When did you last feel fully alive?

We know, in fact, that God works all things together for good to those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28, New Testament for Everyone

Image from UCB.co.uk.

A lyric video for a song from Rend Collective.

As long as you know that God is for you, it doesn’t matter who is against you.

Image from CCM magazine.

The social distancing version of Look Up Child by Lauren Daigle, recorded during Covid-19.

This is an excellent new song from Matt Redman.

Merciful Father
We have wandered from Your ways
Sinned against heaven
And against Your holy name
We haven’t loved You with a whole heart
We haven’t loved our neighbour as ourselves
But You’re a merciful Father
You’re a merciful Father

O, You’re rich in love
You’re rich in love, so rich in love
O, You’re good to us
You’re good to us, so good to us
What a beautiful kindness
What a gift of forgiveness
O, You’re in rich in love
You’re rich in love, so rich in love

That now at the name of Jesus
every knee within heaven shall bow –
on earth, too, and under the earth;
And every tongue shall confess
that Jesus, Messiah, is Lord,
to the glory of God, the father.

Philippians 2:10-11, New Testament for Everyone

After experiencing a period of intense emotional stress, Lisa Mainwaring booked herself into a fasting retreat in Germany. What happened next could change your outlook on grief and your relationship with God. This article was first published in Premier Christianity magazine.

People go on fasting retreats for two reasons: either to detox, giving a chance for the body to concentrate on repairing itself, or they do it for mental and spiritual reasons.

For me, it was the latter. In everyday life, the hunger of the soul can be mistaken for the need for food, and fasting offers us the opportunity to attend to our own spiritual needs.

When you go through a season of loss, the first thing you must do is release your grief, and fasting helped me to do that. After nearly ten unsuccessful years of trying for a family and five rounds of IVF (not to mention many operations), my husband and I looked at adoption. A tiny bundle of joy came into our lives in the summer of 2017, and we loved him fiercely. But our joy turned to despair when, just before his first birthday, and with little notice, he was reunited with his paternal birth family and we have never seen him again.

Continue reading “Lisa Mainwaring: How a fasting retreat helped me process the loss of our child”

‘I and the father are one.’

John 10:30, New Testament for Everyone

Image from UCB.co.uk.

This is a song we enjoy singing at Explore, Living Hope.

Hallelujah, praise the One who set me free
Hallelujah, death has lost its grip on me
You have broken every chain
There’s salvation in Your name
Jesus Christ, my living hope
Jesus Christ, my living hope

The full words:   Continue reading “Bethel Worship: Living Hope”