Former PM Gordon Brown says health service is too vital to throw away its future for independence, Daily Record

GORDON Brown says we must continue to share costs of health care and welfare with rest of the union - or pay the price.

WHY should the people of Scotland throw away a system that we helped create, a system that benefits us greatly to this day?

This question is particularly important when it is often a matter of life and death.

Our NHS is worth £176 a month to every single Scottish man, woman and child.

That is £17 a month more than the £159 that the NHS spends on patients in England and £13 per month more than the £163 it spends on patients in Wales.

It means that over a whole year, £200 more is spent on the health care of each of us in Scotland than on our English neighbours.

But the funding of our NHS in Scotland comes not just from money raised in Scotland by taxes levied here. It comes from money raised from all over the UK by taxes paid by every UK citizen.

Overall, Scotland receives around £950million more for health care than any division of resources based on population share would provide, and for very good reasons.

With more elderly people, more people with disabilities and a wider geographical area to cover, Scottish needs are greater and the share out of resources arises from the founding principle of the NHS which is the best there could be: you pay in based on your ability to pay and you benefit based on your need.

Read the full article here:

My Uttermost for His Highest, I Indeed, Oswald Chambers, Daily Devotionals

“I Indeed . . . But He”

I indeed baptize you with water . . . but He . . . will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire —Matthew 3:11

Matthew 3 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

The Preaching of John the Baptist

3 Now in those days John the Baptist *[a]came, [b]preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven [c]is at hand.” 3 For this is the one referred to [d]by Isaiah the prophet when he said,

“The voice of one [e]crying in the wilderness,

‘Make ready the way of the Lord,

Make His paths straight!’”

4 Now John himself had [f]a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey. 5 Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the district around the Jordan; 6 and they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River, as they confessed their sins.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance; 9 and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. 10 The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “As for me, I baptize you [g]with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you [h]with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

Have I ever come to the point in my life where I can say, “I indeed . . . but He . . .”? Until that moment comes, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Spirit means. I indeed am at the end, and I cannot do anything more— but He begins right there— He does the things that no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come and do His work in me as long as there is anything blocking the way, whether it is something good or bad. When He comes to me, am I prepared for Him to drag every wrong thing I have ever done into the light? That is exactly where He comes. Wherever I know I am unclean is where He will put His feet and stand, and wherever I think I am clean is where He will remove His feet and walk away.

Read more here:

Lecture - N.T. Wright - How Paul Invented Christian Theology

Touch and go: Tourists can now pay for Blackpool seaside donkey ride with DEBIT CARD, Daily Express

BLACKPOOL'S famous donkeys have trotted their way into the 21st century - by allowing seaside tourists to swipe a DEBIT CARD over their saddles.

Instead of letting the kids down when the hunt for small change in their pocket fails, parents can instead scan their bank cards or enter their pin numbers into the seats to go along the Lancashire seaside resort's Golden Mile.

The decision to give the long-standing family tradition a makeover was taken by Mark Ineson, owner of Real Donkeys UK, who has sold donkey rides on the seaside town's beach for almost 20 years.

After recognising the boom in 'touch and go' payments he teamed up with Barclaycard to go contactless.

Hoping to give his business a "much-needed boost", he said: "Over the years I've had to turn hundreds of kids away because mums and dads don't have the cash on them to pay for a ride on Dillon and the beach is often the last place you want to be carrying lots of change.

"So I approached Barclaycard to see whether they could help solve the problem.

"The saddle they've come up with means hundreds more people will be able to experience one of the Great British seaside traditions and have a donkey ride along the sands.

"It also shows that, regardless of how traditional your business might be, there are always new things to trial that can give it a much-needed boost."

