Reasonable Faith - It's not blind

I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. — Jesus Christ, John 10:10

What is this ‘abundant life’ Jesus speaks of? I asked some good friends from church what they thought. Even though they found ‘abundant life’ hard to define, one thing was clear from our discussion: none of them thought they were living it, whatever it was…

‘Knowledge is power’ asserted Francis Bacon (1561-1626). By implication, increase your knowledge and your future, and possibly that of others, is in your control. But is the amassing of personal power the prime function of knowledge?…

Camouflage, codes, secrets; the more mysterious you are to the enemy the more you have the advantage. When your enemy doesn’t know where you are or what you are doing he can’t plot or scheme against you…

The word ‘know’ is quite ambiguous. The old King James translation of the Bible used the word ‘know’ in this way: ‘Adam knew his wife Eve and she conceived’. Does that mean knowing someone is all about sex?…

Everywhere I look there are restless souls. We are restless at home, at work, at school, at play, at church and everywhere in between. Our growing problem with insomnia seems to indicate we are even restless at rest…

TV evangelists can be convicted of lying, cheating and misappropriating funds and be back on air in no time, all thanks to grace. I know of church leaders and ex-pastors involved in adulterous relationships, and, you guessed it, their favourite topic is grace…

Unfortunately, some Christians have ignored the mind, falsely believing that the intellect and rational thought would diminish faith and spirituality. So they replaced thinking with feeling. Altar calls and feel-good experiences are poor substitutes for reading, study and meditation. Mindless Christianity produces a fragmented, ignorant world-view that’s open to heresy and superstition…

You are required to worship if you want the presence of God in your life. Worship is everything; it’s what the Christian life is all about. So what is true worship? By now all the non-musical people should have breathed a sigh of relief because true worship has nothing to do with music…

Apparently, as a born-again, blood-washed Christian I am dead to sin (Romans 6:2). Romans 6:6 goes so far as to say sin has been ‘brought to nothing’. I am no longer its slave. All this sounds great on paper but in the flesh and blood world where I live things don’t seem to be turning out like Romans describes. I have prayed, claimed and confessed those scriptures and, as of the moment I write this, I am anything but dead to sin…

Jesus never went after a crowd. He went after the individual. He didn’t pursue the multitude. He pursued the person. Jesus’ secret to attracting a multitude was the person in the multitude. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have PR, promotion, attractions or whatever is the latest, but Jesus’ first cause – His focus was, and still is, the individual…

We are slaves to the law of sin and death because of our depravity. As much as we want to, we just can’t seem to consistently obey our conscience and do what we ought to do…

We protect and look after things we value because we want them to last. We understand the importance of looking after valuable things in the physical world yet when it comes to spiritual things we think this principle doesn’t apply.

Society can’t function without a line of grace. People must respect the law. There would be chaos if it weren’t that way. The facts are, we need grace in society, relationships, church, rehab… but there are limits…

The kamikaze wreaked havoc in the Pacific, sinking many of the Allies’ ships and aircraft carriers. The navy had no answer for the kamikaze pilot. They were operating in a level above what the Allies were prepared to go.