Are we throwing away our time?
‘I only have a minute. Only sixty seconds in it. … Just a tiny little minute. But eternity is in it.’ Those words by Pastor Benjamin Mays remind us again of just how precious the God-given gift of time is. Life is made of moments and none of us have an infinite supply.
The Bible has many metaphors that illustrate just how brief and temporary our existence is here on earth. It’s described as a breath, a flower that fades, and a wisp of smoke that appears for a little while. It’s a sobering thought that should you reach 80 years of age, you will have lived for around just 4,000 weeks. Life, we often learn too late, is in the living. Most people leave this world with a few pounds in the bank, but all of us leave it with no seconds on the clock. Time, therefore, is infinitely more important than money. Once it’s gone, all the gold in the universe can’t buy back a single moment.
The cross: suffering, substitution, satisfaction
As we move towards Good Friday and Easter, this short book extract helps us focus once again on the message at the heart of the Christian faith – the cross.
When we think of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into this world to redeem us from death, we must see His work of redemption under three important categories.
the ENd word
Have you grown in faith through the pandemic?
Elizabeth McQuoid
‘Haven’t they grown!’ seems to be a well-worn phrase as we emerge from lockdown and meet up with young people and children we haven’t seen for more than a year.
Women who weren’t pregnant last time we saw them now have babies in their arms, tweens have become fully-fledged teens.
Why I still believe in the Church: the weak shame the strong
We’ve seen too many abuse scandals come to light in the Church, and sadly, statistically speaking, there are many more to come.
It’s tempting to turn away from the Church when well-known leaders are found out to be abusers. This temptation increases as we see other leaders fail to make the Church a safe place: Some leaders have clearly been complicit in abuse, even if they haven’t directly abused anybody themselves. Other leaders have been silent, failing to speak up about what they know, failing to be a voice for the voiceless. Some have spoken up, but have ‘sin-levelled’, thus minimising abuse, contradicting Christ (Matt. 18:6), and broadcasting an ‘all clear’ message to predators. No wonder some of us are tempted to give up on the Church.