The call to love each other

The chosen exiles – the scatterlings of God – are called to love each other. A sermon on 1 Peter 1:22-25 by Rev. Colin Pretorius. In her book The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom recalls meeting a guard from the concentration camp in which her sister had died and where she herself had been subjected […]

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1 Samuel 1:1-20 – Prayer, a cornerstone of our Christian life, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. Prayer is a cornerstone of our Christian life. It is how we communicate with God, how we talk to Him, how we convey our thoughts, our needs and our thanks to Him. It is in prayer that we find strength […]

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Scatterlings strive to be holy

1 Peter 1:13-25 – Scatterlings strive to be holy, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. How fulfilled is your life? How fulfilled do you feel? In what are you searching fulfilment? Where should you be searching for fulfilment? How do you find it? Fulfilment is something with which the human race struggles and although we should know […]

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Count your blessings

1 Peter 1:1-12 – Count your blessings, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. This morning we’re going to count just some of the blessings with which our gracious Lord has blessed us. And the blessings that Peter points out in these 12 verses are ours because we be¬long to Jesus. These are the sevenfold blessings of being […]

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Living as scatterlings

1 Peter 1:1-2 – Living as scatterlings, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. My son and I are both preaching on sections of the first letter of Peter, a letter written to scattered believers in what is today Western Turkey.[1] When we talked about the various sections of the letter, Chris said that Peter was writing to […]

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1 Peter 3:1-6 – Wives, be subject to your own husbands, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. “All marriages are happy,” someone once said, “but it’s the living together afterwards that causes all the trouble!”[1] Friends, those of us who have been married for some time know that the bonds that hold a lasting marriage together are […]

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Shining for Jesus in all we do

1 Peter 2:11-25 – Shining for Jesus in all we do, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. Some of the worst crimes against humanity occurred in the 16th to 19th centuries when the slave trade was at its height. Millions upon millions of people – men, women and children – were en­slaved, sold as property and in […]

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Psalm 139 – Our response to the character of God, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. Just more than a year ago, Maggie and I were in Sweden with our daughter. We were there because we wanted to again experience the wonderful feeling of being out in the snowy fields on a sled pulled by a team […]

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To God be the glory

1 Chronicles 29:10-13 –  To God be the glory, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. (The eighth sermon in a series on the Lord’s Prayer.) Since the middle of March we’ve been working our way through the magnificent and encom­passing prayer that Jesus taught His disciples. As we listened to the words of Jesus as we find […]

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Lead us not into temptation

Matthew 6:9-15 –  Lead us not into temptation, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. (The seventh sermon in a series on the Lord’s Prayer.) At various times in our lives we all face temptation of some sort. It may be something small, like for the little girl who was standing in the bakery looking longingly at one […]

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And forgive us our debts

Matthew 6:9-15 –  And forgive us our debts, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. (The sixth sermon in a series on the Lord’s Prayer.) 2 October 2006. Charles Carl Roberts IV. You may not know that date or that name, but you may recognise the story when I tell you that on that date Roberts, the man […]

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Give us our daily bread

Matthew 6:9-15 –  Give us our daily bread, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. (The fifth sermon in a series on the Lord’s Prayer.) When he was a young man, the preacher Dr. Harry Ironside went into a cafeteria to get something to eat. The tables were crowded and the only place he could find to sit […]

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Your will be done

Matthew 6:9-15 –  Your will be done, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. (The fourth sermon in a series on the Lord’s Prayer.) Over the past few weeks we’ve been looking at the first part of the Lord’s Prayer. In the open­ing line of the prayer, we saw that Christ authorised those who accepted Him as their […]

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Christ is risen!

Luke 23:50-24:53 – Christ is risen! Easter Sunday sermon by Rev. Colin Pretorius. At Easter last year, Maggie and I were in Yekaterinburg, on our way into the heartland of Siberia. One thing that was very noticeable to us as we travelled across Russia was that there was a re­vival of faith. Across the country […]

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Your kingdom come

Matthew 6:9-15 –  Our Father in heaven, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. (The third sermon in a series on the Lord’s Prayer.) The once mighty emperor Napoleon Bonaparte is reported to have said the following:[1] Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself founded empires; but on what foundation did we rest the creatures of our genius? Upon force. […]

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Hallowed be Your name

Matthew 6:9-15 –  Hallowed be Your name, as sermon by Rev. Colin Pretorius. (The second sermon in a series on the Lord’s Prayer.) Like most of you, Maggie and I have been a bit housebound this past week. Not being to visit people has meant that there’s been a bit more time to prepare the […]

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Our Father in heaven

Matthew 6:9-15 –  Our Father in heaven, by Rev. Colin Pretorius. (The first sermon in a series on the Lord’s Prayer.) What pops into your head when I say “Father’s day”? Is the blessing that a father has of recei­ving yet another pair of socks, or a fluoro tie? Just like Mother’s day, Father’s day […]

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