HOMELESS

Those who live in 'fatherless dismay'.

"There is plenty of room to live in my Father's house....I'm going to get a place ready for you!....I will come back and take you to be with me, so that you can be where I am."
John 14

FAITH

Our response to God's faithfulness in His gospel, sending His redemer Son to restore man in the image of God, renewing His cosmos, both making a fit dwelling for the triune God.

VOYAGE INTO THE FUTURE

An adventure of the imagination based on the rock of evidence, guided by a heart of compassion.

THE SACRED

Beauty awakens sanctity; science without a heart rips it apart.

ECOLOGY

Men should never intrude into nature so as to diminish its beauty and leave only his own lifeless mark on it.

CARING FOR THE DEPRIVED

For those caught between an unthinking church and an uncaring state.

CIVILISATION

This is not about modern facilities but men who can live together and maintain a civil society, showing respect to all.

Without this democracy is untenable.

EMISSARY

God made us to be His emissaries. We betrayed him and served ourselves in stead. At last the Son came, the emissary of His father, the servant of His people. We betrayed him too, putting to death the King of Life.

Only by recognising Him can we regain our true status.

REDEMPTION

We may draw aside, turning away from the world, but only to perceive and ponder, turning our faces once again to face the world, reflection and study producing the fruit of enrichment to those around.

Analysis by the few must give birth to beauty, redeeming the lives of many.

COMPLETENESS

Man longs to put the finishing piece in the jigsaw of life, completing what he knows to be incomplete, not content with being a mere piece of the puzzle.

'It is finished' was the cry of Jesus, the Messiah King, God's final piece, who  died and rose again making sense and beauty of the whole, 

It is only those who discover God's purpose who can make sense of their's.

CHRISTMAS

Day by day God is decorating the Christmas tree of life. He decks the tree with many ornaments, some more visible than others as we play our part in beautifying His world.

Jesus, the messiah saviour, is alone the star at the crown of the tree. His birth was celebrated by the angels and we do well to do the same.

LIFE IS LIVING NOT HAVING

Life is a walk. Happy are those who have companions.

READING

Entering a world of treasure. When you come out the world has changed, or is it you?

Perhaps both.

VEIL

Christianity tends to draw down the veil of theology over God's face, dimming His features - 'a cherisher of joys and God of Laughter'.

BABY- BOOMERS

'New atheism' unravels humanity and destroys our dignity. Accountability is to be abandoned but the price paid is that of man himself.

It is no use fighting nihilism. It must be overtaken by a joyous, life-giving story of man remade in God’s image, the cosmos renewed. It’s voice must be drowned by a new song, that sung by the angels announcing Jesus’birth.

Who will pay the price of playing out God's Kingdom come to earth?

A STORY OUT OF AFRICA

Darkest Africa. A dying pagan. A rumour of good news.

It took only a moment to tell the Story of Redemption, but long enough to pass from death to life. A new King, new citizenship. The woman ‘declared for God’ in the midst of death, forbidding ancestor worship at her burial. A seed which bore fruit in a land of rising light in the midst of darkness, godly worship in the place of animism, care for man through education.

All because of the ‘old, old story of Jesus and His love’, a desire for God’s kingdom to flourish rather than man’s.

FELLOW TRAVELLERS

Two men, both with a mission, both lacking higher education but a compulsion to tell the story of God's salvation, setting out to change lives and so the world.

My grandpa Swazi and William Booth sailing to Africa in the early 1900's. What conversations they must have had. My grandmother comments that my grandfather greatly valued spending time with him. Knowing my grandfather I think it was mutual.

Both left a legacy of lives rebuilt and so also the part of the world they inhabited.

THEOLOGY

It has a tendency to dampen man's sense of urgency about the proclamation of God's story of redemption.

HEAVENLY CHOIRS

The wonder of God's redemption is the song most gladly sung by the angels.

EVOLUTION?

Is it possible that man should evolve to a being who takes the lives of even his own offspring?

EARTH'S RESOURCES

Creation is subservient to a slave trader who refuses to obey his own master.

SCIENCE

Should be the wind under the wings of art in all its forms of beauty.

SOCIETY

If leaders court the ungodly we must not be surprised if we live in a society governed after the likeness of their father.

FAMILY BUSINESS

The mission statement of God's business is that of the redemption of man and nature, both renewed to serve Him, the work of creation restored.

No man is exempt from serving his time, his task to tell the story of God's faithfulness in bringing salvation to His world in the person of His Son, given over to death to redeem hostile humanity, risen again to bring His children home to a reconciled Father.

The only business to last forever.

HOLINESS

The pursuit of becoming more conformed to the likeness of God's messiah son, our kinsman redeemer, is the only progress we should countenance.

