Into the Pray – Marriage

If you’ve read the other 5 posts in this blog series, you’ll know that it’s a series that’s been born out of a deep distress with how a lot of church (fundamentally) functions today compared with how we see the Church (fundamentally) functioning in the Bible. It is also a blog series that’s been bornContinue reading “Into the Pray – Marriage”

Augustine 

I was astonished that although I now loved you…I did not persist in enjoyment of my God. Your beauty drew me to you, but soon I was dragged away from you by my own weight and in dismay I plunged again into the things of this world…as though I had sensed the fragrance of theContinue reading “Augustine “

Hosea 2: The Promise of Allurement

There is a higher summit. It hangs overs base camp like a shadowy, silhouetting God, incarnate in ancient rock…God is showing us His deepest, highest, widest affections through the churning heart of a husband bereft of the love and loyalty of his wife.

every time you sense God’s anger, try to instead imagine God as being grieved and as being gutted rather than as just waving His great, big, cosmic stick around in fury. I’ve found this a massively helpful distinction in coming closer to the heart of God.

Hosea 1- Acclimatising to the Mess (& the wonder)

In order to speak prophetically to a Nation and to achieve redemption and righteousness for them, God invades, exposes and demands the masculinity of Hosea’s ego, his social and spiritual reputation, his lineage, his peace, his joy, his sanity, his sexual satisfaction and purity and, most ultimately, the emotional bed of his heart.

Hosea: The Left Ventricle of God

Whispers of Love Do you have a favourite bible verse, a favourite biblical character or a favourite passage that means everything to you following Jesus – something like a life verse, maybe?

Incomparable

A friend recently gave me a copy of Andrew Wilson’s fine book Incomparable, by all accounts a modern day equivalent of J I Packer’s Knowing God. Wilson’s book is a concise, snappy, whimsical, high-calibre study of the character of God and even in the opening chapters there are some nuggets that landed in my heartContinue reading “Incomparable”

Dark Are We Yet Lovely #2

The post yesterday tried to shine a spot-light on the nature of God as an affectionate Lover of His people and the difference between this reality and the notion that God loves us only because He loves us unconditionally, as though we weren’t lovable to Him. Of course, our standing before Him is both transactionalContinue reading “Dark Are We Yet Lovely #2”