Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Psalm 142:1-2 I cry aloud to the Lord; I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble. This psalm was written by David as he reflected on the experience of hiding from his enemies in a cave. This happened on two occasions. Firstly in Adullam, and secondly in En-gedi. On both occasions he was being threatened by King Saul, who was eager to kill him. There’s no way of knowing which occasion he was thinking about when he wrote this psalm, but it doesn’t matt...

Psalm 141:5 Let a righteous man strike me – that is a kindness; let him rebuke me – that is oil on my head. This verse reminds us of the teaching of Proverbs where it says: “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses” (Proverbs 27:5-6). These words are no doubt wise, but that doesn’t mean it is easy when somebody tells us that we have gone wrong. It might prove to be soothing medicine in the end but, at the time, it can really hurt. In Ephesians 4, Paul reflected on the fact t...

Psalm 141:3-4 Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers; do not let me eat their delicacies. David knew that his worship couldn’t stand apart from everyday life. If he worshipped God, he knew it had to affect the way in which he spoke to other people. He knew that he needed God to take control of his speech and to set a guard on his lips. Th...

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. One of the reasons many people love to read daily newspapers is to find out what terrible things other people do in order to feel a little bit better about themselves. I won’t ask you whether that has ever been your motivation! In this psalm, David reflected on the wickedness of other people. He expressed his hatred of people who hated God. But he didn’t hide from...

Psalm 139:13-14 You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Our bodies are simply amazing. Here are a few random facts: every second, our bodies produce 25 million new cells; the tongue is covered in about 8,000 tastebuds, each containing up to 100 cells helping us to taste our food; the entire surface of our skin is replaced every month; if we live to 70, our heart will have enjoyed about 2.5 million heart beats; the human brain possesses about 100 bi...

Psalm 139:1-2 You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. We are incredibly sensitive these days about protecting our personal data. Quite rightly, we don’t want everyone to know everything about us. We’ve likely all had the experience of getting emails and letters from organisations who know far more about us than we would want. However, this psalm reveals with breathtaking clarity that there is someone who knows absolutely everything about us – and I mean absolutely everything! God knows not just our name...

Psalm 138:8 The Lord will vindicate me; your love, Lord, endures forever – do not abandon the works of your hands. When you sing about or listen to a sermon on the subject of guidance, it can often sound very straightforward. But life rarely runs in a straight line, and King David, who wrote this psalm, was definitely aware of that. He got himself into endless scrapes and was always up against determined opposition. He was never without external enemies, but in addition there were often many within Israel, and even within his own family, who were determined to bring him down. He...

James 5:19-20 My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins. Churches are not made up of perfect people. Far from it! This surprises those who assume Christians live lives of near perfection. For such people there is great consternation when the organist goes off with the youth leader, or the treasurer embezzles the church’s money. We should always be shocked and disappointed by su...

James 5:16b The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Some years ago I contracted whooping cough. To be honest, I thought it was only something children got and was amazed when my GP told me I had caught it. From time to time over a number of weeks I struggled to breathe. The worst episodes were in the middle of the night, and I will never forget those desperate attempts to breathe which ended in the ‘whoop’ as air finally, slowly and painfully returned to my lungs. Breathing is essential to life, and I now have a new...

James 5:16a Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. How are you? I wonder how you normally respond to that question. Probably, like most of us, you smile sweetly and summarise your life with one word: “Fine”. It’s a good word and if it’s true, that’s wonderful, and one can only hope that it will continue to be the case. But, if we’re honest, it is sometimes the word we use to push people away. What we’re actually saying is: “It’s none of your business. Leave me...

James 5:14-15 Is anyone among you ill? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Jesus was both a healer and a teacher. You cannot divide up His ministry. He ministered to the whole range of people’s needs – body, mind and spirit. When Jesus left this earth, He commissioned the Church to carry on with that ministry, and here...

James 5:13 Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. I once heard a well-known preacher tell the story of a young woman who said she often didn’t feel like praying. His response was that prayer is not a glandular condition! Prayer is something we need to do whatever our feelings. That’s precisely the point that James is making here. In short, it’s always the right time to pray – whether you are going through a good or a bad time. God doesn’t want us to pray as if we need...

James 5:12 Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear – not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No”. Otherwise you will be condemned. James isn’t talking here about bad language but about the very common practice at the time of trying to strengthen a statement by taking an oath. Jews made a distinction between oaths made in the name of God, which could never be broken, and other oaths that didn’t mention God, which could be broken. James encourages his readers to make life much easier by simp...

