REFLECTIONS
Insights from God’s Word into Today’s World
Traditionally, the eve of Easter is referred to as ‘Holy Saturday’, or the ‘Great Sabbath’. On this day, Christians of various denominations hold to a time of silent, contemplative rest. It is both a time of reflection on Jesus’ sacrifice and a time of eager anticipation for the impending celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. To consider this tension in light of this season, we turn to one of Jesus’ final interactions before he breathed his last.
We are in the midst of a season of celebration in the Judeo-Christian world. For followers of Judaism, this is the deeply treasured season of Passover, where members of the Jewish faith remember being spared of God’s wrath by having their houses covered in the blood of a sacrificial lamb. On this day, Good Friday, Christians across the globe remember Jesus – as on this day nearly 2000 years ago, Jesus died on the cross for our sins. As we continue learning from Jesus’ journey to the cross, we finally arrive at the pen-ultimate station: the day of his crucifixion. We will look at the account of Jesus praying at the Mount of Olives in the garden of Gethsemane to see the lengths a loving God was willing to go for a people who rejected Him.
Based on SB Ferguson’s book ‘To Seek and To Save’, over the next six days we will be looking at Jesus’ life and celebrating his transformative impact in the lives of people across the generations. We will be highlighting key interactions which Jesus had with people during his earthly ministry – culminating in His glorious passion and resurrection. Today, we begin by looking at the story of Jesus encountering Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42.
The following article is a summary of John Joseph's journey of getting to know Jesus. He tells the story of how God transformed his heart from a self-centred addict and then self-help deception to someone redeemed by God’s grace alone. Today he leads a church in Maryland, USA. The full story appeared in the January/ February 2020 issue of Christianity Today.
In the light of this past Sunday’s message on enhancing our prayer life at a time like this and, in particular, on using the Psalms to enrich our prayers, I want to share three things with you today. The first article is a thought-provoking article by N.T. Wright, Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus. It's Not Supposed To. The second article is some teaching on the subject from Christopher Ash, Teaching Psalms; Volume2: From text to message, which invites us to see Christ in every Psalm. The third is a resource from Tim Keller which looks at cultivating discipline in prayer.
I always enjoy hearing from veterans who have stayed the path and kept the faith over decades. There is a sanity about them in the midst of many voices as they have seen and been through a lot. John Hosier has been a pastor in England for almost fifty years and posted this a few days ago. Below is his insight into the Book of Revelation and what it teaches us in this tumultuous season.
