home very strongly to me recently. I was in a conversation with a fellow student from my old high school. The conversation revolved around Australia’s most notorious serial killer and his turning up uninvited at parties and the yet unsolved crime of the suspicious disappearance of one of the girls from the school at the time the serial killer was living across the road from the school. We then talked about one of the s

Did you know that you don’t have to be educated or eloquent to be able to witness about Jesus? One of the greatest evangelists of all time was Charles Haddon Spurgeon and he was converted to Christ as a 15 year old on January 6, 1856 when he went into a little church to shelter from a snowstorm. The minister was unable to be there so an ignorant and illiterate man preached the text he had been given: “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 45:22). T

We live in a broken world. Sometimes the 'Happy Ever After' - the fulfillment of the promises - don't come on this physical earth. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). Our faith is that we believe that He exists and rewards those who earnestly seek Him, clinging to our Deliverer without scripting our deliverance, without dictating what that reward looks like, be it a restored marriage, a prodigal's return, a heal

Prof. Mervyn T. Judge continues: “This fulfilled the word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah, who said, “He took our sicknesses and removed our diseases” (Matt. 8:17 NLT). The prophecy of Isaiah says that Jesus took our sicknesses and removed our diseases. If Jesus took away our sicknesses when He took away our sins, then it is our duty to “claim” this “gift” from God, provided we have the necessary faith. Faith is, therefore, the motivating force and NOT our own works or

The father of a good friend of ours used to run radio broadcasts on 2KY and yesterday I was shown the transcript of some of those broadcasts from 1975. I was touched by his account of God’s miraculous healing of his son and our friend’s identical twin brother from a life threatening disease. I now share, with kind permission, the words of Prof. Mervyn T. Judge. “Let me tell you this true story. A story of 2 parents who, this week, travelled the terrible road towards hell, whe

“From his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses, but God’s unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ” (John 1/16-17). We were down at the beach yesterday teaching our grandchildren how to ride the waves with a boogie board. We showed them how the waves came in sets and to look out for the one that had enough energy to give them a good ride to the shore. Living the Christian life is like those wa