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“For I, the Lord, love justice;" (Isaiah 61:8) I remember stepping out of Gare du Nord, the main train station in Paris and wondering where to go next. We had arrived in the city on a mission to pray for and support the homeless community living there. If we had turned right out of the station, we would have journeyed towards the...

The Rocky films are a success story, and they also mirror the life of our small groups. In Rocky I our hero is new, young and vulnerable. He begins to figure out what his goals in life are. In Rocky II he begins to pursue his career as a boxer to see what it can do for him. He also...

"and everlasting joy will be yours..." (Isaiah 61:7) Everlasting joy will be yours. This joy is not happiness dependent on circumstances that is there in a moment and gone in the next. This is a promise that will mark out all who the Lord rescues. In Isaiah 35:10, we read ‘and those the LORD has rescued will return. They will enter Zion with...

"And so you will inherit a double portion in your land..." (Isaiah 61:7) To us “inheritance” mostly just means money, or sometimes a second hand car. Maybe, if you’re unlucky, a box of collectable magazines. So it might be hard for most of us to think what inheriting a double portion in land actually looks like. Owning land in this world is...

To pursue climate justice, we must pursue and follow the ways of Jesus. Jesus demonstrated comfort in suffering and hope in having overcome the world, past tense. Jesus’ death and resurrection fulfilled the promise that one day the world would be restored. When heaven and earth become one, all injustice would be eternally removed. But where in the life of...

"and instead of disgrace you will rejoice in your inheritance..." (Isaiah 61:7) Have you ever made a mistake that you quickly regretted because of the disgrace and fallout it brought with friends or family? I know I definitely have. So did the people in Israel. They were living in the shadows of the disgrace and mistakes they made and had been banished...

"Instead of your shame you will receive a double portion..." (Isaiah 61:7) When you have an ice cream, do you have one scoop or two? I’m definitely a two-scoop guy and would probably mix up the flavours too. I used to think that this is what was meant by “double portion” in the Bible. Not ice cream! But the idea of receiving...