Episodios

  • Soar Like An Eagle // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 4

    Soar Like An Eagle // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 4
    Nov 20 2025
    Some days, it feels as though everybody around you is cruising, but somehow we're down in the trenches. Wouldn't it be great to soar like an eagle? Have you ever been through a time in your life where, I don't know, it seems like everyone around you is doing it easy and somehow you're down in the trenches doing it tough? I remember when I was training to be an officer in the Australian Army. We'd be on exercise digging trenches, fighting pretend wars, in the rain, and the snow, sometimes in the heat in the drought. And often, in an area quite close to an airport. I used to see these planes flying over. I was thirsty and hot, or cold and wet. And I'd think, what I wouldn't give to be sitting up in one of those planes, instead of digging a trench down here? Almost thirty years on, I fly in and out of that airport several times a year now. And every time I look down at where I used to dig the trenches it's such a good feeling. Life's not always like that. But some days, it does feel like trench warfare, doesn't it? I remember when we were out there on military exercises; often we had very little food and very little water. Hunger wasn't so bad for me; I mean ultimately hunger just becomes a dull pain. But thirst, thirst is always acute and I remember so often in the heat of the summer being so thirsty and not having enough water. And most of the time, we never had enough sleep. It was often broken. And when we were out on an exercise, we were fighting pretend wars. Every night you had to do gun duty for an hour or you'd be out on patrol fighting battles all day. And the moment you were able to settle down, the first thing you had to do was dig a trench just in case there was a mortar or artillery attack. And so we were sleeping on cold, hard ground. And amidst all these discomforts and the tiredness, when you're worn down and your emotions are down and you're under stress, it can be tough. Of course, the training was deliberately aimed at taking us to those places. And seeing how far we could go, and teaching us how to act under stress. But sometimes, we look around at other people and we feel like we're the ones doing the trench warfare and they're doing it easy. But actually, they're going through stuff as well, we just can't see it often. This week on A Different Perspective, we're looking at our need for times of refreshing. I don't know if you've been able to join us this week, but on Monday we talked about the fact that times of refreshing – I mean real refreshing – like when you've got a deep thirst and you drink that clean water. Those times of refreshing come from the presence of God. And then on Tuesday, we looked at the fact that God says, "Look even when everything seems to be falling down around you, be still, be still in the middle of all of that, and know that I'm your God." And yesterday we looked at what Jesus said, He said, "Look if you're carrying heavy burdens come to me and you'll find rest for you soul. Let me help you push, let me help you with your burden." Today, I'd like to share something else that God says about meeting us right where we're at, right in that place in life were the rubber hits the road. It was written a few thousand years ago by a man, a prophet called, Isaiah. He wrote this, he said: Even though youths will grow weary and faint, and the young will fall exhausted, those who wait on God will renew their strength. They will rise up with wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary, they'll walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40: 30-31) Man, I remember when were out on exercise with a pack, a rifle, a machine, gun tired and hungry and thirsty … having to run and falling over and grazing your elbow, it's such a real (I don't know), parallel metaphor for life. It's how we feel sometimes when we're carrying around things like packs on our back. And how is it how can you rise up in the middle of that like wings of an eagle, how can you soar? I remember once in the town where I grew up which is a place called Wollongong. There's a boat harbour. It's beautiful little harbour where the fishing fleet comes in and out and on the headland and there's a white lighthouse. And standing there on the headland is one my favourite places on planet earth. You look north up the coast and you see the beaches and it just goes on and mountains. And you look south and you see this big steel works belching out pollution. It's lovely to be there in the summer when the sun's shining. You see the little boats chugging in and out of this beautiful little blue harbour. But I actually like it in winter. I like going there when there's a storm blowing when the southerly winds are whipping up the ocean and there's the foam. There's something scary about an angry ocean. I was there once and I saw some pelicans flying, and a gale was blowing from the south. And it was really interesting to watch what they were doing. Now pelicans have these, I don't know big beaks, and they're ungainly birds ...
