Name:
Daniel Lewis Hames

Date of birth:
2nd September 1984

The story:
I have 1 father, 1 mother, 2 sisters, 2 dogs. My parents and my sister Leah live and work in Israel, while I am at home with my other sister, Rachel, and our lodgers, Gareth and Ali. Having graduated from The University of Leicester, with a 2i (hons) BSc degree in Mass Communications & Society, I work as a Relay Intern with UCCF. I'm a Christian, a musician, a newspaper reader and tea drinker. I am involved in leading music groups at Holy Trinity, Leicester. I am a member of two bands Daylight (with Joel & Jonno Bright and Dan Carter) and The Uncertainty Principle, with my good friend Steve 'Ezbee' Bawden.



Interests:
Piano, guitar, singing, hymns, skiing, reading, theology, cinéma, tea, photography, rugby, country walks, travelling, poetry, food, drawing & designing, pipes, real ales, my family, my friends.

Films:
The Shawshank Redemption, Heat, Hot Shots, Memento, Unbreakable, The Matrix, Dead Man, Ronin, If...., The Bourne Identity, Nick of Time, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Lord of the Rings, Man on Fire, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Magnolia, Donnie Darko, The Manchurian Candidate, Napoleon Dynamite.

Music & poetry:
Coldplay, Doves, The Listening, Damien Rice, John Mayer, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Luna Halo, Pink Floyd, The Flaming Lips, The Violet Burning, The Postal Service, Delirious?, Nada Surf, Turin Brakes, Daylight, The Uncertainty Principle, Radiohead, Red Mountain Music, Drew Holcomb, Derek Webb, Bebo Norman, U2, Tom Slinger, Stephen Fretwell, Jeff Buckley, Sufjan Stevens, Steve Bawden, Griffin House, Jack Johnson, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, William Cowper, William Gadsby, Joseph Hart, George Herbert, King David, King Solomon.

Books:
The Pleasurs of God, Mere Christianity, The Knowledge of the Holy, The Cross of Christ, Future Grace, True Worship, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Cross Examined, Dig Deeper Schott's Orginal Miscellany, The Hardy Boys, Romans.

The big guns...
1. We are created and loved by God, designed to live in relastionship with him and under his rightful rule
2. We are by nature rebellious against His rightful authority, and have done wrong things that seperate us from Him

The Bible says that all of us are cold towards God and live as if he is not in charge: we have done things that seperate us from him. He is a perfect holy God, who, though always loving, is also just. He does not tolerate the rebellion and we stage against him, and rightly is angry at the way we have 'de-Godded' him. As his creation, made to be dependent on him, made to love him and worship him, we are subject to punishment for the way we live. God's anger against this 'sin' isn't a boiling rage, but a settled opposition to what is wrong that arises from his unique holiness and moral perfection. He cannot stand the presence of evil in the universe he created. The punishment we deserve is death; physical and spiritual. The physical death is something we will all one day face, and the spiritual death comes afterwards. It constitues an eternity away from God- the total absence of any good and the certainty of eternal suffering as we bear the only fair penalty for what we have done.

The biggest problem human kind will ever face is not AIDS, not global warming, not terrorism. It's God.
Yet in a mind-blowing twist in the tale, God himself steps-in to remedy the desperate state of his creation.

In His love, He sent Jesus Christ His Son to pay the penalty for my rebellion so that I might be freed from the judgement I deserve. On a cross in Israel 2000 years ago He was willingly crucified, and in taking my place He changed my relationship to God forever. He absorbed all God's anger against me, He made me legally right in God's eyes, He bought me from the kingdom of the devil and into God's kingdom, He reconciled me to God so that I can now call Him "Father". I am no longer an ememy of God, but a son. The sin that should be counted against me has been punished as if it had been done by Jesus. And God offers this way out for free- in fact the Bible says he loves to give it, because his very nature is to love all those he has made. Christians call this 'grace', and it simply menas the undeserved favour we can now enjoy from God. This grace, and this fantastic news that announces the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation is called the gospel.

Having trusted that the gospel is true, and grasped the grace of God, I can live in a relationship with the one who died in my place and the holy judge who by rights should have condemned me. I can know the love of God in my life, and I find that I begin to feel real love towards him too.

A hymn by W Vernon Higham says this:
Great is the gospel of our glorious God,
Where mercy met the anger of God’s rod;
A penalty was paid and pardon bought,
And sinners lost at last to Him were brought:
O let the praises of my heart be Thine,
For Christ has died that I may call Him mine,
That I may sing with those who dwell above,
Adoring, praising Jesus, King of love.

Or Charles Wesley says the same thing this way:
Jesus speaks and pleads His blood
He disarms the wrath of God
Now my Father's mercies move, justice lingers into love
There for me the Saviour stands
Shows His wounds and spreads His hands
God is love! I know, I feel
Jesus weeps and love me still

There is no other way to avoid punishment, there is no surer hope and there is no better life than knowing and experiencing the love of God, King of creation and the one who made us for himself.

For more, see:
Christianity Explored
Two Ways To Live
Or e-mail me.