Recent Talks
Bob Smith - Sunday 3 August 2008
Only once can I remember having openly expressed doubt about the reality of Jesus’ presence in my life. It was around thirty years ago and I was at my wits end as I contemplated the seeming inevitability that I was about to lose my marriage and my family. One drizzly winter’s night, I walked along Thirroul beach, trying to make sense of it all. After a while I took shelter under a rocky overhang, sat on the sand and suddenly I did something I’d once thought I never would. I blurted out to God, “Are you really there?”
John Edmondstone - Sunday, 27 July 2008
Have you ever stopped to examine why we use certain words? Let me illustrate: Grandparents say, “I hope the children will pop in, I’d love to see the kids;” “I hope it’s fine tomorrow so we can go on our picnic;” “Oh what a terrible accident, I hope no one is hurt.” ..... An appeal for financial support for work with young people was headed “Hope for the Future”. I want to share with you some thoughts on this short but important word, “HOPE”.
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 20 July 2008
Few of us would deny that the world we live in seems to be seriously out-of-whack. The natural order on which we depend appears to go feral, producing catastrophes which in a flash destroy the lives of many thousands of people. Then there’s the pain and suffering produced by the human will to hurt others, or by human carelessness. Joseph’s life has much to teach us ...
Bob Smith - Sunday 13 July 2008
One of the oldest and most enduring images of the Christian life is that of a journey; a journey through this brief and transient life to our true destiny in the eternal Kingdom of God. This journey has two aspects both of which run simultaneously. One is our outward journey of service – what we accomplish. The other is our inward journey of growth – what we are.
Stuart Robinson - Sunday 6 July 2008
In keeping with some of the city restaurants, taverns, clubs and churches, I’d like to run with the Christmas in July theme. Three simple words, uttered by a terrifyingly imposing angel to a small group of shepherds brilliantly summarise the purpose of Christmas and the substance of Christianity: “Do not be afraid” says the angel, “I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ, the Lord”.
David Reay - Sunday 29 Jun 2008
Familiarity can breed contempt, even where the Bible is concerned. We know some stories in the Bible fairly well and yet we may still miss the meaning of them. One such story is that of Jonah and the so-called whale.
Richard Quadrio - Sunday 22 Jun 2008
It’s funny what you remember from childhood. I remember that day I went shopping with my gran – I think I was only about three years of age. I got distracted and found myself wandering out the back of a shop and out into the lane behind. Then I remember looking for my gran and I could not find her.
Margaret Hall - Sunday 15 June 2008
How did Job respond to the loss of his wealth, his home, his children and his health? As he sat among the ashes, with his wife urging him to curse God, he said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the Lord’s name be blessed.” Job’s story raises the question we’ve all asked at one time or another: How can a good God allow such bad things to happen? More especially, why does he allow good people to suffer?
Bob Smith - Sunday 8 June 2008
Most people agree that happiness is the great goal to which we all aspire; “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” as the American Declaration of Independence put it. We all agree on the goal. The problem is how to achieve it.
Graham Agnew - Sunday 1 June 2008
In my early years I was involved in churches where the emphasis was more on legalism and guilt than on love and grace. I can now see that many of us were somewhat hindered and restricted in our enjoyment of the Christian life because of our strict adherence to a long list of rules.
Graeme Best - Sunday 25 May 2008
a story was circulated some time ago about the golfer Arnold Palmer and his visit with a certain Middle Eastern Head of State. This ruler was so impressed with Arnold Palmer that he wanted to give him a gift. Arnold Palmer tried to refuse at first, but the ruler insisted and asked what gift Mr. Palmer might enjoy. Finally, Arnold Palmer suggested that he might give him a golf club. The ruler seemed happy with that answer. Two days later Arnold Palmer received the deed to a 200 acre golf club.
