Be Still And Know

READ: James 5:1,2 NLT 'Look here, you rich people: Weep and groan with anguish because of all the terrible troubles ahead of you. Your wealth is rotting away, and your fine clothes are moth-eaten rags.' You can almost see the steam coming out of James’s ears can’t you? He is furious at the way in which the rich people were abusing their position. His very specific gripe with them was that they had failed to pay their workmen for mowing their fields. For James this wasn’t a little economic problem. This was an evil that had reached the ears of God himself and the rich people were heading for certain judgement. The Bible isn’t against rich people. However, God is certainly against anyone who abuses others and on many occasions the Bible reveals times when rich people have abused their position and exploited others. This was a major theme in the prophecy of Amos. He had particularly severe words for the women of Bashan in chapter 4:1 “You women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husband, ’B

READ: James 4:13,14 NLT Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. We are constantly encouraged to plan for the future. Whether we are looking at our family, our housing, our holidays or our pensions we are under continual pressure to make good plans. I don’t think that James is telling his readers not to do any planning, but he does want to prick the bubble of their arrogance. They thought that their life was their possession and that they could do what they liked with it. Not so, says James. The first consideration should be to discover God’s will. This means that when we do our planning we should do it when we are on our knees in prayer. We should reflect that our lives are a gift from God and that our families, education, talents and possessions are all part of his gracious

READ: James 4:7,8 NLT 'Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.' Life can often feel like a battleground. There is great evil in the world and any newspaper will illustrate that in agonizing detail. But there is also immense kindness and goodness all around if we have the eyes to see it. Daily life can often feel like a pitched battle between good and evil. James is concerned that his readers should make good decisions as they live on this battleground and that they should give undivided loyalty to God. It is true that the devil is active and that his entire mission is to destroy. He prowls around like a roaring lion looking for people to devour, according to Peter. (1 Peter 5:8) But the really good news is that God is stronger and so we don’t need to live in fear of the devil. If we resist him then he will flee from us. When Jesus died on the cross he

READ: James 4:6,7 NLT As the Scriptures say, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” So humble yourselves before God. Did you know that God is capable of hatred? Or perhaps you think that God is so nice that he couldn’t bring himself to hate anything. The fact is that the Bible is quite clear that God seethes with hatred at times. In Proverbs 6:16 we learn that God hates seven things and top of the list is pride. God’s problem with pride is that it is a complete rejection of him. The proud person doesn’t have any need for God, but lives a life in defiance of God’s will. And so we read that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. We therefore need to carefully unpack what this word humble means because it is clearly the gateway to true blessing. Humility doesn’t sound too attractive. We have awful images of people putting on an act, claiming to be but a mere worm and totally unworthy. That’s what we can neatly call false humility. True humility is the reverse of pride. The proud per

READ: James 4:2,3 NLT 'You don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.' Dream for a moment. If you could have anything in the world, what would you choose? I would be fascinated to know your answers – a beautiful large home; a yacht; a luxurious holiday; perfect health; world peace – I wonder what your answer was? Verse 2 suggests that we just need to ask God and we will get it. But verse 3 makes it clear that we need to ask with the right motive. God doesn’t necessarily give us exactly what we want. Imagine for a moment if we did get whatever our selfish desires demanded. We would be in control and everything would happen in exactly the way we wanted, and at precisely the time that we demanded it. For a brief moment it sounds like the perfect world. We would be in absolute control. The Bible has a technical word to describe such a place – it’s called hell. It’s the place where

READ: James 3:17,18 NLT 'The wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favouritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.' Many churches observe that they have very few people in their 20s and 30s. Whenever I’ve asked people in that age group what they are looking for, one theme dominates – authenticity. They are looking for Christians and churches which practise what they preach. James was on exactly the same page and is ruthless in addressing those who say the right words but live a phoney life. What he longed for was truly wise people. Living wisely is attractive in every way. The wisdom comes directly from God but it has very down to earth implications. James draws particular attention to the fact that wise people love peace and go out of their way to make it. You will never find a wise person t

