Sharing some thoughts

  Apparently, it was not until 1850 that the world population reached the one billion mark. By 1930 it reached two billion, and it took only thirty more years for the world's population to reach three billion. Now, less than a hundred years on from then, it is around 8 billion.  And some more facts as well – which you won’t be tested on later ! Until the year 1800, the top speed was twenty miles an hour as people travelled on horseback. With the arrival of the train, almost overnight it jumped to 100 miles per hour. By 1952 the first passenger jet could travel at 500 miles an hour. By 1979 Concorde cruised at more than 1,200 miles an hour. But even back in 1961 the astronauts were orbiting the earth at 16,000 miles per hour.  Change over the past couple of hundred years has been more rapid than at any period in history, but no change has ever been as significant as the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and the growth of the early Church. The reading from the Acts of the apostl

  I heard someone say a while ago that Jesus loved people until they knew they were loved... As we come towards the end of the Easter season in the church calendar we're reminded of the victory of the cross, of the power and love of a risen Saviour, and we're invited to respond to that love firstly with a recognition of that love for us and secondly by seeking to share that love with others.  Throughout John’s gospel from which we heard (15:9-17), we are encouraged 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 the world to change our lives forever, and we can be confiden