Be Still And Know

Revelation 1:8 Everybody is interested in the future, and the book of Revelation is designed to help us as we prepare ourselves for it. If you are looking for a map, or a timetable of events, you will be sadly disappointed. But what this book does give us is a vision of God, who is so powerful that, however great and fierce the opposition, will be victorious. The book of Revelation is intended not to scare or tantalise us but to give us confidence in our God who has the whole of history in his hands. Our verse today beautifully describes the way in which history is embraced by God. Using the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, God is described as being the Alpha and the Omega. He was there before the dawn of creation, and he will have the final word. He is described here as the Almighty - a description that is used nine times in this book, and only once in the rest of the New Testament. Writing at a time when the Church was experiencing desperate persecution, John wanted to make it clear that all po

Psalm 113:5-7 When you hear that God is enthroned on high, it’s easy to assume that he must therefore be totally disconnected from the harsh realities of our world. The psalmist makes it clear that the opposite is true. Mighty and exalted as he undoubtedly is, God is also intimately concerned about what is happening here in the world. So much so that he not only looks down at what is going on but takes action to rectify the situation. The whole Bible shows a concern for the poor. The law of Moses insisted on the poor being protected and supported. The prophets continually reminded people of their duty to care for the most vulnerable, and Jesus went out of his way to reach out to the weak and marginalised. In every society there are poor people, and yet the majority of us try to get on with life as if they don’t exist. God calls us to care for the poor in our society. After a visit to the UK in 2018, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, expressed great conce

Psalm 112:4 I will never forget my visit to Ruby. She was dying and knew that her end was very near. It was late in the afternoon when I went to see her in her cottage and the light was fading. But my overwhelming memory of that visit is of her radiant smile. On paper, the situation seemed so sad and hopeless, but Ruby didn’t see it that way. She knew God as a friend and was looking to the future with genuine excitement because she knew that he could be trusted. Most people would have looked at that situation and seen nothing but sadness and tragedy but, for Ruby, the light still shone. Over the years I have had the privilege of meeting many people whose life circumstances looked dark and forbidding, but whose faith in God meant they simply didn’t see it that way. I think of prisoners, people with disabilities, those who had been thrown out of their communities because of their Christian faith and others who, through no fault of their own, were facing financial ruin. In each of their lives the light was shini

Psalm 111:1-2 It is, of course, possible to praise God anywhere. But there is something incredibly precious about getting together with others to worship him, and it is wonderful to think of God’s people doing that for thousands of years. Whether it is in a small remote village church, a vast cathedral or a tent, the experience of worshipping God with other people is inspiring, encouraging and unifying. The psalmist encourages worshippers to think about what God has done. That is to say, when we worship God, we need time to reflect carefully on what he has done in creation and throughout history. This isn’t something that can be done in a moment. We need to take time to stand back and mull over what God has done. I was interested to learn that this verse was placed over the entrance to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, where some of the world’s most important scientific discoveries have been made. Researching and pondering are important activities. We need to find space to explore, see things in new

Mark 1:16-18 I will never forget the first time I saw the Sea of Galilee. I was with a friend and we had been travelling for a couple of hours up the Jordan valley. It was incredibly hot and our little car didn’t have the blessing of air conditioning. We greeted our first glimpse of the lake with great excitement. As we saw it, it was so easy to imagine Jesus walking beside the lake, coming across a couple of fishermen and inviting them to follow him. The truly incredible thing is that nothing has changed. 2,000 years ago Jesus invited people to follow him, and he still does! It’s the personal nature of Christianity that makes it so different from other religions and philosophies. They normally have a set of beliefs and rules that you have to subscribe to in order to become a member. But for Christians it’s all about a person, and living a life that follows and pleases him. Life is instantly redefined when you follow Jesus. Nothing looks the same. Someone once described the difference as being like seeing

