To be intimate with someone the first step is to get to know them more. Matthew 11:27 says “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal to him.”

This is because as with all our invitations in this series the primary goal is to focus on God. An invitation to Self-Denial is not to devalue ourselves but to place the value back on God and his concerns not the things of humans.

Jesus’ vision is radically different. He calls us not only to him but to one another in a way that is good for all involved.

How it works is that we will be able to receive the love of God through him, that we will do the work of the Kingdom because God is carrying it with us. It is not an obligation or duty to work but a joy because we can do it with and in the strength of God.

When we think about blessings we can generally think of an abundance of good things and an overflow of joy. But when you look up the definition of Blessing it says ‘God’s favour and protection’. Protection isn’t something you need when life is going well and for the blessed in the Beatitudes life isn’t necessarily going well. Jesus is referring to the vulnerable in our society and those who are lacking something.

But, despite this character reference, just like the crowd around him, Zacchaeus heard about the coming of Jesus and was intrigued, so intrigued that he decided to climb a tree to see him better.

We are continuing to focus on Community looking at how we are part of one whole. Did you know the population of Leeds is 812,000? That is 812,000 people who are all part of different communities, belief systems, workplaces and homes. Leeds is defined by the people that make it and whether we are from here originally or are only just beginning to call it our home, it is somewhere which we all inhabit and are therefore all called to serve.

I did a wedding recently for a couple who don’t go to church and they chose this same passage as the one they wanted to have read and preached on for their wedding. In some ways, this isn’t surprising. Wedding days are all about love. It makes sense to have a reading to match. On one level this is absolutely fine. However, in another way, it’s actually quite an odd choice for a wedding. Let me explain why.

If we expect great things from God as a community then we will start attempting things and see great things happen. This is because God doesn’t want to dictate to us but wants us to work alongside him to steward his world and people. As demonstrated in the ways that he met with Moses. We as a community come together to worship and praise God for what he has done but also what he is going to do. He meets with us and he guides us.

Increasingly in the world today, we operate on an individualistic basis. Our duties and responsibilities to others can be downplayed while our own sense of happiness and fulfilment are prioritised and brought to the fore. Phrases such as ‘you do you’ and ‘follow your heart’ are indicative of how we understand ourselves and our roles in the world. The primary person we are meant to live for, please and serve is ourselves. 

Have you ever felt on the outside looking in? Have you ever done something and thought there is no coming back from this? Have you ever thought that you will never find acceptance again?

We begin our new series ‘Encounters with Jesus.’ During this series we will be exploring different encounters people have with Jesus in the gospel of John and seeing what we can learn about Jesus from their encounters.

For gratitude is ultimately a question of perspective. After asking him once more whether he has any right to be angry, God asks Jonah some fairly sobering questions: Was he the person who made the plant grow and nourished it to life? Was he the person who had concern for the people of this city?

Are you ever so focused on something that you aren’t able to notice your mistakes? I am really terrible at flatpack furniture. I have the very bad combination of skills that include 0 spatial awareness, poor dexterity, and very, very clumsy. One of the mistakes I have been known to make is to get very close to finishing constructing a piece of furniture and then realising at the penultimate step that I put the first piece in upside down.

A few weeks ago, I sat by the bedside of a retired Anglican priest, who I was meeting for the first time. He was dying of liver cancer. When I approached his bed, I could see that his skin was noticeably yellow in tinge, and as I greeted him, his voice was strained and laboured. Apprehensively, I asked him how he was doing. As is often the case with those who are in their last months and years, conversation moved very quickly from small talk to the topic of death. How was he feeling, I asked, about what was to come?… On the brink of death, he couldn’t but speak of all the good gifts he had faced.

In 1939, the Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer left Nazi Germany and travelled to America.

Like Jonah, he went travelling in the wrong direction and realised he was not where he needed to be. Then he went back to Germany on the last scheduled steamer to cross the Atlantic.

I think the question it begins with is an absolute belter! Let me tell you what it was and you can see what you think. The question it poses is as follows: Is the gospel ever bad news?

“I believe in relationship not religion.” This is a phrase that seemed to be very popular when I was at university. While I like the sentiment behind this, I wonder if what people meant by this was: “I’m not like other religious people, I’m special”. The assumption is that I have found the capital T, truth, and everyone else is still wallowing around with their superstitious rituals and funny clothes.

We are a culture that is seemingly obsessed with freedom. There is not a day that goes by in which there is not a news report highlighting someone’s impingement on the freedom of others, or someone’s struggle to be free to be the person they want to be.

 To be a Christian is to be a representative of God here on earth until eternity comes. We see the world through God’s eyes until we see him on earth again. Meaning we act towards our cities and spaces in a way that God would.