The Mustard Seed

Steven Curtis Chapman - This Baby

James Taylor - Santa Claus is Coming to Town #2

Jacques Ellul on Progress

I read this recently in Ellul's book The Presence of the Kingdom and it has become a favourite quote of mine. It encapsulates so well the frustrations of modern man and the Christian's duty to transform his world.

'I refuse to believe in the "progress" of humanity, when I see from year to year the lowering of standards among men I know, whose lives I follow, in the mdist of whom I live - when I see how they lose their sense of responsibility, their seriousness in work, their recognition of true authority, their desire for a decent life - when I see them weighed down by anxiety about what the great ones of the earth are plotting, by the fear which penetrates our world, by the hatred which they feel for a terrible phantom which they cannot even name; when I see them cornered by circumstances, and, as they suffer, becoming thieves and frauds, embittered, avaricious, selfish, unbelieving, full of resistance and rancour, or when I see them engaged in a desperate struggle, which comes from the depths of their being, against something they do not know. The intellectual who wants to do his work properly must to-day go back to the starting-point: the man whom he knows, and first of all to himself. It is at this level, and at no other, that he ought to begin to think about the world situation.'

from The Presence of the Kingdom

Watchman Nee on Prayer

'We spend so much time praying for ourselves just because we are blind to what God has done.'

O Holy Night New Orleans-style

Here's a clip from the US TV show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip in which musicians from New Orleans perform an instrumental of my favourite Christmas song, 'O Holy Night'.

Bryn Jones on Prayer

''Prayer is not the last resort but the first line of frontal attack.'

Keep Your Heart Right

Today, thanks to the internet, to iTunes and podcasts, to Christian television, and not forgetting more Christian books than any one could ever read, there is perhaps more opportunity to hear God's Word than ever before. The Bible is translated into every language; there are enough songs written and recorded to form the soundtrack of the rest of our lives. And yet, all this teaching and preaching, singing and dancing, can so often go in one ear and out the other. So, what can we do? Here's one thing: keep your heart right. A word sown into your life by God will always produce fruit if it finds its way to a good heart. If you allow that seed to grow - keeping out the weeds of worry and the pursuit of wealth - it will always result in a harvest. God's Word always works: keep your heart right to see it effective in your life.

Watchman Nee on Praise

'Praise that is the outcome of effort has a labored and discordant note, but praise that wells up spontaneously from hearts at rest in him has always a pure, sweet tone.'

Watchman Nee, Sit, Walk, Stand

James Taylor - Santa Claus is Coming to Town #1

E. Stanley Jones on Prayer

'Prayer is the deepest thing we do and in that deepest thing we do, the coming of the kingdom is the most important. It is the foremost and the uppermost - without it the prayer is comparatively meaningless.'

E. Stanley Jones, The Unshakable Kingdom and the Unchanging Person (1972)