Mark 1:14-15 We all know what we need to do when we are driving in the wrong direction. We need to turn around. I did it only yesterday! I was carefully following the instructions of my satnav but ended up taking the wrong turning off a large roundabout. The road I took led, very swiftly, to a dead end. I felt very silly but there was no point in me arguing with the road or the satnav. I just needed to turn around and find my way to the right road. That’s repentance. Turning from the wrong direction to the right one. Just like John the Baptist, Jesus preached a message of repentance, because he knew that it was the only way for people to discover the good news of God’s forgiveness. Repentance is much more than merely regret or remorse. Repentance is being sorry enough to stop and walk in a new direction. On the day of Pentecost, the punch line of Peter’s sermon was that the people needed to repent. That day saw the birth of the Church, as people turned to God in repentance and were baptised. And, as they di

Mark 1:12-13 We would all like to think that if our lives were totally led by the Spirit - like Jesus’ was - then we would be able to avoid all challenges and difficulties. Life would be one long succession of blessings and smiling, happy people. But the experience of Jesus shows us that this isn’t the way the Spirit works. Led by the Holy Spirit, Jesus faced temptations, injustice, opposition and violence. But, as he did so, he was given the wisdom and strength to face every challenge. The New Testament is incredibly candid about the challenges which face those who follow Jesus. Jesus himself was very clear that his followers would face problems. He saw it as an inevitable consequence of living in a broken and sinful world. In Jesus’ teaching to his disciples before his death, he gave them lots of encouragement but he was also very straightforward about the problems they would face. He said: “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. B

Mark 1:9-11 Here, in a gentle but spectacular way, we see God the Trinity at work. Having been baptised by John, Jesus saw the Holy Spirit descending upon him and God the Father spoke from heaven confirming his identity. As Jesus stepped into his new ministry, it was vital that it was clear the whole Trinity were involved, and that’s what we will see in the following chapters. Jesus continually sought to be close to his Father in prayer and was led by the Spirit. People often struggle to understand the Trinity, but it is in Jesus’ ministry, we see most clearly how they all work together. I believe that it is helpful if we are continually aware of the presence and blessing of God the Trinity in our lives. God is our creator, and we bring our worship to him through Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is quite clear that they are distinct from one another, and yet absolutely one. At the dawn of creation, all the members of the Trinity were present. God the Father spoke his word and, in his G

Mark 1:7-8 It’s always great to see people who know what their job is in life and are happy to get on and do it. I am thinking of the carpenters, car mechanics, ministers, nurses, carers, office workers and teachers that I know. All sorts of people who have discovered where their gifts are best used and who happily devote their time and energy to doing the very best that they can. That well describes John the Baptist. He knew exactly what his God-given role was. It was to prepare the way for the Son of God. He knew that he had a vital task to perform but that all the attention should go to Jesus, and not to him. Let me ask you a straight question. Do you know what your God-given role is in life? I’ve often found that people struggle with this question. They are not sure whether they have found God’s role for them and, very often, I find that people tend to be quite dismissive of what they are doing at the moment, seeing it as not very important. They imagine that God has something much more significant for th

When Mark put together his Gospel, he had a very clear purpose. You might have thought he was going to take us through the life story of Jesus, but he doesn’t. He totally disregards the first 30 years of Jesus’ life. He doesn’t tell us about Jesus’ birth, education, employment or relationships. We would be fascinated to know about all of those things, but Mark wants to get to the heart of the matter - which is that Jesus was nothing other than the Son of God. He was the Messiah, the one that the Jews had been anticipating for centuries. It is generally agreed that Mark was the first person to write a Gospel. Matthew, Luke and John’s were written in very different circumstances over the next 30 or 40 years but it was Mark who was breaking new ground. He was probably relying on Peter’s eye-witness account of Jesus’ ministry, and it is believed that he wrote it in Rome. Many scholars believe that he wrote his Gospel around AD 60, so that’s a full generation after the earthly life of Jesus. Mark devotes himself t

