Be Still And Know

1 Timothy 2:1 I urge you, first of all, to pray for all people. Ask God to help them; intercede on their behalf and give thanks for them. A recent ComRes opinion poll revealed that twice as many people in the 18-34 age group prayed compared with those aged over 55. But regardless of age, the question is: what do we do when we pray? Here in our verse today, Paul encourages Timothy to have the right focus in his praying. Our natural condition is to be self-centred, so it is very easy for us to see prayer in an entirely selfish way. We pray for ourselves, our happiness, our health, our family, our future and so on. All of those things are perfectly proper subjects for prayer, but if they become the exclusive focus of our prayers, something has gone seriously wrong. Paul reminded Timothy that the priority of his life needed to be to pray for others, particularly those in authority. This was especially challenging at the time, because many of the rulers were violently opposed to Christians. However, Paul tells

1 Timothy 1:16 God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realise that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life. The apostle Paul never forgot his colourful past. He had been so committed to his Jewish faith that he had gone to extraordinary lengths to destroy the Church. He was convinced that Jesus was the enemy of everything he held dear, so he enthusiastically threw his energies into trying to crush Christianity. When his life was turned around on the road to Damascus, it changed everything. He came to realise how wrong he had been, and to see the wickedness of what he had done. He felt that he was the worst possible sinner. He knew he didn’t deserve the love and forgiveness of God. It was given entirely because of God’s mercy. Mercy is a wonderful word, but it can be very hard to receive because we understand the principle of justice. If I exceed the speed limit, I expect that there will be

1 Timothy 1:12 I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength to do his work. I seem to be surrounded by people telling me how tired they are. Perhaps it’s just the effect I have on them! However we are feeling right now, there are limits to our strength. Paul had an extremely busy ministry, and he was fully aware that he needed God’s special strength for the work he had to do. This verse reminds us of Paul’s words to the Philippians: “I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13). That’s a bold claim, but it was Paul’s personal experience as he faced up to continual resistance and challenges. Few Christian leaders have faced the range of difficulties that he did. He was confronted by violent opposition on many occasions, endured years of imprisonment, suffered three shipwrecks and was constantly exposed to abuse and danger. When he talks about God giving him strength, he is worth listening to! There can be no doubt of God’s ability to give us the strength that w

1 Timothy 1:5-6 The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience and genuine faith. But some people have missed this whole point. You only need to look at the religious section in your local bookshop to see that our society is still interested in religion. There is a massive appetite to learn about the meaning and purpose of life, God and the universe, and there is enormous confusion too! We have a great deal in common with Paul. The world of his day was stacked full of different religions and philosophies, so when Christianity emerged, it had to compete with any number of rivals. It wasn’t easy to establish a church, and Paul knew better than anyone how tough the fight was. In this letter, Paul was keen to encourage his young friend Timothy as a church leader. We get the impression that Timothy was a gentle and rather timid man, so Paul was keen for him to be clear on what his role was. He had left Timothy behind in Ephesus so

1 Timothy 1:1 This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, appointed by the command of God our Saviour and Christ Jesus, who gives us hope. The apostle Paul always started his letters by making it very clear why he was writing. He wanted everyone to know that he was doing so because God had called him to be an apostle. The word ‘apostle’ means someone who has been sent out, and Paul had no doubt that Jesus, who met him on the road to Damascus, was the one who had commissioned him. The letter which follows is full of warmth and affection. Paul had great respect for Timothy and rated him highly, and he wanted to give him encouragement and guidance for his ministry. I wonder how you would describe yourself and the work that God has called you to do. Paul had a very special role, but we do as well. We have been given unique gifts by God, and today he is calling us to use them to bless other people. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you were responding: “But I’m only a homemaker, shop worker, nurse,

Proverbs 27:6 Wounds from a sincere friend are better than many kisses from an enemy. We’ve probably all had moments when friends have said something which made us go: “Ouch!” Perhaps they were giving us a loving warning or strongly disagreeing with our opinion. The pain was real but, when we got over it, we realised they said it because they cared. That doesn’t mean they were necessarily right, of course, but the reason they spoke in the way that they did was because of the friendship. Superficially, it is nicer to be kissed than wounded, but the writer of Proverbs makes the point that what really matters is where the kiss or wound comes from. If an enemy kisses you, it might feel nice for a moment, but it is a lie. There is no love or commitment behind it, and you are much better off without it. A wound that comes from a sincere friend is infinitely more valuable. Speaking truth is never an easy matter. We are continually tempted to say the things that other people want to hear and which will make them

