St Mary's Church, Mudford

                                         March 2025

Dear All,

It feels as if I’ve only just written a letter for the magazine, and now I’m

supposed to write another one. And it will be the same next month,

apparently, and the next.

Who do you think I am, Charles Dickens?

I’m afraid I haven’t got the imagination to come up with a sparkling new idea

every four weeks, so here’s what I’m going to do. Each month I will give you

a short extract from the Bible and challenge you to commit it to memory. My

parents used to do this with me, and as a consequence I have an internal

library of encouraging teachings which I can draw on in the busyness of

everyday life. It’s sometimes called a “Memory Verse”.

So, here’s this month’s verse. It’s from a letter written by one of the earliest

Christians, a follower of Jesus whose name was James. He was writing to

people who were facing all sorts of difficulties in their lives, as we often are.

It’s a simple promise – one that I’ve found to be true in my life, as have many

other Christians over the years. Here it is:

“Draw near to God; and he will draw near to you.” (*James 4:8)

That’s it! Learn it. Think about it. Test it out – you will find it to be true. And

here’s the challenge: if you bump into me in the village and correctly recite

that verse to me, I’ll give you a sweet from the perpetual packet in my pocket.

If you meet me in a local pub and do the same, I’ll buy you a drink. Yes, I

know, it’s blatant bribery. I’m not ashamed.

With all good wishes,

Richard

Rev Richard Horner

richardtherector@hotmail.com

P.S. the stuff in brackets describes where the words can be found in the Bible.

You don’t have to memorise that bit (unless you’re of a train-spotting mentality).