Chris Witts - Sunday 18 May 2008
The question in the newspaper advertisement caught my eye. “What if you live longer than you expect?”. It was quite an intriguing question, and I discovered it was promoting superannuation. Then it quoted veteran entertainer George Burns who lived to be 100. George once said “If you live to the age of 100, you’ve got it made. Because very few people die past the age of 100!”
Margaret Hall - Sunday 11 May 2008
The word ‘contentment’ literally means a state of being held together. Cats give the impression they’ve got things together, in contrast to the way we often feel, as we’re pulled in different directions by competing demands or upset by the turns life takes. There always seems to be something more we’d like to have, or something else we’d like put right. Is contentment really possible?
Chris Dixon - Sunday 4 May 2008
The Sydney Olympics gave us an opportunity to revel in meeting one of our most basic human needs, and that is the need for community and friendship. Sadly, we don’t always manage to find a meaningful sense of community, and many people in our society feel alienated and lonely. We’ve all experienced loneliness at some time in our lives and this morning I want to encourage you with a marvellous story Jesus told about overcoming loneliness and alienation. It’s found in John 4: 1-42.
David Kerr - Sunday 27 Apr 2008
Many suggest that Australia’s proud fighting qualities in World War I helped to define us as a nation and Anzac Day is subsequently embedded in our culture as a memorial and testimony to these celebrated times and the many other defining moments of war that now colour our history. But is it right to continually revisit yesterday and retell stories from the world’s dark past?
Leo Douma - Sunday 20 Apr 2008
How would it be if God were to carry on like we often do? “Unless you come up with the appropriate number of good deeds and do the right thing by me, I don’t want to know you” If God acted that way, what hope would we have? I ask you to consider this, so you can get a sense of the struggle of the weary and burdened that Jesus speak to in Matthew 11 – where he says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened”.
Margaret Hall - Sunday 13 Apr 2008
What am I for? Where am I heading? Who am I about – myself, or the One who’s really at the centre of the universe? And whatever’s happening in my life, whatever the consequences of the choices I’ve made, am I allowing those things to draw me closer to God, or to take me away from him?
Richard Quadrio - Sunday 6 Apr 2008
Many 2CH listeners grew up in a slightly more polite world. Somehow basic manners seem to be one of the victim of our age. Once upon a time please and thank you formed the backbone of civil society, And the only word you needed more than please and thank you – was sorry.
Margaret Wesley - Sunday 30 Mar 2008
This morning I plan to talk about something that makes us all feel uncomfortable. It makes us hang our heads and drop our eyes to the ground. It dries up our mouths and stops us from thinking clearly. It can make adults act like school children - and it can make young women starve themselves to death.
David Reay - Sunday 23 Mar 2008
It would be the greatest news in the world if we discovered a cure for death. After all, the other cures for other ailments only delay death: they don’t avoid it. The reason why Christians figure that Easter Eggs, Easter Shows, Easter Bunnies aren’t the centre of Easter, is that they believe a cure for death has been discovered. Jesus, God in human form, rose from death. He conquered the last enemy.
Graham Agnew - Good Friday 21 Mar 2008
It was Commander James Lovell who intoned a simple heart-stopping message across the void of space on April 11, 1970: “Houston, we have a problem!” These words have become synonymous with moments of crisis ever since. And so the world watched and waited over the next 3 days as the crew of Apollo 13 contemplated the grim reality that they might never return to earth, while NASA experts on the ground worked feverishly around the clock to try and solve the unprecedented problems they were now facing.
Chris Witt - Sunday 16 Mar 2008
I find myself reflecting on grief, one of the big issues of life, and I realise that most people will, during their lifetime, attend at least one funeral of someone they know. And as they do, they will experience sadness, grief and sorrow, thinking about the reality that their friend, relative or work colleague, has died. It’s not an easy topic to talk about, and if we’re honest we prefer to put it out of our minds and dwell on more pleasant subjects. But grief and grieving are facts of life.