Proverbs 27:4 Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood, but jealousy is even more dangerous. The Bible introduces us to lots of jealous people. Most famous among them are Joseph’s brothers. They were so consumed with jealousy that they planned to kill him. Throughout history, jealousy has destroyed many lives, and the writer of Proverbs was fully aware of its terrible power. Jealousy starts slowly and quietly. It begins when we look at someone else and see they have something we don’t. The more we reflect on it, the more we realise there is no reason why they should have more than we’ve got. It isn’t fair. Unchecked, those thoughts flower into feelings of jealousy and rage. When I’ve chatted with people in prison, they have often traced their crime back to thoughts which started quietly and innocently enough but grew into violent actions. We will all, from time to time, have little twinges of envy. The question is: how do we prevent those feelings developing into full-grown, destructive jealousy? The ap

Proverbs 27:1 Don’t brag about tomorrow, since you don’t know what the day will bring. Life is so unpredictable that the encouragement to live for today has to be sound advice. We don’t know what today will contain, let alone tomorrow! Bragging about what is going to happen tomorrow has to be completely foolish. In his letter, James describes a cocky businessman who had decided that he was going to go to certain town and stay there for a year and make a fat profit. James pops the balloon of his self-confidence by pointing out that “life is like the morning fog – it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, ‘If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.’ Otherwise you are boasting about your own pretentious plans, and all such boasting is evil” (James 4:14-16). Planning for the future isn’t wrong. Planning is wise and helpful, but it always needs to be done with humility, because our life is in God’s hands, not our own. Years ago, Christians often used to say to one anot

Proverbs 26:20 Fire goes out without wood, and quarrels disappear when gossip stops. These words couldn’t be more relevant to today’s world, in which gossip can be communicated faster than lightning. Words have always had the power to destroy, and many of the Proverbs focus on the danger of them being used carelessly. The trouble with words is that we all use so many of them, and it is easy for them to cause hurt, pain and division. Proverbs 17:27 reads: “A truly wise person uses few words.” I’m really grateful for that observation but, if I’m honest, I’m not sure what to do with it. I spend my days writing, mentoring, pastoring, preaching and teaching people, to say nothing of relating to the members of my family. Words are fundamental to the way we communicate, and although I could possibly use fewer words, I will still need to use a large number of them! The writer of the Proverbs is concerned that we use our words to build, not to destroy. Building words are ones that bring strength and courage to o

Proverbs 26:17 Interfering in someone else’s argument is as foolish as yanking a dog’s ears. For nearly 16 years, we enjoyed the company of Zephyr, a beautiful yellow Labrador. When he joined us as a little puppy, our three children were all at home. For those years, he became every inch a member of the family. He was extraordinarily patient with us all, and if we accidentally knocked into him, he always took it in his stride. He had a wonderful temperament, but every now and again we were reminded that he was immensely strong and shouldn’t be messed with. You should have seen him fighting with a hedgehog! Wonderful and gracious as Zephyr was, he was a dog, and if someone were to yank him unkindly by the ears I think he could have done them a great deal of damage. I certainly wouldn’t have dared to do any such thing myself. This might sound like rather mundane and obvious advice, but the writer of the Proverbs knew that all wisdom was of crucial importance. Interfering in other people’s arguments has wreck

Daniel 10:18-19 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 when he is feeling ill and weak. The vision he received about the future in the previous chapter left him feeling terrible for three weeks. He was in a state of mourning throughout that time and commented: “my strength left me, my face grew deathly pale, and I felt very weak” (Daniel 10:8). Like Daniel, we can all identify times when we have felt on top of the world and then other moments when we have felt completely weak and useless. None of us can be strong all the time. It was in this time of great weakness that God sent a messenger to Daniel telling him how precious he was to God. When things go badly, o

Daniel 9:5-6 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. Their history was a tragic catalogue of failure and disobedience. God had given them every opportunity to put things right, but they had chosen to live in opposition to him. However, Daniel knew that his generous God was ready to forgive their sins if only the people would turn to him. When we confess our sins, we are facing the facts about ourselves and our world. This is something we all have to do in everyday life, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to us. Last year, our boiler broke down. It had come to the end of its life and it needed replacing. We needed to face the facts and engage a reliable heating firm to fit a new one.

