Viewing all items in Resource Category: Looking at God

Every year it happens. I hear Christians lamenting how ‘Christmas comes earlier every year.’ Since this September (or before!) supermarkets, shops and garden centres have been selling Christmas jumpers, socks and pyjamas and all kinds of other seasonal merchandise. Should we be annoyed or exasperated? Should we have gone around reminding people that it’s much...

‘Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call Him Immanuel.’ (Isaiah 7:14) This promise to King Ahaz in 8th century Judah is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus at the first Christmas: ‘God with Us’ (Matthew 1:23). Ahaz faced the military...

Christmas is a busy time for travel, as many of us venture a great distance to see family or friends again. But this year coronavirus has put an end to all that. Seeing all our loved ones this Christmas will be difficult, if not impossible. Soon we may not be travelling anywhere very much at...

“And behold, you shall conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and call His name JESUS…”  (Luke 1:31) On 8th December Roman Catholics celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. While non-Roman Catholics do not venerate Mary in the same way, we can still learn so much from the Mother of...

Last month we thought about one key element of gathered worship – the Welcome. It is for everyone, regardless of how they look, or dress, their faith or their behaviour. This month, being the month of Advent and Christmas, let’s focus on Grace. God, in Jesus, did not wait for us to become perfect or...

Many people say: “I can understand God, but I can’t see where Jesus fits into the picture.” A theologian called Athanasius, Egyptian by birth and Greek by education, gave the answer to your question 1600 years ago. He said: “The only system of thought into which Jesus Christ will fit is the one in which...

C.S. Lewis called it the Grand Miracle and the Central Miracle. He noted that “Every other miracle prepares for this, exhibits this, or result.s from this…The fitness, and therefore credibility, of the particular miracles depend on their relations to the Grand Miracle.” So if you can believe in Christmas – the incarnation of the Son...

We Will Remember – 80 years on From the Vicar Psalm 122 and Advent Why should you bother to pray? 80 years on, we still need courage and endurance When life goes wrong for us Why do we need Advent? Lord, prop us up! The Soldier’s Prayer ** Editor:  Canon Paul Hardingham considers how we...

This year we’ve been remembering the Battle of Britain, described by Winston Churchill in August 1940 as ‘one of the decisive battles of the war… never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’ It was a dramatic turning point in the history of the Second World...

This year we’ve been remembering the Battle of Britain, described by Winston Churchill in August 1940 as ‘one of the decisive battles of the war… never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’ It was a dramatic turning point in the history of the Second World...

‘I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord. Our feet are standing in your gates, Jerusalem.’(Psalm 122:1,2). These words from Psalm 122 inspired Hubert Parry’s great Coronation Anthem ‘I was Glad.’ As a Song of Ascent (Psalms 120-134), it was used by pilgrims going to the...

The great preacher C.H. Spurgeon once said this of prayer: ‘God says to His own son: “Ask of Me and I will give you the nation for your inheritance.” [Psalm 2:7-8] If the royal and divine Son cannot be exempt from the rule of asking, that He may have; you and I cannot expect that...