An Invitation to “Go” – A vision to give our lives to

An Invitation to “Go” – A vision to give our lives to

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Yesterday we continued our series at Southampton Student NAVS with our fifth session entitled “An Invitation to Go – A Vision to give our lives to”. Our fifth session is the culmination of the series so far and builds heavily on the ideas and concepts developed especially in the session on the Invitation to Labour. We are now talking about the overarching vision that holds together our desire to labour in God’s harvest to help others to follow Jesus, grow in faith and build them up. This…

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Life of Peter: Hope when we mess up

Life of Peter: Hope when we mess up

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The life of Peter is an inspiring story of how God uses us despite our failures. Peter, so adamant that he would not betray Jesus ends up doing exactly that. Yet unlike Judas his failure is subsequently turned on its head as hope wins through. Jesus restores him, commissions him and then we read in first Peter how he had experienced this living hope. I have always really appreciated the life of Peter. Perhaps that is because I can identify with his…

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An Invitation to Labour – God’s Harvest

An Invitation to Labour – God’s Harvest

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Yesterday we continued our series at Southampton Student NAVS with our fourth session entitled “An Invitation to Labour – God’s Harvest”. This week we introduced our next metaphor which will be the basis for our discussions for the rest of the term. Having discussed what it might mean for us to follow, grow and to build (primarily in our own lives) our focus in this series is now changing to start to think about how we labour in God’s harvest-fields. This metaphor is from the natural…

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Life of Jeremiah – Dealing with disappointment

Life of Jeremiah – Dealing with disappointment

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I’ve been reading through Jeremiah and Lamentations over the past couple of months. Its been a fascinating and very challenging read. It has however made me very grateful that God did not ask me to be an Old Testament prophet! Parallel to my reading in Jeremiah has been another challenging period for our family. Below I detail three recent disappointments and some of the questions they raise before turning to some reflections from the life of Jeremiah… Firstly last week was quite difficult as a nasty sickness/stomach…

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An Invitation to Build – Building to Last

An Invitation to Build – Building to Last

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Yesterday we continued our series at Southampton Student NAVS with our third session entitled “An Invitation to Build – Building to Last”. Having spent some time in recent meetings discussing what it means to follow Jesus and to grow towards maturity we now turn our thoughts to the New Testament’s building metaphor. As someone who has spent most of their life building (whether it be in Lego or in house construction) this is a metaphor dear to my heart! Paul is clear that we…

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Life of David – God’s choice

Life of David – God’s choice

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David was a a man after God’s own heart: Saul was removed for David to come into position… God is looking for men and women whom He can trust with the outworking of His purposes and the Bible is a record of God working in and through the lives of individuals so He can use them in the way He wants to. David’s life shouts this message. When the people of God demanded a King ‘like the other nations’ (1 Samuel…

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An Invitation to Grow – Growing to Maturity

An Invitation to Grow – Growing to Maturity

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Yesterday we continued our series at Southampton Student NAVS with our second session entitled “An Invitation to Grow – Growing to Maturity”. This week we thought about the ‘growth metaphor’ and thought how there are examples of growth in the people, animals and plants all around us. Likewise in the spiritual realm we also grow as we get to know Jesus better. This is growth from the inside out, not mere conformity to a particular pattern of behaviour but transformation from the ‘inside out’…

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An Invitation to follow – Jesus is Enough

An Invitation to follow – Jesus is Enough

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Last Thursday we began our new series at Southampton Student NAVS with our first session entitled “An invitation to Follow – Jesus is Enough”. We thought a little together about what it means to follow Jesus using the framework of Jesus’ encounter with Simon Peter in Luke 5. In that encounter Jesus asked Simon Peter to pull out into the deep and let down the nets. This must have sounded ludicrous to Simon Peter who had been fishing all night but had caught…

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The Power of Hope – Meeting today’s challenges in today’s strength…

The Power of Hope – Meeting today’s challenges in today’s strength…

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Exploring the power of hope in meeting today’s challenges in the hope and strength God has for us today… Following an excellent summer the last couple of weeks have been more of a challenge and so I want to return here to the notion of hope and specifically the power of hope. Proverbs 13:12 says “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. That is quite the statement but notice the difference hope makes –…

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Developing an eternal perspective

Developing an eternal perspective

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Learning to see the world through the lens of eternity and live accordingly.. Its been a while since I last posted something and this was a post which I started some months back but held back on because I was sharing a little on this subject in Norway. In previous blogs we discussed hope as a culmination of a temporal hope (based on God’s promises for us now) and an eternal hope (based on God’s promises for us in the future)….

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