Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Proverbs 25:18 NLT 'Telling lies about others is as harmful as hitting them with an axe, wounding them with a sword, or shooting them with a sharp arrow.' Lying is a terrible business and the writer of Proverbs captures its awful destructiveness. It is a very tempting route when the truth is hard to face and passing it on feels impossibly difficult. The temptation is to at least massage the truth,...

Proverbs 25.16 NLT 'Do you like honey? Don’t eat too much, or it will make you sick!' We can always trust the writer of Proverbs to give us sound advice! His purpose is to help us live life to the full, and to avoid the many traps that lie in wait for us every single day. One of those traps is overeating. He draws attention to honey, which is undoubtedly good but, like everything else, is only goo...

2 Corinthians 13.14 NLT 'May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.' As Paul concludes this tough letter in which he has responded to fierce criticism of his ministry, he ends by blessing the church in Corinth. These beautiful words are ones that are repeated millions of times every year as Christians meet together. They are the...

2 Corinthians 12.9-10 NLT The Lord said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. The apostle Paul revealed that he s...

2 Corinthians 10.3-4 NLT 'We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.' Paul was under attack from people within the church in Corinth. There was a view among some of them that he was quite timid when he was with them in person but extremely bold when he was away...

2 Corinthians 9.10-11 NLT 'For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous.' I am sure that we can all think of moments when we have been really generous, and times when other people...

2 Corinthians 9.7 NLT You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” Some years ago, I was involved with the setting up of a new hospice. There was a desperate need to raise funds and, although I had never done such a thing before, I offered to organise a house-to-house collection. I recruit...

2 Corinthians 9.6 NLT 'Remember this—a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop.' The law of the harvest is easy to understand. In short you reap what you sow. If you are miserly with your giving, you need to be prepared for a deeply disappointing harvest. However, if you give generously, you can be sure of an amazing crop...

2 Corinthians 8.20-21 NLT 'We are traveling together to guard against any criticism for the way we are handling this generous gift. We are careful to be honourable before the Lord, but we also want everyone else to see that we are honourable.' Paul had spent some time encouraging people to give money towards a collection that would help the Christians in Judaea who had suffered a severe famine. He...

2 Corinthians 8.11-12 NLT 'Give in proportion to what you have. Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have.' People often ask what amount of money they should give to the Lord and I think Paul’s words here are incredibly helpful. It is more than likely that the majority of people in the Corinthian church were quite poor and...

2 Corinthians 8.10-11 NLT 'Here is my advice: It would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago. Last year you were the first who wanted to give, and you were the first to begin doing it. Now you should finish what you started. Let the eagerness you showed in the beginning be matched now by your giving.' Does any of this ring a bell with you? It certainly does with me! We begin to do...

2 Corinthians 8.9 NLT 'You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich.' The Christian life is, before anything else, characterised by giving. Because that’s how Jesus lived. As we follow in his footsteps, our lives need to be shaped by giving generously. His generosity was so complete that h...

2 Corinthians 8.7 NLT 'Since you excel in so many ways— in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge, your enthusiasm, and your love — I want you to excel also in this gracious act of giving.' This is a remarkable verse. The two letters that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth lift the lid on a community which was very divided, disorganised in its worship and in which there were serious dis...

Psalm 101.1-2 NLT 'I will sing of your love and justice, Lord. I will praise you with songs. I will be careful to live a blameless life— when will you come to help me? I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.' This is one of David’s psalms and we hear him as he here reflects on his responsibility as king to care for the whole of society and to ensure that justice prevails. The final verse o...

Psalm 98.7-9 NLT 'Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! Let the earth and all living things join in. Let the rivers clap their hands in glee! Let the hills sing out their songs of joy before the Lord for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with justice, and the nations with fairness.' When we think about praising God we will naturally think of people joining toget...

Psalm 98.1 NLT 'Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has done wonderful deeds. His right hand has won a mighty victory; his holy arm has shown his saving power!' I love the fact that God’s people through thousands of years have enjoyed singing. The psalmist had a very clear reason for encouraging the people to sing, and that was because of God’s salvation. Throughout his dealings with his people, h...

Psalm 97.10 NLT 'You who love the Lord, hate evil! He protects the lives of his godly people and rescues them from the power of the wicked.' One of the signs that we truly love God is that we start to hate evil. That kind of burning hatred is critically important, because the many great evils in the world will never come to an end unless people start hating them. The evil transatlantic slave trade...

Daniel 10.18-19 NLT 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...

Daniel 9.5-6 NLT '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. He recogn...

Daniel 9.4 NLT “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 Jeremi...

Daniel 6.10 NLT '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 and so gave him more and more responsibil...

Daniel 4.27 NLT 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, and here’s the proof! He was talking to one of the most powerful people who has ever walked this earth and giving him some staggeringly bad news...

Daniel 3.25 NLT “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...

Daniel 3.16-18 NLT Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego declared, “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 ha...

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 makes him ruler of the province of Babylon. At the same time, he showers him w...