Sharing some thoughts

Today there’s an awful lot in the readings about right and wrong, about sin and forgiveness – and ultimately about the grace and mercy of God – and I just want to pick out some thoughts from the gospel reading from Luke (7:36-8:3), as we think during this season of Trinity about our spiritual growth – we think about our need to get ever closer to God day by day… As we look through the reading, we think very obviously of forgiveness – a forgiveness which is unconditional – all God asks is that we approach him and say sorry… the forgiveness of God is about love and acceptance – it is about creating a sense that we are at peace, and at the end of chapter 7 of that gospel reading Jesus said to the woman who had anointed his feet, ‘your faith has saved you – go in peace…’ And that peace, along with the love of God, is perhaps the most important gift of God that we can ever receive. Somebody once said that ‘safety consists not in the absence of danger but in the presence of God’. It is a...

Our gospel today (Luke 7:11-17) has the incredible account of the widow’s son being raised from the dead in a town called Nain. Nain was a small town about 14 miles from Nazareth, and it remains today a small town of about 1500 residents. And yet, in this small unremarkable place, Jesus did something spectacular. He raised someone from the dead. As the funeral procession was in progress Jesus saw the mother – and he had compassion. And the people praised God for his power, and life in Nain perhaps went back to how it was before… or perhaps it didn’t – we don’t know. To get the full importance of the story we have to remember that this was a widow and the man who had died was her only son – she was totally dependent on him and without him, life would be a constant struggle. She would have no money, potentially no food and perhaps even more important than that, she would have no place in society. By giving her son back, remarkable as that was, Jesus had done so much more that day in ...

In the reading we’ve just heard Paul encourages his readers to ‘be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his power’. It is a wonderful and rousing call, and must have been truly inspirational coming from someone like Paul who had done such dramatic and wonderful work for God. And yet, it’s a call that we so often feel a little uncomfortable about following. The theory is great, and most of us wouldn’t argue with it, but the reality is that we live in a world where we’re often quite cautious; where we’re often ready to look for the logical and easy way rather than the way we know to be absolutely right. Not too long ago we thought in church about Matthias, who was the person chosen to replace Judas Iscariot – his selection process wasn’t long and complicated. Instead members of the early church simply drew lots, trusting in God to point them in the right direction. We may see that now as a rather naïve way of doing things, but I wonder if it is naïve or whether it is a displa...

Today we’re thinking in our service about God’s grace. We are fortunate enough to live in a very beautiful country, and here in Llandrindod I think we are in a particularly special place surrounded by incredible beauty right in the heart of Wales.  One of the features of the countryside around here is the mountains . M ountains can make wonderful views, but   in some ways  those mountains can also  act as a barrier preventing people from looking out further. And in our lives we can tend to put up barriers which prevent us from having a clear vision. We can become bogged down in doing the everyday things, restricted by the busy-ness of what is happening , and when we do this we run the risk of missing the vision of God’s grace.  Grace, by its very nature, is undeserved . It is a gift of God that is free to us. And it is th ere for us all and  we are invited to come and experience this grace  in the reading from the prophet Isaiah. We are to come –...

Sometimes I have listened to people talking about prayer, and just wished at times I could be a little more confident in my prayers... I believe that God has incredible power to change me, to change others and to change the world. I believe firmly in the bible verse that says, ‘With God all things are possible.’ (Matt.19:26). However there are times when I suppose human frailties creep in and even though I regularly say in my prayers, ‘your will be done Lord’, I sometimes worry ! Sometimes heading into the unknown causes that feeling – not knowing the future can lead to doubts and fears. But the reality is that God is with us always and though sometimes we may worry or think we need to take matters into our own hands – trusting God is the safer option ! This week Helen and I went to visit our niece in University in Leicester. There, she took us to see the paternoster lift – I’d never heard of this but it is actually a continuously moving open fronted lift on which you kind of st...