{"id":1629,"date":"2021-01-12T11:41:20","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T11:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/?p=1629"},"modified":"2021-01-12T11:41:22","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T11:41:22","slug":"message-from-the-minister-letter-28-sunday-17th-january","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/?p=1629","title":{"rendered":"Message from the Minister Letter 28 &#8211; Sunday 17th January"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Dear\nall,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hope and pray this letter finds you well.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;This week we look at the start of the ministry\nof Jesus from the gospel of John when Jesus is starting to assemble His team of\ndisciples.&nbsp; The passage is John 1: 43 \u2013 51.&nbsp; Have you ever felt surprised or shocked that\nan offer has been made to you which you were not expecting?&nbsp; Can you imagine the scene, a new prophet has arrived\nand one day he turns to you and simply says \u2018follow me.\u2019&nbsp; &nbsp;Not \u201cwould\nyou like to apply for a new job\u201d, or \u201cwould you like to come for a job\ninterview\u201d, or \u201cwould you like to engage in this application process?\u201d, just follow\nme.&nbsp; Can you imagine in that instant\ndeciding to literally drop everything and follow Jesus?&nbsp; How incredible is that, leaving your way of\nlife, your work and everything you currently do to follow Jesus.&nbsp; In one sense it is extremely exciting but on\nthe other hand very daunting.&nbsp; What would\nyour family say, who is going to provide your income, how are you going to\nlive?&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is exactly what happened to\nPhilip.&nbsp; Notice Philip did not reply by\nasking a lot of questions, although I am sure he had a few.&nbsp; He went straightaway and found Nathaniel to\nshare the experience with him and in so doing linked Jesus to the one Moses\nwrote about in the Old Testament.&nbsp; This\ndemonstrates that He knew who Jesus was and the significance of His\ncoming.&nbsp; Nathaniel goes with Philip to\ninvestigate further and Jesus instantly says something of significance about\nNathaniel which astounds him.&nbsp; With that\nNathaniel is convinced and we assume from the text that he also follows\nJesus.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How amazing it is that when Jesus issues\nsuch a compelling call it causes grown men to abandon everything and follow Him.&nbsp; In addition, when He gives insightful\ncomments about Nathaniel\u2019s personality when He has not previously engaged him\nin conversation but observed him from a distance, it shows how Jesus\u2019 manner\nand personality attracted people to listening to Him.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can you imagine going shopping one day\n(pre Covid) in Northwood and minding your own business and then being challenged\nby a charismatic prophet to follow him and at the same time he tells you things\nabout yourself that ordinarily he couldn\u2019t possibly know?&nbsp; Whilst that is pretty remarkable, it would\nnot happen, but it illustrates that this event was a life changing encounter\nfor those first disciples.&nbsp; &nbsp;Now imagine for one moment you encounter Jesus\ntoday. What does He say to you, what would you like Him to say?&nbsp; I imagine Jesus would be saying, do not\nworry, keep hopeful, stay calm, things are going to get better, keep trusting\nin me and remember I am with you always.&nbsp;\nJesus offers so many good and uplifting promises in the Bible, let us\nhold onto them as we move forward through this winter month of January.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May\nour Lord Jesus Christ, Rabbi, Teacher, Prophet, bless us now and always, <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dear all, I hope and pray this letter finds you well.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;This week we look at the start of the ministry of Jesus from the gospel of John when Jesus is starting to assemble His team of disciples.&nbsp; The passage&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1630,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629\/revisions\/1630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.northwoodmethodistchurch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}