Daily Bible Encouragement

Psalm 16:2 I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’ What are you thankful for today? What good thing, or things, are you enjoying right now? At the moment, we may be especially aware of all the things in our lives that are not good, all the things we want but can't have, all the ways life could be easier. Some of us may be facing really significant hardships....

Psalm 16:1 Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge. What do you take refuge in?  If you’ve already read or heard the reflection on Psalm 62, earlier in this series, the idea of refuge will be familiar. But we need to keep coming back to it because - this side of heaven - we will always be weak, needy, suffering people, in need of safety, shelter and protection. Where will we find the refuge...

Psalm 103:20-22 Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word.  Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will.  Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul. This Psalm ends as it began ... with encouragement to praise God. Only now it is not just an individual ('my soul') but the wh...

Psalm 103:19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. It is always encouraging to be reminded that God reigns over everything, even coronavirus. And that might be what you need to focus on and be thankful for today. But for me personally, the challenge of this verse is not remembering that God rules over what's going on 'out there'. Rather, I need...

Psalm 103:18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. In verse 17 we saw how God’s love is everlasting towards those who fear him. Here, those same people are described as those who keep his covenant and obey him. That can’t mean that God’s love is conditional on our obedience, getting switched off every time we sin. That kind of love could never be described as ‘everlas...

Psalm 103:17 But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children Is your sense of time being challenged by the current situation? I find myself having to think quite hard about what day of the week it is sometimes! In yesterday's verse we thought about our weakness, but those verses also speak about how fleeting o...

Psalm 103:13-16 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.  The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. How are you feeling today? Many of us will be feeling weaker than we'r...

Psalm 103:11-12 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. The furthest galaxy in the universe is thought to be something like 30 billion light years away from earth. A light year is about 9.5 trillion kilometres. Numbers like that feel impossible to get to grips...

Psalm 103:9-10 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbour his anger for ever; he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. "It's not fair!" Have you heard those words recently in your household? They come out of children's mouths fairly easily. We may be more restrained about actually saying it out loud, but don’t our hearts feel the same...

Psalm 103:7-8 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel:  the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. How would you describe God's character in one sentence? There are many things we could say. But here’s one really good answer: ‘the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love’! In fact, it's the way God descri...

Psalm 103:5-6 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.  The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. Have you noticed how, even in a global crisis, some things carry on just as before? Oppression and injustice, for example. The news always seems to contain some story of an oppressive regime somewhere in the world mistreating its...

Psalm 103:3-4 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,  who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion Yesterday we praised God for his 'holy name' (who he is in himself). In today's verses David focuses on his 'benefits' (the particular good things God had done for him). At first glance, this verse is confusing. We know that Christian...

Psalm 103:1-2 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.  Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits How often do you praise God for who he is? Perhaps it's just me, but I'm much more likely to thank God for things he does or the gifts he gives than to praise him for who he is. I don’t often stop to simply ponder God’s character, and tell him how wo...

Psalm 1:6 For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction. As we considered yesterday, whether we are treated as ‘righteous’ or ‘wicked’ depends not on our own record, but on the righteousness of Jesus. All those who are united to him by faith are counted as ‘righteous’ because he is ‘righteous’. So we enjoy the privileges of the righteous. Not ju...

Psalm 1:5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. Have you ever found yourself standing in the middle of a group of people, convinced you don’t belong there? In some settings it’s called ‘Imposter Syndrome’. I definitely had that in my first year at University, as one of only a handful of women studying Engineering alongside more than 300...

Psalm 1:4 Not so the wicked!   They are like chaff that the wind blows away. This verse stands in stark contrast to verse 3. The different between a great tree, rooted and flourishing, and the flimsy chaff that is discarded as the grain is harvested couldn’t be greater. Life as one of God’s people isn’t just a minor upgrade on the usual human experience – it’s a completely different kind of life....

Psalm 1:3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither – whatever they do prospers. Here we see the result of being a person who delights in, and meditates on, God’s word. I think there’s at least 2 surprises in this verse … Firstly, I love this picture of the tree – stable, rooted, well-fed, well-watered, and fruitful. It’...

Psalm 1:2 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, but whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night. We saw yesterday that the blessed person is the one who belongs to God. So it makes sense that they will want to listen more to God’s voice than the world’s voice. In f...

Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with the wicked or stand in the way that sinners take or sit in the company of mockers, Until a few years ago, ‘Blessed’ wasn’t a word you came across much outside the Bible. But the invention of the hashtag has changed all that! In the world of social media, being #Blessed often seems to involve being impossible stylish (for women) or having...

Introduction   Welcome to Daily Bible Encouragement!   This podcast will provide a daily bible reading of one or two verses from the psalms, followed by a brief personal reflection and a suggestion for prayer. Each episode will be less than 3 minutes long.   These reflections were originally written for a small group of women from Dundonald Church in London, during the Covid-19 lockdown. I’m movin...

Micah 7:20 20 You will be faithful to Jacob,     and show love to Abraham, as you pledged on oath to our ancestors     in days long ago. When we started this book, you might remember that I said that Micah’s name means ‘Who is like the Lord?’ and that this question is one of the main themes of the whole book. It is only explicitly asked once, in chapter 7 verse 18, which we looked at a few days ag...

Micah 7:19 19 You will again have compassion on us;     you will tread our sins underfoot     and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. Back in verses 16 and 17 we saw what the end of the story looks like for those who will not willingly trust and worship the Lord. Today we see the opposite ending, for those who cling to the Lord as their saviour and willingly identify as his people....

Micah 7:18 18 Who is a God like you,     who pardons sin and forgives the transgression     of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry for ever     but delight to show mercy. As we saw yesterday, the end of the story is pretty bleak for those who refuse to be reconciled to God and have to stand alone, unprotected on the day of final judgment. And that ending is the one that we all de...

Micah 7:16-17 16 Nations will see and be ashamed,     deprived of all their power. They will put their hands over their mouths     and their ears will become deaf. 17 They will lick dust like a snake,     like creatures that crawl on the ground. They will come trembling out of their dens;     they will turn in fear to the Lord our God     and will be afraid of you. Throughout this book we’ve seen...

Micah 7:14-15 14 Shepherd your people with your staff,     the flock of your inheritance, which lives by itself in a forest,     in fertile pasture-lands. Let them feed in Bashan and Gilead     as in days long ago. 15 ‘As in the days when you came out of Egypt,     I will show them my wonders.’ In this final chapter, we find ourselves returning to themes that we’ve heard before throughout this boo...