Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Matthew 7.11 NLT 'If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.' Some years ago I was travelling on a bus in Israel and heard some amazing pan- pipe music. I spoke to the driver and told him how much I enjoyed it. Without a moment’s hesitation he took the cassette tape out of the machine and handed i...

Matthew 7.3 NLT “Why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?” This comical illustration is taken from the carpenter’s workshop and Jesus uses it to press home his teaching about being critical. It’s so easy to spot the shortcomings of other people. Jesus isn’t suggesting that their inadequacies aren’t real. They do indeed get lots of things wrong. But Jesus encour...

Matthew 6.26-27 NLT 'Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?' The most useless thing that you can say to a person who is worrying is, “Don’t worry.” No doubt it is meant kindly but you are actually increasing the person’s...

Matthew 6.20-21 NLT 'Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.' What matters most to you in your life? It could be any number of things – your family, possessions, relationships, career, hobby, sport, reputation, political convictions or your faith. The point t...

Matthew 6.16-17 NLT 'And when you fast, don’t make it obvious, as the hypocrites do, for they try to look miserable and dishevelled so people will admire them for their fasting. I tell you the truth, that is the only reward they will ever get. But when you fast, comb your hair and wash your face.' Fasting formed a significant part of Jewish life. Solemn fasts were held every year on particular day...

Matthew 6.13 NLT 'Don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.' When we prayed for our sins to be forgiven and for us to forgive others we were looking to the past. Now the Lord’s Prayer looks to the future. Once again the prayer is fiercely realistic. Although we have had the privilege of our sins being forgiven, we haven’t overcome the problem of sin. Every day we will stil...

Matthew 6.12 NLT 'Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us.' The Lord’s Prayer has its feet firmly planted on the ground! It talks about our everyday life and here it faces up to the horrible but undeniable fact that sin forms a big part of our lives. But here’s the good news. Through our faith in Jesus, sin is no longer an overwhelming problem. Before we met Jesus sin def...

Matthew 6.11 NLT 'Give us today the food we need.' Have you ever wondered why we ask God for food on a daily basis? Why not ask him to supply us for a week or even a month? It’s a perfectly sensible question and the answer is clearly that God wants a relationship with us. He wants us to live in continual partnership with him. Every day we need to turn to him to obtain the nourishment that we need....

Matthew 6.10 NLT 'May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.' The Lord’s Prayer, in common with the whole of Jesus’ ministry, is focused on the Kingdom of God. So we need to have a very clear idea what this kingdom is. In essence, the Kingdom of God comes wherever God is recognised as King. When his rule is accepted, the results will be immediately seen because...

Matthew 6.9 NLT 'Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.' The Lord’s Prayer is a wonderful model prayer and has been central to Christian worship from the earliest days. In the previous verse Jesus told his disciples that they didn’t need to inform God of anything in their prayers, because he already knows everything. Here he spells out what they should pray about. In the...

Matthew 6.7-8 NLT 'When you pray, don’t babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, for your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him!' Prayer is often described as being like talking to a friend. There is much that is right about that description apart from the fact that God is to...

Matthew 6.6 NLT 'But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.' Jesus was reacting against the people who made a great show of their praying. They prayed in the synagogues and at street corners because they were looking for an audience. Jesus obviously wasn’t saying that it was wrong to...

Matthew 6.3-4 NLT 'When you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.' Is there anything worse than hypocrisy? Jesus certainly hated it and had the harshest things to say about the hypocrites of his day. He wanted everyone to have the joy of a real relationship with their...

Psalm 68.28 NLT '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.” That’s a wise saying in any context but it is particularly important for those who follow God because we learn so much about him from history. As we look back at the way in which...

Psalm 66.1-2 NLT '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 will naturally focus on the church community with which we meet regularly. That’s not only entirely understandable but deeply precious. We thank God for our brothers and sisters and the relationship that we share with them. But we need t...

Psalm 65.9 NLT '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 percent of the population is involved in agriculture and so, for most of us, harvesting feels a world away from our everyday lives. In pre-Industrial society most people were involv...

Psalm 63.1 NLT '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 was a great fa...

Psalm 62.10 NLT 'If your wealth increases, don’t make it the centre of your life.' It’s interesting how often the issue of wealth 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 we are told that even in the darkness, the light shines for them. They are also described as being wealthy and at the...

Psalm 62.1-2 NLT 'I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress where I will neve be shaken.' What’s the biggest challenge that you have 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 tu...

Acts 17.32-34 NLT When they heard Paul speak about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt, but others said, “We want to hear more about this later.” That ended Paul’s discussion with them, but some joined him and became believers. Paul received a complete range of reactions to his speech to the Areopagus. Some laughed, others wanted to hear more and yet others became believers. You...

Acts 17.22-23 NLT Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way, for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ Paul must have been delighted to get an opportunity to speak to the council, which was known as the Areopagus. This was a highly...

Acts 17.17-18 NLT 'He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there. He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.' We have much to learn from Paul. When he went to a new place it was his usual practice to make contact first of all with the synagogue. There he would find...

Acts 17.16 NLT 'While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city.' We have no reason to think that Paul intended to spend time in Athens. He was merely there for a few days whilst he waited for Silas and Timothy to catch up with him. The threats to his safety had got too serious in Berea and so he had been escorted down south to the r...

Acts 17.11 NLT 'The people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.' Every preacher and bible teacher longs to meet people like these Bereans! They were really open to the Christian message but they didn’t simply accept everything that Paul and...

Acts 16.25-26 NLT 'Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations.' The ministry of Paul and Silas in Philippi soon hit the buffers when they healed a slave girl who was a fortune teller. She had made good money for her owners until she was healed. T...