The psalmist isn’t merely talking about house building in this famous psalm. He is talking about everything we build – a life, relationship, family, organisation, city, or society. There is no point in building anything without God, because it is bound to fail. Throughout the Bible we are introduced to people who tried to go it alone. Adam and Eve are the supreme examples, but they were merely setting the pace for a succession of people who felt they knew better than God and who tried to build their lives without him. Jesus’ teaching about the vine is very similar to this verse where he concludes “apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). We simply weren’t created by God to act independently of him. It doesn’t work. The God who created us knows us better than we know ourselves, and it is only as we work in partnership with him that we can be confident of the future. This psalm is entitled a psalm of Solomon, and he was, supremely, a builder. He had the privilege of building the awesome temple in Jerusale

Psalm 126:5-6 If you know anything about farming you will know that it is hard work. But just imagine how incredibly tough it was in the psalmist’s day without the help of modern machinery. Planting was back breaking work, but year by year the farmer would sow his seed with the confidence of knowing that, one day, there would be a harvest. We cannot be sure, but it seems as if this psalm was written in celebration of the return from exile. After years in Babylon, the people finally had the opportunity to return to their homeland. They had had a tough time but now, at last, they were able to return to their beloved Jerusalem. Recently, I visited a minister and his wife working for the Lord on a tough housing estate. I hadn’t seen them for a few years and I was eager to hear their story. Quite apart from all the extra demands and pressures of Covid, they had faced a number of other challenges. There had been many tears and much hard work. But now they were beginning to see some significant signs of growth a

Psalm 125:1-2 I love these Psalms of ascent, which the pilgrims used as they travelled to Jerusalem. In this particular psalm, we almost get the feeling that we are travelling with them as they gazed at the mountains around Jerusalem. Even the mountains themselves spoke to them of the security they had in God. I don’t find it surprising that Christians throughout the centuries have found pilgrimages helpful as a way of encouraging them to focus on God. The psalmists were always incredibly honest about the threats of life, which seemed to come from all sides. There never seemed to be a shortage of enemies and there were also internal threats and doubts. But the psalmists were confident of their God and, time and again, they spoke about God as their rock, fortress and high tower. The threats might be real and scary, but God could always be relied upon to be much stronger. I am often struck by the speed with which people’s lives can change. It might be a heart attack, a road accident, a business collapse or the

Psalm 124:8 I wonder if you ever have “What if” conversations. You know the sort of thing: What if I had had a different career? What if I had gone to a different school? What if we had moved to a different town? In this psalm, David reflected on an even bigger question. He began the psalm with the question: “What if the Lord had not been on our side?” As the pilgrims made their way up to Jerusalem, he encouraged them to reflect on how terrible life would have been if God had not been on their side. He reflected that the people who had attacked them would have swallowed them alive in their burning anger. “The waters would have engulfed us; a torrent would have overwhelmed us” (Psalm 124:4). It might seem a strange thing to do, but perhaps all of us, from time to time, should stand back from life and just imagine what it would be like if God had not been with us. It seems to me that this should fuel two responses. Firstly, it should strengthen our gratitude for all that God has done for us. It is so easy for u

Galatians 6:18 The story of John Newton is well known. He first went to sea with his father when he was eleven years old and soon became deeply involved in working on slave ships. It was a terrible experience and, after falling out with the crew of the Pegasus in 1745 he even found himself in slavery. Three years later, he was rescued and, on his return home, he read the Bible and became a Christian. He finally became a Church of England vicar and famously reflected on his conversion in his hymn ‘Amazing grace’. His life was completely transformed. He knew that it was entirely down to God’s gracious gift to him and, in his later years, he fought for the abolition of the slave trade. The apostle Paul often reflected on the amazing grace of God. The word ‘grace’ takes us right to the heart of God’s nature. He is a generous God who loves to share his gifts with us, and he did that supremely by sending Jesus into the world to be our saviour. When he wrote to the Ephesians, Paul said: “We praise God for the glo

