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John Writes A Letter

When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. 
Yet, writes John the Apostle, if anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.”
John tackles this sensitive yet important area of Christian discipleship, showing the connection between our professed love of God and our love for our Christian family. "First we were loved, now we love", he says, pressing into the realities of what a grace-shaped life should look like.
Grace, perhaps one of the easiest concepts to speak about in the enthusiastic language of a born-again believer is, in reality, one of the hardest virtues to assimilate into our Christian lives. John's letter directs our gaze inward, at our own hearts, where, he says, 'faith, expressed through love' must abide and flourish.
https://www.carrielloydshaw.com/john-writes-a-letter/

By One Man

The Apostle Paul’s influence, passion, and commitment enabled the gospel of Jesus Christ to take root and flourish throughout Asia Minor, and its spread continued long after his death, reaching even to the ends of the earth.
Paul wrote several letters, one of which was the letter to the church at Rome. In chapters 5 and 6 of Romans, he covers some significant theological territory by dealing with the themes of death, life, and resurrection, which came about, he states, ‘by one man’…
https://www.carrielloydshaw.com/by-one-man/
(A large part of the inspiration for this article came from the worship song ‘This My Soul’ By The Gray Havens (link below). This song captures Paul’s sentiments from Romans 5 and 6 perfectly and is one of my personal favourites).

The Faith | Works ’Conundrum’

Paul the Apostle was a champion for the need for a grace-led, faith-full life. He had been converted from a life steeped in religious tradition and law, a life in which a man could become ‘more righteous’ before God than his fellow man, simply by achieving greater adherence to law. Yet Paul learned that right standing with God was not to be achieved through law-keeping – and in fact was impossible to be achieved this way – but by faith; personal belief in God’s promises.
What are we to make then of the words of Paul’s contemporary, James, who writes “As you can see, a man is justified by his deeds and not by faith alone.”
https://www.carrielloydshaw.com/the-faith-works-conundrum/

Abraham | Father Of The Faithful

Abraham, originally named Abram, was born (c 2000 BCE) and lived in the city of Ur, in what is now modern-day Iraq. Abraham was the son of Terah, ninth in descent from Noah, who was the main character in the Great Flood narrative found in Genesis 6-9. 
Ur was an important Sumerian city-state in ancient Mesopotamia. It was a wealthy, prosperous and advanced city, with culture, religion, and social statras firmly established. This cradle of civilisation was also the seat of a vigorous polytheism, chief of whom was Nanna, the Sumero-Akkadian moon god.
It is with this rich and complex background that Abraham is introduced to us in Genesis 12. God appears to Abraham, telling him to leave all that was familiar and travel to an unknown place. Hebrews 11, the great dissertation on faith, expands further, noting that it was “by an act of faith, [that] Abraham said yes to God’s call to travel to an unknown place that would become his home. When he left, he had no idea where he was going”.
Abraham left everything he had ever known, all on the word and promise of God. He demonstrated that having faith or believing isn’t measured by an exhaustive list of facts we say we agree with but rather the act of entrusting our lives to God and acting and living in a way that shows we believe His promise to be true.
Abraham chose to enter into God’s story and this choice was the turning point in his life...
https://www.carrielloydshaw.com/abraham/
 
 

Leaving

Leaving is never because of just one thing. Not really.
 
It’s the result of a thousand, inconsequential 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 that all converge in a single moment of sudden, irreconcilable difference.
 
For me, the eventual leaving of the religious community I grew up in began as a tiny question fluttering at the back of my mind.
 
Back then, it was just one thing. It stood alone in its irregularity and I let it sit, like a bothersome pebble in my shoe, not fitting, never resolved. This question wasn’t the explosion, merely the spark; but when I cast my mind back to all the 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 that finally resulted in my departure, I get no further back than this question...
 
https://www.carrielloydshaw.com/leaving/

Come Walk With Me

I penned the thoughts I’m sharing in this episode in response to some really tough circumstances I was aware someone was going through recently. I was thinking specifically of their situation when I wrote those words but it's funny how many times since then that I’ve reread those words and felt that God was speaking to me too.
Several times I’ve come back to these thoughts and found peace settling over my heart as I bring to mind the place called ‘home’; the place where God will walk with us again.  I hope these words bless and encourage your heart too.     
https://www.carrielloydshaw.com/come-walk-with-me/

Christianity + Missional Living

Just as Jesus was sent into the world, to witness to the eternal life and light of God, so each Christian has been commissioned and sent as an ambassador for Christ. They have been authorised, by virtue of his saving work, to represent his kingdom and to carry the great treasure of the good message in their fragile, imperfect lives of clay.
Jesus lives in and through them and God has placed each one of them like a city on a hill, to bring light to the whole world. They are to glow – with their open houses and generous lives – like homecoming beacons, drawing all humanity to the light that comes from Him, that in this, ‘His name is glorified’.
The reality is that every. single. Christian. is a missionary and every. single. church. is missional. It’s the very nature of our Christianity and an intrinsic part of our identity as people of the kingdom.
And we don’t need to be anywhere else apart from where we are right now to run on mission.
https://www.carrielloydshaw.com/christianity-missional-living/
 

[The Church Series] Women + Church Ministry

The early Christians faced many challenges in their new life of faith in Jesus. The gospel boldly sought to realign humanity according to the values of a true and impartial God. Differences based on race or social status found no place in this new religion.
Jews who thought of themselves as God’s unique and chosen people were now to consider Gentiles as family, loved by the same God.
Slave owners, rich in property and persons, weren’t to consider their slaves as possessions but as part of God’s family, and it is this status that dominates their new relationship.
Importantly for many women, men were to consider and treat women as equals in the purpose and plan of God for humanity; directly challenging a long and complex history of patriarchy.
The women who followed Jesus assumed ministry in the earliest Christian communities alongside men. Women were the last disciples to be found at the foot of the cross (Luke 23:55-56) and the first at the empty tomb, witnesses to the truth of the risen Christ (Luke 24:9-11). 
The reality of their significant involvement is shown throughout Paul’s letters, in the Acts of the Apostles, and other early Christian writings.
 
https://www.carrielloydshaw.com/women-church-ministry/
 
Read More about 1 Timothy 2:11-12:
https://bit.ly/2wMnDXk, https://bit.ly/3dGijp9 and https://bit.ly/39z4Ufm
 
Read more about 1 Corinthians 14:34-36:
https://bit.ly/3arPNp2 and https://bit.ly/2wD2G15
 
Read more about 1 Corinthians 11:1-16:
https://bit.ly/2QVZa8I and https://bit.ly/3auVuCP
 
Read more about Peter’s letter here: https://www.cbeinternational.org/sites/default/files/pp213_ss.pdf
 
Read more about ‘reader-added marginal gloss’ and ‘distigme’ here:
https://bit.ly/3arPNp2