Author: Alex

When I was a small child attending Sunday School, our teacher set us a challenge. He said if we learned to recite Psalm 23 by heart, he’d give us a small Bible that contained the New Testament and Psalms.
Continue reading “The Lord Is My Shepherd!”

It has been a joy for Lou and I to write this week’s devotional together.
Continue reading “Running Tethered To Jesus, By Lou Beard And Alex Banwell.”

I love reading the Bible from multiple translations. Sometimes, if I want deeper explanations, I’ll go to the Amplified version, or if I want to read the Psalms in a more poetic and traditional setting, I’ll go back to the King James, because this is what I grew up with.
Continue reading “The Lame And The Blind Need To Get In!”

During the winter of 2010, in the midst of a serious bout of insomnia, I discovered internet radio, and more specifically, a gospel music show that aired for one hour at 3 A.M. on Monday mornings. This was just the pick me up I needed, as I was getting more and more frustrated due to lack of sleep.
Continue reading “The Gift Of Friendship.”

when you feel there’s something God really wants you to do, there’s no point in hoping he’ll change his mind, or give you an easier option. God knows best, and he wants what’s best for each of us.
Continue reading “Pleasing people, or God? By Lou Beard.”

One of my favourite classic novels begins with the words: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Hosea was a single man when he was first called by God to be a prophet, but we don’t know if he possessed a large fortune, or whether he wanted a wife. However, clearly, God wanted to give him one.
Continue reading “Come Home.”

Two friends, Hannah and Jess, were talking on the phone. Jess was telling Hannah how much pain she was in. Hannah asked whether Jess had spoken to her doctor and Jess replied that she hadn’t. Hannah then asked Jess if she thought she should as she was in so much pain. Jess replied that yes, perhaps she should. The conversation ended and Hannah didn’t hear anything for a few days. Then she heard that Jess was in hospital. Jess said that Hannah had saved her life. Hannah didn’t think that she’d done anything. She’d only asked Jess if she’d spoken to her doctor and indirectly suggested that perhaps she should. That suggestion had given Jess the reassurance and confidence she needed to speak to a doctor, leading her to be taken in to hospital early enough for her life to be saved.
Continue reading “Words, By Lou Beard”

During this past weekend, as I’ve been considering Jesus’ torturous death, and rejoicing over his resurrection on the third day, I came upon a devotional about the 7 sayings of Jesus as he hung on the cross. I’d heard something about this before, but had never quite been able to put it all in order, since each of the 4 gospels adds its own detail to the wider picture. For example, only Luke talks about the repentant thief.
Continue reading “The 7 Sayings Of Jesus On The Cross”

Let’s return to the story of Abram. A few weeks back, we left him in the predicament of not being able to father a son by his wife Sarai. Since having a son and heir was vitally important in those days, Sarai had taken things into her own hands, and told her husband to take her Egyptian slave Hagar as his secondary wife. We discussed Sarai’s mistreatment of Hagar when she became pregnant, and how Hagar ran away, to be met by God himself, and told to return to her mistress and be submissive.
Continue reading “On The Mountain Of The Lord It Will Be Provided.”

I feel we live in a world where people seem to have this inbuilt tendency to follow the crowd. During recent riots, one news reporter was picking people at random, and asking them what they were protesting about. It turned out that a large number of them didn’t even know why they were rioting. They said everyone else seemed to be doing it, so they just joined in. Likewise, if you were to ask a group of brawling men in a pub or club why they’re fighting, I wonder how many of them would actually know.
Continue reading “You Don’t Have To Go With The Flow.”