It's funny how in life things that are so attractive, so tasty, so alluring can in the end be so deadly. I know, that's a cheery start to our short time together today but it's absolutely true.

Think of junk food - whatever your favourite variety happens to be. By and large, it's made up of UPFs - Ultra Processed Foods; ingredients that have had their natural goodness manufactured out of them and chemicals added to make them so attractive to you. A better word would perhaps be addictive.

A recent study published in the British Medical Journal found that people who consumed high amounts of UPFs had a 62% higher risk of all-cause mortality, particularly from cardiovascular and metabolic diseases.

So, attractive though junk food may be, it will likely cause you to die a death that you didn't have to die, if that makes sense. So, if you, like many others, are addicted to junk food, then let me ask you, of what benefit is it to you, really? And in the same vein …

Romans 6:21-23 You did evil things, and now you are ashamed of what you did. Did those things help you? No, they only brought death. But now you are free from sin. You have become slaves of God, and the result is that you live only for God. This will bring you eternal life. When people sin, they earn what sin pays—death. But God gives his people a free gift—eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The natural consequence of sin is not just physical death, but spiritual death—a life empty of God's presence and an eternity separated from Him. Keep sinning and you'll end up dying a death that you didn't have to die.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

It is tempting to solve our own problems, but true courage is refusing to rush what God has promised.

Bitterness and anger can become a habit – an attitude that grips our live. It's like a venom that pumps through our veins. Fortunately though, there is an antidote. God made certain of that.

Anger is a real problem in this world, it's running at plague proportions and yet it's something you don't hear people talk much about. Psychologists have come up with a term 'the last straw syndrome'; people seem to do outrageously destructive things. The young teenager who shoots up his high school, the road rage that happens around the place, people are flying off the handle all over the place, it's an epidemic.

You and I experience anger on a regular basis, both when it grips our hearts and when we're on the receiving end of someone else's anger. Anger, fury, rage, indignation, a desire to lash out, to hurt others, a deep sense that we've been wronged and we have to set it right through revenge. It's the stuff that wars are made of. So what's the antidote? How do we deal with it decisively and end the hurt that anger causes?

Well I have to tell you I am an expert in anger management, I'll tell you why. They say once an alcoholic always an alcoholic, people who seem to have overcome it talk about themselves as being recovering alcoholics. In other words it always stays with them but it's something that they keep overcoming every day.

Well for me it's the same when it comes to anger. My big Achilles heel, the deep flaw in my character is this anger thing. Berni's a type A achiever type of personality, I set goals, I chase them down, I hit targets, I move on to the next thing, and that's okay, it reflects in everything I do, the way I drive, the way I cook, I'm always planning my time, I'm always being efficient, achieving the best that I can.

It's great but it has its down sides. Now no matter what personality type we have each one of us, we expect everyone to be like us. I expect you to be like me and when you drive more slowly than I want you to and when you're not as efficient as I want you to I have a tendency to get angry. When you have my sort of personality you can be brutal about all those other people out there who just don't meet your expectations.

It drives me nuts when the car in front of me drives just slowly enough for me to miss the green traffic light up ahead. Unbelievable, how can they do that? I just want to lean on my horn and shake my fist and find some choice words. It's the stuff that road rage is made of.

My favourite saying used to be, "it's so hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys." So for the first thirty or forty years of my life I lived in an almost constant state of anger and rage. So when I talk about dealing with anger and finding an antidote to anger I'm not talking this stuff from a text book, I'm talking from a transformed life, a life that continues to be transformed because I'm kind of like that recovering alcoholic, this is going to be a lifelong process in me, a process of rehabilitation that God takes me through because that's how I'm wired.

Now I love a passage out of the New Testament of the Bible, the Book of Hebrews, it talks right into this problem and it's the place where I discovered the antidote to this venom. We had a quick look at this yesterday on the program. Have a listen. It comes from Hebrews chapter 12, verse 14:

Pursue peace with everyone and holiness because without them you won't get so much as a glimpse of God. Make sure that no one misses out on the grace of God so that no root of bitterness springs up and causes trouble because through it so many will be contaminated.

