“Cast your bread upon the waters, for you will find it after many days.” Ecclesiastes 11:1 At first glance, this makes no sense. Why would anyone throw bread onto water? It would become soggy, ruined, and lost. It feels wasteful pointless. But Scripture often invites us beneath the surface. Just as Jesus spoke in parables to draw people deeper into the heart of God, this image is not about bread and water it is about faith, obedience, and trust. To cast your bread is to give, to sow, to extend goodness even when you cannot see the outcome. It can feel like an exercise in futility. You give. You serve. You sow. And nothing seems to come back. But Solomon reminds us you do not know what the result will be only that God does. “In due season you will reap, if you do not give up.” Galatians 6:9 “The one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.” Proverbs 11:18 Ecclesiastes 11:1–6 is not about how water affects bread. It is about how obedience affects the world. We are called to sow anyway. To give anyway. To keep doing good even when it makes no sense. Because the outcome is never ours to control. Recently, after heavy rain, one of our front steps collapsed, leaving a gap that made it difficult to come and go. I mentioned it to someone, and they said they would look at it. Later, I came home and the step was fixed. I thanked the person I thought had done it but it wasn’t them. To this day, I don’t know who repaired it. No card. No bill. No recognition. Just a step that was no longer broken. I had placed the need before God and He answered. Somewhere, someone “cast their bread upon the waters.” And I was the one who found it “after many days.” That’s the mystery of the Kingdom. We sow not always knowing where it lands. We give not always seeing the return. But God sees it all, and He weaves it together in ways we cannot. And if God cares about a step how much more does He care about the deeper needs in your life? Nothing is too small. Nothing is too insignificant.

They prepared the table as they had always done. The Passover meal. The remembrance of deliverance. The story of a lamb slain so that judgment would pass over. But this time something was different. There is no mention of the lamb on the table. No centrepiece of the meal. No visible sacrifice. Because the Lamb was not on the table. He was sitting at it. While they ate, He took the bread and broke it. Not pointing to Egypt. Not pointing to the past. Pointing to Himself. “This is My body.” He lifted the cup. Not the blood on doorposts long ago. “My blood.” In that moment, the shadow began to give way to substance. The symbol was about to be fulfilled by the reality it had always pointed toward. And then He stood up from the table and walked toward the altar. Not a table of wood in an upper room but a cross on a hill. While Israel prepared their lambs, while priests made ready for sacrifice, while families anticipated remembrance The true Lamb was being led. Not into a home. But to slaughter. At the very hour lambs were being killed in the temple, Jesus was stretched out and lifted up. Not one of His bones broken. Spotless. Blameless. Given. This was not coincidence. This was fulfilment. The Passover was never just about Egypt. It was always about Him. The blood on doorposts was temporary. His blood speaks eternally. The lambs of Israel could only cover. The Lamb of God takes away. And so the table was never missing the lamb. The table was revealing Him. The Lamb was never absent from the Passover He was waiting to be recognised. What was once a symbol on the table became a sacrifice on the cross and what was a sacrifice became salvation for all.

There are moments in Scripture that stop us, unsettle us, and make us ask deeper questions. The story of Jesus cursing the fig tree is one of them. At first glance, it can seem confusing almost as though Jesus acted out of frustration. He was hungry, He saw a tree, and when it had no fruit, He cursed it. But Jesus never acts without purpose. This was not a reaction. It was a revelation. As Jesus approached the fig tree, it was covered in leaves. To anyone who understood the nature of such trees, leaves were a sign a declaration that fruit should be present. The tree was advertising life. It gave the appearance of fullness. But when Jesus drew near, there was nothing there. No fruit. No substance. No life to offer. And so He spoke to it not out of anger, but as a prophetic act. Because the tree was not just a tree. It was a mirror. A reflection of a people who had the outward form of devotion but lacked the inward reality. A picture of religion that looked alive, sounded right, and appeared fruitful but was barren at its core. Moments later, Jesus entered the temple and confirmed the message. There was movement, noise, structure, sacrifice everything that looked like worship. But heaven saw something different. Beneath the activity, there was no true fruit. No justice. No surrender. No living connection with God. Leaves without fruit. Form without substance. Appearance without life. And the warning is not confined to that moment in history. It speaks still. It is possible to profess the name of Jesus, to speak the language of faith, to stand in places of worship and yet remain fruitless. To be full of leaves, yet empty of the very life we claim to carry. Jesus is not looking for leaves. He is looking for fruit. Not performance, not image, not noise but lives that are truly rooted in Him. Lives where His presence has taken hold so deeply that something real begins to grow. Because there is a world drawing near. People who are hungry for hope, for truth, for healing, for something real. And when they come close when they encounter believers, when they step into churches what will they find?

