Today is Pentecost Sunday, and Psalm 100 is a good thematic match. In services today, we will probably hear Acts 2, when God’s Church burst into life! The excitement in that reading is palpable. How do we respond? Psalm 100 gives us inspiration. This Psalm has inspired many hymns/songs through the centuries: e.g. “All People […]
URC Daily Devotion 8th June 2019
Now by this we may be sure that we know him, if we obey his commandments. Whoever says, “I have come to know him,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist; but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of […]
URC Daily Devotion 7th June 2019
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. […]
URC Daily Devotion 6th June 2019
This is a familiar passage for many of us because it is often a go-to text for prayers of confession (see, for example, Rejoice & Sing no.3). We are all sinners, and if we claim not to be we are lying to ourselves – being Christians doesn’t stop us being as flawed as any other […]
URC Daily Devotion 5th June 2019
When we moved to a new area and found that we needed to find some tradespeople to do a number of jobs that we could not do ourselves, what did we do? We could have looked at Yellow Pages or some other directory, or Checkatrade which claims to have unbiased reports on local firms. However, […]
Devotions on 1, 2 and 3 John
Dear <<First Name>> I hope you found the series looking at the Lord’s prayer helpful – it’s always good to think about a prayer we use week after week, often day after day. We are grateful to Michael Hopkins for spending so much time in preparing that series. For the next few weeks a variety of […]
URC Daily Devotion 3rd June 2019
Sometimes in church, you may hear someone shout, or more often mutter, “Amen.” It means “so be it”, and it’s a Biblical way of saying, “This is true.” When we end the prayer with “Amen,” it’s not only a great moment when we signal our assent to the Lord’s Prayer, but it’s also a final […]
URC Daily Devotion 2nd June 2019
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, during his brief stint at Manchester United This is an enthronement Psalm, celebrating God as King (v1). The One who rules the world is none other than God! This is full-blown “shock and awe”: the proper response is to “tremble” (v1); “praise” (v3); “extol and worship” (vv 5,9). This is dangerous stuff for […]
URC Daily Devotion 1st June 2019
In John’s Gospel Jesus spoke about the hour of glory quite often, but plenty of people misunderstand that because Jesus was talking about the Cross. One way of thinking about the Cross is thinking that God was showing us how much God loved us. Some people manage to show quite a lot of that love […]
URC Daily Devotion 31st May 2019
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, […]