Numbers 7 gives a detailed account of the offerings brought to the Lord on behalf of the people. It’s a passage that’s easy to skim over due to its repetitive nature, but it contains principles that are important for us to grasp as we prepare to gather around The Lord’s Table this morning.
God’s word has a lot to say about ‘heaven’ yet as believers we rarely seem to talk about it. In today’s message, we look as what we have already been told about heaven and the age to come, asking ourselves ‘how then should we live?’.
In today’s Gospel Encounter, we meet a man oppressed by the devil to the extent that he had seemingly been robbed of everything, including his own identity. Until, that is, he encountered Jesus, the restorer of dignity who brought healing and a new commission.
Today we think about Mary Magdalene encountering the risen Jesus in the garden on Resurrection Day. We highlight how Jesus can find us in the crisis, is Himself the cure for mankind’s condition and calls people by name to follow Him.
At the time of year when we often think of making new year resolutions, the words of Jesus from John 15 come to us loud and clear: Choose to remain! Jesus says that apart from Him, we can do nothing. Dare we dream of the fruitfulness we will see if Christ-following men and women commit their whole selves to Jesus and His mission in 2020?
In both his letters and his gospel, John often refers to his readers as ‘children’. John really wants us to be confident of who we are as children of God. From the account of King David and his covenant faithfulness to Mephibosheth, we gain further insights into being God’s children – we’re invited to sit at the King’s table as sons and enjoy relationship with Him, enjoying all the good things he has for us.
God created us to be an expressive people and in this lively all-age gathering we consider the word ‘praise’ as found in the Psalms. We discover that by looking at the original Hebrew words used for ‘praise’ brings freedom to expressively worship God in a way that is wholehearted, sincere and in line with scripture.
At the start of this new season together we take a look at the account in John 13 of Jesus washing his disciples feet and consider what it means to serve one another, following the example of Jesus.
In a sneaky look ahead to the teaching series coming this Autumn, we look together at ‘The Prayer Meeting’ and seek to answer the question ‘Why do we do that?’
This week we look in Joshua 2 and consider how God and His people had a reputation in Jericho, the parallel with Jesus’s life as ‘news about him spread…’ at the start of his earthly ministry as a result of the filling of the Holy Spirit and finishing with an encouragement to dream and bring into being a time when Jesus is the talk of the town in Market Harborough.
Today we look at God’s eternal principal of the tithe; how we see it practiced, defined, enshrined in the law and affirmed by Jesus, before we consider the practicalities today as we worship God by the bringing of the tithe and the giving of offerings.
This week we consider Paul’s description of the believer – not controlled by sinful nature but rather in radical relationship with the Holy Spirit. We think about how the Holy Spirit confirms our adoption, identity and inheritance as children of God and we take a look how Paul’s ‘theory’ found in the book of Romans played out in practice in his real-life care for the churches.
This week we turn to Romans 7 and examine the Radical Redirection that comes by asking the question ‘In the light of God’s free gift of righteousness to believers, what was and is the point of the law as given by God to His people in the time of Moses?’
In Romans 6 Paul describes believers as being ‘dead to sin’, but what does actually look like? Today we look to answer the question ‘How can I be set free from the power of sin in my life?’
In Romans 5 Paul continues to tell of the God-given Radical Righteousness that is freely ours when we repent and make Jesus the Lord of our lives. Unless we are completely convinced that God has given us a free gift of righteousness that makes us completely acceptable to Him, we can be forever battling a sense of guilt and unworthiness which can paralyse us spiritually and if uncorrected will prevent us from being effective within our families, in the body and in the mission of the church.
In this lively all-age gathering, we look at the story Jesus told about two brothers and how both ‘younger brother types’ and ‘older brother types’ are portrayed in chapters 1 and 2 of Romans.
As we head into the final term of 2018 we remind ourselves who it is that we are walking with as we take a look at the encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, found in Luke 24.
David is described in the bible as being ‘A man after God’s own heart’. What does that mean? What characteristics can we see in David that give rise to such a description and could we ourselves aspire to be men and women ‘after God’s own heart’?
Knowing which path to take is a constant in life. This week we look at Psalm 25 and discover how by dedication, supplication and declaration David sought God to show him The Right Path.
Time and time again in scripture, God promises to bless those who honour Him – but is such blessing possible in our day? This week we examine three areas of our life in which God promises His blessing with an expectation that we can indeed choose to walk in the blessing of God.
It’s clear from reading the letters of Paul that one of his chief concerns as an apostle and spiritual father was that believers should grow into maturity, both individually and collectively. As we strive for maturity together, our unity in the Spirit is crucial. A supernatural church will exhibit supernatural unity!
On this Mothers’ Day, we look in Luke 11 at the account of Jesus when given the opportunity to praise and honour His own mother, considered it vital to redirect his listeners to where true blessing is to be found. In hearing the word of God and putting it into practice.
As citizens of The Strong City, our vantage point has changed. And this new vantage point brings a change of mindset as we look out into 2018 and beyond.