James 5:11 As you know, we count as blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job’s perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about. The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. We don’t know exactly what James’ readers were facing, but clearly it was tough for them to live as Christians. They needed to persevere. Amid all the temptations, distractions and persecution that they were facing, they needed to hang in there for God. This is precisely what Job had done when he had lost his children, his possessions and his health. He could so eas...

James 5:9 Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door! The Bible introduces us to lots of grumbling people. Most famously we hear the people of Israel having a whinge after God had miraculously led them out of slavery in Egypt. They had been there for 400 years and, at last, had been set free by the mighty hand of God. The yoke of oppression had been broken and they were now able to enjoy the sweet taste of freedom. But almost immediately their response was to grumble because th...

James 5:7-8 Be patient, then, brothers and sisters, until the Lord’s coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains. You too, be patient and stand firm, because the Lord’s coming is near. Waiting sounds easy until you have to do it! As we all know, waiting can be incredibly difficult and demanding, especially if you don’t know how long you are going to have to wait for. Waiting for medical test results, or for a member of the family to make contact or for so...

James 5:1-2 Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. You can almost see the steam coming out of James’ ears, can’t you? He is furious at the way in which the rich people are abusing their position. His very specific gripe is that they have failed to pay their workmen for mowing their fields. For James, this isn’t a little economic problem. This is an evil that has reached the ears of God Himself, and the rich people are he...

James 4:13-14 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. We are constantly encouraged to plan for the future. Whether we are looking at our family, our housing, our holidays or our pensions, we are under continual pressure to make good plans. I don’t think James is telling his readers not to do any planni...

James 4:7-8 Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Life can often feel like a battleground. There is great evil in the world, and any newspaper will illustrate that in agonising detail. But there is also immense kindness and goodness all around if we have the eyes to see it. Daily life can often feel like a pitched battle between good and evil. James is concerned that his readers should make good decisions as they live...

James 4:6-7 Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favour to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Did you know that God is capable of hatred? Perhaps you think God is so nice that He couldn’t bring Himself to hate anything. However, the Bible is quite clear that God seethes with hatred at times. In Proverbs 6:16, we learn that God hates seven things, and top of the list is pride. God’s problem with pride is that it is a complete rejection of Him. The proud person doesn’t have any need for God but lives a life in de...

James 4:2-3 You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. Dream for a moment. If you could have anything in the world, what would you choose? A beautiful large home; a yacht; a luxurious holiday; perfect health; world peace? Read on its own, James 4:2 suggests that we just need to ask God and we will get it, but verse 3 makes it clear that we need to ask with the right motive. That means God loves...

James 3:17-18 The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness. Many churches observe that they have very few people in their 20s and 30s. Whenever I’ve asked people in that age group what they are looking for, one theme dominates: authenticity. They are looking for Christians and churches which ring true because they practise what they preach. James was on exactly the same page and was ruthless in addressing those who say the ri...

James 3:3-5 When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue is incredibly powerful. I recall the story of a young man who had shared some gossip about...

James 2:15-17 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. You’ve probably noticed that Christians use a lot of words! Preaching, singing, praying and fellowship all involve oceans of words, and that’s fine – as long as those words also translate into action. You can preach the finest sermon, sing the most beautiful worship so...

James 2:1 My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism. Do you have any favourites? Or do you look at other people in exactly the same way whatever their age, education, wealth, beauty, race or religion, irrespective of whether you know them or not? The first question suddenly got more difficult, didn’t it? We would all be keen to claim that we don’t have favourites, but James points out to his readers that favouritism very easily creeps into our thinking. James describes an agonising situation that could occur in a local church. An o...

James 1:23-24 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like I love the way James writes, but I’m not sure he would make easy company. He is so incredibly blunt! Here he makes the obvious but powerful point that there would be no use in looking in a mirror if it didn’t cause you to do something as a result. If you learn that your hair looks a comp...

James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. Life constantly throws challenges at us. How should I be spending my time and money? Should I move to a different job? How can I resolve the dispute that I’ve got with my neighbour? Should I tell my colleague that he’s annoying me? How should I go about telling my daughter that I think she’s seeing the wrong people? And 1,000 other questions! The Bible focuses a lot of attention on the subjec...

