Devotions

Dear Friends, Welcome. ​This space exists for one reason: ​love — ​the love of God poured out in Jesus Christ, ​the love we are called to extend ​to one another, ​and to the world. ​There are many voices clamouring for our attention. Here, you will find the rhythm of one heart seeking to follow the way of Love. My ministry does not happen behind heavy church doors or within rigid institutional walls. It happens in the quiet, ordinary spaces of life where we learn to walk together at an unhurried pace. This is a faith rooted not in tradition for its own sake, but in the living, active, self-giving love at the heart of the Gospel. ​Three truths have become my anchors: ​The Living Word Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh. Apart from Him, the true God cannot be fully known. In Jesus, we see the face of a God who is Love, and whose Gospel is the path of Peace. ​The Gift of Grace I believe salvation is found by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Grace is a t...

The kingdom of God is real and present now, not deferred.  It advances through witness, suffering and love, not coercion or violence.  No earthly state — including Israel, USA and UK — is the kingdom or gets theological immunity. The more a nation claims to follow God and doesn't the more judgement it probably gets.  The fighters of the kingdom are unarmed, which means Christian Zionism's militarism and the violence of any other would be Christian group is not just politically wrong but theologically incoherent. In disarming Peter, Jesus disarmed the whole church.  Palestinian Christians are brothers and sisters whose suffering cannot be invisible. Iranian Christians are brothers and sisters whose suffering cannot be invisible.  In a broader sense we humans are all children of Adam, Noah, Abraham... And the God who St John says "is love". As for Jesus, His kingdom is not of this world, and needs no fighters.  Time we all acted like it!

My nine-year-old son Ezra was talking today about the Greek and Norse gods — Zeus, Ares, Loki and the rest — and how they were famous for killing people, even each other. Gods of power. Gods of war. Gods who took what they wanted and destroyed what stood in their way. Then he stopped and said something that I haven't been able to shake: Jesus was different. He chose to die for love instead of kill for it. Nine years old. Isaiah wrote that "a little child shall lead them," and I think he was onto something. Because in one quiet observation, Ezra put his finger on what makes Christ unlike every other figure in the history of religion. The gods of every empire have always looked like the empires that worshipped them — powerful, armed, triumphant in battle. Jesus looked like a man on a cross, forgiving the people who put him there. That difference is not incidental. It is the whole point. And it turns out that an enormous number of Christians — across two thousand years, from...

Summary:  In 1384 Wycliffe published a tract called The Seven Deadly Sins. Among the sins John Wycliffe examines envy, anger, and sloth as they corrupt the three parts of the Church — priests, noblemen, and common laborers. He argues that envy destroys love and unity within the Church, that sinful anger (rooted in pride) leads men to war and violence in direct contradiction to Christ's law of patience and peace, and that sloth in God's service opens the door to every other vice. Notably, Wycliffe takes a bold pacifist stand, contending that warfare under the New Covenant is unlawful unless directly commanded by God, and that Christ's kingdom advances not through the sword but through love, suffering, and the faithful preaching of the Gospel. Devotion:   Wycliffe wrote these words more than six centuries ago, yet they cut with startling freshness against our own age. He saw clearly what we so easily forget — that envy blinds us, anger enslaves us, and idleness em...

Summary:  John Wycliffe was known as the "Morning Star of the Reformation". The biblical background of the title "Morning Star" — is it was applied both to Satan in Isaiah 14:12 and to Jesus Christ in Revelation 22:16. Wycliffe had a historical role in restoring the gospel to the church in the centuries before the Protestant Reformation. Devotion:  The same title — Morning Star — belongs both to the one who fell in prideful rebellion and to the one who descended in humble redemption. What a striking contrast Scripture sets before us. Satan grasped at glory and was cast down; Christ, who possessed all glory, poured Himself out to lift us up. John Wycliffe, called the "Morning Star of the Reformation," was a man who pointed others toward that true Light in a dark age when the gospel had been buried under tradition and corruption. Like all faithful servants, his greatness lay not in shining for himself, but in reflecting the brilliance of the true Morning Sta...

Summary:  Written in 1849 by Rev. Amos Dresser, The Bible Against War is a thorough biblical and moral argument that all war — offensive or defensive — is incompatible with Christian teaching. Dresser contends that the Old Testament wars of Israel were not divine endorsements of violence but rather consequences of Israel's lack of faith, since God repeatedly promised to fight for his people if they would simply trust him and hold their peace. Drawing on the prophets, the teachings of Christ, the example of the early church, and the horrific human cost of war throughout history, Dresser argues that the gospel of peace, centred on Christ the Prince of Peace, leaves no room for Christians to justify taking human life under any military pretext. He also methodically addresses common objections such as Romans 13, concluding that submission to governing authorities does not require participation in war. Devotion:   "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called c...

​“In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son...” — Hebrews 1:1-2 ​The "True Myth": How Ancient Whispers Found Their Voice in the Forest ​In the quiet corners of the proverbial Forest Parish, where the wind through the pines feels like an old conversation, we often find ourselves standing between two worlds. On one hand, we have the earthy, rugged wisdom of our Pictish and Norse ancestors. On the other, we have the radical, transformative message of the "Red Letter" Gospel—the direct words and life of Jesus. ​At first glance, these might seem like opposites: one rooted in pagan myth, the other in sacred scripture. However, there is a robust theological tradition that suggests they are actually part of the same story. This is the theology of Fulfillment , or Praeparatio Evangelica —the "Preparation for the Gospel." ​1. The Greek Connec...