Reflections

“Consider your ways.” That simple command still searches the heart.

Haggai spoke to returned exiles who were rebuilding their lives in Jerusalem. Their homes were finished. Their routines restored. Everything looked respectable. But one thing lay in ruins: the temple.

God’s rebuke was sharp: “Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your panelled houses, while this house lies in ruins?” (Hag 1:4). There was no open idolatry or dramatic rebellion. Their sin was subtler — preoccupation with their own lives. Reasonable excuses had hardened into settled neglect.

Continue reading “Book of Haggai — A Call to Re-Prioritise”

Howard Hughes was once one of the richest and most influential men in the world. He possessed enormous wealth, remarkable engineering brilliance, and resources that could shape industries. Yet toward the end of his life he withdrew into fearful isolation, hiding away in darkened hotel rooms while much of what had been entrusted to him sat stagnant and unused. The tragedy was not that he had nothing. The tragedy was that he had so much, yet did so little with it.

Jesus’ parable of the talents carries an even more sobering warning.

Continue reading “The parable of the talents: What your stewardship reveals about your heart”

Isaiah 40 opens with one of the most striking turns in all of Scripture. After chapters filled with warning and judgement, the tone chnages to surprising tenderness, “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” This phrase follows a troubled history. Israel’s rebellion had led to devastation, exile, and the loss of everything familiar. Into that darkness, God speaks not with further rebuke, but with consolation.

Continue reading “The comfort of an almighty, but tender Shepherd”

Five young women stand in the dark, shut out of a wedding celebration. They were meant to be part of the joy, part of the procession, part of the feast. Instead, they are outside, knocking, pleading. From within comes a chilling reply: “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.”

What happened?

Continue reading “The longing of true sons of the Kingdom”

“Is it possible to receive God’s invitation, and still be excluded from His feast?”

That is the tension at the heart of Jesus’ parable in Gospel of Matthew 22.

A king prepares a wedding feast for his son. The invitations go out to a privileged group. The feast is ready, everything has been prepared. But when the moment comes, the guests refuse to come.

Continue reading “The invitation and the rejection”

We can be comfortable with Jesus when He remains one voice among many. A tension emerges when He speaks with final authority into the whole of life. That is exactly what happens in Matthew 21:23–46, where Jesus is confronted in the temple and asked a question that is less about information and more about control: “By what authority are you doing these things?”

Continue reading “Jesus Christ, the final authority”

What difference is the resurrection making in your life today?

Most Christians would say they believe that Jesus rose from the dead. In our context, that is not where the struggle lies. None of our church members are wrestling to believe that Jesus rose again from the grave. That was not the case in First Epistle to the Corinthians 15. There, Paul exposes the absurdity of denying the resurrection. If it is not true, the Christian life is not merely difficult, it is utterly futile. But he goes further than proving the resurrection. He shows how it reshapes every part of a Christian’s life.

Continue reading “The resurrection changes everything”

The parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector is one of the most searching stories Jesus ever told. In Gospel of Luke 18:9–14, two men go up to the temple to pray. Outwardly they are doing the same thing. In reality, their hearts could not be more different, and the outcome of their prayers could not be more different either.

Continue reading “Are you praying to yourself?”

Everyone quits something at some point.

Sometimes it is a hobby or a discipline. Sometimes it is a relationship. But one of the hardest things to keep doing is praying when nothing seems to change.

Continue reading “The widow and the judge: praying when it feels pointless”

The rich man and Lazarus

In Luke 16:19–31, Jesus tells a story that exposes reality. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is not about wealth or poverty, but about whether we hear God who speaks.

Jesus tells the story in a tense moment.

Continue reading “Hearing God before it’s too late”