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Why Your Suffering Matters: What 1 Peter Teaches About Pain, Growth and Love
A return to Broken Hill after 35 years prompted a reflection on how quickly life passes. Drawing on 1 Peter 4, this article explores why suffering is not something to fear, but something God can use to shape us into people who love Him and others more deeply.
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How the Cross Changes Your Life
The cross isn’t just a symbol — it’s where God meets us in our pain, carries evil, and transforms suffering into hope. Discover why Jesus’ death and resurrection still change everything for how we live today.
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Do you know what Eternal Life is?
This is another draft chapter from the book I’m working on… I’d appreciate any feedback. I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.Then the world will know that you sent meand have loved themeven as you have loved me.John 17:23 NIV Do you ever feel powerless? Do you ever feel like you don’t have what it takes? Jesus understood that his disciples simply would not have the capacity to glorify God, which is why he prayed what he did in John 17:23. His prayer points to another much-misunderstood aspect of Christian teaching: Eternal Life. My Father, Mal, often told the story of a…
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Good Friday is a reminder of a completely different approach to life… a life that actually produces life by being willing to die…
It’s Good Friday. Today we celebrate the execution of a young Jewish man who made some startling claims. Very few serious historians doubt the historicity of the death of Christ by crucifixion, and one of the peculiar things about this moment in history is that his followers came to claim that his execution was actually a victory, not only so but they also claimed that one of the most common things this young Jewish man said was that his followers were to follow his example and be ready to suffer in the same way he had. The gospels record the 33 year old carpenter as saying we must take up our…
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The seeds of destruction were planted in the American declaration of Independence. You can thank the founders for Trump and Hillary.
There is a good chance that the majority of people who call themselves Christians don’t understand the significance of Jesus’s death and resurrection.
When I saw the Toyota commercial I had to write something. This Christmas, lets not settle for the imitation.
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Do they know its Christmas time at all?
I remember fondly the musical optimism of the mid 1980’s with the two mega singles, “Do they know its Christmas time?” and “We are the world.” Both singles and the ensuing global concert were motivated by a heart response to the crisis of a famine in Ethiopia. Thirty years on, Bob Geldof pulled musicians together to reprise the song, in response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Sure efforts like this attract criticism, however, I think there is something to be said for a heart response to suffering. I am proud of the people in our church who give their time to serve those who are suffering in our…
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How to Change the World
The reason that things won’t change is that the real problem is buying into simplistic labels rather than goals.
I know that my life does have a purpose and that often in the times I am least able to find the words to describe my calling, it is seen most clearly.
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If my agenda becomes the avoidance of suffering, then my agenda is the avoidance of Christ.
I had a conversation last night that helped me see something about myself. Patrick is a young man in South Africa who believes he is called by God to serve him and make a difference for young people in that country. Patrick has no money and his family want him to go an get a real job. As I spoke with Patrick last night, I wanted to save him from the position he found himself in. I wanted to find some scheme that would give him all the money he needed, look for an educational process that would help people take him more seriously or tell him to forget what…
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I want to protest. There must be another way, an easier way, a way that doesn’t involve as much suffering
Today is Good Friday. It is the day we are reminded that the Christian faith stands in direct opposition to what the world counts as success. Our faith calls us to a life that is produced by death. This morning our little church went on the twelve step journey of the stations of the cross. It was a sobering path that confronted me again with the sheer violence of the event that is at the heart of all we are about. When Jesus invites us to take up our crosses, he is inviting us to a confronting, counter-cultural life.
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Why would you wrestle?
One step at a time I was left an anonymous gift last week. It is a hand-made bookmark with a photo of a beach and two trails of footprints with the words “His footsteps my pathway, one step at a time”. For me that little bookmark sums up faith. Faith is the wrestle to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, and his footsteps usually lead in a direction that at least part of me doesn’t want to go. I have been writing about the wrestle of faith and how often the main opponent in the wrestle is actually myself. The obvious question is, why would you wrestle at all?
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I often don’t have faith in God.
Too often we have preached a watered down, deformed kind of Christianity. Lets get back to the 6 core truths…
In the wake of #metoo we need to rediscover the implications of a controversial passage of the bible that points to a model of a healthy relationship between the sexes.
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United we stand
Its gonna hurt As I was talking about yesterday, I have been reminded lately that we are in a battle. I also know that one of the biggest battlegrounds is in my head. There is part of me that wants to do whatever I can to feel good and run away from pain. I know that one side of the battle is trying hard to get me thinking about myself, the other side is wanting to call me beyond myself.
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Preaching to myself
Rejoice in suffering? I had the opportunity to give the valedictory address for our Diploma graduates yesterday. I have been reading through Romans, and the book is hitting me in a new and fresh way. One of the things that I am very grateful about is how honest Paul is. In several places he talks about the wrestle with his feelings and also the wrestle with the part of him that longs to take the easy option. As I gave the valedictory address yesterday, I wasn’t just speaking to our graduates, I was very much speaking to myself too..
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South Africa Pilgrimage: Stella
Hanging on to hope When I arrived in Durban I heard a few of the team members say something like “she could be another Stella” two or three times about different people. I wasn’t sure what they were talking about. As the bus rolled in to Cape Town someone said “Oh Cool Stella is here”. I still didn’t know who they were talking about until a biggish older lady squeezed into the minibus next to me and introduced herself after the tour of Robben Island. I discovered a very special person.
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South African Pilgrimage: Robben Island
In the shadow of greatness Today I met a great man. I couldn’t quite understand his name. I wish I could. Trying to make conversation I asked him whether he enjoyed doing the tour. His response was immediate “No – its depressing”. Yet he still shows up.
