My Epic Dublin Adventure!

Introduction Prayer. So often neglected, yet so powerful. It has been said "You can tell a lot about a Church by observing how many people come to the prayer meeting." This is a very good comment because if somebody really understand the Gospel and is truly in Christ, prayer will be a priority. It has also been said that Prayer is to the Christian life as breathing is to the human life. This is yet another excellent observation because it highlights just how important prayer is. Why Should We Pray? If we take a minute to think about this question, it becomes clear that culture has shaped us more than we realise. Culture tells us that prayer doesn't work, even taking it as far as to say that prayer is pointless. To an extent, we've accepted this. Society sometimes prays when disaster occurs, even if they don't believe in prayer. We must return to Sola Scriptura, the belief that God's Word is enough, that His Word is inerrant, and that it is our only autho...

As Christians we all know about the Cross of Christ. We're all 'super familiar' with it and hence we lose the wonder of it. Do we really know the significance of the Cross of Christ? I know for me I used to lose the wonder of the Cross. But then I started to see just how central Christ is in absolutely everything and I realised that without the Cross Christianity is nothing. When you see the weight and seriousness of your sin in the light of God's grace, you're simply in awe, astounded that He would go to that length for you, and for His chosen people.  I think it was Martin Luther that said, "You need to preach the Gospel to yourself daily". There is so much truth in this, echoing Matthews Gospel, where Jesus says, " If anyone would come after me, let him  deny himself and  take up his cross and follow me.   For  whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" ( Matthew 16:24-28 ). We must in...

In a previous post, I talked about unity in Christ , and here I plan to reflect on that some more, but with a slightly different focus - people making a place. You may wonder what I mean when I say "people make a place", I mean that when we say we miss a place, the reason we miss the place is more often than not, in my experience, the people rather than the place itself. There isn't really one single Scripture passage that reflects this, but I just wish to get some thoughts on people down (generally, not specific people). Many times, I have done teams in different places, from Letterkenny PCI team to the MAD Crew in Coleraine Uni just over the road from home, right through to an Exodus team in Poland. Each time, the Lord Jesus is exalted and proclaimed, lots of great experiences of fellowship are had with other people, with people who before I often didn't even know. It's always amazing to see what God does as He unites us as we all strive together towards th...

I'm literally finished reading this book 5 minutes ago! It was such a good book that I had to review it while it was still fresh in my head. By way of introduction, Sola Scriptura (by Scripture alone) was one of the great cries of the Reformation in the 16th Century, along with: Sola Fide (by Faith alone), Sola Gratia (by Grace alone), Solus Christus (Christ alone) and Sola Del Gloria (glory to God alone). Today's evangelical Christians have largely forgotten the Scripture Alone part. It's sad. We all do it. We think we need extra revelation above and beyond the Bible. More so, when you don't have the Bible as the central sufficient authority, we deviate seriously from how the Lord has commanded us to live - our standards become lower and lower and more like the world than like God. So it's key that we all return (myself included) to the great solas of the Reformation, especially Sola Scriptura as we tend to hear of the others more. All five need equal focus, b...

The title sounds odd, right? Yes it does, at first glance. Come with me as I explain what I mean! Scriptural focus is Philippians 2:14-16 "Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain." Philippians 2:14-16. Let's remember the context of this epistle. Paul is in prison, yet rejoicing in Christ because his contentment is based on Christ, not his circumstances. He is writing to the Church in Philippi. The Church in Philippi has a special significance to Paul as it was the first Church he planted in Europe. In terms of the whole of chapter 2 , there is a lot to mention context wise, so lets keep it brief and to the point. There were no major issues in the Church in Philippi, just one...

Howdy! So since I've no University work to do (aside from a placement log), I've had more time to actually read the many faith based books I have in my drawer! I thought I'd start with Just Do Something by Kevin Deyoung since after this placement year, I've only one more year before going into the so called 'big bad world' to find a graduate job in Software Engineering - that in itself involves decisions as to what ones to apply for (Testing - my placement job would be preferable, but development is also an option, and what specific area of Software do I want to work in - cloud, virtualisation, e-commerce, financial services, or what). I have now finished Kevin's book and have resumed reading Chosen by God by RC Sproul, you can expect the review of that one in the next few weeks when I finish it - it's much deeper as you'd expect. Below is my review of Just Do Something by Kevin: Review Often, life throws us a curveball, and we have a big...