Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Psalm 63:4-5 NLT 'I will praise you for as long as I live, lifting up my hands to you in prayer. You satisfy me more than the richest feast. I will praise you with songs of joy.' Last autumn I woke one day with a sensation of being bathed in love. I felt a rich and deep inner contentment and well-being. I knew I was with God and this was God’s love. I lay in bed, a smile in my heart, which was ref...

Psalm 63:3 NLT 'Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you!' Knowing myself has helped immensely in developing my appreciation of God. Knowing my strengths and weaknesses means I can develop skills to avoid the worst excesses of my character, which otherwise might prove self-destructive. How we approach God and the world will shape our experience of God. You and I are each cr...

Psalm 63:2 NLT 'I have seen you in your sanctuary and gazed upon your power and glory. Your unfailing love is better than life itself; how I praise you!' Declarations of love trip easily from the lips. However, they can depend on circumstances. I once relished in the beauty and power of declarations such as we have here from the psalmist. I found it much harder to feel any empathy with today’s ver...

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.' I only go in search of what I really want. Too often, more pressing needs relegate my search for God to whatever spare time I can muster. Like reaching for the small change in my pocket for the homeless individual I pass, i...

Psalm 71:20-21 NLT 'You have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again and lift me up from the depths of the earth. You will restore me to even greater honour and comfort me once again.' The word “mystery” is often used in relation to God. This suggests that God is an enigma, often hard to comprehend and always beyond our understanding. As something of an academic,...

Jeremiah 29:11 NLT “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen.” When relational disaster strikes, then trust in relationship at every level is most often lost. I have over the years walked with individuals who are experiencing the trauma of divorce. Here a once inti...

Psalm 126:1-2 NLT When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy. And the other nations said, “What amazing things the Lord has done for them.” In the years that I travelled abroad for work, I visited exiles in refugee camps and detention centres. I felt humbled by the dignity of refugee families, but disturbed by the degr...

Amos 9:14 NLT 'I will bring my exiled people of Israel back from distant lands, and they will rebuild their ruined cities and live in them again. They will plant vineyards and gardens; they will eat their crops and drink their wine.' The challenge in all restoration is deciding what that restoration will look like. Jayne and I restored an old Victorian house in Portsmouth. First, we needed to deci...

Isaiah 61:7 NLT 'Instead of shame and dishonour, you will enjoy a double share of honour. You will possess a double portion of prosperity in your land, and everlasting joy will be yours.' Daytime TV is filled with shows about restoring old houses or precious artefacts such as Homes Under the Hammer and Your Home Made Perfect. People have great enthusiasm to return something to its original state;...

Isaiah 35:10 NLT 'Those who have been ransomed by the Lord will return. They will enter Jerusalem singing, crowned with everlasting joy. Sorrow and mourning will disappear, and they will be filled with joy and gladness.' “It is always helpful to start with the end in view.” As a disciple I have come to appreciate the richness of that phrase the more I’ve progressed along my Christian way. I am qui...

Philemon 1:7 NLT 'Your love has given me much joy and comfort, my brother, for your kindness has often refreshed the hearts of God’s people.' In a busy, online world, making friends can prove difficult. While Facebook suggests we are globally connected, it is all too easy to feel isolated and alone. Jayne and I want to be a part of a social community, one in which the friendships were a source of...

Isaiah 12:6 NLT 'Let all the people of Jerusalem shout his praise with joy! For great is the Holy One of Israel who lives among you.' I can’t think of many recent occasions when I have shouted, either from joy or anger. We used to live in the shadow of Fratton Park, home to Portsmouth Football Club. No need to wonder what the score was. The roar of the crowd on seeing their side put the ball in th...

1 Peter 1:8 NLT 'You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.' Joy is something that impacts my senses. At the start of last autumn, I remember throwing open the windows at the back of the house one morning and being entranced with the scent of fennel from our garden that wafted across and filled...

Ecclesiastes 9:7 NLT 'So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this!' My favourite dictionary defines joy as “the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires”. Scripture tells us that “the joy of the Lord is [our] strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). Life has a habit of crushing the joy out o...

Luke 4:13 NLT 'When the devil had finished tempting Jesus, he left him until the next opportunity came.' Jesus has experienced three separate and acute temptations in the wilderness, and now the devil departs from him until a fresh opportunity will appear. Jesus had steadfastly resisted and therefore endured the struggle. For each of us there is the temptation to buckle under pressure. God does no...

Luke 4:3-4 NLT Then the devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become a loaf of bread.” But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone.’” One immediate challenge with persevering is that we never know at the start how long we shall need to endure. Here Jesus faces his first approach from the devil. We know with the benefit of scripture th...

Luke 4:1-2 NLT 'Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the River Jordan. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where he was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry.' Ash Wednesday marks the start of Lent. The word “Lent” means “lengthening” and identifies the growing hours of daylight as spring advances. Symbolically, it speaks...

Romans 5:3-4 NLT 'We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.' Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day is the day before Lent starts, a season of abstinence in preparation for Easter. It recognises Jesus’ trial in the wilderness and is also...

1 Corinthians 13:7 NLT Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Perseverance is characterised by the ability to achieve something despite difficulties and obstacles that stand in our way. It takes both grit and determination, and is not easily accomplished. In fact, it reveals the depth of our convictions and the lengths to which we persist...

Acts 4:32 NLT 'All the believers were united in heart and mind. And they felt that what they owned was not their own, so they shared everything they had.' Unity creates an atmosphere of trust and harmony. Within such an atmosphere, remarkable things become possible. I grew up with stories from my mother of life in Britain during the Second World War. The war years affected her from age 14 to 20. S...

Philippians 1:27 NLT Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News. A quick search on Google will identify how different countries...

Romans 12:4-5 NLT Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other. Last summer I ran down the garden, stretched down and picked up a fallen apple, recreating my great cricketing fielding past. I felt my right tricep scream out in complaint, and so began a journey of sorting out an i...