SADNESS

The saddest sight in this world is the sight of an 'unredeemed' Christian. They are anathema to God.

TAKE MY YOLK....

We are to be harnessed to those alone who bear the load of redemption of man and nature.

HEALING

We were created to be a dwelling place of the likeness of God on earth, man in His image. Unwillingness to submit to God's order, disobedience, stripped us naked and wounded us, bringing self-engendered diseases in its wake. Fear overtook us and broods over our existence.

Healing the body and mind seeks to restore this dwelling place, becoming a meeting place for God and man, until we gain the perfect one, fully complete. We yearn for this completeness and seek a 'heaven-made house' but our earthly bodies have boundaries set by our man-madeness, hedged in by our falleness and mortality.

A perfect, immortal body is one of the fruits of the Messiah's obedience unto death; the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the promise that it will be ours too, when the sons of God are made manifest.
Romans 8.

SCIENCE, A FRIEND OF GOD?

 In searching beneath the appearance of an object man enters a realm of exploration which must maintain a sense of the sacred if it is to serve God's purposes for that object. All of creation is brought into being with a purpose, reflecting God's deep-seated will for purpose. We do not need to know the deeper composition to enjoy it but that enjoyment can be enhanced by marveling at the design and complexity of the subject, enriched yet further by seeing it functioning according to God's design.

If science pulls life apart it must be sure to put the pieces back together with beauty and sanctity of expression,
enhancing God's glory and purpose in creation.

CONSUMERISM

An endless journey into the abyss.

PROGRESS

Evil and misery, within and without,  is caused by the loss of true perfection, man in the image of God.

The pursuit of holiness, the restoring of that image, is true progress and the only hope of life eternal.

WITNESSING

Telling others that God is calling them home through the life, death and resurrection of His Messiah, the one born as Jesus, the King of the Jews.

Such good news should make us gladly turn to Him and follow His ways, living under His wise rule in a world which will be redeemed too.

SULKING

A clouded countenance due to displeasure with God and man, turning away from both. A child of God's face should always have an inner glow, even in the midst of pain and trouble.

John Rutter is able to smile in his pain, helping others to smile too. Charles Darwin turned away from God and did great damage to man.

REDEMPTIVE ACTIONS

'We are His workmanship.... Ephesians 2 vs 10.

'This is the explanation: God has made us what we are. God has created us in King Jesus for the good works that he prepared ahead of time, as the road we must travel.'

Actions of uplifting love.

KALEIDOSCOPES AND SNOWFLAKES

God is always changing yet forever the same.

Man is like the snowflake, an infinite variety but of the same substance. As snowflakes we drift to earth and have our own reality quite unlike that of another.

WHAT IS MAN?

The only image of God He permits on earth.

REVELATION

The brain has been constituted by God to write a harmonious, and so beautiful, narrative of life in all its fullness, both within and without. Words, the expression of being, the revelation of God.

'In these last days He has spoken to us in His Son'. Restored to that image we, too, now reveal God to man in our words and deeds.

WHAT IS TRUE BEAUTY?

When the immoral becomes beautiful, to be celebrated and admired, a nation is in trouble.

FAERIE TALE

The world is 'dying' for a story of redemption, a tale of  'uplifting love'.

GOD'S HONOUR

Because the Church did not advance God's honour it lost it's voice in defending it.

FAIRY TALES

When man makes God a myth and His story a fairy tale, he drains man of meaning and turns his humanness into a myth as well. With our obsession with technology we become a machine, destined for oblivion.

C S Lewis calls this 'The abolition of Man'.

There is only one image of God permitted on earth. Man made in His image. The Son of Man being the first-born of a new humanity.

REDEMPTION

Jesus, the Messiah, the one sent to be a Redeemer, sending his followers out to be redeemers too, redeeming God's world and humanity in it.

INDIVIDUALISM

When individuals matter most to themselves, individuals cease to matter.

LISTENING

The world's ears are open to words of life. Redemption, restoration, healing, meaning, enrichment, enhancement embedded in respect for others and above all, love.

Is the Church's mouth open to proclaim the good news of life in the risen Messiah?

'How shall they hear without a preacher?'
Romans 10

THEME OF CHRISTIANITY

The restoration of redemptive sense and meaning in service of man as he restores the cosmos in service to God.

Each redeemed man a living temple of God, the only image of God permitted on earth.

Man in Christian community, the dwelling place of God here and now, and hereafter.

MARRIAGE OF ART AND SCIENCE

True science provides the scaffold upon which we can craft a work of art fit for God's kingdom on earth, the temple he is restoring and in which He will dwell among His people.

