This week our passage revolves around a healing miracle. One of the seven signs in John’s gospel that is meant to cause us to stop and look at Jesus and ask the question, “who is this man?” It is also a passage that gives us opportunity to ask some questions about healing itself. Later in the gospel (John 14) Jesus will say to his first disciples, and to us, that we will see even greater miracles than were seen in his own ministry. What then does this passage tell us about healing? It does not give us a full theology of healing, that was not John’s intention, but it does raise the subject for us, it should provoke us.  Read More

In this devotional we are going to look at just a few verses and one particular aspect of Jesus’ teaching, the devil! In our passage Jesus makes reference to the devil in his challenge to religious leaders who have allowed there dependence on religious tradition to become a stronghold of deception in their lives. He is exposing the fact that when we are deceived to the point of missing the truth about God, it is the father of lies (the devil) who is ultimately behind that deception.  Read More

These are the wonderful words spoken by Jesus, to a woman who moments earlier had stood in abject humiliation and terror, awaiting judgement and probably brutal execution for the charge of adultery that had been brought against her. I encourage you to read the story for yourself – John 8: 1-11. It contains the classic line that has made its way into our popular vocabulary, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7).  Read More

Jesus makes this incredible invitation to us. We can come and drink from him and rivers of living water will flow from within us. John helpfully clarifies this. He notes that this is the Holy Spirit given to those who believe in him. An amazing invitation which points to a life of satisfaction and eternal significance.  Read More

I count myself incredibly blessed by the church community into which I was saved. I became a Christian just before my 15th birthday (27th February 1983) at a Baptist Church in Bedford. It was a community of faith that was itself rediscovering some of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. This meant that I got saved and worked out the early years of my Christian life in a community that was digging into all that the Bible said about the Holy Spirit.  Read More

In our text today we simply see Jesus in conversation with people, and we've got so much to learn from him through the answers he gives to the different questions he is faced with. I'll be focusing this devotion around only one verse, verse 8b, so I will encourage you to spend some time on your own later, letting Jesus speak to you through the rest of these conversations too.  Read More