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    10 m
  • Come to Me // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 3

    Come to Me // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 3
    Nov 19 2025
    Have you ever noticed that people are busy racing around looking after Number One? Very few of them ever stop to give us a hand. In fact, when someone does, it can be so refreshing. In this clamorous, competitive world that we live in (you know what I'm talking about), this world where everybody seems to be looking after number one as their priority one, two and three in life. In that kind of world, it seems so rare that we meet someone who, I don't know, who just comes out of the wood work out of nowhere to help us, to lighten our load, to open doors. Not because of what they can get out of it, but just because they see our need. In fact on the rare occasion that somebody just blesses us like that, out of the blue, it's almost startling. I don't know about you, but with me when someone these days just gives me a leg up – for no other reason than the fact that I need a leg up, well, that speaks so deeply to my heart. It motivates me, it encourages me. It's just so refreshing. I was in the UK recently at a conference, and I don't know how much time you've spent at conferences. This happened to be a radio conference, a Christian Radio conference. And conferences are not only about going and listening to the speakers and learning (I did that and it was great). But they're also about building relationships, networking, talking to people during the breaks, finding out about what other people are doing, making connections, meeting people and getting to know them. And actually three days at a conference is really hard work. It's great opportunity, but it's hard work. I met so many people at this conference, probably seventy or eighty different people (at some stage). But there were two that really stood out for me. One of them was called, Andrew; he is a New Zealander, a 'Kiwi' as we call them. The other one, Joseph, a young African man. Andrew was interesting. He works in the UK. He's a really senior guy with a radio network. And in the world's eye, in my eyes (well you know), he's an important person. He's an executive in a large radio network and yet somehow this Andrew made a point of connecting with me, of just encouraging me. We spent an hour and a half together. And he shared what was on his heart, what was his vision for his radio network, and he listened to me and after the meeting when we went our different ways. Andrew acted and because of him and because of what he did, one of our radio programs is now heard right across Europe just because Andrew was there and we connected. The other one was this young man, Joseph. Joseph heads up a radio school and a media organisation in South Africa. I was really keen to meet his boss while I was at the conference. I wanted to connect with her and discuss some things, but she was really busy. She was talking for most of the conference, she was leading the television sessions and so we just couldn't connect. One morning (the last morning of the conference), Joseph and I ended up sitting next to one another at the breakfast table. I shared with him what I wanted to share with his boss, and he was so encouraging, so enthusiastic. He went back home to Africa (in Cape Town where he lives) and he sent me an email saying, "I really loved what we where talking about, I'm here for you, I'm here to make connections in Africa for you." The guy follows me up; we talk regularly over the internet. I mean what wonderful people – Andrew and Joseph are. In contrast, so many of the other people that I met at the conference – everybody that I met, I got their business card and sent them an email and said, "It was great to catch up with you, nice to meet you." You know some of the people didn't even respond to that email! It's a dog-eat-dog world, and yet Andrew and Joseph were the sort of people that said, "Look, come to me. Let me listen to you, let me help you. I'll be there for you, I'll push with you." Wow! Those guys really stood out head and shoulders above the other people. That doesn't mean there weren't other people that where were just as clever or more talented than Andrew and Joseph. The point was that these two young men decided to connect with me and to help me, to serve me. Jesus, 2000 years ago said: If you're carrying a heavy load come to me and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, learn from me and you'll see I'm genuine. I'm humble of heart and with me you'll find rest for your souls, because my yoke's easy, my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30) This week on A Different Perspective we're looking at our need to have times of refreshing. It's fantastic to get away from the grind and go on holiday. As I said the other day, my wife, Jacqui and I are just about to go and do that. To have some time on a place called, Lord Howe Island, which is the most beautiful and idyllic setting. We need that. But we can't spend our lives trying to escape from reality, always wishing that we could run away. I believe we need times of refreshing right in the ...