Graham Agnew - Sunday 9 Mar 2008
I came across a billboard recently advertising a major bank. In the slogan they described themselves as “The Light at the Beginning of the Tunnel”. It rather appealed to me ... a clever variation of the old saying about light at the end of the tunnel.
John Edmonstone - 2 Mar 2008
‘I just can’t cope any more’. Do you ever feel like that? Many people do. They feel they are cracking under the strain and are afraid of the future. The pressure of modern life is one cause of illness. What is the answer? Well, doctors can do much at the physical level. But if the cause is emotional and spiritual there can be no answer to the problem unless we seek it at these levels.
Bob Smith - Sunday 24 Feb 2008
When Mother Teresa, thought by many to be the epitome of true Christian faith, received the Nobel Peace Prize for her work amongst the poorest of the poor, she reminded the assembly that the approaching Christmas season should remind the world that “Christ is everywhere - in our hearts, in the poor we meet, in the smile we give and in the smile that we receive.” Yet three months earlier, in a letter to her spiritual director, she wrote: “Jesus has a very special love for you. But as for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great, that I look and do not see. I listen and do not hear.”
Graeme Best - Sunday 17 Feb 2008
I was recently speaking with a person who distances themselves with all things Christian and she enquired with regards to an incident concerning a mutual friend. This friend had been rather harshly dealt with by his church where a lack of compassion seemed to have been displayed, and her immediate response was, “Well that’s not very Christian, is it?”
Margaret Hall - Sunday 10 Feb 2008
There’s an episode of the nineties’ television sitcom Seinfeld where George is complaining that nothing good ever happens to him. He says, “God wouldn’t let it happen.” His friend Jerry says, “I thought you didn’t believe in God.”
“I do for the bad things,” says George. If we’re honest we can all relate to that.
David Reay - Sunday 3 Feb 2008
The world has many ways of wounding us. As a result, we can give up and retreat from the world and become isolated and insulated. We can resort to destructive addictions. We can cynically dismiss any idea of God or faith coming into the equation at all. Let’s see how the Christian faith allows us to keep on when things seem to fall apart. How it doesn’t so much solve the problems but give us a perspective from which to face and conquer them.
Bob Smith - Sunday 27 Jan 2008
The real successes in the life of faith are not those who are blessed with outstanding abilities, but those who recognise what God has given them, stop wishing for something else, and go on to use what they’ve been given to do what they’ve been called to do.
Richard Quadrio - Sunday 20 Jan 2008
We make hundreds of choices all the time – and in the end the consequence are very little – will be have the chicken pizza or the beef, will I visit a friend or not. Some decisions however are much more important. Like the decision to marry or not to marry. But the most important decision – yes the most important decision any or us will ever make – is whether we believe in God or not.
Armen Nalbandian - Sunday 13 Jan 2008
“Buy me, Buy me!” is what most advertising is all about. After all, I should know, I studied marketing at University and worked in marketing. The core purpose of advertising is to attract our attention. The way marketers have gone about doing this is amazing. They have spent vast amounts of money on research to discover human psychology, physiology and sociology to unravel the secrets of grabbing our attention through the use of technology and human dynamics. They have managed to push out what is important in life and replace it with the urgent and not-so-important things in life.
Graeme Best - Sunday 6 Jan 2008
I read lots of suggestions people could adopt to make "a new you" in the new year. Exercise more, lose weight, improve your eating habits, have a face lift, get out and about more, help someone in the community, be more confident, dress more smartly and so on. But this morning I want to suggest that of far greater significance than our outward appearance to others, is our inside.
Bob Smith - Sunday 30 December, 2007
It’s easy to look out on the world and conclude that life is a jungle, an empty struggle. Yet, as Nellie Forbush sang in "South Pacific", "I’m stuck like a dope with a thing called hope..." I believe that what I see at this moment in time is not all there is. I also believe that God is, and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.
