Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Proverbs 27:1 Don’t brag about tomorrow, since you don’t know what the day will bring. Life is so unpredictable that the encouragement to live for today has to be sound advice. We don’t know what today will contain, let alone tomorrow! Bragging about what is going to happen tomorrow has to be completely foolish. In his letter, James describes a cocky businessman who had decided that he was going t...

Proverbs 26:20 Fire goes out without wood, and quarrels disappear when gossip stops. These words couldn’t be more relevant to today’s world, in which gossip can be communicated faster than lightning. Words have always had the power to destroy, and many of the Proverbs focus on the danger of them being used carelessly. The trouble with words is that we all use so many of them, and it is easy for th...

Proverbs 26:17 Interfering in someone else’s argument is as foolish as yanking a dog’s ears. For nearly 16 years, we enjoyed the company of Zephyr, a beautiful yellow Labrador. When he joined us as a little puppy, our three children were all at home. For those years, he became every inch a member of the family. He was extraordinarily patient with us all, and if we accidentally knocked into him, he...

Daniel 10:18-19 Then the one who looked like a man touched me again, and I felt my strength returning. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “for you are very precious to God. Peace! Be encouraged! Be strong!” Daniel’s amazing courage comes across powerfully in this book. His willingness to face up to tyrannical kings and even hungry lions is very impressive, but that isn’t the whole story. We also meet Dan...

Daniel 9:5-6 But we have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations. We have refused to listen to your servants the prophets. As Daniel reflected on the history of his people, he realised that he needed to come to God with a prayer of confession. He knew that he was part of a nation that had rebelled against God for many centuries. Their history w...

Daniel 9:4 “O Lord, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfil your covenant and keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and obey your commands.” God gave Daniel a number of alarming visions. They left him confused and exhausted, and he felt sick for many days. The future was full of questions and threats, but things became clearer as he studied the prophecy of Jeremiah...

Daniel 6:10 But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God. When King Darius took over from King Nebuchadnezzar, he found Daniel to be a very effective administrator, so he gave him more and more responsibilities...

Daniel 4:27 [Daniel said:] “King Nebuchadnezzar, please accept my advice. Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper.” Daniel was an incredibly courageous person. He was talking to one of the most powerful people who had ever walked this earth and giving him some staggeringly bad news. He was telling King Ne...

Daniel 3:25 “Look!” Nebuchadnezzar shouted. “I see four men, unbound, walking around in the fire unharmed! And the fourth looks like a god!” Nebuchadnezzar was an incredibly powerful king, and he was used to getting his own way. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego defied his command to worship his vast golden statue, he was determined that they should suffer, and his fiery furnace seemed like a fa...

Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have se...

Daniel 2:47 The king said to Daniel: “Truly, your God is the greatest of gods, the Lord over kings, a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this secret.” This was quite a turnaround! One moment Daniel was being threatened with death and now, having revealed the meaning of his dream, King Nebuchadnezzar made him ruler of the province of Babylon. He showered him with expensive gift...

Daniel 2:44 During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered. It will crush all these kingdoms into nothingness, and it will stand forever. Thanks to God’s help, Daniel was able to tell King Nebuchadnezzar what he had dreamed and then interpret that dream as well. He said there would be four kingdoms, all of which gave an impressio...

Daniel 2:23 “I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded.” Daniel had been given an impossible job. Not only did he have to tell King Nebuchadnezzar the interpretation of his dream, but he had to inform the king what he had dreamed about in the first place! What made the matt...

Daniel 1:17 God gave Daniel the special ability to interpret the meanings of visions and dreams. The book of Daniel transports us to the time when Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, invaded Judah and took thousands of its residents into exile. This happened in the 6th century BC. God had clearly prophesied that this would happen if the people failed to obey him, and Babylon’s victory was utterly...

Psalm 68:28 Summon your might, O God. Display your power, O God, as you have in the past. There’s a Russian proverb which says: “Dwell in the past and you’ll lose an eye. Forget the past and you’ll lose both eyes.” This is particularly important for those who follow God because we learn so much about him from history. As we consider how he has led his people through thousands of years, we see his...

Psalm 66:1-2 Shout joyful praises to God, all the earth! Sing about the glory of his name! Tell the world how glorious he is. When we think about worship, we naturally focus on the church community we meet with regularly, and this is entirely understandable and deeply precious. We thank God for our brothers and sisters and the relationship we share with them. We need to be careful, however, becaus...

Psalm 65:9 You take care of the earth and water it, making it rich and fertile. The river of God has plenty of water; it provides a bountiful harvest of grain, for you have ordered it so. These days, less than two per cent of the population works in agriculture so, for most of us, harvesting feels a world away from our everyday lives. In pre-industrial society, most people were involved in agricul...

Psalm 63:1 O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water. This psalm was almost certainly penned by King David after he had fled from his son Absalom, who had attempted to take over his father’s throne. It was an agonising situation. Absalom was David’s third son and great favourite. He...

Psalm 62:10 If your wealth increases, don’t make it the centre of your life. The issue of wealth often comes up in the Bible. Psalm 112 gives an attractive picture of the person who follows the Lord. Such a person takes delight in the Lord’s commands and even in the darkness, the light shines for them. They are also described as wealthy and, at the same time, generous and compassionate. Everything...

Psalm 62:1-2 I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will never be shaken. What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in life? It may have been an illness, the death of someone who was close to you, the betrayal of a friend or the breakup of a relationship. In such moments, we desperately need to know where to turn. We need...

John 12:3 Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance. Mary’s anointing of Jesus was a beautiful act of devotion, but it is hard not to have at least some sympathy for Judas, who pointed out that the precious perfume would have cost the equivalent of one yea...

John 11:33-36 When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a deep anger welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. “Where have you put him?” he asked them. They told him: “Lord, come and see.” Then Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!” Very soon after this, Lazarus was brought back to life, but we shouldn’t rush past t...

John 11:25-26 Jesus told [Martha], “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.” Jesus had known for some days that Martha’s brother Lazarus was seriously ill, but he had not gone to them straight away. When he finally arrived in Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. Martha clear...

John 10:19-21 The people were again divided in their opinions about him. Some said, “He’s demon possessed and out of his mind. Why listen to a man like that?” Others said: “This doesn’t sound like a man possessed by a demon! Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” I am so grateful for the complete honesty of the Gospel writers. They were clearly deeply committed followers of Jesus, and it must ha...

John 10:14-15 “I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep.” Years ago, I read a book about Eleanor Philby, who was married to the spy Kim Philby. I was stunned to discover that Eleanor never had any idea her husband was a spy. That seemed incredible to me at the time, but the truth is that ou...