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    10 m
  • Be Still and Know // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 2

    Be Still and Know // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 2
    Nov 18 2025
    The last thing that most of us suffer from is a lack of information – the whole world is screaming for our attention. Sometimes, the quiet assurance that comes from a bit of peace and quiet just eludes us. Sometimes, it feels like we live in our world where everything and everybody seems to be screaming for our attention. Take advertising – armies of creative people who think up new, (often), very clever ways of getting you and me to buy their client's products. The supermarket where Jacqui and I go shopping has large advertising stickers glued to the floor in some of the shopping aisles. So many people have the TV blaring every minute of every waking hour. So many people go to work, lurch from one meeting to another, without a break, without time to stop and reflect. Our senses are being bombarded with thousands of messages and signals and … ideas and requests and directions, EVERY DAY! And without knowing it, it ends up being a huge weight that we carry around. No wonder so many people are so exhausted. If only we can only put the weight down and take a break for a while. And then keep on going. It's true, isn't it? The more that technology – like phones and then mobile phones and PCs and internet, TVs, DVDs and radio, all that stuff has made entertainment and information so accessible – the more we become slaves to them. The more the cars replace public transport; we do this point to point rushing thing instead of, I don't know, standing waiting for a bus for 5 or ten minutes at the bus stop. There is some real upsides to all of those things. I mean I love the fact that I can watch T.V. and people can contact me on my mobile phone, it's so convenient. But we've lost something … we've lost the time. I don't know, just to stop and think, to rest the senses, to rest the mind, to rest the spirit, to reflect, to imagine, to dream. And the problem with so much of the stuff that we take in as entertainment or communication, a lot of it is really negative. You watch the news at night and 95% of the news is pretty negative. A lot of it is really frivolous (in sitcoms) on TV at night. Well, there's nothing wrong with one sitcom, but if 70% of our entertainment is a diet of sitcoms, is it any wonder that people feel empty? That there is shallowness, that there is something missing? Some of the stuff that comes across as fact or entertainment, to put it bluntly, is downright destructive. It's like eating bad food or sweets all the time. Now that's our condition, that's what's going on. But there's a flip side. So many people, so many of us believe in God. Surveys in the west say, 70+% believe in God. But I wonder whether it's a real relationship, a real thing in life. Or whether for a lot of people, it's a kind of, (I don't know), a pie in the sky, when I die type – of distant sort of faith thing. And we have this belief or this faith, on the one hand. And we have this whole need for rest and for peace and for joy and for wholeness, on the other. But a lot of people just never connect those two things. Never occurs to sometimes ask, to connect those two things in life. One of the things I love about the Hebrew culture is that they think and they speak in pictures. A few thousand years ago, there was a little passage written in book of Psalms in the Bible, Psalm 46. And the writer wrote something like this: Even when the earth is shaking and the mountains are falling into the sea. Even though the waters are roaring and foaming. Even though the nations are in uproar and the kingdoms are tottering. Even in the middle of all that, God has something to say. The beautiful picture, and the Hebrew nation, those people were not a sea fearing people. So the idea of mountains falling into the ocean and waters roaring and foaming, well, that was a real fear – turmoil thing. And the writer says, "In the middle of all the fear and turmoil that life brings, God has something to say with a voice that melts that all away." It is like a river of gladness running through a city, with a power that stops wars and calms oceans. God has something to say into that condition and it's this … "Be still and know that I am God." In that big cacophony of noise that we call life – where everyone is screaming at us and yelling at us. And things are happening and mountains are falling into the ocean, and people are criticising us and the entertainment is blaring at us, in the middle of all of that … a still, small, powerful voice, whispers into our hearts with unmistakable power ... "Be still and know that I am God. Just stop and pause for a minute. And in the depths of your soul, right, right, deep down where you live, know that despite all the turmoil that you see around you, I am God and I am in control. I am here. I am with you. And I have the power to bring you peace." With that one small statement, God connects one of our deepest needs – the need for peace, for quiet, for assurance – with the spiritual ...
