with the Rev Kevin Logan, Vicar of Christ Church, Accrington. . .

THE chief sub-editor on the Daily Mail made me an offer I couldn't refuse. It was an epiphany, a life-changing disclosure moment.

He'd get me a journalist post if I vacated the Daily Mail goalposts.

He fancied himself in the net but the gangling lad who brewed his tea (Editorial Assistant was my grand title) made better saves than he.

The dark deal was done, and I got a fail-safe reference for a junior reporting job light years from the Mail goalposts.

This was another epiphany for me, even more so for my editor. Hands that saved penalties with ease were all fingers and thumbs at writing.

My apprenticeship on births, deaths and marriages was long, but I survived without grave mix-ups. At least no bride died on my shift and no corpse was married off or born again.

Church jargon declares the first weeks of New Year Epiphany, referring to the greatest life-changing disclosure moment of history.

God showed by coming to earth in his Son that his good news of love was all embracing, and not just for a tiny Middle East group of Jews. The arrival on the nativity scene of three non-Jewish wise men proved that.

But it also is the epiphany of how we are saved. Christianity is not about what you do but who you know.

This is grossly unfair on earth, as my opening tale shows. But in heaven, it's the gospel truth and more than fair.

We can't be saved by what we do. Only knowing God and enjoying his amazing grace counts (Ephesians 2: 8 & 9)..