Reading has many surprising benefits.
Scotland’s schemes certainly have been—for decades now.
If we say we love God and yet don’t love others, we are living as liars and hypocrites.
If you come from Glasgow, you are more likely to die younger than if you came from UK cities of a similar size like Liverpool or Manchester. This has been dubbed 'The Glasgow Effect'. So how do we respond to this?
Real love isn’t easy, nice and lovely. Real love is costly.
Without the Lord’s work Glasgow will never flourish. Rather than turning to politicians and public health experts; judges and prison governors, we need to look to Christ.
As we look back at Glasgow’s Christian history and the problems which continue to blight it, our prayer would be that our past would point us to the only place where Glasgow can find hope today - in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Self-Control means living within God’s boundaries. Boundaries that He has put in place for our good, our protection and His glory.
Even the smallest of words used in the wrong way can set an inferno of pain that can cause utter destruction.
So instead of praying “Here I am, send me” from Isaiah 6:8, I prayed “There they are, send them”.
It’s vital that we help people to see that the gospel of Jesus, especially the resurrection, tells us that our bodies matter. They are important.