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    10 m
  • Now's the Time // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 1

    Now's the Time // A Time of Refreshing in My Life, Part 1
    Nov 17 2025
    Getting some balance back in our lives is a challenge for a lot of people. Either we're doing too much or not enough and somehow, life's out of kilter. What we need is some refreshment for our souls. I don't know about you but one of the things that many people struggle with is getting a sense of balance in their lives. Either life's just so crazy and hectic that we seem to be burning the candle at both ends and eventually we burn out or for other people life's really, really quiet, lonely perhaps. All lifestyle magazines push this whole "life balance" thing, great cooking, meals with friends, exotic holidays, happy families. And then you go and look at that stuff and go, "hang on a minute, my life doesn't look like that" and we feel even worse. What we all need at some point, in fact daily I think, is a time of refreshing, you know to renew our strength, to lift us up, to breath some joy into our souls. My wife Jacqui and I, we're a bit like that, we're working really hard at the moment and just the last few months have been really tough from a ministry and a work perspective. Now on the one hand it's a real joy and a pleasure. We get to work together, we get to do something that touches peoples lives and it's great. But when you're working long and hard, day after day after day, it takes it's toll doesn't it? In a sense ministry should be easy, well in a sense it is. So often I'm really tired. And in fact as I was preparing for today, to share this message with you, I was really tired. I was overseas last week in the USA so the time difference was knocking me around and yet God put a real holy ease, He was there. He blessed me and He just made it work for me. But the flip side of that is running a ministry, it's a tough gig. There's fundraising and managing staff and producing content and I'm writing a book at the moment and reporting to the board. All of these things that people don't see and yet they're essential to doing what it is that I do. You have the same, you have things in your life that people see and there's a whole bunch of other things that they don't see but that are grinding, that are hard work sometimes and so Jacqui and I said, "Look it's really time for a break". Now every now and then, maybe two or three times a year, we grab a weekend away somewhere just to have a rest. But we thought, "no, we really need a break". So just recently we booked a holiday in a place called, Lord Howe Island. If you haven't heard of Lord Howe it's a beautiful island about two hours flight from Sydney in Australia. It's world heritage listed, only 250 visitors are allowed on the island at once. There are no theme parks or theatres or tacky pinball parlours. It's a world heritage listed spectacular island. Soaring mountains, (I think the mountains soars six thousand feet up out of the ocean bed), beautiful beaches, virgin forests, lagoons. It's hard to think of a more, well idyllic setting and I have to tell you something, we are really looking forward to it. There's something about rest and beauty, a sense of anticipation, a change in scenery, getting away. We all yearn for that and there's nothing wrong with that. You bring rest and real beauty together and you know, it just refreshes the soul. It brings us back to life. It does something that renews us inside. And if we have a busy life, we actually need to plan those things. We need to decide to set aside the time, to invest the dollars and go and have a holiday and maybe if we have a quiet, lonely life, "I won't go on my own, it's not worth it", what rubbish. Maybe if you're in that camp you just need some motivation. When I was coming back from America last week I flew via Tahiti. It was just the airfare I was able to get and I was sitting next to a woman between Los Angeles and Tahiti and she was going to Tahiti on her own. and she said, "Look, I've been working hard. I've been really busy and I've just decided to take a holiday and have a rest". Good on her, I think that's what we all need to do at some point. This week on A Different Perspective we're looking at this whole issue of refreshing. We all need times of refreshing so we're going to look at it over the next few days, just from different angles, different perspectives. It's great to plan a holiday but what about refreshment right in the middle of life. I mean in the daily cut and thrust, in the grind, in the every day, here and now. If we spend all of our time looking forward to escaping, "I hate my job, I hate the grind…" Here's a thought, if God is God, if God put us here, shouldn't day to day life be, I don't know, something to enjoy? I don't mean a 24x7 cocktail party, that's not realistic, life's not like that. It's not all bubbly and fruity and wonderful every day. But as we live our life through our family, through our responsibilities, through our work, through our recreation, shouldn't there be, I don't know, a deep sense of joy and satisfaction? I often get to Friday ...