Graeme Best - Tuesday 25 December 2007
Moving stories tell of the spirit of Christmas - of brief pausesand goodwill in the terrible fighting in World Wars 1 & 2. But if we think peace in that sense is what the angels meant when they sang "Peace on earth", we’ve got it wrong, because it has never come. But Jesus did come to bring peace with God, and everything else we long for flows from that.
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 23 December 2007
At Christmas time in Australia we celebrate a variety of things - the winding up of the year, the beginning of the long holidays, families coming together. All reasons to celebrate, but they pale into insignificance beside the original reason, spelt out in a dramatic announcement the night Jesus was born ...
Chris Dixon - Sunday, 16 December 2007
C S Lewis, the Oxford don who wrote the famous children’s story "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", also wrote a fine essay called "The Weight of Glory". It refers to the contrast St Paul drew between our "light and momentary" troubles, and the magnificently solid glory, making up for all suffering, that we’ll one day know.
Armen Nalbandian - Sunday, 9 December 2007
Bill Cosby used to have a TV show called "Kids say the Darndest Things" - often very funny. But when we grow up and continue to have childish, ignorant ideas about God and the Bible it’s not funny but tragic. Most of all we need to find out what God has to say about himself.
Leo Douma - Sunday 2 December 2007
Suppose I have tickets for something like the NRL Grand Final - are you enough of a fanatic to sell your car, your house and everything you own for those tickets? You’d be insane to do that! But Jesus told a story about a man willing to sell all he had ... for a pearl. And Jesus congratulates him!
Graeme Best - Sunday, 25 November 2007
A road rage incident reminds us how much anger is around. We live in an angry world, and it’s such a visible, destructive emotion. And it’s a natural one, part of our being made in the image of God. But our anger is rarely righteous like God’s. Let’s consider anger, and how we can control it, for our own good and for the glory of God.
Margaret Hall - 18 November 2007
Old films like Casablanca - still popular after 60 years - used cardboard cut-outs for backdrops. That was OK - Hollywood’s all about pretending. But in real life it’s important to know if something is genuine or not. If someone could prove to me that my relationship with God was not real, I’d be devastated ...
Bob Smith - Sunday, 11 November 2007
We still live in the shadow of two great wars and today we remember what they cost. Remembrance Day focuses on a human quality that touches all of our hearts: the quality of sacrifice. In this comfortable and self-indulgent age it is difficult to grasp that thousands of young Australians left all that was dear to them for wounds, mutilation and death ...
Chris Witts - Sunday, 4 November 2007
The call to forgive often hits us where it hurts. CS Lewis used to say, "Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely thing until they have something to forgive." Only with God’s help can we deal with problems like this and, finding resources outside ourselves, learn to forgive others.
Richard Quadrio - Sunday, 28 October 2007
You’re probably a bit like me - you love radio. There’s something reassuring about radio in the background. TV in the background is not the same. It dominates and distracts. But what we listen to is vitally important, and to listen to God’s advice really is wisdom - transforming wisdom.
Margaret hall - Sunday, 21 October 2007
Jesus knew how difficult it was to hang on to the belief that God will act to right all wrongs. He told a story about an unjust judge who grudgingly gave in to a persistent widow and contrasted that selfish man with God, the great Giver. But God’s idea of acting quickly may not be the same as ours. Unlike us, He sees the big picture.
Bob Smith - Sunday, 14 October, 2007
Too often real anticipation that God will touch your heart in some special way and bring healing turns gradually to dust and lost hopes. One of the great stories of the Bible is about a man like that. After 38 years, all hope lost - until he met Jesus ...
Graeme Best - Sunday, 7 October 2007
Last week concerning anxiety I said that prayer is the most important resource we have, giving access to God himself. This morning, some more strategies to deal with anxiety, and the vital relationship that is the key.
Graeme Best - Sunday, 30 September 2007
Anxiety has been described as the key emotional problem suffered by people with an affluent lifestyle. The more money we have, the more things we have, the more we have to worry about. Yet anxiety - over-anxiety, that makes our tempers short and our days long - can be a sin. And that means there’s hope for change.
