The Bethel - Old Trafford Christadelphian Church

God’s ways are higher than our ways. How does this affect the way see the world around us?.

Neil builds on the message Malcolm shared last week. God loves us, we need to let him. There is a response to that which is letting that love work on us and working with that love to spread it to other people in the way we care for them.

This is Love; Not that we loved God but that He loved us. Malcolm springboards from 1 John 4 into exploring the story of Mary and the empty tomb. The story reminds us that God's love for us turns up in the darkness and the pain, it shows up in the hopeless places. God loves us because there is a part of Him in us.

The challenging passage in James 5 has three direct calls to the rich. Accusations of Hoarding and wastefulness, Witholding wages and Living lives that have the aim of self-indulgence. Martyn encourages us not to dodge the challenging bits of the bible just because we want to make the message we hear conform to our preconcieved attitudes. Then Martyn encourages us to pray with the commitment and structure that James and Jesus both give us.

Mike's thoughts this morning centre around one simple vignette of Jesus' ministry. When Jesus came across a man who'd been sitting by the pool at Bethesda for 38 years, he overturns the very structure of the man's existence. Mike demonstrates what this kind of complacency can do our faith and challenges us to stay alert and question our old self and trust God.

It is a very hard and seemigly paradoxical thing to offer unconditional forgeiveness and also to corect and rebuke anyone at the same time. It is also more often driven by our own messy interiors. The pride and insecurities within ourselves more commonly lead our desire to correct others rather than our selfless love for them. Mike unpacks how we can all make progress in holding this delicate balance and copying the model that Jesus gave us.

John explores the theology of apology. Saying sorry is important. It is often very hard to do and more so depending on who you are saying it to. Saying sorry is restorative to relationships and it changes us. And from the back of apology, forgiveness climbs. It is our responsibility and our privillege to forgive and it helps to change us.

Inspired by the text of a poster in the late Nineties and the meat of Deuteronomy 30:19, Charles shared thoughts on obedience. We aren't intended to be robotically programmed, but obedience is about choces that come from the heart. With increased trust, comes increased obedience as we see in the monumental growth of Moses in leading the Israelites.

Space to share news, thoughts and group-sharing of our eucharist reminder of the life of Christ - our centring and grounding meal together. Encouragement to find practical, tangible ways to share the love of God with each other.

Jesus says to us that he’s with us all the time - do we honestly feel that in our day-to-day? Is it actually a pretty scary thought - that Jesus is with us all the time, regardless of what we’re doing? But what would Jesus be like at our sides? Alan reminds us of Jesus’ compassion and tells us about what it would be like if we accept Jesus into our lives fully - not just on a Sunday - and say “For this I have Jesus”. Each time you eat bread and drink wine - “remember”, Jesus says, “I am with you”. “I am your friend, if you do what I command you”.