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    10 m
  • The Skilled Surgeon // The Spirit and The Word, Part 5

    The Skilled Surgeon // The Spirit and The Word, Part 5
    Nov 14 2025
    It's amazing how thoroughly we manage to delude ourselves about our own failings and weaknesses. We're actually pretty darned good at it. But God is a skilful surgeon capable of performing radical surgery. This week on the program, we've been looking at intimacy with God through His Spirit and His Word. And when you think about it, those are the two things of Himself that He has left here on this planet for you and me. His Spirit – God Himself, with a promise that if we believe in Jesus, He will make His home in us, dwell in us when we put our faith in Him. And His word – the Bible. I so often see people cringe when I mention that book. But as we've been exploring this week, this is the most amazing and awesome love letter God's left here for you and for me. Through His Spirit (we open that book), He speaks to us in the most direct and intimate and extraordinary way. And sometimes when we open that book and read it through His Spirit, it's like holding up a mirror to who we are. And I don't know about you but sometimes I don't actually like what I see in that mirror. Let's not kid ourselves. When things aren't going well, when we're under pressure, we blame everyone else. He did this; she said that; if he hadn't done this, I wouldn't have blown up in his face, you know the sort of stuff. It's amazing how much more quickly we'll forgive ourselves than we forgive other people. We are so quick to rationalise our own failures and yet to blame others for theirs and even ours. And the longer we delude ourselves about the things that we're doing wrong or our bad character traits or our bad habits or our anger or our fear or our insecurities, the more they're going to ruin not only our lives but also the lives of people around us. There's a great passage in Hebrews in the New Testament. The book of Hebrews chapter 4, verses 12 and 13, says this: The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides the soul from the spirit, the joints from the marrow. It's able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart and before God no creature is hidden but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. Boy, that's bad news isn't it? Who wants to read God's word? Sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces, it divides the spirit from the soul, the joints from the marrow, it judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart. No, thanks. I'll give that a miss, I think. I'll pass. But it's only bad news if we want to hang on to the bad stuff. If you or I want to hang on to our dishonesty, our critical spirit, our nasty attitudes or whatever, then this bit about God's word is bad news. But if we want to be set free from this stuff, it's fantastic news. In other words, we read God's word and it's like a mirror, it judges the intentions of the heart. It lays everything bare, it lays everything open. We can see in there where our intentions are wrong – where the way we think is wrong or hurting us or hurting other people and it happens to me all the time. When we let God do that, when we go to God's word and open it up and say, "Dear Holy Spirit, you wrote this thing. Will you now open it up for me, will you now hold it up, will you pour into my heart, will you show me who I am through your word"? When we let God hold His mirror up to our faces it changes us. Let me give you an example …there's a story about a woman caught in adultery. And the religious leaders whip up the crowd and they drag her out in front of Jesus for a good old-fashioned stoning. And it wasn't because of what she did; they were trying to trick Him. Jewish religious law prescribed that a person caught in adultery should be stoned to death. But Roman law, (remember at this point in the first century Rome had occupied the land of Israel), Roman law said, they weren't allowed to do that anymore. So whichever way Jesus answered, He'd lose. So Jesus pauses and squats down and doodles in the sand. Then He looks everyone in the eye, one by one, and He says: Whichever of you has never sinned, you pick up the first stone, you cast the first stone. (John 8:7) And one by one they all drift away. They all go embarrassed because they know that none of them can say that they have never sinned. And He's left alone with her and He says: "Woman, is there no-one left to condemn you?" And she says, "No-one sir.' And He says, 'Then neither do I condemn you. Go, go and sin no more." (John 8:10-11) That is brilliant isn't it? But I remember reading that and it was as though God's spirit was holding a mirror up to my face. God's spirit spoke to me and said, "You know Berni, the way you think, the way you act, you would have been one of the people in that crowd." And it was true ... I was so judgemental, I was so critical, I was so ready to jump down peoples' throats and tell them what they were doing wrong. And here I was reading God's word and through this beautiful story of ...