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 23 September, 2007
Almost every story ever told reflects the reality that the world is a stage for the battle between good and evil. The struggle we experience daily to do what we know is good reflects the great cosmic struggle between love and hate, kindness and cruelty, truth and lies. We fall short of our own standard of goodness, and despair at the evil all around us. Where does it all come from?
Bob Smith - Sunday, 26 September 2007
Seasonal Affective Disorder - SAD for short - is something I suffer from. Overcast skies make me moderately depressed, and sunlight lightens my mood. This reminds me of Jesus’ great statement about bringing abundant life, and it was demonstrated in his very first miracle.
Chris Witts - Sunday, 9 September 2007
Young, old, male, female, married or single, we all need friends - at least one friend with whom we can get along and are able to share life’s journey. But a good friend is sometimes hard to find. Loneliness - the isolation we feel when we have no meaningful relationships with people - can be endemic ...
Leo Douma - Sunday, 2 September 2007
Just about everybody accepts that Jesus actually existed. The real question is, "How did he see himself?" People say, a decent bloke, a good teacher, good stuff about morals ... So why in the world was he crucified?
John Edmondstone - Sunday, 26 August 2007
I was thinking about the past recently. I’m sure you have those moments when you think back over the past, its sadness and its joys - and my regrets for my mistakes. Then the period when I became a Christian, which did not mean I stopped making mistakes ... but that decision changed my life’s direction. I want to tell you about it.
Leo Douma - Sunday, 19 August 2007
Loneliness is felt and feared by many. The book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible has wise words about the value of friendship and points towards the deepest friendship and best cure for loneliness of all.
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 12 August 2007
An amusing poster I have shows a panda nonchalently munching bamboo and saying,"Who says worrying doesn’t do any good? The things I worry about never happen!" But worrying can be chronic. Like Jesus’ friend Martha, we can be worried and upset, wondering if God really cares ...
Bob Smith - Sunday, 5 August 2007
Charles Spurgeon used to say, "Defend the Bible! I would as soon defend a lion!" What he meant was that you don’t have to defend a lion, you just turn it loose and it looks after itself. In the same way we can let the Bible loose and watch what it does. If you are sceptical, read it - with an open mind, seeking truth. It will lead you to Jesus Christ, who brings us to God and brings God to us.
Leo Douma - Sunday, 29 July 2007
Buying a house is full of pitfalls. Most of all, if the foundations are not good you have a dud of a house. Jesus told a parable about two blokes who build their houses in a Galilean river valley. ... Well, the flood came, and one was a dud.
So often in life we lose the plot. We have a yearning to find not only a house but a home, a true home, where meaning is given to life’s struggles and to the pain, and where an answer is given to death.
Christine Dixon - Sunday, 22 July 2007
We struggle to make sense of random acts of violence like the murder of Brendan Keilar, the solicitor gunned down in Melbourne while trying to help someone in trouble. We can also struggle with ’dark nights of the soul’ another kind of storm that besets us in our human frailty ...
Chris Witts - Sunday, 15 July 2007
A look at loneliness... the nagging pain of feeling detached or disconnected from others, filling our lives with one thing and another, but failing to establish meaningful relationships. But we are never really alone. People may let us down and friends disappoint us; families sometimes split up. But Jesus, who understands our loneliness, has promised never to forsake us and God our Heavenly Father is with us all the time.
Bob Smith - Sunday, 8 July 2007
Once when I was a chaplain on an army camp, amid the dust of a drought the men asked me half jokingly to ask the Boss for rain. When the dust turned to mud, they said, "Hey, padre, stop praying!" My father-in-law used to say, "Be careful what you pray for because you might get it." We may pray for forgiveness, and be required to forgive others, or we may have to set to work ourselves to meet a need ...
