Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 Dear brothers and sisters, honour those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance. Show them great respect and wholehearted love because of their work. Leaders were appointed from the earliest days of the Church. Paul knew that it could only thrive if it had committed, loving, and wise leaders, so in every place he sou...

1 Thessalonians 5:5-6 You are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. When I was in my teens, I did a fascinating six-week course at a local fire station. Because it was held over a number of weeks, I got to know the firefighters and became familiar with the atmosphere of the st...

1 Thessalonians 4:15,18 We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died…So encourage each other with these words. The Thessalonian church lived with the expectation that Jesus might return at any moment. This inevitably triggered lots of questions. It did so then and has done so ever since. The particular issue t...

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. Then people who are not believers will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others. These are fascinating verses. Paul urged his hearers to strive eagerly to live quiet lives. The Greek literally means “seek restlessly to b...

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honour— not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways. Life in Thessalonica in the 1st century would have been massively different from our life today. And yet I have no doubt that if the apostle Paul were to write a...

1 Thessalonians 3:7-8 We have been greatly encouraged in the midst of our troubles and suffering, dear brothers and sisters, because you have remained strong in your faith. It gives us new life to know that you are standing firm in the Lord. Paul knew that it was going to be really tough for the Thessalonian church. He had warned them that there would be great difficulties to come and had clearly...

1 Thessalonians 2:4-5 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. Paul often faced accusations. He was accused of acting out of self-interest, of being deceitful and all manner of other things. He knew that the w...

1 Thessalonians 2:1 You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. The church in Thessalonica certainly knew that Paul’s visit to their city had not been a failure. But on the face of it, it hadn’t gone very well. It ended up with Paul and Silas being bundled out of the city in a hurry because of the threat from the mob. It must have left them feeling very...

1 Thessalonians 1:10 And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven—Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment. When I was preparing for the eleven-plus English exam I came up with a really impressive expression that I made use of, whatever the essay title. It was “with eager anticipation”. Wh...

1 Thessalonians 1:8 And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. Paul’s first visit to Thessalonica began well and a number of people decided to follow Jesus (see Acts 17:1-8). But, as was so often the case, his success caused jealousy among the local Jews who were...

1 Thessalonians 1:2-3 We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly. As we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul had great affection for the Christians in what we would now call northern Greece. He had spent time with them and knew them well. He therefore knew t...

Psalm 37:16-17 It is better to be godly and have little than to be evil and rich. For the strength of the wicked will be shattered, but the LORD takes care of the godly. The Old Testament has no problem with wealth; many of its stars were incredibly rich – think of Abraham, Job, David and Solomon. Indeed, wealth is seen as a sign of God’s blessing. But if you’ve got to choose between having wealth...

Psalm 37:1-3 Don’t worry about the wicked or envy those who do wrong. For like grass, they soon fade away. Like spring flowers, they soon wither. Trust in the LORD and do good. Then you will live safely in the land and prosper. Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you your heart’s desires. I have worn glasses since I was a little boy. Without them life is just a blurry jumble of images and m...

Psalm 36:5-7 Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths. You care for people and animals alike, O LORD. How precious is your unfailing love, O God! Do you remember the first time you heard someone tell you that they loved you? Perhaps it was your parents or...

Psalm 35:17-18 How long, O Lord, will you look on and do nothing? Rescue me from their fierce attacks. Protect my life from these lions! Then I will thank you in front of the great assembly. I will praise you before all the people. Have you ever felt that the Lord has completely forgotten about you? Perhaps you have seen God blessing all the people around you, and you are wondering when it’s going...

Psalm 35:1-2 O LORD, oppose those who oppose me. Fight those who fight against me. Put on your armour and take up your shield. Prepare for battle and come to my aid. This is an agonising psalm, written when David was in a deep hole. He had been the victim of cruel injustice and appealed to God to help him. We feel his deep anguish and pain not least because, sadly, injustice happens in every gener...

Matthew 14:29-30 So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted. It was about 3am when this event took place. The disciples were in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and had been battling with a major storm. Then suddenly a stranger appeared to them walking on th...

Matthew 14:23 After sending them home, he went up into the hills by himself to pray. Night fell while he was there alone. Finally, at the end of an exhausting day that had seen more than 5,000 people miraculously fed, Jesus had time to be alone with his Father. There’s no doubt that he had planned for this to have happened some hours earlier but now, at last, the time had come. It’s interesting to...

Matthew 14:17 “But we have only five loaves of bread and two fish!” [the disciples] answered. Jesus had just told his disciples to feed the vast crowd. They were understandably overwhelmed by the challenge. How on earth were they going to do it? They pointed out the absurdity of the situation. Anyone could see that they couldn’t possibly feed the thousands of hungry people with such meagre resourc...

Matthew 14:15-16 That evening the disciples came to Jesus and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the villages and buy food for themselves.” But Jesus said, “That isn’t necessary—you feed them.” You can’t blame the disciples. They were probably exhausted trying to keep up with Jesus, who always seemed to have energy to minister to pe...

Matthew 14:13-14 As soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone. But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick. The background to this story is the gruesome murder of John the Baptist. Herod Antipas was the ruler of Galilee at t...

Matthew 13:54-55 [Jesus] returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?” Then they scoffed, “He’s just the carpenter’s son.” I suspect that we have all known the hurt of being put down by somebody. People’s cruel words often disfigure a person’s life. This may not have been the in...

Matthew 13:52 Then [Jesus] added, “Every teacher of religious law who becomes a disciple in the Kingdom of Heaven is like a homeowner who brings from his storeroom new gems of truth as well as old.” When I was nine or ten years old, one of the great delights of my life was to visit my grandmother’s house. She lived quite close to our family home and I was allowed to go and see her whenever I liked...

Matthew 13:45-46 “Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great value, he sold everything he owned and bought it!” In the ancient world, pearls were prized as highly as gold. Even today the most valuable pearls can be worth millions of pounds. Their beauty has always attracted interest. In Jesus’ time, pearls were mainly found...

Matthew 13:31-32 Here is another illustration Jesus used: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.” This is one of the most famous of Jesus’ parables and the point is clear. Often the kingdom of heaven expresses itself in small...