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    10 m
  • Understanding the Letter // The Spirit and The Word, Part 4

    Understanding the Letter // The Spirit and The Word, Part 4
    Nov 13 2025
    Once people get over the fact that the Bible isn't a bunch of do's and don'ts, the biggest thing that stops them from reading it is that it doesn't makes sense. One of the things that I'm really passionate about is, I guess, just being here with you today and knowing that through our time we've spent together (somehow), God's used that time to draw you closer to Him. Life's too short to live it without a passionate and a dynamic and a real and a beautiful relationship with Jesus. Some people may scoff at that. But deep down – right deep down in our spirit – we all hunger for God to touch us, for God to fill us, to give us His peace and His joy and His abundant life. And what's so sad for me is to see people living their lives as though all of God's blessing, as though God Himself is somehow a million miles away. When all along, He's closer, closer than even their deepest secrets of their hearts. This week on the program, we're looking at intimacy with God through His spirit and through His word. People make a mistake and say, "God is all about a bunch of rules and it's all about a bunch of doctrine and logic and so I've got to get all this head knowledge to know God." And hey, knowing God's word is fabulous. I make a living out of doing that. I try and let God use me to bless you by doing that. But there's more … there's God's Holy Spirit. If I just pick up His Bible and read it as a bunch of words and a bunch of rules and don't let God's Spirit work in me and lift the words off the page and put them into my heart, what I end up with is some sort of legalistic – religiously thing. Here, you and I are in the world that God created. Jesus in the flesh has been here and gone, He's promised to come back. But in the mean time God has actually left two things of Himself behind. Now sure, the world and the universe and all that's in it are God's but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the two things of God Himself that He's left here for us, here and now. What are they? The first is His Spirit, the promise of Jesus to His disciples and to you and to me (here and now) is to pour His Spirit out on us, to come and dwell in us. Through His Spirit God has left behind God Himself, the Spirit of God. And the second thing that God has left behind of Himself is His word, the Bible. Now many people cringe at that. But His word is His love letter to us, His story, His promises, His wisdom, His grace. And it's so sad to see people want more of God, to hunger for Him, to thirst for Him and they have a Bible on a shelf or in a cupboard somewhere and it's gathering dust. I often meet people like that and they see my enthusiasm for God, or they hear it in my voice and they say, "I wish I had that." No! I'm nothing special. In my own way, I'm just like you. Where do you get that real relationship with God that just bubbles over? And so I say to them, "When was the last time you read your Bible?" Hush … silence. The Bible (in my neck of the woods) is looked at with mistrust and negative connotations, fundamentalism, conservatism. There are more 'isms' poked at the Bible that we could poke a stick at. And so I say to people, "If God wrote you a love letter, wouldn't you want to read it?" Well, He did and it's called the Bible. "Yeah well, I don't understand the Bible. The Bible's hard to read. It's all over the place, who's Ephraim, what was Babylon all about? And who was Paul? And why did Jesus tell a story about a Samaritan? None of it makes sense to me so I just gave up. It was too hard." I understand that … so I'm going to share just four practical tips with you that anyone can implement and do in their lives to read God's love letter. And the first one is – to pray in the Spirit. The Bible says of itself that the Holy Spirit inspired every word that it contains. If the Holy Spirit inspired and wrote the thing through men and women, then the Holy Spirit can open it up and speak it into your heart and into my heart. And I tell you the truth, I never open that book without first asking Him, the Holy Spirit, to open it up for me. Dear Holy Spirit, I'm about to read your word, and I need you to open it up. And I need you to lift the words off the page. And I need you to feed them into my spirit because if they're just words, they're useless. But these are God's words and God I need you to feed me with your word. That's the first thing, to pray in the spirit to ask God himself to open the book for you. The second one is nowhere near as spiritual – get a Bible dictionary. What's that? You can get a Bible dictionary that's thin and small paperback. You can get one that's 27 volumes. I've got one that's 27 volumes but I've also got one that's one volume and it's called, "The Holman Bible Dictionary". And I just had a look online and it's under $50.00 or less than a pair of shoes. And it has pictures and diagrams and maps so when you come to read about Ephraim you can read two paragraphs and you know who or...