Graeme Best - Sunday, 1 July 2007
A Japanese soldier on Guam spent 28 years after the end of WW2 as a prisoner - held by his own fear of capture. Some of us can be prisoners of fear too. There is healthy, normal fear and devastatingly harmful fear, uncontrolled and destructive. But our God says again and again, "Do not be afraid ...."
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 24 June 2007
In the painful realities of living n a broken world, there are three things we need. We find them again and again in the Bible - first, the faith that through Christ we can be made acceptable to God; second, the hope of an eternal future with Him; and third, the love that we were created to enjoy. These three things keep us spiritually alive.
Graham Agnew - Sunday 17 June, 2007
"Why do Bad Things Happen to Good People?" That’s the title of a book written some years ago by Rabbi Kushner - an age-old question with no clear answer, more relevant today than ever. But there are three affirmations that Christians can make that will get us through the toughest times.
Leo Douma - Sunday, 10 June 2007
This deepest of all questions finds its answer in Psalm 63. "In a dry and weary land", David, a thirsty fugitive in the desert, longs even more for God than for water. Many have a yearning inside for God, but they don’’t recognise the real reason for their emptiness. They throw themselves into unhelpful relationships or work or buying sprees - anything to fill the void.
Richard Quadrio - Sunday, 3 June 2007
There can be such an emphasis on health and safety these days that all the fun kids once enjoyed has gone, lest there be some spice of danger. But some risk and danger is unavoidable in life. A counter-cultural way to see it is to see each day as a gift from God, wonderful but never intended to be permanent.
Graeme Best - Sunday, 27 May 2007
General George Patton once received a letter from one of his soldiers. It thanked him for his leadership efforts and for his care and concern for this particular soldier. He replied, saying, "In all my 35 years of trying to do my best for my men, you are the first ever to write a letter of thanks!" There is a Bible incident that highlights the problem we often have in saying ’thank you’.
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 20 May, 2007
Words have power, for good, for evil. We ourselves can be crushed by cruel, false or thoughtless words, and our own words can wound others. Is there a way out of our persistent misuse of God’s good gift of speech?
John Edmondstone - Sunday, 13 May, 2007
Happy Mother’s day! But for many, Mother’s Day brings sadness or mixed feelings. Against the background of troubling statistics about the breakdown of marriages, domestic violence, child abuse and youth suicides, we look at the role of the family and of mothers in particular - and at some of the Bible’s wonderful stories and wisdom.
Bob Smith - Sunday, 6 May 2007
I was moved by an essay by novelist Emily Maguire in which she asserted her atheism but expressed a longing to believe in an afterlife, if only she could. Our human nature demands that there be a meaning to life; whatever our heads may say, our hearts can never accept that our personality simply ceases to exist when our hearts stop beating. C S Lewis grappled with this ....
Chris Witts - Sunday, 29 April 2007
When we can accept the fact that failure is a part of the process of life, we can learn to take it in our stride and to be at peace. God has called us to abundant life in Him. And this means taking risks. In fact we learn more from our failures than from our successes.
Debbie Gould - Sunday, 22 April 2007
Recently I watched a wonderful ’Easter Experience’ which aimed to introduce shoolchildren to the story of Jesus. Children of course often grasp the need to believe in Jesus much more readily than adults do and Jesus himself pointed out that only those who receive the kingdom of God like little children can enter it. So what did he mean?
Stuart P Robinson - Sunday, 15 April 2007
An ambassador I know is most enthusiastic about the country he represents; Christians have the job of being ambassadors for the Lord Jesus. Paul the apostle was radically transformed when he met the risen Christ, and became a faithful, persuasive ambassador, with the message that in Christ, a person becomes a new creation. Just as the painter Sir Edward Landseer once transformed an ugly splotch on a wall into masterpiece, so Christ rescues and remakes us.