'Do all to the glory of God' 

WITNESS

We are here to advance God's honour, not merely to defend it.

The world is no longer Satan's rightful territory. Day by day the Church is reclaiming what is now rightfully God's world.

SUNSHINE

The world needs 'sunny' people, a 'laughing piety', bringing joy to others, easing their cosmic loneliness. Small wonder Jesus, the Messiah, is called the 'sun of righteousness who brings healing in His wings.'

His disciples are called to do the same.

TRUE SPIRITUALITY

Enriching the lives of others, redeeming God's creation.

'For your sake He became poor, that through His poverty you may become rich'
2 Corinthians

PIETY

Many times I have tried to hold hands with contemporary Christianity, but only found a limp grasp. Man today is an empty husk void of true piety, with its heart for God and hand for man. The full gospel is seldom heard, complacency drowning out its voice, hiding in a semblance of worship.

'I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice holy, acceptable unto God which is your spiritual worship.' Romans 12 vs 1

'We think Christ has to do all the dying'
C S Lewis

MANY MANSIONS

The more heaven comes to earth, the more at home we feel. Jesus promised this just before his death.

For others it brings the odour of death.

HOMECOMING

Discovering the sacred in all of life ends our loneliness, especially when we find it in the company of others who seek it too.

THE SACRED

When heaven overlaps with earth it gives birth to sanctity. The sacred, set apart for God, bringing His divinity to earth and so transforming it to become part of heaven. A demoralised earth has no time or energy to seek the sacred and becomes ever more dehumanised.

Science has played its part in the desacralization of life and must be redeemed if it is to put a sacred and beautiful life together again. The art of thinking and writing must play its part in restoring our home and ourselves in it.

TIME

Time must be bought back and turned to redemptive purpose in every area of life. We learn how to bring heaven to earth with each moment of the day. As we bring life to life, we ourselves are becoming more lifelike, fit to live in the life to come.

It is dullness of heart which impedes this progress, redeemed progress going from one degree of glory to another as we become a community of 'little Christs'.

A EMPTY HUSK

Man was made complete by the breath of God, transforming dry earth into His image. Stepping out of God's will, desiring independence from the source of his life, man shrunk into an empty husk of his former self. He lost that spirit which animated him to be a true human, heaven and earth both within him.

Ever seeking to fill that empty husk he continues to turn away from the source of that spiritual life which can restore him to full humanity once again, with sense, purpose and meaning, just as his Maker.

God desires to redeem man and restore his heavenly dimension, so restoring his earthly one to true humanity and ensuring he will endure through death to life eternal, in a cosmos made new.

The new Adam, with perfect balance of heaven and earth, dwells within each man who recognises Him as God's risen Messiah, the redeemer of His people drawn from all quarters of the earth.

A SMILE

A social cuddle.

TRUE ECOLOGY

Creation brings a smile to God's face and He loves it when it makes us smile too.

TRUE CHRISTIANITY

A heartfelt desire to bring a smile to God's face

'This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.'

THE SMILES OF GOD

He came to give us reason to smile so that we can give smiles to others.

SMILES

They remind us we are more than just bodies, a message from another dimension to say 'you matter'.
A social cuddle, bringing pleasure to giver and receiver

'Smiles from reason flow, they are the food of love'.
John Milton

A CHOICE FOR BRITAIN

Either to embrace the life of God's era with all its beauty and creative possibilities or choose the way of celebrity with all its ugliness and aroma of death.

Light shone forth from the Royal Marriage service for all to see and embrace.

REDEMPTION TO COME

Science will yet serve God's purposes of redemption as man recoils from the abolition of man, drawing back from a precipice of self-destruction.

Rationalism will yet save man from himself as it embraces spirituality.

Maybe God will yet be gracious and restore man's faculties of perception with beauty and justice leading the way and energise them with a loving heart.

GODLY THEME

In God's Story there is a marriage of service and celebration.
The theme runs through from eternity to eternity.

KINGDOM OF LIGHT

Jesus plunged into the kingdom of darkness on the eve of the Sabbath of Passover. Taking our sin upon Him, being made sin for us, the gates of hell could not hold out against Him.

There He crushed and broke the power of sin and death, defeating them in their own citadel. Returning in victory, He inaugurated His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, to ever reign as its King.

'The kingdom of this world is become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ'.
Handel's Messiah proclaimed this and so should we.

TRUE MEN

Men who give moral effort to subduing the belly of desires to reason of the mind have 'trained emotions'.

C S Lewis described them as 'men with chests'. Society needs many such.

SPIRITUALITY

The quest of men's lives, knowing we are more than just bodies. A voice from another room.