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    10 m
  • Love Letter from God // The Spirit and The Word, Part 3

    Love Letter from God // The Spirit and The Word, Part 3
    Nov 12 2025
    When you think about it God's gone to amazing lengths to preserve His love letter to us down through the centuries. You know the Bible. Yeah – that's it – His love letter. Sadly, these days we tend to send and receive very few letters. I mean personal letters, letters of friendship, and letters of love. There's something about receiving a personal letter in the mail. It's so much better than email, it has a stamp and a post-mark and you have to open it and then you sit down with a cup of tea and you read it. That friend who wrote it, you can see their handwriting, it's so personal, it's so wonderful! So much better than all the emails that flood in my in-tray. I wonder if you can ever remember receiving love letters. Well, what if we received a love letter that was thousands of years old, written by God himself and preserved down through the ages just for you, just for me, what if? That's what the Bible is; it's a love letter from God (sixty-six different books). Some of them stories, some of them songs and poems, some of them letters written to different groups of people at different times. Each one of them, written by someone that God handpicked – someone in whom He breathed His Spirit, someone to whom God spoke and was just the right person at the right time – this someone who listened to God and wrote one of the books, one of the sixty-six. Paul, the Apostle, wrote letters to Churches while he was in a dungeon on death row. Matthew and Mark and Luke and John wrote the four Gospels to different groups of people to tell them about Jesus. And God preserved them all over thousands of years from the first to the last with an incredible degree of historical accuracy. Before the printing press they were copied out by hand, by people called scribes. You know how thick a Bible is; it's a pretty big book. And you can imagine hundreds and thousands of scribes copying the Bible over and over and over again. It wasn't until the 30th of September 1452 that Johan Gutenberg's printing press published the first book on mass and that book was the Bible. Now, these days, when we look at all those different copies and translations and manuscripts there are almost no discrepancies in the hand copies and any that there are there are really minor and not very important. The Bible is this vast, amazing, confusing book, and story that begins right at the beginning with God creating the heavens and the earth. And tracks through the story of Israel in Egypt and their departure through the Red Sea and their forty years in the desert, into the promised land and all the turmoil and war, the exile and the return. And there are stories of people, Moses and David and Ruth and Esther and Paul and Timothy. And it's an account of God's Son, Jesus. And of the fledgling Church and the Book of Acts, the letters of Paul and Peter and John and others. This amazing array of God's stories spread over thousands of years, preserved for thousands of years more, now here, in your hand, in my hand to read. God's amazing love letter! Not a text-book, not a theological text, not a book of dry rules, not a book of dot points – but of stories and poems and people in pain and agony and fear, crying out to God. And people praising God and worshipping God, seeing God's hand in delivering them and protecting them. God's a heartbeat through it all, loving them. God's word's there for you and me, God's story there for you and me. God crying out through it all, 'I love you, I love you so much.' God's promises, God's power, God's mercy, God's wisdom all laid out in this vast story. This huge canvas which is a story of God touching people. It's the story of God revealing Himself. It's history; His story and not in a dry text, not just in words but through His Spirit. Every part of the Bible was inspired by God's Spirit. If we open that book and just read the words, we miss the point. But if we approach this love letter in prayer, in the Spirit of God and say, "God open it up to me. God, as I open it up speak to me today." The most awesome amazing spiritual reality happens as God pours His love and His spirit out through those pages into our hearts and our lives. People who stare at the Bible as some fundamentalist doctorial statement like Karl Marx's communist manifesto or Hitler's Mein Kampf, you miss the point or people who call themselves Christians who have a Bible or two or three or four that they never open, just collects dust. It's too hard to read or hard to understand, we miss the point. God's written a love letter. God's taken men and women and told their story and had them write it down and preserved it and put it in our hands to tell us about His love for us, "I love you." God is speaking to someone today; I believe that God today is crying out to you, reaching out from His heart into your heart saying, "I love you, read my love letter." Can I ask you a question? Do you want to know that love, deep in your spirit every minute of ...
