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Occasions for Alleluia - Resting in God
Occasions for Alleluia - Resting in God
by SPCK - David Adam
Resting in God The conversation of the brethren should help and cheer us, but God’s voice speaks most often in silence. Keep some part of every day free from all noise and the voices of men, for human distraction and the craving for it hinder the Divine Peace...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 86:11-12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 86:11-12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 86:11-12 The prayer to ‘knit my heart unto thee’ is as poetic as it is profound. Weaving the sinews of our will into the will of God echoes the prayer of Jesus as he faced the cross: ‘Not what I want but what you want’ (Matthew 26.39b nrsv). His example shows us that it is …
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 90:10, 12
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 90:10, 12 This prayer also swims against the tide of our culture where youthfulness is coveted and ageing dreaded. Yet in spite of the worship of agelessness, where the vitamin pills are the sacraments of the day and the workout a religious ritual, we can never escape the i…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 26:1-2
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 26:1-2
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 26:1-2 Enough of sin! Here is the portrait of a blameless believer, someone who in all honesty before God cannot point to any wilful act of disobedience. And yet. Even with a conscience clear before God this plaintiff appears to plead with the Judge of all to examine him fo…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 27:9
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 27:9
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 27:9 In St Paul’s famous essay on love he writes about how one day we will see God face to face but for now we see ‘through a glass, darkly’ (1 Corinthians 13.12 kjv). It’s a poetic phrase conveying the original Greek which literally says that we see through a glass not dar…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 24:1, 3-4
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 24:1, 3-4
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 24:1, 3, 4 God is the Lord of earth and heaven. The Lord’s Prayer is for the fusion of the two. Asking for God’s will to be done in earth as it is done in heaven is a prayer for the earthing of heaven. The rebellion in the Garden of Eden drove a wedge between the two realms…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 69:21-22
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 69:21-22 Desolation is when you find yourself estranged from both friends and God. To sense that you are rebuked by God breaks the heart. If ever there were grounds for self-pity then these are they, when no one else will offer you pity or comfort...
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 57:8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 57:8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 57:8 Whatever we fix on to in the end absorbs us, so much so that we become dependent on it. That dependency becomes a way of life, integrated into our being. It’s as if we were made to be dependent. ‘No man is an island’, and even those loners who seem so independent of ot…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 112:7-8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 112:7-8 A sign of the heart established in God is that it does not shrink. Nor is it ‘afraid of any evil tidings’. The reason for this is that ‘unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness’ (v. 4). That light is none other than the mercy of God which rescues us fro…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 28:8
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 28:8
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 28:8 Through all his trials and tribulations St Paul urged others to discover with him that God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness, and that his grace is always sufficient. These are discoveries we do not always wish to make! They involve us in situations where we…
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 31:27
With My WholeHeart - Psalm 31:27
by SPCK - James Jones
Psalm 31:27 Jesus, of all people, knew the human heart. He knew how fickle the heart could be. He could see what flowed from it and knew what it was capable of, both good and bad. I don’t think any human being would dissent from that assessment. The heart is like a rudderless bo…
Secondary Schools Assemblies Resource Book - St Andrews Day
Secondary Schools Assemblies Resource Book - St Andrews Day
by
Secondary Schools Assemblies Resource Book THROUGH THE YEAR ST ANDREWS DAY By Stuart Kerner Suitable for Whole School Aim To reflect on the importance of trusting our lives to God. Preparation and materials • Four volunteers, two apples and two peelers. Assembly 1. Ask the studen…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Agrippa and Bernice
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Agrippa and Bernice
by SPCK - N T Wright
Agrippa and Bernice Acts 25.13-27 ‘To see ourselves as others see us.’ That telling line from Burns (actually, he wrote ‘oursels’; but someone would think it was a misprint if I had put that) sums up a good deal of the task of human communication. I am in correspondence, as I spe…
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Another KIng
Acts for Everyone Part 2 - Another KIng
by SPCK - N T Wright
Another King! Acts 17.1-9 Just north of where I am writing this, and visible from not far away, is the small but famous island of Lindisfarne, commonly known as ‘Holy Island’. It was the first beachhead of Christian faith in England, long before the Romans sent Augustine from Rom…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - ASK, SEARCH, KNOCK
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - ASK, SEARCH, KNOCK
by SPCK - N T Wright
PART 1 NEW TESTAMENT TEACHING ON PRAYER THE TEACHING OF JESUS ASK, SEARCH, KNOCK Matthew 7: 7-12 I hate fundraising. Many people are good at it; many actually enjoy it; but I can’t stand it. I hate asking people for things anyway, and asking for money is the worst of all. As a re…
New Testament Prayer for Everyone - God's Love, God's Power - In Us