Daniel 9:4 “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 Jeremiah and reflected on the past. Everything that had happened had been the result of the unfaithfulness of God’s people. God had loved his people and wonderfully provided for them, but they had consistently disobeyed him and gone their own way. Daniel recognised that God was the complete opposite of his people. Their consistent unfaithfulness was matched by God’s constant faithfulness. God could always be trusted to keep his word because it was based upon a covenant. Throughout the whole of the Bible, we discover the importance of covenant. It is similar to the word ‘contract’ because there are two sides to the covenant

Daniel 6:10 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, so he gave him more and more responsibilities. This stirred up the envy of other leaders, who were determined to bring Daniel down a peg or two. However, they had a problem because no one could find anything for which to criticise him. He was said to be faithful, always responsible and completely trustworthy (Daniel 6:4). The only way they could trip him up was by introducing a new law which said that no one could pray to anyone other than the king. The king duly passed this law and the penalty for disobeying it was to be thrown into a den of lions – a horrifying way to die. Daniel was in the habit of praying three times a day, and nothing was going to stop

Daniel 4:27 [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. He was talking to one of the most powerful people who had ever walked this earth and giving him some staggeringly bad news. He was telling King Nebuchadnezzar the meaning of his dream: he was going to be driven away from human society and would live with wild animals where he would eat grass like a cow (Daniel 4:25). This isn’t the sort of message you would want to deliver to a powerful despot who was inclined to kill his opponents at a moment’s notice! Daniel informed the king that his life would only improve when he had learned his lesson. This was an incredibly tough message, but Daniel knew he had to be faithful to God and tell the king the truth. The result was amazing. Nebuchadnezzar suffered in all the ways that were prophesied and ended up praising

Daniel 3:25 “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 fairly decisive punishment. To ensure their immediate death, he had the furnace heated up seven times hotter than usual. It was so hot that it killed the soldiers who threw them into it. Nebuchadnezzar watched the spectacle believing they would be burned to a cinder, but the outcome was completely different. Not only were they not burned, but they weren’t even singed and, more amazingly, he saw that they were accompanied by a fourth person, who he assumed must be a god. This was more than enough to change Nebuchadnezzar’s mind and cause him to worship the God of the young Jewish men. As a result, he gave them even

Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied, “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 have set up.” Living in exile was bound to present many challenges. When Nebuchadnezzar set up his enormous golden statue and demanded that everyone fall down and worship it, these Jewish young men knew they had to draw a line. They couldn’t possibly obey the King’s law. The consequences couldn’t have been more severe, and they were all thrown into a great furnace. But before that, they had the opportunity to state their position. They pointed out to the king that their God was so mighty that he could save them, but even if he didn’t, they would refuse to worship the gold statue. We also live in exile. This world is no

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 made him ruler of the province of Babylon. He showered him with expensive gifts and declared that Daniel’s God was the greatest God of all. Given that Daniel was a foreigner from a land far away that had been defeated by the Babylonians, this was a truly revolutionary change. However, Nebuchadnezzar’s acknowledgement that Daniel’s God was the one true God did nothing to change his behaviour, and shortly afterwards, we find him setting up an enormous golden statue which he expected the people to worship. There is no question that King Nebuchadnezzar was deeply impressed by all that Daniel had done. And there is no reason to doubt that he was genuinely in awe of the power and wisdom of Dani

Daniel 2:44 During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered. It will crush all these kingdoms into nothingness, and it will stand forever. Thanks to God’s help, Daniel was able to tell King Nebuchadnezzar what he had dreamed and then interpret that dream as well. He said there would be four kingdoms, all of which gave an impression of strength, but would fall. However, at the same time, God was establishing his own kingdom, which would last for ever. Through the years, people have wanted to identify the four kingdoms, and there have been lots of candidates. That is not the point of the dream. The point is that when God establishes his kingdom, it will endure. History is in God’s hands. Through the centuries, there has been a long succession of seemingly all-powerful kingdoms. They were militarily strong, they shaped powerful cultures and they dominated their people’s thinking. It was inconceivable that they could ever come to an end, but

Daniel 2:23 “I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded.” Daniel had been given an impossible job. Not only did he have to tell King Nebuchadnezzar the interpretation of his dream, but he had to inform the king what he had dreamed about in the first place! What made the matter even worse was that the king’s wise men were threatened with death if they failed. However, Daniel knew that he was in touch with the source of all wisdom, God himself, and so he prayed. You wouldn’t blame Daniel if he had prayed a desperate prayer, screaming at God to do the impossible in order to save him from certain death, but he didn’t. His prayer was one of worship and adoration. He acknowledged that God was the source of all wisdom and power and that, ultimately, everything that happened in the world was in the Lord’s hands. He was confident that God would do what looked impossible and reveal both the c