Various ‘What can we be praying for you at the moment?’ How would you respond? Our requests are often quite different to what we find in the prayers in the Bible. The little prayers sometimes called ‘benedictions’ in the New Testament letters have different, bigger concerns. They challenge us to set our sights higher and be more ambitious.
Psalm 90 Vision boards are a visual representation of your goals in life. It’s a tool for helping turn your dreams into reality. What’s on your board? Is it what matters? Is it in line with reality? In Psalm 90 Moses shares what’s on his board, so we might make it our own.
John 17 If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you pray for today? In this chapter we get to listen in to what Jesus prays the night before his death. What he prays for is what matters most. It’s what should shape our prayers, our priorities, our ambitions.
Matthew 6:33 How ambitious are you? Is that a good thing? What are you ambitious for? It’s good to be ambitious, as long as it’s for the right things. Otherwise we’ll be devoting our lives to trivial pursuits. In this talk we look at what Jesus says should be our no.1 ambition in life.
As Christians our view of sex is regarded by others increasingly not just as outdated and weird, but oppressive and discriminatory. The danger is that we become embarrassed and defensive. But there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. The biblical understanding of sex corresponds to reality as God has made it. It is a better story, and a better vision for human flourishing.
Job 42:1-17 Think of your life as a story – how is it going to end? This chapter brings us to the end of Job’s story. It’s a fairy tale…
Job 40:6-42:6 Children check under the bed for monsters, and even when we grow up the fear of monsters and fascination with them doesn’t go away. Monsters represent our fears, ultimately of evil. What do we do with this fear of evil? What hope is there in the face of evil? That is what these chapters are about.
Job 38:39-40:5 ‘The animal kingdom, which God has made and sustains, doesn’t just display beauty and design – it’s also wild, strange, and brutal. God invites us to take a walk on the wild side, joining him on safari, as he teaches Job and us lessons from life in the wild – lessons which will put us in our place’.
Job 38 ‘If you could ask God one question, and you knew he would answer, what would you ask him?’ It’s fine to have questions for God, but we need to watch our attitude. God is not in the dock. If we try to put him there, we need to be ready for his questions back to us.
Job 34 ‘If God is good, why does he allow so much suffering in the world? And why did he allow this or that to happen to me?’ Doubts can start to creep in, and we wonder, ‘Maybe he’s not so good after all’. Given such doubts can invade the thinking of even the godliest of people, like Job, we need to listen carefully to what this chapter says about the goodness of God.
