Be Still And Know

Matthew 19.14 NLT Jesus said, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.” In these devotionals, I often only select one verse and rarely more than three. However, whenever possible, I would always encourage you to have your Bible open so that you can see the setting of the chosen verses. We are probably all very familiar with this story of Jesus welcoming children. For some reason, the disciples had tried to stop parents from bringing their children to Jesus for him to bless them. We are not told why they did so, but it may well have been simply because they felt that Jesus was far too important a person to be troubled by little children. However, look at the verses which precede this story. The Pharisees were trying to trap Jesus by asking him some awkward legal questions. In the Old Testament, Moses had allowed for the possibility of divorce for unfaithfulness but, through the centuries, there had been much dispute about thi

Matthew 18.21-22 NLT Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?” “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!” When Peter asked his question, he thought he was being incredibly generous. Tradition told him that you should be ready to forgive another person three times, and then you could unleash your full fury on them. However, Peter suggested that the limit should be raised to seven times. But Jesus isn’t impressed. He tells Peter that he should be ready to forgive other people on seventy times seven occasions. Jesus was effectively saying, “Stop the counting game and just keep on forgiving.” Jesus was introducing Peter to the idea that forgiveness should be a way of life. There should be no limit to it because it should never come to an end. This is both an incredibly tough and totally liberating teaching. It’s tough because forgiving someone when they have wronged you seems totally unjust. If you have ever bee

Matthew 18.19-20 NLT Jesus said, “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three gather together as my followers, I am there among them.” The Church is not just a gathering of people who respect Jesus, like a Jesus appreciation society where people meet to say how much he means to them. It is infinitely more than that because, when his followers come together, Jesus is actually present. That means incredibly powerful things can happen when we meet. The key to our meetings is unity. The Greek word used here for agreeing (sumphonesosin) gives us the English word symphony, which means to agree in sound, or to be in harmony with one another. God longs to bless us powerfully but that can only happen when our thinking is in line with one another and with his will. Unity is always of crucial importance for the people of God. By unity we don’t mean uniformity, in which everyone thinks and acts in the same way. Uni

Matthew 18.17 NLT Jesus said, “If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.” On the face of it this might sound rather harsh, but Jesus has just given the best possible advice for how to handle the situation where someone has done you wrong. First, speak to them one to one and, if that fails, take one or two people with you. The aim is to achieve restoration as quickly as possible. But if that doesn’t work then the matter needs to go to the church. If the person still refuses to listen then Jesus says that they should be treated like a complete outsider. As we hear these strong words, we need to remember that Jesus, of all people, was always reaching out in love to pagans and corrupt tax collectors, so he wasn’t saying that they were beyond hope. However, there may sadly come a time when a dispute cannot be resolved and you need to move on. What I love about this teaching

Matthew 18.15 NLT Jesus said, “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offence. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.” Ever since the Garden of Eden, people have fallen out with one another. It’s very sad but it has always happened, and still does. It is an inevitable part of living in a world of sin. The question is: what you do when it happens? Here, Jesus gives wonderfully straightforward advice which is useful to every single person. If you are wronged, then you need to deal with it as speedily and as privately as possible, with the aim of achieving a restored relationship. It amazes me that this simple and clear advice is so often ignored. When we are wronged, it is very tempting to tell other people about it immediately, but that just magnifies the problem. We feel hurt and so we want other people to sympathise with us and take our side. It would always be better to go to the person who has wronged us in the hope that the relationsh

Matthew 18.12 NLT “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety- nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost?” I suspect that few of us have had any experience of being shepherds, however many of us will have memories of lost pets. I recall the time when our cat Tabitha went missing for days on end. We walked the streets in the hope that we might see her and called out her name in the hope that we would hear her miaow. But there was no response. And then one day as I was looking down our garden I saw this poor thin creature dragging herself limply towards the house. She had a broken femur and had presumably been involved in a road accident. To say that we were delighted to see her would hardly begin to describe our absolute delight and over the coming weeks she made a complete recovery. Just one little cat, but the news of her return home was a moment of incredible joy for our family. I, therefore, can begin to understand

Matthew 18.6 NLT Jesus said,“ If you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.” If your picture of Jesus is of “gentle Jesus meek and mild” you need to listen carefully to this verse. However, you look at it this is very strong language, and it certainly isn’t remotely gentle. He was furious at the thought of anyone causing one of his followers to trip up, and especially those who were young in the faith. Their child-like faith needed to be carefully encouraged and nurtured and anyone who deliberately caused them to stumble was worthy of the most terrible punishment. In a world in which there are endless temptations we need to look at our own churches and ask the question how we protect those who have recently found faith. Friendliness and kindness go a long way, but new Christians need more than that. They need to be carefully instructed in the faith so that they bui

