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With My WholeHeart - Psalm 77:3, 6
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 77:3, 6
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 77:3, 6 The walk with God is seldom straight or level. There are dales and vales. The route through them is not always according to God’s mapping. We travel badly sometimes because of our poor sense of moral direction. These journeyings, occasionally with tears, are neverth…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 38:8, 10
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 38:8, 10
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 38:8, 10 The success of those who trample on others with no regard for God or any moral principles can be very confusing for those of us who try to live our life by faith. It’s not unusual for us to make a costly decision in favour of doing what we believe to be right befor…
Occasions for Alleluia - Loving
Occasions for Alleluia - Loving
by SPCK - David Adam
Loving ‘Would you know our Lord’s meaning in this? Learn it well. Love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. Why did he show it to you? For love. Hold fast to this, and you shall learn and know more about love, but you will never need to know or understand about anything e…
Occasions for Alleluia - God is our lover
Occasions for Alleluia - God is our lover
by SPCK - David Adam
God is our lover Beloved, let us love one another; because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we mi…
Occasions for Alleluia - Resting in God
Occasions for Alleluia - Resting in God
by SPCK - David Adam
Resting in God The conversation of the brethren should help and cheer us, but God’s voice speaks most often in silence. Keep some part of every day free from all noise and the voices of men, for human distraction and the craving for it hinder the Divine Peace...
Occasions for Alleluia - Unbend the bow
Occasions for Alleluia - Unbend the bow
by SPCK - David Adam
Unbend the bow Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering. (Augustine, Confessions X.8)...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 86:11-12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 86:11-12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 86:11-12 The prayer to ‘knit my heart unto thee’ is as poetic as it is profound. Weaving the sinews of our will into the will of God echoes the prayer of Jesus as he faced the cross: ‘Not what I want but what you want’ (Matthew 26.39b nrsv). His example shows us that it is …
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 90:10, 12 This prayer also swims against the tide of our culture where youthfulness is coveted and ageing dreaded. Yet in spite of the worship of agelessness, where the vitamin pills are the sacraments of the day and the workout a religious ritual, we can never escape the i…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 26:1-2
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 26:1-2
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 26:1-2 Enough of sin! Here is the portrait of a blameless believer, someone who in all honesty before God cannot point to any wilful act of disobedience. And yet. Even with a conscience clear before God this plaintiff appears to plead with the Judge of all to examine him fo…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 27:9
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 27:9
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 27:9 In St Paul’s famous essay on love he writes about how one day we will see God face to face but for now we see ‘through a glass, darkly’ (1 Corinthians 13.12 kjv). It’s a poetic phrase conveying the original Greek which literally says that we see through a glass not dar…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 24:1, 3-4
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 24:1, 3-4
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 24:1, 3, 4 God is the Lord of earth and heaven. The Lord’s Prayer is for the fusion of the two. Asking for God’s will to be done in earth as it is done in heaven is a prayer for the earthing of heaven. The rebellion in the Garden of Eden drove a wedge between the two realms…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 69:21-22 Desolation is when you find yourself estranged from both friends and God. To sense that you are rebuked by God breaks the heart. If ever there were grounds for self-pity then these are they, when no one else will offer you pity or comfort...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 57:8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 57:8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 57:8 Whatever we fix on to in the end absorbs us, so much so that we become dependent on it. That dependency becomes a way of life, integrated into our being. It’s as if we were made to be dependent. ‘No man is an island’, and even those loners who seem so independent of ot…
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture and Jesus
Scripture and the Authority of God - Scripture and Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Scripture and Jesus Jesus Accomplishes That to Which Scripture had Pointed ‘When the time had fully come, God sent forth his son . . .’ (Galatians 4.4). Understanding Jesus within his historical context means understanding him where, according to scripture itself, he belongs. A h…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 112:7-8 A sign of the heart established in God is that it does not shrink. Nor is it ‘afraid of any evil tidings’. The reason for this is that ‘unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness’ (v. 4). That light is none other than the mercy of God which rescues us fro…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 28:8