This year is the 500th anniversary of the beginning of Luther's protest against the Catholic Church. I won't say it is the anniversary of the Reformation as that is a little problematic. I am a reformed Christian. I firmly believe in the core doctrines of reformed theology; namely justification by faith alone, the inerrant and superior nature of scripture and the symbolic nature of communion.

I am working my way through a book about the Reformation. It is by Nick Page, an author I highly recommend (if you are looking for a book to read next Lent, I would suggest you read his book The Longest Week) and an author I enjoy greatly. His book isn't any great development in the field of Reformation scholarship but it is a great book nonetheless.

I studied the Reformation at A Level with Mr. Davies and Mr. Payne. I thoroughly enjoyed it and I think that it played a part in me becoming a Christian. It was through my studies of the Reformation that I first saw the joys of a decent hard Bible Study. I first engaged with Scripture and the meaning of the words in the Bible.

I am a Christian and I am not ashamed. As we go through this anniversary year I am increasingly grateful to the Reformation for bringing me closer to the truth. I am not ashamed to state my belief and never will be. As Luther famously said (or rather didn't) "here I stand, I can do no other!"

Isn't it interesting how God can use the most mundane of things to help you complete his mission? I was at church on Sunday and was able to chat with a couple who had come all the way from New Zealand. They were on a sort of Grand Tour of Europe and had ended up in Fort William. Anyway, the mundane thing was a quiche (how very Christian!).

This couple had been walking the Camino and he, who happens to be allergic to certain things, was hungry. His wife went and bought a quiche for him, having carefully explained that certain ingredients need to be avoided. After eating the food he was taken very ill and his EpiPen wasn't working. Another couple just happened to be walking past so his wife asked if they could help. She (the female member of the new couple) turned out to be a nurse. Her partner was a doctor with a fully stocked emergency medical kit! This was the start of a very nice week of hiking and led to an agreement to visit the other couple (at least one of whom is not a Christian I should add) in Norway next week so they stopped off in the Fort this Sunday.

I happened to be preaching. I had on a crisp new shirt, nicely ironed I might say and was armed with about half a sermon. The end of it wasn't really written yet as I had no peace about it. You see, it has been a tough week (I hope to post on that later but am not sure yet really as I don't want to get too personal) and on top of that I had unexpectedly been given a sermon to write. I knew I was preaching but I already had the bones of a sermon to give when the passage I was given changed from Isaiah back to Joshua.

Thus, I ended up preaching on Joshua 24. I really felt that God was prompting me to certain things and trusted that He would lead me to the right words to say. Feedback was really positive but once i had finished preaching and praying I had to pop to the loo and ended up feeling really sick. Was it stress? Spiritual attack? Reaction to a dodgy bacon roll? I don't know but I have never felt that way about a sermon in the past.

Below is a link that should take you to the sermon if you would like to give it a listen. Comments would be appreciated but they are not necessary. Enjoy!

Joshua 24