Bob Smith - Easter Sunday, 8th April, 2007
In 1930 Soviet leader Nicholai Bukharin gave a powerful address to a vast crowd in Kiev, exalting atheism and mocking Christianity. At the end of his long harangue came the opportunity for questions. None dared speak until one solitary man came to the lectern and shouted out the ancient Easter greeting of the Russian orthodox Church: CHRIST IS RISEN! En masse the crowd rose to its feet and and roared: HE IS RISEN INDEED!
David Reay - Friday, 6 April 2007
One day years ago I stood in Canterbury Cathedral, where Archbishop Thomas Becket was alleged to have been murdered. But his death made the church stronger, not weaker. It is what we call a paradox. Victory can look a bit like defeat; defeat can look a bit like victory. Christianity is full of paradoxes. The greatest and central paradox of Christianity is Good Friday. Life in the midst of death; love in the midst of hatred.
David Kerr (Repeat broadcast) - Sunday ,1 April 2007
You may have something in common with a host of famous people - Beethoven or Churchill, John Cleese or Michelangelo, Garry MacDonald, Charles Dickens; Abraham Lincoln ... If you have suffered with depression, you’ll know what they’ve gone through because they all experienced this dark and debilitating condition.
Margaret Hall - Sunday 25 March, 2007
Through the ages humankind has tried many ways to please whatever invisible and powerful being they feel is there - from little offerings of food to horrific child sacrifices. But the Bible’s unfolding revelation of the Creator God shows that these kinds of sacrifices could never bridge the gulf between very flawed ceatures and a flawless Creator. So what does God require of us?
John Edmondstone - Sunday 18 March, 2007
Jesus lived his life in italics. Worth thinking about - why do we use italics? For emphasis. No-one else like him has ever existed. He is uniquely prominent and dominant in history.
Bob Smith - Sunday, 11 March 2007
The railway engineer tested his bridge across a Rocky Mountain canyon by putting great stress on it - to prove it would not break. Jesus’ temptations in the desert were primarily tests (same word) to prove he would not fail. Such tests often hit us after a high, when we feel elated and invulnerable. That’s when we, unlike Jesus, are most likely to fall.
Stuart Robinson - Sunday, 4 March 2007
Asked to write an essay on what was wrong with the world, writer and philosopher G K Chesterton famously wrote two words: "I am." He was admitting that sin is the problem and he was a sinner, needing rescue. The Bible gives the withering diagnosis that in and of ourselves, we are dead towards God, spiritually dead. But He in his grace and kindness offers life, abundant life, through Christ.
Chris Witts - Sunday 25 February 2007
Regrets - they’re part and parcel of life. We’ve all got a few at least. Regrets about things we’ve done in life, or failed to do. There are lots of "if only’s", too. But hope comes from a loving God who says, "I can help you deal with your regrets."
Lesley Ramsay - Sunday, 18 February 2007
If God had a beauty contest, what would it be like? Is God interested in what I look like or what I wear? Does he care if my face is disfigured, or not? How does God see me? How do I measure up in his eyes? Good questions! The Bible has answers ...
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 11 February 2007
An amusing poster I have shows a bamboo-munching panda with the caption: "Who says worrying doesn’t do any good? The things I worry about never happen!" But worrying can be chronic. Like Jesus’ friend Martha, we can often be worried and upset, wondering if God really cares ...
Lesley Ramsay - Sunday 4th February, 2007
A brilliant doctor succumbs to drug addiction; a young girl runs away from home and ends up in a brothel at the Cross - wasted lives, failing to live up to their potential, achieving little. But these are not the only ways lives can be wasted. What would the Bible say a wasted life looked like?
David Reay - Sunday, 28th January 2007
Singing the song ’Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ won’t help. Good advice rarely works. Christians are good both at worrying and telling other Christians not to worry. So is there a better way of controlling worry? Yes there is, and it comes from the mind and heart of God, not from pop psychology or feel-good sentiments.