Read the full article here:

Read the BBC News Story here:

Read the Telegraph News Story here:

Comment:

While watching BBC Breakfast news this morning, and it mentioned this story,  my immediate thought  was to check the calendar to see if today’s date wasn’t April the 1^st,  relieved that it wasn’t April the 1^st and somehow I hadn’t missed the last few months of my life,  and then feeling disappointed  that my dream that I was Dr Who was just a dream!,  I thought that this story was very clever and thought provoking,  well done to Real Donkeys of Blackpool and Barclaycard for introducing,  although I do feel it’s a marketing promotion.  

Your Personal Responsibility in Church Discipline

Your Personal Responsibility in Church Discipline

Jesus made it clear that the discipline process should always begin with a one-on-one encounter: “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private” (Matthew 18:15). Discipline is not instituted by a committee. If the offender repents, there is no need to involve others at all.

Discipline, if successful, both suppresses the effects of sin and limits the circle of knowledge. Far from broadcasting knowledge of someone’s sin unnecessarily, the discipline process confines knowledge of the offense as much as possible. In most cases, if repentance occurs early enough in the process, no one but the offender and the person who confronts ever needs to know about the offense.

Why Do We Put ‘Christian Celebrities’ on a Pedestal?, Charisma Magazine

Gungor. Vicky Beeching. Mark Driscoll. David Yonggi Cho. What do all these names have in common? Controversy.

Of course, a blogger like myself could not go silent on these issues.

When situations like this arise, we are challenged, confused, disillusioned. We often resort to bashing, freaking out, and being disgusted (or excited) when a Christian celebrity falls.

When I think of the aforementioned names, I think of children of God who followed the call of God, were used mightily by God, and are being honest with their struggles. Mistakes have been made; power has been abused. But that's no excuse to write people off.

An Issue of Worship

Allow me to issue a challenge—to you, to me. This is about worship. When situations like this arise, I wonder whom we are worshiping, what we're prioritizing. Our worship culture so often becomes a consumer game of digesting the latest, greatest songs and resources, idolizing the people who carry the gifts of God.

Read the full article here:

Profile: Danniella Westbrook

Profile: Danniella Westbrook

Don’t stare at her nose! That’s all that was running through my head as I prepared to chat with British actress Danniella Westbrook. It’s not often I’ve had to mentally prepare to avoid a social faux pas, but I’m sure I wasn’t alone with this one.

The child model turned actress was born in Walthamstow to a cab driver and a shop assistant and was brought up in Essex. Her parents supported their daughter’s ambitions by allowing her to attend the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School, and she found fame aged 16 playing Sam Mitchell in EastEnders, a role she would revisit intermittently for the next 20 years. She featured in many prominent storylines with her onscreen brothers, thugs Grant and Phil Mitchell, but it wasn’t this that made the headlines.

During the mid-90s Westbrook developed a severe cocaine habit, epitomised by pictures published in the press where it was evident that her nasal septum had been completely eroded. With grisly pleasure, the tabloids rejoiced in documenting the life of a young woman spiralling out of control. Pictures of Westbrook falling out of nightclubs and lying in gutters became standard gossip mag fodder. So in 2012, when she gave an exclusive interview to a British tabloid detailing her conversion to Christianity and newfound love for clean living, almost everyone did a double take. Of all the people to find God and turn their life around, she just seemed so unlikely.

So how did it all come about? My journey to find out was a somewhat arduous one. If her agent is to be believed, Westbook is a hard woman to pin down these days. The release of her new book, which openly documents her drug abuse and a gang rape as well as her conversion, has resulted in her becoming a born-again celebrity in high demand. After this difficulty, together with detailed requests for the provision of transport and a make-up artist (we were filming), I began to wonder what kind of person I would eventually meet.

The reality was a very petite individual, who arrived with no entourage and a very humble, relaxed and warm manner. She wore a crucifix and had the Bible verse Isaiah 54:17 tattooed on her wrist. ‘I always feel – especially coming from a working class background and being in the public eye – people judge, judge, judge and they use judgement as a weapon against people, to make them feel terrible about themselves,’ she explains. ‘So, for me [the verse says] “God’s there for you and no weapon formed against you shall prosper”. So that’s the Bible verse for me.’