Ps 15, when read in light of the world’s events and even what we struggle with in our lives and heart make us realise that we are not holy. Thus, the opening verse of this Psalm is our cry — “O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?”
Praise God that He is the just and the justifier (c.f. Rom 3:26), and in Jesus Christ, we have the righteousness that we need and do not deserve! Now let us come boldly and offer our prayers to Him.
The news can really be overwhelming these days. News — both good and bad — never seems to stop, and it’s easy to tune out the “breaking news” coverage. But as the Psalms show us, the Psalmists pour out a range of emotions to God in prayer. Praise, lament, confession, sadness — these are some of the emotions recorded as a response to both personal and larger, corporate circumstances. God can bear the burden of our emotions and the weight of the world.
So as we read the news, we can bear this in mind and turn our emotions into prayers.
We’ve committed to a study of the entire book of Exodus at the Fellowship and this study will span more than 50 sessions. At this point in the year (October!), we’ve already completed 27 sessions, and are somewhere in the middle of Exodus. Most of the action that we’re familiar with is behind us, namely the plagues and the great Red Sea deliverance. The wilderness and law accounts lie ahead of us, and as its name suggest, sound very dry.
But why is Exodus so important for us to read so carefully? There are at least 2 reasons.
The Holy Spirit — is it something that Christians “agree to disagree”, where some are more “Bible people” while others are more “Spirit people”. Not quite. Jesus Himself taught on the Holy Spirit in John 14-17, and the Spirit as a member of the Trinity is a person with a unique role. But in our modern church circles, we may have drawn a division when the Bible does not have such a dichotomy.
In dealing with the Spirit, it may seem like something that different churches have different views, even in the local context. But, from John 14-17, we see some clear truths that we can use to anchor our thoughts and views:
How does the inerrancy of Scripture affect the way we read our Bibles? Isaac, one of the Fellowship teachers has prepared some answers to questions that we’ve heard asked, or have asked at some point in our life! We hope that this will not only give us confidence to answer questions posed to us, but will also encourage us to “take up and read” our Bibles.
Every Wednesday, we begin our time of study with a time of worship. New songs are taught occasionally. This blog series hopes to explain some of the new songs that have been taught. We hope that it'll encourage you to use good Christian songs as part of your daily meditation and prayer too, not to replace the value of Scripture, but to complement it.
What comes to your mind when you think of "ambition"? Some might point to specific parts of our Bible to suggest that the ‘Christian-thing-to-do’ is to deny yourself, take up your cross to follow Jesus (Mark 8:34). In other words, some might think that Christians should have no ambition. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? (Mark 8:36).
We're finally down to the last 4. One of these European nations will end up winning the World Cup this year. These nations are also similar in their struggles in recent years with the immigration and migrant crises.
In yesterday's prayer list, we tried to identify Christian footballers in the national team. However, for these countries today, it was hard to find information about the religions of the players. This reminds us of the task at hand and the opportunities in these countries.
The book of Jonah is about a God who loves even His enemies. It is also about the hard and unloving heart of the prophet of God. At the lowest point of his life, Jonah utters these words of confession. He confesses his own vain idols and renews his vows to God because he recognises that salvation belongs to the Lord!
“I didn’t really get it. All my life growing up, I have only known God to be an idea, formed out of Christian vocabulary and descriptions I hear at church, and fuzzy memories of “Bible bedtime stories”.”
In this post, Christina, who attends Fellowship, shares with us her journey of Bible reading and discovering the riches in God’s Word.
