Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

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 k...

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 thi...

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...

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...

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 det...

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...

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 breat...

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 sometim...

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’...

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...

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, wh...

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 t...

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...

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...

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. F...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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: aut...

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 s...

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 involv...

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...

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 mir...

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...