Sharing some thoughts

Today we celebrate Pentecost – often called the birthday of the church, as it was the day when God gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to his followers... We are told in the reading from Acts (2:1-21) that the disciples of Jesus were together in one place – they had been told to wait for the gift God had promised – that gift that would empower them to be the church... And what an incredible display it was when it came. There was a sound like the blowing of a violent wind. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them and all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them. And immediately they went out using God’s gift – and people were amazed, so amazed at the joy that these people seemed to have. It’s interesting that some of the people who were passing by reached the conclusion that the apostles were drunk, because that tells us something of the spirit of excitement &...

May I speak in the Name of  God :  Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN I recently read some comments made by child ren about prayer to their vica r. They included – I know God loves me and I ask for His help but I wish He would g ive me an A in my  school  report;  we say grace in our house every night even if we are eating leftovers from the night before and I say my prayer before we eat our supper but my Mum still makes  me eat spinach and drink milk no matter how much I pray that she won’t. Prayer is a very important thing. In our gospel reading  (John 17:6-19)  this morning we heard Jesus’ prayer at the garden of  Gethsemane . This prayer is perhaps one of the most humbling prayers ever. Jesus was waiting his arrest, He knew what was going to happen to Him but He prayed for His followers. This prayer is  beautiful because in it  Jesus prayed for protection for His disciples. He passed them back to His Father and prayed that t...

A mother was preparing pancakes for her two sons one day. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson. "If Jesus were sitting here," she said, "he would say, 'Let my brother have the first pancake. I can wait.'" The older brother turned to his younger brother and said, "OK, you be Jesus!" John’s gospel from which we heard this morning (15:9-17) is a powerful evangelistic gospel. Throughout, the writer encourages its readers to go out and witness to God – John backs up his writing by describing the public miracles that Jesus did – it is John also who gives us the famous ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus – I am the bread of life; the light of the world; the door; the good shepherd; the resurrection and the life; the way, the truth and the life and the vine. The miracles and these sayings of Jesus point us to the fact that we are to be confident in God – we can trust that Jesus came into...