JESUS IS Easter

• Huge day at Milton Keynes Christian Centre
• Initial numbers suggest 1023 people attended MKCC today
• Band were off the charts. Shout out to Emily, Sonia, Peter, Andy, Ed, Lavern & Nick. You guys were amazing.
• Bev & the welcome team made sure we were all on chocolate overdose.
• Maybe the atmosphere all we create on Easter Sunday should be what we carry with us each and every time the church comes together. Jesus is ALWAYS alive and ALWAYS risen. Just sayin!
• George Ridley preached up a storm. A great gift to the church. A true Evangelist.
• First service 25 people said yes to Jesus. Many in the second service but don't have count yet. Just amazing!
• GRR Quote of the day: "Where there's a will there's a waiting relative."
• I have to pinch myself from time to time because I am living my dream.
• Home to watch Man Utd & Man City battle it out in their respective matches.
• Fergie marches on.
• Two players summed up the two teams: The CLASS of Paul Scholes & the ANTICS of Mario Balotelli.

• A drink with the fabulous Nicola Ritchie.
• Now chilling out watching the Masters.
• PS This picture brought me to tears today. Stuart Watt and his family launched a brand new church in NE Scotland today. Mintlaw Community Church. I've been down in England for so many years but I'm just a North East Boy (Old Man) at heart so I just love to see the church advancing up there. Keep praying for Stuart!

God deals with Sin

"God has always said that sin is to be punished, that his holy wrath is upon it, and that he cannot deal with sin in any other terms. And he has done exactly what he promised. On the cross he is doing it publicly. There he is, once and for all, at the central point of history, pouring out His wrath upon the sins of man in the body of His own Son. He is striking him, He is smiting him, he is condeming him to death. He dies, and his blood speaks. It is God's punishment of sin and evil. It is a mighty declaration that God has done what he always said he would do, namely, that he would punish sin, and the wages of sin is death. And there you see it happening upon the cross." - Martyn Lloyd - Jones (The Cross: God's Way of Salvation p 163)

That about sums up what was happening on that "GOOD Friday" And as Mrs C F Alexander puts it in her hymn there was only one person that could do this - Jesus!

There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin;
He only could unlock the gate
Of heaven and let is in

’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies

Tomorrow we celebrate Good Friday. The day that Jesus died. As I look forward I am reminded again of the words Charles Wesley penned of an incredible hymn, "And Can it be" in 1738 and now getting on for 300 years later it still moves my spirit.

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray—
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free,
I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him, is mine;
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach th’eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

When God says NO!

".... a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."" - 2 Corinthians 12 v 7 - 9


There has been much debate in church world about this passage. The main topic of conversation, What was Paul's thorn in the flesh? Many theories have been adavanced but at the end of the day God decided that we didn't need to know. That why he didn't put it in the Bible!


What we must not miss is the deep significant message God is driving home to us by revealing this story to us:


A prayer to which God says NO is always accompanied with His all sufficient grace and power to live. When a prayer is seemingly unanswered God's power is NOT ABSENT it is when it is most POWERFULLY PRESENT.


Paul grasped this when he went on to say:


Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.

To be CONTENT with weaknesses, insults, hardship, persecutions and calamities it takes something miraculous. It takes God's GRACE & POWER. Without it, it is impossible to reach that place.


If God says NO, never doubt that grace is on its way!