Matthew 18.3-4 NLT Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. So anyone who becomes as humble as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.” These words would have sounded very different to the disciples from how they sound to us these days. Happily children have a very important and protected place in our society. We rightly pour enormous energies and resources into ensuring that children are given every opportunity to thrive and that they are brought up in a safe environment. The situation could hardly have been more different in Jesus’ day when children had no status or protection in law, and were seen as no more than potential adults. They were to be seen but certainly not heard. For the disciples to be told that the only way into the Kingdom of Heaven was by becoming like a child would probably have sounded insulting and certainly deeply shocking. The disciples were desperately conc

Matthew 17.20 NLT “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” Having just had the mountain top experience of the Transfiguration the disciples go back down to earth with a bump. A father brought his very ill son to the disciples and they were completely unable to heal him. Jesus healed him immediately and then reflected on the appalling lack of faith of his disciples. All they needed was the tiniest amount of faith and they would then be able to perform miracles in Jesus’ name. The imagery of the mustard seed is one that we have met in other places. The seed is very tiny but can grow up into a huge shrub as high as twelve feet. Jesus’ message was clear. Faith in God is so powerful that it can make incredible miracles happen. It can even move mountains. I don’t happen to believe that God is calling us to rearrange mountain ranges around the world! That would be incredibly dis

Matthew 17.4 NLT Peter exclaimed, “Lord, it’s wonderful for us to be here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters as memorials— one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” The transfiguration of Jesus was clearly an amazing moment. Jesus had taken three of his disciples up to a high mountain and suddenly he was totally transformed so that his face shone like the sun and his clothes became dazzling white. As if that wasn’t enough, they then saw that Jesus had been joined by Moses and Elijah. Wow! Everyone was lost for words apart from Peter! Peter had a word for every occasion and in he blundered with both left feet firmly in place, “Lord, it’s wonderful for us to be here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters as memorials —one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” It was a touching suggestion. He was recognising the importance of the moment and he thought how nice it would be to make it permanent, by erecting shelters. But this was not the plan. Then God spoke from heaven, “This is my dearly lo

Matthew 16.21 NLT 'From then on Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead.' The events leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection are so familiar to us that we need to stop for a moment and imagine how it was for the disciples at the time. They were thunderstruck by the news that their Lord, their Master and their friend was just about to die. Peter, as ever, was the first to respond. He used the strongest possible words to indicate his shock and his determination to stop these awful things from happening. He said, “Heaven forbid. This will never happen to you!” His words reveal his love for Jesus and his absolute commitment to support him, but he also completely missed the point because Jesus had to die. Jesus’ response couldn’t have been stronger. “Get

Matthew 16.18 NLT 'Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means ‘rock’), and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.' Peter is a fascinating character. We know little about most of the disciples, but that’s not true of Peter who we get to know extremely well. Time and again he is the one who speaks first and on many occasions he gets things seriously wrong. It was Peter who tried to walk on water on the Sea of Galilee and sank, and he who denied ever knowing Jesus on three occasions. We wouldn’t have been surprised if Jesus had compared him with jelly, but instead Jesus declares that, just like his name, he is a rock. Having declared the true nature of Jesus’ identity as the Son of God, he declared Peter to be the rock on which the church would be based and that not even the powers of hell would be able to conquer it. And the wonderful fact is that that is precisely what happened. Peter became the leader of the church in Jerusalem and played a pivotal rol

Matthew 16.15-16 NLT Then Jesus asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Caesarea Philippi is located at the base of Mount Hermon in Northern Israel and, for centuries, had been associated with the worship of various gods. At first it had been a centre for the worship of Baal, but in the time of Jesus it was associated with the worship of the Greek fertility gods and of Caesar. It was, therefore, an absolutely natural place for Jesus to ask questions about his own identity. He enquired of the disciples who people were saying that he was and he got a wide range of responses. Some thought that he was a revived form of John the Baptist. Others thought that he was Elijah, believing that this great prophet of the Old Testament would return before the coming of the Messiah. And yet others thought that Jesus was Jeremiah or one of the other great prophets. Basically, there were lots of different theories and no general agreement about who Jesus wa

