How good is the good news of Jesus?

This could be a big one (forgiveness, friendship with God, life to the full, life forever, etc, etc, etc) but I've just been amazed at how people can choose to follow Jesus and not realise how amazing grace really is and that God's forgiveness is total, complete and permanent.  If you think following Jesus means you still need to work hard to earn God's love and not lose his forgiveness, think again because it's much better than that!  Am I making it up?  No!  It's all in the Bible if we want to go looking (and we should - especially if we say we follow Jesus)...

Ephesians 1:3-14
Ephesians 2:1-10

The passages above are an incredible list of all the amazing things God has given everyone who has put their trust in Jesus.  Have a good read and try and take it all in!  It's better than you think and it doesn't depend on you!  There's nothing you can do to make God love you any more or any less than he does right now and if you've put your faith in Jesus, he's given you so much and it's a done deal!  Jesus has saved you and there's no going back!

Loving that.

Mark 6:6-12 Bible study questions

  1. Jesus is sending his disciples on a mission.  How is the mission organised and what does he give them for the job (v7)?
  2. The mission would involve some of the stuff Jesus had been doing.  Have a scan back through the previous stories in Mark.  What kind of things was Jesus sending them to do?
  3. What does he tell them to take with them (v8-9)?  Why do you think this was all they needed?
  4. If the welcome was good, what should they do (v10)?  Why do you think this is?
  5. If the welcome was bad, what should they do and why (v11)?
  6. Miracles were part of it but what was the main focus of the mission (v12)?
  7. What can we learn from this about our mission if we're following Jesus?  
  8. How is our mission going?  
  9. What kind of things should we be saying/doing?  What kind of questions might help?  
  10. What should we be praying for?

Small is beautiful?

I've been loving listening to 'Dinosaurs will die' by NOFX recently.  Great band.  Great song.  Thoughtful lyrics too about the music industry.

The punk in me loves bucking trends and leapfrogging right over the organised system of things, especially when they're driven by money.  'Underground', 'small', 'personal', 'real', 'honest' - these are all words that appeal to me and I think for good reason but is small always good?  I admit I have a bias towards narrow appeal but what if there was something big that was good - even better than anything or anyone else?

As well as being a punk, I'm a Christian and that means (to start with) that I believe in God - the one who's bigger than any of us and better too.  I believe he's the ultimate and that we can know him personally and live for him and expect big things to happen.  Big but not big because of money or commercial success - just big because it's God and he does things big.

So what's this about?  I'm not sure.  Maybe that I shouldn't always be instinctively against things just because they're big and organised.  We should be more discerning than that.  Maybe when God has anything to do with anything, big budgets might be a part of it and maybe even commercial 'success'?  Who knows?  One thing's for sure though, only the best good things will survive when everything else dies out.  Dinosaurs will die and in the meantime, I'll try not to be so skeptical.

Mark blog

  1. Intro - The action is go!
  2. Mark 1:1-8 - Big plans, big news
  3. Mark 1:9-20 - Drop what you're doing
  4. Mark 1:21-45 - The mission kicks off
  5. Mark 2:1-12 - Forgiving sin and proving it
  6. Mark 2:13-17 - Sick and stuck
  7. Mark 2:18-22 - Not so fast
  8. Mark 2:22-3:6 - Troublemaker
  9. Mark 3:7-12 - Pulling a crowd
  10. Mark 3:13-19 - Choosy
  11. Mark 3:20-34 - Forget about it
  12. Mark 4:1-20 - What does it take?
  13. Mark 4:21-25 - Show time!
  14. Mark 4:26-34 - Seeds  
  15. Mark 4:35-41 - Quite a storm!
  16. Mark 5:1-20 - Not about pigs  
  17. Mark 5:21-43 - Touch
  18. Mark 6:1-6 - Prophet or loss?  
  19. Mark 6:6-13 - Over to you!
  20. Mark 6:14-29 - Herod's guilt
  21. Mark 6:30-44 - Feeding 5000   
  22. Mark 6:45-56 - Walking on water
  23. Mark 7:1-23 - Religion sucks!  
  24. Mark 7:24-30 - To the dogs
  25. Mark 7:31-37 - Ephphatha!  
  26. Mark 8:1-21 - Miracle meal and missing the point
  27. Mark 8:22-30 - Opening eyes physically and spiritually  
  28. Mark 8:31-38 - Cross words
  29. Mark 9:1-13 - A rare glimpse!  
  30. Mark 9:14-29 - Prayer power
  31. Mark 9:30-37 - True greatness  
  32. Mark 9:38-42 - Starting where people are
  33. Mark 9:43-50 - Cut it off!  
  34. Mark 10:1-12 - Promises, promises
  35. Mark 10:13-31 - Childlike or richlike?  
  36. Mark 10:32-34 - Monumental predictions!
  37. Mark 10:35-45 - The power of serving  
  38. Mark 10:46-52 - Seeing things
  39. Mark 11:1-11 - Donkey  
  40. Mark 11:12-26 - Angry like Jesus
  41. Mark 11:27-33 - Questioning authority  
  42. Mark 12:1-12 - In for the kill
  43. Mark 12:13-17 - Right on the money!  
  44. Mark 12:18-27 - Resurrection and marriage
  45. Mark 12:28-34 - Love God, love others  
  46. Mark 12:35-44 - Looking carefully
  47. Mark 13 - The end of the world  
  48. Mark 14:1-11 - Anointing and betrayal
  49. Mark 14:12-26 - The new Passover  
  50. Mark 14:27-31 - Known failure
  51. Mark 14:32-42 - Suffering for suffering  
  52. Mark 14:43-52 - Jesus is arrested
  53. Mark 14:53-72 - Unfair trials and bitter tears  
  54. Mark 15:1-20 - And justice for all
  55. Mark 15:21-32 - Crucified and mocked
  56. Mark 15:33-47 - Jesus: dead and buried  
  57. Mark 16 - Jesus is alive!
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