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  • The Law of the Spirit // The Spirit and The Word, Part 2

    The Law of the Spirit // The Spirit and The Word, Part 2
    Nov 11 2025
    No matter how much we want to believe that God is a God of grace, we all at some point end up living life as though He's a God of rules……the law of His Spirit and life can seem a long way off. When we talk about God, well that name "God" means so many different things to so many different people. Yesterday on the program, we looked at the notion that God is kind of a bunch of rules and sometimes people want to reduce Him down to being just that but that's not it. If God's a bunch of rules, then He's bad news not good news. It's an easy thing to do and some people do it, to pick up the Bible and read it as though it was a book of rules. And that's where people get this sort of Bible bashing, accusing, condemnatory form of religion. But that's not it. Jesus said: "I've come to set you free and if I set you free' said Jesus, 'then you're really free." (John 8:36) So how do we make sense of all that? If we read this book, the Bible, as the letter of the law then it's full of condemnation. But what about the spirit of the law? What does God mean by it all? And what about the law of the Spirit, which is what the Apostle Paul talks about? Is there really freedom in all of this? The way I try to understand that is looking at the three different ways that we can be a parent. To me there are three models: The first model is the model of being the tyrant dictator. I'm the dad or I'm the mum and these are the rules of the house. And if you don't like it, go and live somewhere else. It's rigid, it's inflexible, it's dictatorial and it doesn't work. We can force kids, I guess, to comply with rules but we can end up losing their hearts. We lose the relationship, we lose what it means to be a mum and a dad and a family. So that's one model, the tyrant dictator where being a parent is all about enforcing rules. At the other end of the scale, the second model is what I call the anarchistic model. No rules, anything goes. Messy room – fine. Stay up late – fine. Let the boyfriend or the girlfriend sleep over in the same room – fine. Smoke, drink, get drunk, be rude, be disrespectful, be lazy – fine. And that's the model where the parents abdicate responsibility, where there are no rules. Is that good for our kids? Is it a fun way to live as a family? The third model is the model that God always planned, the model of being a good parent. It's about love and relationship and affirming our kids, and caring for them, and honouring them, and respecting them. But at the same time setting some boundaries. Setting some rights and wrongs, saying, "No, in this house there are some rules". And letting them bump into those rules and live the consequences of bumping into those rules. Under those circumstances home is a place to live and to love and to learn. It's a place where it's okay to make mistakes and live out the consequences and still be forgiven and held and affirmed and nurtured. So the three models: the tyrant dictator, the anarchistic model and the good parent model. Which one makes sense? No one would advocate totalitarianism, no one would advocate anarchy, and it's pretty obvious, really. So why do we think that God is any different? Why do we say God is a dictator, God is a bunch of rules? It's easy to look at God that way but to do that is to miss the point. On the other hand, people try and see Him as a god of no rules, as a god who's being a sugar daddy and that's misses the point too. God's a good dad. God's a good parent, one that loves and wants to be in relationship with us, and wants to affirm us, and care for us, and honour us, and respect us. But still set boundaries of right and wrong. God's a good dad. And that's what the Apostle Paul's says when he writes: There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because the Law of the Spirit of life in Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8: 1-2) There's no condemnation because God has replaced the rules of law and said, "It's different now in Jesus because in Jesus you're one of my kids. In Jesus you're one of my family and I want to breathe my spirit of life into you. I want you to know that I honour and respect you and care for you." And in that relationship you get to grow because God did what the law, what a bunch of rules couldn't do – by sending His Son as a man to pay for sin on the cross. He did away with sin through Jesus so that the just requirements of the rules and the law could be met. And then He said, "Now that you're forgiven, walk in the Spirit. Here, let me breathe my Holy Spirit into you." Says God, "Be one of my kids." There's no condemnation because the law that God wants now is the law of the Spirit, the law of life, the law of being set free from rules and regulations dominating our lives. The law that says, "Jesus paid for our failures, we're forgiven." God's approach is the good dad model, not the tyrant, not to say there are no rules. God's a god that's a good dad. He's wiped the slate...
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