James 1:2-3 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Having problems, trials and difficulties hardly sounds like the best way to create joy – let alone pure joy! So what is James talking about? He’s taking his readers to the heart of the Christian faith, which turns everything upside down. James is not saying that when we face difficulties it’s a bundle of fun. He is speaking to people who knew what it was to suffer for their faith, and he wan...

Psalm 137:3-4 Our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!” How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land? This is an agonising psalm. The people are in exile far from their homes. Sitting by the rivers of Babylon, they were about 1,000 miles from their beloved Jerusalem. In their misery, they couldn’t bring themselves to make music, so they hung up their harps on the branches of poplar trees. However, the local people insisted that they wanted to hear their happy...

Psalm 136:1-3 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods. His love endures forever. Give thanks to the Lord of lords: His love endures forever. Those are just the first three verses of this psalm. It has 26 verses in all, and they all end with the refrain “His love endures forever.” You have to feel that the psalmist is trying to make a point! During the psalm, he points to the wonder of God’s creation and the way He had helped the people of Israel through their turbul...

Psalm 133:1-2 How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity! It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe. It’s always inspiring to see unity at work. Whatever the organisation, it is encouraging to see a group of people working effectively and happily together. Whether it’s a football team, a school, business, family or church, it is a blessing to see everyone working together in harmony. The thought of anointing oil being poured over a person...

Psalm 132:3-5 [David vowed:] “I will not enter my house or go to my bed, I will allow no sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids, till I find a place for the LORD, a dwelling for the Mighty One of Jacob.” When David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel, it was a major political event. However, for him it was far more than a political moment. David saw the city as a spiritual centre for the nation. This would be the place where people would come to worship, so the first need was to bring the ark of t...

Psalm 131:1-2 My heart is not proud, LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. CH Spurgeon, the great Victorian Baptist preacher, commented that this is “one of the shortest psalms to read but one of the longest to learn”. Learning to be humble is so tough that anyone who claims to have achieved it has a very long way to go! Humility is a wond...

Psalm 130:3-4 If you, LORD, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you. One day in 1738, John Wesley reluctantly attended a Christian meeting In Aldersgate Street, London. He was feeling thoroughly depressed, but during the meeting someone read from Martin Luther’s Preface to the letter of St Paul to the Romans and Wesley felt that his heart was “strangely warmed”. He saw this as the moment when he truly trusted in Christ alone. What is less well known is that, later that same day, Wesley...

Acts 28:30-31 For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ – with all boldness and without hindrance! Paul’s journey to Rome was an amazing adventure. It was long and difficult, and during it, he and his companions survived a shipwreck. We would love to know far more details but now, in these final verses of Acts, we find Paul settled into a house in Rome. We are informed that he was guarded by a soldier, so h...

Acts 24:24-25 Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. As Paul talked about righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, “That’s enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.” Here we meet Paul on the Mediterranean coast in Caesarea, the regional centre of Roman authority. After the plot to kill Paul in Jerusalem, the apostle was brought before Governor Felix. What I love about our verses...

Acts 23:11 The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.” Paul was going through an incredibly difficult time. His arrival in Jerusalem had sparked a riot and the Roman authorities struggled to know what to do with him. They didn’t know how to handle religious disputes, so they tried to hand the matter over to the Jewish council. However, when Paul appeared before them, the meeting soon descended into chaos. The Roman commander who was watching the proceedings thought that Paul was in...

Acts 22:1-2 [Paul said:] “Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defence.” When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Paul faced intense hostility when he reached Jerusalem. People had heard reports of his ministry among the Gentiles, and he was accused of telling people to disobey the Jewish laws. A riot broke out and the crowd demanded that Paul should be killed. The commander of the Roman regiment was informed that the city was in uproar, so he sent his troops to get hold of Paul. After some confusion, Paul asked the military commander for...

Acts 21:13 Then Paul answered, “Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” There was no stopping Paul! He was absolutely determined to go to Jerusalem, and no one was able to stand in his way. That’s not to say they didn’t try. When he arrived in Tyre in Syria, he spent a week with the believers there and they prophesied that he shouldn’t go to Jerusalem. Some days later, he went down the coast to the important...

Acts 20:36-38 When Paul had finished speaking, he knelt down with all of them and prayed. They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him. What grieved them most was his statement that they would never see his face again. There was clearly a very strong bond between Paul and the Ephesian elders, and this moment of parting was painful. Paul had an absolute conviction in the wonderful future that God had for him. He often spoke with great confidence about the afterlife. Even so, this moment of departure was sad, and the tears flowed. We shouldn’t be af...