Devotionals

As I write this, I am so aware of all the chaos in the world around us, wars, rumors of wars, grief, sorrow, and sickness. However, alongside those things is blessings. Rick warren talks about the fact that our lives are always on 2 tracks – battles and blessings. Today I want to focus on the blessings because I believe that’s what gets us through the battles, I know for me that has proved to be true.
Continue reading “Pondering On Thankfullness By Nozipho Khanda.”

I am going to begin this week’s devotional with a confession. Are you all ready? I am not fond of housework, especially dusting. Some mornings, I get up, sit down with my cup of tea, and think about all the dust in my house. I know I should get up and tackle it, but I don’t. Sometimes I spend the whole day sitting, either doodling away on my phone, reading a good book, or getting lost in creative writing. However, as the day draws to a close, I tend to feel dissatisfied, and I chide myself over everything I didn’t do. I know the following day will find me frazzled, because now I will have to tackle the previous days’ tasks on-top of my new ones. Either that, or the dusting won’t get done, and I’ll beat myself up. I’m good at that.
Continue reading “Jesus Sat.”

This coming Sunday is known in the church as Palm Sunday, and for me, it always evokes a lot of happy childhood memories. Where I grew up in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales, the days leading up to it were spent putting flowers on the graves of loved ones we’d lost. I still don’t know if this is just a Welsh tradition or whether it’s done elsewhere. Perhaps someone reading this can tell me. then on Palm Sunday itself, we paraded through our village from one church to another, obviously in an effort to portray what happened when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on his donkey. We carried palm crosses, and the brownies, guides, and scouts had flags. One year, I was given the privilege of baring the flag for the brownies, and it felt like a huge honour. These days churches seem to prefer to have their marches on Good Friday, but back then, it was always Palm Sunday. Or at least, it was for us.
Continue reading “From hero To Zero”

In the Bible, we read of many occasions when God spoke to his people in various ways. Some people ask whether he still does that today. Well, recently he spoke to my good friend Amy Sampson through a dream, and this is what she had to say about it.
Continue reading “amy’s Dream, By Amy Sampson.”

Imagine what an honour it was to have been chosen as one of Jesus’ twelve disciples. How would we have felt if we were present on the day our Saviour said: “follow me, and I will make you fishers of men”? That special dozen must have been an incredible group, right? Except we know they weren’t. As we read the gospels, we discover they were just ordinary people with struggles and weaknesses like you and me. They included a denier, a doubter, and even a betrayer. Do you find that off-putting? Perhaps it feels like a bit of a let-down. Well it doesn’t for me. in fact, it’s the total opposite. Reading about these flawed but favoured men encourages me that if Jesus could use them despite everything, then he can use me too.
Continue reading “Doubted, Denied, Betrayed.”

My theme for this devotional is the promise of the rainbow. It was inspired by a rainbow I saw in the sky recently while traveling in my car. In Genesis chapter 9 verses 13-17, God is speaking. “I will set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, this is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.”
Continue reading “the Promise of The Rainbow, By Pastor Peter Norris.”

When I was about seven years old, I attended a kids’ Bible teaching course during which we were taught the names of the first five books of the Bible. I was very proud to learn them, even though the words sounded funny to me. However, I guess it must have given me a thirst to know more about God’s word, because some time later when my mother and I were sitting out in the garden, I asked if she would read to me. She wondered what I wanted her to read, and I rather proudly announced that I wanted her to read the book called Numbers. Looking back, I think Numbers fascinated me the most because the word was familiar. I already knew something about numbers from doing maths at school. My mother did honour my request, but we soon realised that the first few chapters of Numbers aren’t ideal reading material for a young child, and I think we moved onto something more suitable. Whenever I read through the Bible and I get to Numbers, I always smile as I think back to that day, and I wonder if my mother remembers it too.
Continue reading “Nuggets In The Numbers.”

We are considering the account of the ten lepers, as told in Luke chapter 17 verses 11-19. We discussed how one was a Samaritan, thus making him doubly rejected, doubly isolated, and doubly hated by society. The lepers recognised that Jesus was no ordinary teacher. They knew he had a higher authority. They asked for pity, possibly seeing themselves as unworthy of a gift as great as healing. Then Jesus presented them with a divine predicament by telling them to go to the priests, which was something people with leprosy legally couldn’t do. We thought about our own divine predicaments, and the times in which Jesus has given us strength to do things we never thought we could.
Continue reading “Learning From The Lepers (part 2), By Rev. Ernie Banwell.”

I’d like us to consider a story found in Luke chapter 17, starting at verse 11. If you’re not familiar with this story, it is when ten lepers have an encounter with Jesus. And as we know, when someone has an encounter with Jesus, they are never the same again. When people have an encounter with religion, they stay the same, but when you have an encounter with Jesus, he changes your whole life. It is impossible for him not to, because that’s who he is. He is a God of transformation. He is a God of all power, and he works to heal and to restore.
Continue reading “Learning From The Lepers (Part 1), By Rev. Ernie Banwell.”

Do any of you remember playing games of Hide and Seek as a child? I do. It was a huge favourite. One of my parents would begin counting backwards from ten, allowing me time to search out the best hiding place. I would scurry through the house, trying to be as light on my feet as possible. I didn’t want to give them any clues about where I was going. All the while, I was listening, and the closer they got to the end of the countdown, the more my heart pounded. Sometimes I barely got into my chosen corner before I heard those dreaded words: “Ready or not I’m coming!”
Continue reading “Hide And Seek”