Wating for the Next Blog

Just a note to say that we are off, as a family, on a 2 week break and although I'll be taking my bible and notebook along, we'll be camping and unplugged from the WWW. So please take the chance to look through the archives as there is a lot of good material there.

Until we're back to posting blogs, God's blessings

Richard

The right order

By Richard

Mark tells us that John preached a baptism of, “life change that [leads] to forgiveness of sins”. (Mark 1:4, the Message). It’s interesting as, I think, we normally hear preached the opposite – forgiveness of sins leading to life change! Repentance in the Gospels was far greater than simply saying “sorry” to God. It involved a 180° change in direction. I’m going my way, away from God and I turn around and start to head in God’s direction. When we do that we experience forgiveness - which then frees us up for further life change and more of God’s grace – which leads to further forgiveness and more life change…and so we move closer to God. If you haven’t already done so consider making that radical course correction and instead of heading away from God start heading towards God, and as you do experience his forgiveness and grace.

Mark’s Gospel

Introduction to Mark, the Message

I’m just starting to read mark’s Gospel and I love Eugene Peterson’s introduction to the Gospel. I thought I’d post it, verbatim, for you to enjoy.

“Mark wastes no time in getting down to business – single-sentence introduction, and not a digression to be found from beginning to end. An event had taken place that radically changes the way we look at and experience the world, and he can’t wait to tell us about it. There’s an air of breathless excitement in nearly every sentence he writes. The sooner we get the message, the better off we’ll be, for the message is good, incredibly good: God is here, and he’s on our side.”