“To accept correction is wise, to reject it is stupid” (v 1). Did that first sentence cause you to pause? We may agree with it . . . but usually as far as it concerns other people, right? I don’t know about you, but I have yet to meet anyone who likes to be told they’re wrong, particularly about moral issues. Think back: how have you taken correction in the past?

On the night that Jesus was betrayed, he sat down with his disciples and ate with them. The event has come to be called the Last Supper and at the end of the meal, he did something that Christians have come to almost take for granted. With just a couple of exceptions, every Christian denomination celebrates this event in some manner or another on a regular basis.

Like a family meal, this supper gave Jesus one last opportunity to sit down with his disciples and have them share something special together.

Growing up in the church it was common for me to go with my family to prayer meetings. Some of these meetings lasted for an hour or two and occasionally they stretched throughout the night. For me as a very young child the hour seemed as long as a full night but as I got older the midnight prayer shift became a test of endurance. More than a few times I fell asleep only to be abruptly awakened by some dear old saint shouting glory.

As a young boy I was often bullied at school. Interestingly enough it was never by one person alone but always by a group. It seems that children aren’t that brave when they’re alone but put them with a few other bullies and they get quite courageous.

Jesus wasn’t a hard person to find. He walked around town quite openly. He didn’t have bodyguards.

As a child I once had a dream about the grade 9 boys who bullied me. In the dream I was walking home from school when a group of boys ran up to me and started harassing me. They grabbed my school bag and emptied the contents out on the street. They took my prized baseball cap and passed it around for each one to try on. They pushed me backwards to make me fall. But that was the first part of dream.

There’s an old Christian saying that we are the only Bible many people will ever read. I’ve often wondered what the book reports would sound like if people were writing about the book of my life. Would it be a bestseller? Would it be classified as fiction? Or could my life be used as a good sermon illustration?

The apostle Peter was a master of disguise.

Kisses are so close-up and personal, so intimate. I don’t know about you, but I don’t kiss everyone I meet. Kisses are reserved for those special people in my life – people I know and trust, people I love.

Here in Psalm 2, kings and rulers are commanded to kiss the Son of God.