How we approach God - Luke 18

Jesus tells a simple story of two going to pray. One is in the religious elite, all smart and respectable. The other is a common person, with unsavoury behaviour to go with it. The two pray in quite different ways ...

Persistent Widow - Luke 18

Jesus tells the story of a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. A widow in the same town wanted justice, and went to the judge many times to get it sorted. Many times the judge refused.

The Ten Lepers - Luke 17

In Luke 17 Jesus is walking into a village. Here there happen to be ten people with some kind of skin disease - enough for others to keep their distance from them. Somewhere along the road these ten call out to Jesus to take pity on their plight.

Positive Influencers - Jude 12 - 13

Jude is continuing his rant - warning readers of people who are no longer rooted in Jesus being Lord. In verses 12 and 13 he basically says 'These people don't bring anything good'. They are bad influencers, and if they get into positions of leadership they make bad leaders. By looking at these examples of what is bad, we can think of what actually makes for a good, positive influencer.

[IN] To what extent are you helping others to serve God better?

 Challenge: Get someone to pray with you to be a greater Jesus-like influencer

The Woman with the Bleed - Luke 8

Luke tells the story of Jesus walking through a crowd. By all accounts there is a lot of pushing and shoving (social distancing had not been invented!). There was one woman who particularly wanted a touch. She had a bleed over many years, and was at her wits end. All treatments had been tried and exhausted.

Jude's Warnings - Jude 5 - 7

Today's verses from Jude (verse 5 to 7) are hard to get our heads round. To understand them it is best to think in terms of warnings. In life we have warning or danger signs, in sport we have the referee's red or yellow cards - all telling us to be careful and consider our ways.

The Good Samaritan - Luke 10

The story of the Good Samaritan is well known to us. Jesus responds to the expert in the law - who presses with the question 'Who is my neighbour' - with this story (see Luke 10). Of course the story shocks the hearers - it is the 'no good Samaritan' who is the one who shows mercy and proved to be the "neighbour" of the unfortunate traveller.

Keep the Calibration

We are looking at the short letter of Jude. In the introduction we saw how encouraging it is from the start. It talks of our calling, being kept for Jesus, a shower of mercy, peace and love, the salvation we share. It encourages us to contend for the faith - a faith once for all entrusted to us.

A Called People - Jude 1 - 3

We are taking a look at the short letter of Jude. We don't know for sure who Jude was, or who he was writing to. Yet he is obviously writing to believers, both to encourage them and also to warn them. For us there is rich encouragement from just the first three verses.