Category Archives: Shelton

Sheer foolishness

What do you find embarrassing? Do you have any really embarrassing memories? How do you cope with embarrassment? Does it make a difference for you if it’s you being embarrassed or somebody else? I have to say that I cope very badly with embarrassment. I hate things going wrong, and I get annoyed and angry. […]

Chew it over

Last week I went to have lunch with some friends of ours. They have a little boy called Samuel who is just being weaned. His mum, Jordan, had made up a bit of baby rice and mixed in some squished up carrot or something like that, had put him in a highchair and was feeding […]

The missing men

As many of you know, in October I spent some time in Uganda. Whilst I was there, I helped to run two conferences for the local church. At one of these, I was talking to a group of pastors and small group leaders from some of the parishes in the area. We had been talking […]

Waiting

What are you waiting for? Here are some of things that I am waiting for. I am waiting for England to win the Ashes. I am waiting to find out where my next job will be. I am waiting to meet my new nephew in the New Year. (Nathaniel is really glad that it’s going […]

Breaking the power of sin

I wonder why you are here today.  I am here because I believe that the overcoming of sin in peoples’ lives is one of the most encouraging and vigorous demonstrations of the power of the risen Christ, and I want to see more of it.  If we are to see more of this power, then […]

A sign for the times

Do you ever see a road sign when you’re driving along and think, “Thanks for letting me know but what am I meant to do about it?”   I mean, if I see a road sign with a 30 on it, then I know what that means – I’m meant to drive at no more than […]

Insisting on hope

“Those who will not work, shall not eat.” That was the phrase that grabbed my attention as I was looking at the Bible readings for this morning. “Those who will not work, shall not eat.” The reason that it grabbed my attention is that it sounded like it could have been a headline from one […]

God works everything out?

Our reading from Ephesians this morning jumps right into the middle of this letter’s opening paragraph, a hymn of praise to God.   In this praise we find an important truth about God. “He works everything out in conformity with the purpose of his will.”   I find this to be quite a difficult thing to understand.  […]

Lost and Found

I wonder what it feels like to be totally lost. As I was thinking about what I was going to say this morning, I was trying to remember a time when I have been lost, and I couldn’t. Of course there have been times when I’ve had difficulty finding the way to the place that […]

See that you do not refuse Him.

I would like to tell you a story this morning about two ways of living.One way of living is one in which people are bent over, infirm, bound up, afraid, under law, in fear of punishment, surrounded by darkness.The other way of living is one in which there is freedom, release, healing, life, joy, assurance […]