Galatians 6:17 Alan Paton wrote a book called Cry, the Beloved Country (Simon & Schuster) and was a fierce opponent of apartheid in South Africa. He once wrote about his death: “When I go up there, which is my intention, the Big Judge will say to me, Where are your wounds? and if I say I haven’t any, he will say, Was there nothing to fight for? I couldn’t face that question.” If we are willing to stand up for truth and justice in this world, we will pay a price for it. That was certainly the apostle Paul’s experience. He was thrilled with the new life that Christ had given him, but he had to pay a very high price. When he wrote to the church in Corinth, Paul recounted the many occasions when he had suffered physically. He had been: “whipped times without number, and faced death again and again. Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty- nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea” (2 Corinthi

Galatians 6:14 There was clearly a lot of boasting going on amongst the Galatians! There were those who boasted of the fact that they continued to keep the Jewish law. They continued to practice circumcision and to stand by the Old Testament law. They were convinced that they were doing extremely well, and looked down their noses at Paul, who was firmly opposed to circumcision for Christians and who spoke constantly about the inadequacies of the law. Paul was keen to do his own boasting but that was focused entirely upon the cross of Christ. For him, what Christ had done on the cross was all important. Through the cross he had found true freedom and a wonderful new life. I wonder when you last boasted. You were so proud of something that had happened in your life, or in someone close to you, that you just couldn’t wait for the opportunity to tell other people about it. I visited a couple yesterday and they couldn’t wait to tell me all about their grandson and his progress. He is two years old and extremely br

Galatians 6:7-8 The principle of “you reap what you sow” is both obvious and profound. If you sow a field full of wheat you would be crazy to expect a crop of potatoes. It’s so obvious that it hardly needs saying, but the message fundamentally challenges the way in which we live each day, because each word that we speak and action that we perform will have consequences. If we are kind, gracious and loving then there will be one kind of outcome, and if we are spiteful, angry and destructive there will be a completely different result. Paul drew the conclusion that we should, therefore, not become tired of doing good things, knowing that sooner or later there will be a good harvest. Of course, the problem is that it often takes a long time to see any positive outcome from doing good. It is possible to work in a children’s or youth club for years before you see any positive outcomes. I have known people work in local churches for decades without seeing any tangible successes. Indeed, sometimes people are unkind

Galatians 6:6 It’s not surprising that Paul spoke so clearly about the need to care for teachers in the early Church. They had a crucial role and, if they were not supported by the financial gifts of the church members, they would starve. The Galatian Christians needed to be reminded of their responsibilities. When Paul wrote to his young colleague Timothy, he referred to the need to show respect for church leaders and ensure they were well paid. He used an interesting verse from the Old Testament to support this view. “You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain” (Deuteronomy 25:4). Perhaps you hadn’t thought of comparing your church leader to an ox but the point was clear – the church members needed to accept the responsibility to provide for their teachers and leaders. Churches are far more organised these days and most churches have a thoughtful and responsible way of supporting their ministers. But it is still important for church members to be alert to their responsibilit

Galatians 6:4-5 In the previous couple of verses, Paul spoke of the importance of us helping other people to carry their heavy burdens. Now he reminds the Galatians that they have their own burden to bear. The word he uses is also used of a soldier’s pack; that is to say we all have a certain amount that we have to carry. We have responsibilities to bear and sometimes, we just need to get on with it and do the very best that we can. When our lives come to an end, the Lord will not ask us whether we lived like Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Martin Luther or Mother Theresa. He will ask us whether we lived the lives that he called us to live. Perhaps you have the awesome responsibility of being a shop worker, a cleaner, a teacher, an accountant, an MP or a carer. Whatever it is, God wants us to be the very best that we can be. Comparing ourselves to other people totally misses the point because the Lord is not calling us to be anybody other than the person we are. Spending energy comparing ourselves with others, or f