That root of bitterness is what takes hold of our hearts and our lives when we fail to deal with anger. It's like biting into a lemon and sucking out the sour juice, have you ever done that? Just thinking about it makes your eyes water doesn't it? I remember working with a woman and

Have you ever wondered how relationships collapse? I mean, how is a once-loving, caring, thriving relationship torn apart resulting in a grief of separation that simply cannot be put into words?

Henry VIII of England was once deeply devoted to Catherine of Aragon, his first wife. But driven by lust for Anne Boleyn, an obsession with having a male heir, and prideful defiance of spiritual counsel, he sought to annul their marriage. When the Pope refused, Henry severed ties not only with Rome but tragically with Catherine, the woman who'd faithfully stood by him for over twenty years.

She was exiled, dying heartbroken, having never seen her daughter Mary again. Henry's sin, lust, pride and wilful rebellion tore apart his most important relationship. And though he married five more times, none would match the loyalty and love of Catherine.

A lot of people don't like that word "sin". But it packs a serious punch so I use it deliberately here because sin is always - always! - the root cause of broken relationships. And not just human relationships.

Isaiah 59:1-2 Look, the LORD's power is enough to save you. He can hear you when you ask him for help. It is your sins that separate you from your God. He turns away from you when he sees them.

Here's the truth. Sin fractures your relationship with God. But when you turn back to Him and ask for His forgiveness, with faith in Jesus who died to pay the price of your sin - listen to this please - the LORD's power is enough to save you.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Waiting on God is difficult—but it’s much harder to look back and wish you had.

Bitterness is something that we sometimes carry around in our hearts. And so often we don't even realise that this root of bitterness has taken hold in our lives. What is it and what can we do about it?

I don't know if you've noticed but when a seed falls to the ground and dies ultimately it sprouts and takes root. And if it was the seed of a plum tree we can be fairly certain that the thing that's growing there is going to one day produce, well not apricots, not apples, not pears, we all know it's going to produce a plum because it's a plum tree that's taken root and in fact it's the root that ultimately produces the fruit. It just one of those basic facts of life that actually we don't have to think much about, the root produces the fruit.

And it's a bit like that in our hearts. If our heart takes root in goodness then we'll produce good fruit, in bad things and we'll produce bad fruit, in sweet things then we'll produce sweet fruit, in bitter things and we'll produce bitter fruit. It's just not rocket science is it?

This week on the program we're going to take a look at the phenomenon of anger in our society and in our lives. There's a great movie a few years ago called Anger Management. Anger is a real phenomenon in the hearts of so many people, you know how pressure builds up in life and ultimately people explode. We have at home a pressure cooker and we cook things in it and there's a vent and if the steam didn't come out of the vent that pressure cooker would explode and it's the same with us.

So many people are out there venting their anger; it's in epidemic proportions. You have road rage and supermarket rage and a call centre rage, in fact this week's program was prompted by a real life experience. At the moment I have a couple of brothers, Greek guys, doing some painting at my old 19th century terrace, just needed a bit of touching up. And they're doing a much bigger job in parallel to ours in one of the wealthiest streets in our country.

This place they're painting is a huge five storey mansion, they're using a special paint that costs, wait for it, a thousand dollars a tin – unbelievable and the houses in this street are worth between fifteen and twenty-five million, this is where the mega wealthy live. And lots of people in this fairly narrow street are having building work done and so it's pretty crowded and so even though they've got great views and lots of money and massive mansions there's quite a bit of strife in this place.

The painters have been working there now for a few weeks and they were telling me that you wouldn't believe the arguments raging between the neighbours. The house that they're working on belongs to a couple in their seventies and they haven't talked to their neighbours for twenty-five years because a quarter of a century ago they had an argument about some building works.

And all the neighbours in this street are fighting with one another. The woman who our painters are working for, they'd done some work a few years before and she was very nice, and now all of a sudden everyone is mean and nasty and horrible. Now you stand back from that and you think that's unbelievable.

I mean these people have everything in life, there's nothing they can't have or buy or own really, everything their hearts desire and yet there's a spirit, well a spirit of anger and bitterness and dissention in this place. Makes you wonder what's going on there.

