ecclēsia

How do you know when the gospel has truly taken root? There are many ways you might try and answer but Paul thanks God as the fruit faith, love, and hope surface visibly in the life of the Colossians. How might they look in your life, today?

The letter to the Colossians speaks to a community tempted by many paths to spiritual fulfilment—moral effort, knowledge, or spiritual experience. None of these are the source of fullness. Only One is our holy of glory: Christ!

Happy new year! A new year brings new and heavy burdens on us. Yet, the great heart of God in Christ is gentle and lowly, inviting us to come to Him with everything that burdens us and He will give us rest.

There are many ways of life, but there is only one way that actually leads to life. The way that leads to life is through a narrow gate and a hard, lonely road, but its the way Jesus calls all who will follow Him.

Is there any point turning to God in prayer when others seem to get by without doing so? Jesus instructs His disciples to humbly ask, seek God's counsel and go to Him in prayer knowing "Your heavenly Father knows how to give good gifts to those who ask Him"

These verses in the Sermon on the Mount are among the most powerful yet most resented of all moral teachings. Jesus’ message of non-retaliation and active love toward enemies seems unrealistic and impossible in our hate-filled world. But this way of Jesus is how the kingdom of heaven breaks into the world’s cycle of evil and overcomes it for good, and is itself the very character of God.

Why call on anyone to attest to your word and not keep it? Jesus gives a clear and direct warning: to leave off making pretentions oaths and the needless unfulfilled obligations they create and to adopt the freedom that comes with simple rigid honesty.

Imagine having to consider the topic of adultery, divorce & hell all in one sitting? The sermon on the mount is aiming to get under our skin in more ways than one.

Who has never been angry? In our text Jesus puts his finger on a certain form of anger that can become detrimental to our worship of God.

There are two groups of people. People who want to get rid of God’s law, and people who think they can keep the law better than Jesus. Jesus addresses these two groups to tell them that He came to fulfil the law so that we can live in the true goodness that His kingdom demands and offers.

Are you an influencer or are you being influenced? It’s probably both to a varying degree. In view of His Kingdom, Jesus calls his disciples to effectively do the former.

For the greatest peace mission of all time it’ll take God’s mercy, a heart fully set on God and reconciliation in mind. Success isn’t guaranteed but Honours of the Heavenly order are sure. Are you in? All in?

The world around us has its own ideas about who are the blessed and happy ones. But as Jesus opens his Sermon on the Mount, he shows us what the truly blessed life is. In this blessed life, there is so much encouragement for those who have opened themselves to Jesus: it is going well for them and they have a bright future.

Question and Answers with Pastor E and Pastor Richard

Ever had a surreal experience that left you wondering if God is trying to speak to you? Well despite the earthquaking, groundbreaking, mind bending experience of meeting Jesus raised from the grave, listen in to how Jesus specifically removed all doubt from the minds of all his disciples, for all time.

If we could see Jesus on the cross with our own eyes, we would not perceive we were witnessing anything other than the death of a religious fanatic. But the truth beyond what is visible is that in his death Jesus is everything our hopeless world needs. Hidden in Jesus' death is God revealed, God's true King who gives life and the way to God opened up for us.

Have you ever felt the anger and frustration of injustice at the hands of those who abused their power? Whilst our news stories of disgusting injustices listen in and learn of the greatest miscarriage of justice in human history.

As Jesus submits to the will of the father his disciples also have to come to the realisation that the revolution will not be as they envisioned.

What would you do if you knew the exact date the world will end? Jesus calls us to be alert to 2 things because signs of the end have been declared. Listen in for the signs and the 2 things we must pay attention to.

Who is the bible's target audience? Todays text shows that its sloppy to think we in the 21 CE are primary and not the secondary focus, yet God's word powerfully speaks to everyone.

The temple in Jerusalem was beyond help. It was filled with corruption, hypocrisy and evil. Although it was a place to be near God, all its leaders were far from Him. Jesus (rightly) predicts that God is calling time on the Temple, but behind his predication is the hope that God is constructing a new one.

The religious leaders are feeling the heat from Jesus' ministry so they decide to push back by challenging his authority. Jesus masterfully establishes that his authority is divine whilst the religious leaders authority is derived from the people.

How do you feel as a child when you heard your mum's keys in the door? Did it fill you with dread, or delight? The king, Jesus, came and will come again. Will it be dread or delight for you?

We all, in some way, know that we are broken, but our best solutions point us back to ourselves. The Lord Jesus wants to set us free from the disappointment of trusting in ourselves and invites us to place a faith in Him that is needy: child-like and utterly dependent on Him, because only He is our Hope.

Is self evaluation an important concept? The writer of Hebrews argues such, and not just at the start of a new year or even monthly, but daily.