Christine Dixon - Sunday 21 January, 2007
Bible heroes are known for their great faith. The famous preacher C H Spurgeon illustrated faith with the example of a child three floors up in a burning building being urged to jump to safety. "The essence of faith", he said, "lies in trusting fully the strong man below, and jumping - into his waiting arms".
Bob Smith - Sunday 14 Jan 2007
I had a painful flashback memory of a time when I was seven and yielded to peer pressure. I took away from a poor kid in my class a toy I had given him, when he had none. I can still see the pain in his eyes. It illustrates for me a deep spiritual reality, that lasting, even eternal, consequences can follow from the way we treat people in this life. Jesus’ strange parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus also tells of this truth as it depicts consequences in the after-life.
Chris Witts - Sunday, 7 January 2007
Why is encouragement so important? Think about school days. I wonder how many students have gone on to greater pursuits because of an encouraging teacher? Don’t waste time criticising others - look for their good points ... The Bible is full of encouragement.
David Reay - Sunday 31st December, 2006
The story of the disciple Peter is appropriate for New Year’s Eve - he is the one who let his Master down badly and to whom Jesus gave a fresh start and high leadership responsibilities. As we begin the year 2007, it is good to reflect again on Peter’s career with its message of forgiveness and a fresh start available to all who follow Christ.
Bob Smith - Monday, 25 Dec, 2006
God with us - that’s what Christmas means. The almighty and incomprehensible Creator became knowable in Jesus. But I wonder if you feel that God is with you, this year? We tend to judge reality by our circumstances and our feelings. For me a really bad Christmas was about six weeks after my first marriage broke up...
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 24 Dec, 2006
Two teenage girls with much in common, when interviewed for Front Up displayed very different aims in life. Their foundations were totally different, like Jesus’ word-picture of houses built on rock and on sand. Our life foundations are tested by storms - storms of sickness, of temptation or of persecution - like that which led to the murder of Archbishop Janani Luwum of Uganda at the hands of Idi Amin.
John Edmondstone - Sunday, 17 Dec, 2006
Christmas is almost upon us. We need to focus first on what is central and distinctive about Christmas, but some have forgotten its meaning. In the words of a poem, " Let us stop and look for Christmas ...Christmas lost ... " We have one clue in what Jesus said on trial before Pilate."For this reason I was born ... to bear witness the the truth."
Chris Witts - Sunday, 10 Dec, 2006
Dealing with disappointments is part of life for all of us. No exceptions. Many people allow disappointments to ruin their life, but with God disappointments are never final. Dealing with the let-downs of life can open new hope, especially as we invite God to be part of our journey.
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 03 Dec, 2006
The miracles recorded in the Bible are for some a stumbling-block , a barrier to belief, especially to the scientifically-minded. But if we believe in a Creator God, it’s no great leap to believe he can intervene in his own creation and in the ’natural laws’ he put in place.
And Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about the miracle of new birth ....
Stuart P. Robinson - Sunday, 26 Nov, 2006
When a light plane crashed in USA last August, six people were killed, but Kimberly Dear, 21, from Melbourne, survived. Her sky-diving instructor Robert Cook, 22, died as he used his body to protect her from the impact. This serves to illustrate what Jesus has done for us. He "has rescued us from the dominion of darkness". In him, we are redeemed and restored.
Margaret Hall - Sunday, 01 Oct, 2006
We all know how people can react to the same thing in different ways. Two soldiers can experience the same horrors of war. One refuses to believe in a God who allows such things to happen. The other sees God as the only comfort and light in the darkness. Same God, different reactions.
Two wealthy men - one respectable and upright, the other an outcast tax collector - met Jesus. Opposite reactions to his challenge ....
Chris Witts - Sunday, 17 Sep, 2006
"Now you be kind to one another," is how a well-known radio presenter signs off his broadcasts. That made me think - does it matter if I am a kind sort of person? It certainly does. There is a saying, "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to a fellow-creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."