Jesus in His time on earth made many trips to a town called Bethany. During some of these visits Jesus showed us how to come into the presence of God through sitting at His feet to coming into the presence in humility and worship, in His presence there is fullness of joy and His blessing.

The Apostle John was not always known as an Apostle of love, he was flawed, he was brash and presumptuous, he wanted to call down fire from heaven. John developed a relationship with Jesus over his lifetime that saw him change from a firebrand to on fire for Jesus.

There is nothing in us or done by us, at any stage of our earthly development, because of which we are acceptable to God. We must always be accepted for Christ's sake, or we cannot be accepted at all. Grace is not self effort, grace is not self improvement, grace is not self esteem in fact grace is not self anything, it is soemthing that is a free gift that is given by God. The gospel of grace is all about what has been done for us; the fruit of the gospel is what is being done in us.

How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? How shall they hear without a preacher? How shall they preach unless they are sent? Romans chapter 10 poses us these four questions and then give us the answer. As it is written: "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace, Who bring glad tidings of good things!"

The Practice of the Presence of God is a book of conversations and letters from Brother Lawrence a 17th Century monk who devoted his life to seeking God. He said "I know that for the right practice of it, the heart must be empty of all other things; because God will possess the heart alone; and as He cannot possess it alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can He act there, and do in it what He pleases, unless it be left vacant to Him.

When is comes to sowing we need to be purposeful according to the word of God and to make sure our giving is Valuable, our giving is Holy and our giving is Worship. The enemy will always try and steal our seed not our harvest and we often settle with what we have instead of believing for God's harvest over our lives.

As Christians we are called, and we are called not because we're special but because we are ordinary people just like all the other ordinary people God has called through the ages. Whenever God wants to do something extraordinary in Gods good creation, God turns to ordinary people, throughout history God has asked ordinary people to do the extraordinary on His behalf.

This Resurrection Sunday we look at three stories about Centurions that are written in the Bible. The first sees a response of faith, the third sees a response of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentiles and the second we see a response from this hardened Centurion with "Truly this Man was the Son of God"