Month: September 2025

Fight for your faith

September 21, 2025

1 Timothy 6:11-12 NLT – But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. [12] Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have declared so well before many witnesses.

I love the words Paul uses in this passage to Timothy. He uses words like run, pursue, fight, and hold tightly. They are all active words that are actions.

Some times we need to sit and wait on God to act on our behalf. At other times we need to be active in our faith and press on and do what only we can do.

In this passage Paul tells Timothy to run from all evils things. Paul knows that evil things can shipwreck our faith. Running from them reminds us that we need to turn our back on evil and get away from it.

Next he gives Timothy the antidote for evil things – pursue righteousness and a godly life. How do we do this? By crowding out the bad things with good. Read the Bible, pray, serve in church.

Finally Paul tells Timothy to hold tightly to eternal life. We must hold on to our hope in Christ. Have faith in God, believe in His promises and look forward expectantly to Jesus coming back. He is our eternal hope.

Life without music?

September 18, 2025

What would your life be like without music?

I could not imagine what life would be life with music. It would certainly be different.

I love all types of music and I love singing along to my favourite songs, especially in the car where no one else can hear me! Although my wife assures me I have a good singing voice, I am not a confident singer.

Music is also tied in to worship for me. Some of my favourite songs are worship songs. I love to sing and worship God alone, but I also love worshipping with others in church.

So I think my life would be very different without music, especially worship music.

Prayer to the Risen Christ

September 17, 2025

Heavenly Father and God of mercy,
we no longer look for Jesus among the dead,
for He is alive and has become the Lord of Life.
From the waters of death,
you raise us with Him and
renew your gift of life within us.

Increase in our minds and hearts
the risen life we share with Christ
and help us to grow as your people
toward the fullness of eternal life with you.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Exaltation of the Cross

September 16, 2025

A friend shared this story as a part of his homily on Sunday. The message was titled, “Exaltation of the Cross”. I found it quite interesting and I thought I would share it.

The feast of the exaltation of the cross goes back a long way. In 326 the Emperor Constantine’ mother, Helena, at the grand age of 80, set sail for Jerusalem to find the cross of Jesus and his tomb. She found the site of the Holy Sepulchre and established a church on the site, which is venerated to this day.

The true cross was more elusive. It was claimed that the Jewish leaders had hidden the cross in a well in Jerusalem. One of the Jewish leaders told the Empress Helena in which well to look for it. The story goes that they dug for days and found three crosses. They weren’t sure which one was the true cross, so the bishop of Jerusalem, St Macarius, sent the crosses off to the bed-side of a dying woman. She touched the first two crosses to no effect, but on touching the third cross she immediately recovered. St Helena had found her true cross.

The cross remained in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem until the early 7th century. The entire city was then looted by the Persian King, Chosroes II. He took the cross to Persia. In 628, Emperor Heraclius II overthrew the Persian king and brought the cross first to Constantinople, his capital and then in 629 to Jerusalem. Today’s feast commemorate the triumphant return of the holy cross to Jerusalem.