These two painters, I've used them before, they are lovely people, they do a brilliant job, they're honest as the day is long. How can this woman be so nasty to them? I'll tell you what's happened, anger and bitterness has taken root in her heart, that's why. You let things get to you and you get angry with people over and over and over again and it's like, it's like bitterness takes root in your heart and the root produces the fruit.

God actually talks a lot about anger, you know it's a w

Even the most powerful people in the world can be slaves to the evil in their hearts – to their wrong motivations, their wrong desires – and the same is true for the little people… ordinary folk like you and me.  

As the first Director of America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (the FBI), J. Edgar Hoover wielded immense power for nearly five decades. But beneath his polished exterior lay a deep insecurity and control-driven paranoia. Obsessed with public image, he kept secret files on politicians, activists, and even presidents—using fear and intimidation to protect his influence.

Privately he had his own hidden demons, persecuting others for moral failings that he refused to confront in himself. He could have left a legacy of reform and integrity. Instead, he died with his reputation clouded by secrecy and fear.

It's funny how despite outward appearances, sin actually enslaves us. We don't think of ourselves as slaves, but that doesn't change the fact that we are.

John 8:31-35 Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, "If you continue to accept and obey my teaching, you are really my followers. You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered, "We are Abraham's descendants. And we have never been slaves. So why do you say that we will be free?" Jesus said, "The truth is, everyone who sins is a slave—a slave to sin. A slave does not stay with a family forever. But a son belongs to the family forever. So if the Son makes you free, you are really free.

Let's get real. Sin enslaves us. It just does. But Jesus came to set us free; to set you free. Jesus.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

One of the things we seem to have lost these days is the ability to disagree with civility. How often do you see politicians tearing one another apart, or those from the LGBTQIA+ lobby vilifying Christians and vice versa? Whatever happened to the ability to debate and disagree respectfully?

In 18th Century England, William Wilberforce led the fight to abolish the slave trade. He was relentless in confronting the evil of slavery, exposing its horrors with unflinching clarity.

Yet he treated his opponents with grace, never vilifying them personally. Year after year, he pleaded with Parliament, not in anger but with humility and compassion. He separated the evil of slavery from the people caught in its systems—hard on the problem, soft on the people. His love-fuelled truth-speaking eventually helped bring the trade to an end.

Ephesians 4:14-15 We will not be influenced by every new teaching we hear from people who are trying to deceive us—those who make clever plans and use every kind of trick to fool others into following the wrong way. No, we will speak the truth with love. We will grow to be like Christ in every way.

Make no mistake, we're surrounded by entrenched evil on every side. People with vested interests, economic systems benefiting the few through the misery of others, all sorts of wrongs being peddled as rights. And they make clever arguments to convince us to stand with them.

But like Wilberforce, the best response is to be soft on the person and hard on the problem. God's love doesn't avoid truth—it just delivers it with kindness, not contempt.

Speak the truth with love. Grow to be like Christ in every way.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

Isn't it amazing how differently people see things - in politics, relationships, the workplace? Now, that can be a good thing. A blending of different perspectives produces better results. But it can also be a flashpoint, right?

So, how then do you choose the people you surround yourself with? On the one hand, you don't want a bunch of 'yes men'; a mutual admiration society where everyone's always in agreement. That sort of groupthink is dangerous. One of the most important things my wife does for me is to disagree with me when she thinks I'm wrong  - and I for her.

On the other hand, if all you get from people is constant opposition … well, do you really want to spend the rest of your days banging your head up against a brick wall? Imagine being caught up in a marriage or a work environment like that. Not a lot of fun.

2 Corinthians 6:14-15: Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?

Imagine two oxen being "unequally yoked" - pulling at different speeds in different directions. They'll burn a ton of energy and not get very far.

I don't know about you but the thing that drives me, that lies at the core of my being, is my faith in Jesus - in His love, His power, His grace and forgiveness; in doing what's good and right in His eyes.

#NoteToSelf: Avoid binding yourself to someone who walks in a different spiritual direction. Do not become unequally yoked.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

When faith and prayer join hands even in impossible circumstances, the message of Jesus keeps moving forward.