Matthew 15.35-36 NLT 'So Jesus told all the people to sit down on the ground. Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, thanked God for them, and broke them into pieces. He gave them to the disciples, who distributed the food to the crowd.' This was the second time that Jesus had fed a huge number of people. On the first occasion more than 5,000 were fed, and on this day more than 4,000 received a good meal. Lots of things were different about this second feeding miracle. It seems to have happened in an area where there were many non-Jews and we sense that Jesus was starting to make it clear that he hadn’t just come for the Jews, but for the whole world. The people had already been with him for three days in the desert and they must have been longing to have something to eat. Jesus took the tiny little supply of food that was available to him and then gave thanks and broke the bread into pieces. As he did so there was more than enough food for everyone to be fully satisfied. Giving thanks to God lies at the

Matthew 15.7-9 NLT Jesus said, ”You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’” If you talk to non-Christians about their criticisms of the church, time and again they will point to hypocrisy as being the most off-putting factor. They see Christians saying one thing and then living completely differently and it gives Christianity a bad name. Jesus would have completely agreed with them. He was vitriolic in his condemnation of hypocrisy whenever he saw it. On this particular day the Pharisees and teachers of the law were criticising the disciples for not complying with the age-old regulations for ceremonial hand washing before meals. In response, Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees had come up with a way of getting round people’s duty to honour their parents. Instead of giving something to their parents they were simply able to

Proverbs 21.23 NLT 'Watch your tongue and keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble.' Speaking is such a huge part of our daily lives that we need all the wisdom we can find to guide us. The book of Proverbs comes back to the subject time and again precisely because it is so important. We need to be constantly learning how to use our tongues more effectively, and part of that is to learn when to speak and when to be silent. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” Those are wise words. There are many tempting moments in life when we are lured into sharing some juicy gossip or joining in with damaging criticism and God looks to us to keep our mouths firmly shut. This isn’t remotely easy, but it is all part of learning to live life to the full and deliberately turning our back on those things that will cause damage and hurt. The trouble with speaking is tha

Proverbs 21.3 NLT 'The Lord is more pleased when we do what is right and just than when we offer him sacrifices.' The offering of sacrifices lay right at the heart of Old Testament worship. Strange as it may seem to us, it was the way that God expected people to approach him so that their relationship with him could be put right. This led many people to conclude that all they needed to do was to fulfil their responsibility to offer sacrifices, and they could then act in whatever way they wanted. Time and again God had to remind his people that the mere offering of sacrifices and worship was not enough. They needed to live lives that were in line with God’s will. God was looking for them to act justly and fairly in their business relationships and with their neighbours, and if he didn’t see it, he wasn’t interested in receiving their sacrifices. In any age it is possible for our worship to be merely an act. Almost anyone can sing hymns and songs, and even raise their hands in worship. Merely participating

Hebrews 13.20-21 NLT 'Now may the God of peace who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood, may he equip you with all you need for doing his will.' As this amazing letter comes towards an end, the writer prays a blessing upon his readers. He states that he has written the letter to bring them encouragement and this simple prayer oozes with just that. He reminds them that God is a God of peace. Reading between the lines, and sometimes on them, we sense that there was a good deal of tension and difficulty within this church. The believers had not progressed in the way that the writer would have hoped and there were people bringing in unhelpful teaching which was undermining the church and its leadership. The writer wants to remind them to keep their eyes fixed on God who is the source of peace. The writer also wants to remind his readers that, although there may be many challenges ahead, God will always equip his people perfec

Hebrews 13.17 NLT 'Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow. That would certainly not be for your benefit.' The letter to the Hebrews often refers to the importance of obedience to the word of God. The writer therefore urges his readers to obey their church leaders as they teach God’s word and watch over them. The responsibility of leaders is a huge one as they lead God’s people and it will only be a joyful experience if people take God’s word seriously and seek to obey it. He wasn’t encouraging a mindless obedience to church leaders but a thoughtful determination to be obedient to God’s will. Having been a bible teacher for many years I can assure you that I would be terrified if people ever did anything merely because I had said it! It is as leaders faithfully teach the word of God that people need to listen and obey. I welcome the fact that we live in days when the

Hebrews 13.15-16 NLT 'Therefore, let us offer through Jesus a continual sacrifice of praise to God, proclaiming our allegiance to his name. And don’t forget to do good and to share with those in need. These are the sacrifices that please God.' The letter to the Hebrews devotes a great deal of attention to the old sacrificial system, and celebrates the fact that in Christ it has completely come to an end. He sacrificed his life on the cross and made it unnecessary for any further sacrifices. However, the language of sacrifice is still important and the writer encourages his readers to continually offer up their sacrifices of praise through Jesus as a sign of their commitment to him. This reminds us of the language of the apostle Paul who frequently commanded his readers to give thanks continually. These New Testament writers thought of thanksgiving not as an occasional religious duty but as a joyful way of life. Living a life of thanksgiving is vital but there is another sacrifice that we are urged to make