It is to be found in a life of given-ness, enriching the lives of others. The Messiah was given for this - the redemption and renewal of God's cosmos.

Those who hear the voice calling them to do the same are given the life and power to do so.

This is my beloved son, who brings me great delight. Hear Him.

EASTER

The high point in the celebration of a life given for us to enrich us and bring us peace. We either turn our faces towards that life or we love death and turn away.

EARLY YEARS

In order to live out the life of true humanity it is perhaps not too fanciful to think that Jesus spent His early years learning to listen to others in their toil and suffering, but sharing also in their joys.

Children of men in whom He found His chief delight and for whom He gave His life so that they could share His joy. Proverbs 8

COVERINGS

God loves to clothe His creation in beautiful dress. Daisies are now in profusion, clothing the grass together with other dainty flowers. If He loves to do this how much more His own people, as Jesus said. Nature has no casual clothes. Even weeds have their symmetry and beauty. We should dress in similar fashion.

In Ezekial 16 He clothes His chosen bride in fine raiment, something every girl dreams of. Yet she still plays the whore, turning after other lovers.

Only those who are dressed in the raiment He provides will be at the wedding feast. Perhaps another metaphor is fruit. We cannot go empty-handed.

IMAGES

How paltry our image of ourselves, yet we indulge it everyday.

Man in the image of God. 

What greater destiny to give our children.
The God of creation greater by far than any avatar.

TRUE SCIENCE

Science pulls our home to pieces, nothing too sacred to touch. The world is our domain and we seek paradise restored, progressing ever on but never arriving.

Redemptive science? Science true to the facts, embracing God's creative acts, acts which hold all things together for our good, promising a life to come. Science which restores God's kingdom, awaiting His return.

Man corrupts all he touches.

GOD'S STORY

O man seek not your glory,
Seek it alone in Him
Who made you for His story,
And rescue all from sin.

To rescue from all sin,
And find a home in Him,
The beauty of the ages
Come to dwell within.

DANCING OR DRILL?

Mass evangelism has produced truncated Christians, happily married to consumerism and preferring an arm chair to the battle field. The army knows more about discipline and self-denial than believers who favour pop songs to the battle cry, and would rather dance than drill.

There is a time for rejoicing as well as fighting but only Godly wisdom can discern it. Ecclesiastes 3

BALANCE

We need to marry a zeal for the rule of God on earth to the cultivation of the intellect, with God's glory and man's well-being, and that of His creation, as it's fruit.

'I beseech you....do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.'

Romans 12

HEAVEN ON EARTH

Doing what you love with people you love. A truer picture of God than we will ever know. The true meaning of the joy expressed during the last meal of the Messiah and His disciples.

THOUGHTS

The thoughts of men lie hidden,
known only to themselves.
They need a voice,
a word to drive them forth
for all to hear,
to stand or fall,
to live or die,
maybe ever more in memory lie
of some noble deed.

TRUE COURAGE

It says something good when the world can marvel at true celebrity - a king who could not speak but overcame his fear each time it threatened to undo him.

We have few heroes today.

POETRY

Pondering into poetry set
emotions free to flow,
so reaching higher peaks
to gaze upon the maze below.

WEDDING FEAST

The Bride of the Messiah is busy preparing for her wedding day, lifting her eyes to her Bridegroom rather than rummaging in a trunk of decaying, moth-eaten rags.

Fossils have little colour.

MEMORABLE WRITING

Literature is the art of writing memorable thoughts in an appropriate way, a way of beauty, order and sense.

A noble culture commemorates its heroes in fitting language.

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

The danger today is that the gospel is being truncated by the most ardent supporters of orthodox Christianity. They are fearful of heresy but do not realise their own.

Not to realise and establish the rule of God's Kingdom in the here and now reminds us of those who 'dilgently search the Scriptures' to discover the Truth, only not to recognise the Resurrected Messiah walking in the midst of His Church.

'.... and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life.....'

SOCIAL NETWORKS AND GOOD LITERATURE

There must be restraint of the 'ordinary unintellectual mind from making a public nuisance of his private opinions'.

Professor of English Literature at Cambridge 1913.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Those who desecrate humanity, be it mental, physical or spiritual, are themselves less than human and should not be accorded rights of their own.

KNIFE-EDGE

We are known as the Me-generation rather than the We-generation. Woe betide us if we fail to make the change. The future hangs on a knife-edge. Let us hope that the 'tipping point' will drive us into each other's arms rather than over the cliff to self-destruction.

PATTERN AND PROMISE

The Scriptures set out the covenant promises of God to renew all of creation, realised in bud in the Messiah and continuing in His redeemed people as they follow His pattern of how that recreation should be.

It is a mystery but 'The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant.