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Thought for the week
by Cpt Richard Cooke
ENGELBERT Humperdink is right – love will set you free!
But not the sort of love he sings about in his Eurovision 2012 entry. That’s all about letting someone go and ‘follow their heart’, instead of staying committed to what is.
A national newspaper columnist jokingly puts it this way, ‘It is so sad that you’re jumping into bed with someone new, but I am such a kind, philosophical person that I let you go with my blessing, not by cutting your clothes up into tiny shreds and microwaving your mobile phone.’ (Bernadette McNulty, The Telegraph).
A window in Skipwith church quotes Pilgrim’s Progress: ‘Passion will have all now this year in this world. Patience, the best things, which will never wear out.’ True love doesn’t go for ‘what’s easy and suits me now’; real love is about giving, not taking, and is willing to face the pain to get to a better place.
My children are very much looking forward to Easter. My son points out that, “some children in my class get 12 big Easter eggs!”. Hint, hint! We celebrate Easter for the good news that in Jesus we can have new life – forgiveness for the past and a new start with God’s help, help to be the best ‘me’ I can be.
Even today, people here in Selby are discovering for the first time that there is a God we can know through Jesus Christ, who loves us and wants to change our lives for good.
But Good Friday comes first, a day of ultimate pain. For Jesus to give us new life, he had to set us free from the old life; it wasn’t just nails that pierced him, the blame for for all that we get wrong pierced his heart.
Jesus let it happen, willingly, because he loves us more than we can ever fully know. He faced the pain for our gain. Yes, “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.” (The Bible, John 3:16) It is Good for us Friday.
So yes, Engelbert, only love can set you free. True freedom is found when we believe that God loves us absolutely, unconditionally, a love so great he was willing to die for our freedom.
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Weather for Selby
Sunday 19 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 10 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: North