There are moments when a song does more than play in the background of life. It begins to echo in your spirit. You find yourself singing it without thinking. It fills your dreams, and when you wake, the melody is already on your lips. Lately the song New Wine has been doing that to me. It keeps running through my mind, almost like a whisper that refuses to be ignored. In Scripture, new wine refers to freshly pressed grapes unfermented or in the process of becoming something new. It is a symbol of divine blessing, abundance, and the joy of the harvest. But it is also a powerful picture of the Holy Spirit and the transforming message of Jesus. Jesus spoke of this when He said that new wine cannot be poured into old wineskins. If it is, the skins will burst and both the wine and the vessel will be lost. New wine requires new wineskins. The old wine may taste familiar and comfortable, but it has become rigid and unyielding. New wine is different. It is alive. It is fresh. It expands, stretches, and requires a vessel that is flexible and able to grow. But before new wine is formed, there is a process. The grapes must be crushed. In Hebrew, the words translated as “new wine” carry the meaning of freshly pressed, squeezed, expelled, and trodden out. The grapes have passed through the winepress. They have been crushed and pressed underfoot. And yet from that crushing comes something new. I sense the Spirit saying that we are entering a new wine season. Many have been crying out, “Lord, where is Your power? Why don’t we see Your Spirit moving as we once did?” And the Spirit responds: “I am pouring out new wine. But I am also forming new wineskins.” God is calling His church back to intimacy. Back to a place where He Himself becomes our greatest delight. In that place He stretches the vessel of our hearts so we can carry what He is about to release. There may be a season of crushing. There may be stretching. But it is not to destroy you it is to prepare you. He is looking for vessels that are willing. Hearts that are soft. Lives that are surrendered.

Seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah wrote words that would later describe the suffering of the Messiah with astonishing detail. In Isaiah 53:5 we read, “By His stripes we are healed.” At the time Isaiah wrote these words, crucifixion had not yet been invented and Roman scourging did not exist. Yet Isaiah describes a suffering servant who would be wounded, beaten, and striped by lashes that would somehow bring healing to others. Isaiah 52:14 says the Messiah would be “disfigured beyond human likeness.” This was not poetic exaggeration. Roman flogging was one of the most brutal forms of torture in the ancient world. Victims were bound to a low post and beaten with a flagrum, a whip made of multiple leather cords tipped with metal, bone, or lead. Each strike tore into the skin and muscle, often exposing bone. There was no limit to the number of lashes a Roman soldier could give. Under Jewish law a man could receive forty lashes, usually limited to thirty nine. But the Romans had no such restraint. Isaiah 50:6 also declares, “I gave my back to those who strike.” Christians see this as a clear foreshadowing of Jesus willingly submitting to this suffering. He did not resist. He did not fight back. He gave His back to the whip. History confirms that the book of Isaiah existed centuries before Jesus lived. The Dead Sea Scrolls contain copies of Isaiah that date long before the first century, showing that these prophecies were already written and known. Jesus knew these Scriptures. He knew what the prophets had spoken. He knew what awaited Him. In the garden of Gethsemane He prayed, “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” Yet He finished that prayer with complete surrender: “Not my will, but yours be done.” He walked toward the suffering fully aware of what it would cost. The scourging alone would have left His back shredded. Flesh torn. Blood pouring. Isaiah said He would be disfigured beyond recognition, and the brutality of Roman flogging explains why.