Many people wear their faith lightly. They may wear their religion loudly, but in their inner lives, they touch God lightly – their brushes with the divine are fleeting and superficial, accidental and incidental. This was not so for the psalmist who declared, “My soul clings to you [O God]” (Psalm 63:8) from his inmost being. His experience was intense and personal. He did not wear his faith lightly. Instead there is an earnest, whole-hearted hanging on to God, and it was wit

To be yoked with Jesus is to be united with Him, as in being tied to Him in a three-legged race. The wisdom of the world says that this would not work, that it would be cumbersome and affect one’s freedom and mobility. The paradox is that only when we are tied to Jesus will we find true freedom and restfulness – because He is the only one who knows how to run. He is the Master of the race and knows all about the rhythm, direction and ways of running well. The ones who are uni

In the old days, school sports and church events used to include a three-legged race. People were paired-up and the left leg of one runner was strapped to the right leg of another runner. The object was for the partners to coordinate their run without falling over, and beat the other contestants to the finishing line. There would be lots of laughter as many would make awkward progress. In Romans, Paul discusses our baptism as an experience that unites us with Jesus. He descri

Buber’s point is that at the heart of human life is ‘I-Thou’ relationships; we have been created for relationships, firstly and centrally with God, and then with others. This is in line with Jesus’ summary of the Law in two commandments: to love God with all our being, and to love our neighbours (Matthew 22:37-40). We note in the two sections of the Ten Commandments that we must treat God as God and other human beings as persons. Anything less would destroy our humanness. Sat

The first great distortion Satan introduced into the mind of the human race is that the most important human quest is to know something as opposed to knowing Someone . God placed the first couple in His paradise, giving them all they needed and inviting them to know Him as their loving, caring Creator God. Everything went well until Satan, the deceiver, turned up. It appears that God habitually turned up at the Garden to have fellowship with Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:8). But S

Our Christian calling is not to cram our heads with facts, but to fill our hearts with Christ. It is not to reduce truth to information but to find ultimate truth in the Person of Jesus Christ. Alas, we live in the information age where knowledge is power (not love). It is possible to become cleverer and more foolish at the same time. T S Eliot puts it well: The endless cycle of idea and action, Endless invention, endless experiment, Brings knowledge of motion, but not of sti

At its heart, the Christian faith is not a religion. It is a Person. Rules and rituals may be important, but they are not at the heart of Christian discipleship or church life. It is the relationship with the Person of Jesus that is the soul of Christianity. Everything else is built on this. When we know Jesus, we also come to know the Father and be connected with His Spirit. Eternal life, as defined by Jesus, is the personal and relational knowledge of God the Father and God

The bodily Ascension is most strongly emphasised by certain Christian denominations and traditions, such as the Calvinists. Karl Barth wrote that Christ’s humanity is “to all eternity … a clothing which He does not put off. It is His temple which He does not leave. It is the form which He does not lose.” What about Methodists? Article III of our Articles of Religion states that “Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body, with all things pertaining to

Ascension day is celebrated in some churches, but tends to be largely forgotten or neglected in most others. How important is Ascension Day? A local preacher wrote to me with a theological question (“Does Jesus still have a human body today?”) and a liturgical question (“Why do Methodists seem to ignore the Ascension?”). This article is based on my reply. The Bible does say that Jesus had a resurrected body after His Resurrection. It was in this same body that He ascended to