Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Isaiah 40:28-29 Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. It was Samuel Butler, the 19th-century author, who observed: “Life is one long process of getting tired.” However young and fit you...

Isaiah 40:25-26 “To whom will you compare me? Who is my equal?” asks the Holy One. “Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.” I have never studied astronomy but I find the scale of the universe totally mind boggling. Light trav...

Isaiah 40:3-5 Listen! It’s the voice of someone shouting, “Clear the way through the wilderness for the LORD! Make a straight highway through the wasteland for our God! Fill in the valleys, and level the mountains and hills. Straighten the curves, and smooth out the rough places. Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together.” I’m no lover of airports, but I do l...

Isaiah 40:1-2 “Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Tell her that her sad days are gone and her sins are pardoned.” We all make mistakes, but some have far greater impact than others. Many mistakes are of minor importance, and are soon forgotten, but others can change the whole direction of life from that moment. The people of Jerusalem and Judah had made a lon...

Psalm 47:1-2 Come, everyone! Clap your hands! Shout to God with joyful praise! For the LORD Most High is awesome. He is the great King of all the earth. Clapping uses no words but conveys very powerful messages. There is all the difference in the world between clapping that is dutiful and polite, and clapping that is enthusiastic and heart-felt. I am glad that the Bible encourages us to clap preci...

Psalm 46:1-2 God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea. When disaster strikes it’s often without warning. A death, a car accident, a serious illness or a fall. Although such events come without announcement they can, in an instant, completely change the shape of our lives. In those mome...

Psalm 42:11 Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Saviour and my God! We all face times of discouragement, when nothing seems to be going right, as it’s an inevitable part of the ups and downs of life. But sometimes those times of discouragement can dominate all our thinking; that is clearly how it was for the psalmist. He reflects that...

Psalm 42:1-2 As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him? Having spent a couple of years in India, I am very familiar with the challenges of living with intense heat. One lesson I learned very swiftly is that you need to carry a drink with you at all times. But, inevitably, I sometimes forgot. I can remember...

Psalm 40:1-2 I waited patiently for the LORD to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. I was born and brought up in Westcliff-on-Sea in Essex on the Thames Estuary. As a boy I loved exploring the coast, which is well known for its generous expanses of mud!...

Psalm 39:4-5 Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered— how fleeting my life is. You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath. I will never forget the moment. I was 17 years old and a friend of mine asked me: “Have you heard about Luke?” I hadn’t. Luke was alw...

Psalm 38:4-9 My guilt overwhelms me—it is a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and stink because of my foolish sins. I am bent over and racked with pain. All day long I walk around filled with grief. A raging fever burns within me, and my health is broken. I am exhausted and completely crushed. My groans come from an anguished heart. You know what I long for, Lord; you hear my every sigh....

Luke 2:29-32 Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you have promised. I have seen your salvation, which you have prepared for all people. He is a light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel! Eight days after Jesus’ birth, his parents took him to the temple for his circumcision. There is no suggestion that the people of Jerusalem understood the sign...

Luke 2:19 Mary kept all these things in her heart and thought about them often. This sentence is what I would call a piece of considerable understatement! Mary had just given birth to the Messiah. She certainly had plenty to think about! Older versions of the Bible translate this verse as: “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (NIV). What had happened to Mary was a tu...

Luke 2:16-18 The shepherds “hurried to the village and found Mary and Joseph. And there was the baby, lying in the manger. After seeing him, the shepherds told everyone what had happened and what the angel had said to them about this child. All who heard the shepherds’ story were astonished.” Just imagine if this was happening now. Bethlehem would be swamped with news reporters and film crews, and...

Luke 2:8-9 That night there were shepherds staying in the fields nearby, guarding their flocks of sheep. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord appeared among them, and the radiance of the Lord’s glory surrounded them. Of all the many surprises in the Christmas story, this is one of the greatest. We have long since got used to the fact that the birth of Jesus was announced to shepherds, but they were sure...

Luke 2:5-7 Mary gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. In a few brief verses, Luke summarises the birth of Jesus. Brief as they are, Luke offers us more details than any other Gospel writer. After placing the birth of Jesus within Roman and Jewish history, we are given some very specific...

Luke 2:1-3 At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. I am delighted that, in our highly secular society, Christmas still has a very special place. No one could possibly miss the fact that it...

Luke 1:76-77 And you, my little son, will be called the prophet of the Most High, because you will prepare the way for the Lord. You will tell his people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins. Have you ever lost your voice? I’ve had many sore throats and, at times, have had difficulty speaking. But only once have I lost my voice completely. It lasted for around two weeks and it w...

Luke 1:51-53 His mighty arm has done tremendous things! He has scattered the proud and haughty ones. He has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands. As Mary praises God that she is going to give birth to his Son, she takes us right to the heart of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus didn’t come merely to r...

Luke 1:46-49 Mary responded, “Oh, how my soul praises the Lord. How my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour! For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and from now on all generations will call me blessed. For the Mighty One is holy, and he has done great things for me.” What an incredible moment this was for Mary! How could anyone put into words the overwhelming joy and privilege of being called...

Luke 1:38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” We know the story of Jesus’ miraculous birth so well that we often have to work really hard to imagine how completely incredible this moment was for Mary. She was probably a teenager, and may well never have travelled outside of the rural Galilee region where she was born. The news that she was go...

Luke 1:14 An angel of the Lord prophesied to Zechariah concerning the birth of his son, John the Baptist. “You will have great joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the eyes of the Lord.” This was the greatest day in Zechariah’s life. Being a male descendant of Aaron, he was a priest, which was a great privilege. However, it is suggested that there might hav...

Matthew 1:22-23 All of this occurred to fulfil the Lord’s message through his prophet: “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’” Loneliness is one of the greatest problems of our society today - and it is on the increase. This matters because loneliness is incredibly dangerous. It increases the risk of dea...

Matthew 1:21 “And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Naming a child is a huge moment for parents. If you have ever had that privilege, I am sure you will remember the conversations about the various possibilities. You might have considered names that were particularly important in your family, or names that you simply liked. But, knowi...

Matthew 1:20 As Joseph considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit.” This account is so familiar to us that we need to take a moment to try to imagine what the experience must have been like for Joseph. In all probability, he was a man...