Reverse Conquest Revelation 15:2 And I saw… standing beside the sea, those who had been victorious over the beast and its image and over the number of its name… I googled the meaning of the word ‘conquer’ and the answer it spat out was, “the subjugation and assumption of control of a place or people by military force”. It’s not a very positive picture, is it? Russia’s invasion of Ukraine comes to mind. And yet, ‘conquest’ is one of the major themes of the Book of Revelation. One of the dominant meanings of the Greek word nikao is ‘to conquer, to overcome, to triumph’.[1] Below is a little chart that shows how often it comes up in the Books of the New Testament. At a glance you can see

Working Through Trials  Jesus said that our lives will be punctuated by trials and trouble (John 16:33). Every one of us will suffer many and varied trials; some in lesser or greater degree; and they can occur at any time. No one is exempt. Even those of us in the family of God are not exempt. In fact, it is likely that we will feel stronger blows simply because we are in the family of God. Jesus, God's own dearly loved Son, did not have a comfortable life. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Is. 53:3). It was necessary that Christ “learned obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5:8), and we, too, follow the path of suffering in

A Prayer of Surrender  As a child I used to play a game called ‘Surrender’. The rules of the game were simple: two opponents grabbed the other’s arm and gave a ‘Chinese Burn’ until one person yelled “surrender!” to stop the game and accept defeat. Pretty brutish, really. I liked to play with my younger sisters but not so much with my older brother (for obvious reasons).  Surrendering to something doesn’t come naturally to us. Our natural bent is to rule over our own lives. We want to control and determine our own way and our culture screams at us ‘you do you’. But as Christians we’re called to surrender – not a surrender of defeat but one of trust. Trust in God who loves us deeply and knows

Eyes on the prize Olympic fever has taken over our screens, our news feeds and for many of us, our conversations. Maybe you are a big fan; watching the medal tally with keen interest, cheering on the Aussies every chance you get, and even becoming a bit emotional when you listen to the post race interviews. Or maybe you’re just not that interested in watching people poke each other with a fairly blunt sword, or run around and around in a big circle, or try and jump over a really high bar with a long bendy stick. But either way, how can you not admire the determination and the focus of the athletes? I can only imagine the preparation that must go into training and being ready to compete

To Judge or Not to Judge? The Bible’s teaching about judgement can seem confusing. I’m not talking about the judgement of God, which is clear. I’m talking about the way we are to, or not to, judge one another. On the one hand, there are places in the New Testament where we are clearly commanded to make judgments; to be discerning about people, their teaching, and their actions (e.g., Lk. 12:57; Jn. 7:24; Rom. 15:14; 1 Cor. 10:15; 2 Cor. 13:5; 1 Jn. 4:1). In fact, the ability to exercise appropriate judgment is even seen as a necessary sign of Christian maturity (e.g., 1 Cor. 2:15; 6:1–6; Phil. 1:9; Col. 1:9). On the other hand, there are other places where we are clearly warned about the danger of passing

Why I Need to Pray What goes through your mind when you wake up in the morning? Honestly, my mind seems programmed to go down a negative track as soon as I wake up. I don’t know if that’s a normal thing, or if it’s some kind of spiritual attack, but when I wake up generally my thoughts head (pun intended) down a negative track. My default seems to be to find some kind of flaw in myself and then to feel bad about it and start the day negatively. Not very healthy right?! I say this because it illustrates why I need prayer. I can’t live without prayer because prayer connects me to my Father in heaven who loves me. I try to practice giving God my thoughts

GTWM Have you heard of the “GRWM” trend? What about the “GTWM” trend? Maybe you’ve heard of one but not the other? Over the past 13 years, there has been a trend called “grwm” going around. This stands for “get ready with me”, and it is a trend that is quite popular on social media. People have been attaching this tag to videos they shoot, and it is effectively a video blog of the process it takes them to get ready. Maybe they are getting ready for work. Maybe they are getting ready to go out to a party. Or they could even be getting ready to go and run a marathon. Through this article, I would love to kickstart a new trend that I am abbreviating - “gtwm”.