READ: James 3:3-5 NLT 'We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth. And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.' The tongue is incredibly powerful, for good or ill. I recall the story of the young man who had shared some gossip about the local clergyman. Having heard about the rumours the clergyman, with great gentleness and wisdom, took the young man to the top of the church tower. Once there he handed the young man a feather pillow and asked him to rip it open. The feathers floated all over the village and some of them lifted by the air currents headed off into the far distance. The clergyman invited the young man now to pop the feathers back into the pillow. The young man protested that that would be absolutely impossible and the clergyman pointed out that that was exactly the same wi

READ: James 2:15-17 NLT Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say, “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well”—but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does that do? So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Christians use a lot of words. Preaching, singing, praying and fellowship all involve oceans of words and that’s fine on one condition, and if that condition is not met then we should be quiet. The condition is this: words must translate into action. You can preach the finest sermon, sing the most beautiful song of worship, pray the most articulate prayer and enjoy the warmest fellowship but if godly actions don’t result then it was all a dangerous waste of time. Don’t you love James? He doesn’t know how to beat around the bush. He goes straight for the jugular every time. He wants to see every Christian busily involved in turning their fine words into action. He is appalled at t

READ: James 2:1 NLT 'My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favour some people over others?' Do you have favourites? Or do you look at other people in the same way whatever their age, education, wealth, beauty, race, religion and irrespective of whether you know them or not? The first question suddenly got more difficult didn’t it? We would all be keen to claim that we don’t have favourites but James points out to his readers that favouritism very easily creeps into our thinking. James describes a situation that could happen in a local church. An obviously wealthy person comes to a service and is welcomed generously and given a good seat. He is followed by a scruffy man whose poverty is plain for all to see who is told rudely to sit down or find a place on the floor. James proclaims boldly that this should not happen. The main reason why favouritism should not happen is that God doesn’t do it. God welcomes everyone whoever they are, and we are ca

READ: James 1:23-24 NLT 'Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.' I love the way James writes but I’m not sure he would make easy company. He is so incredibly blunt. If the Christian faith doesn’t get translated into daily action then he wants nothing to do with it. Here he makes the obvious but powerful point that there would be no point in looking in a mirror if it didn’t cause you to do something as a result. If you learn that your hair looks a complete mess then action is required! Reading the Bible is not like reading any other book. Other books might be entertaining, interesting or informative but they will rarely change our lives. The Bible is one of the principal ways in which God has chosen to speak to us, and so whenever we read it we need to ask the question, “Lord what are you saying to me?” If we merely read the Bible as a beautiful work of lit

READ: James 1:5 NLT  'If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.' Life constantly throws challenges at us. Should we move house? Should I move to a different job because I’ve seen one that pays more? How can I resolve the dispute that I’ve got with my next-door neighbour? Should I tell my colleague that he’s annoying me? How should I go about telling my daughter that I think she’s seeing the wrong people? And a thousand other questions!  The Bible focuses a lot of attention on the subject of wisdom in both the Old and the New Testaments. Wisdom is very different from knowledge. You can have all the knowledge in the world but it will do you no good at all if you are not wise. Here James points to God as the source of wisdom and encourages his readers to understand that God loves sharing his wisdom with us.In the Old Testament we learn a lot about wisdom in the book of Proverbs. There we find down to earth guidance for life in

READ: James 1:2-3 NLT 'Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.' This sounds ridiculous. Having problems, trials and difficulties doesn’t sound, on the face of it, like the best way to create joy. So what is James talking about? What he’s doing is taking his readers to the heart of the Christian faith which turns everything upside down.  James is not saying that when we face difficulties it’s a bundle of fun. He is speaking to people who knew what it was to suffer for their faith, and he wants them to know that, when we place our difficulties in God’s hands, he produces something incredibly exciting. Something which lasts. Something which takes us closer to the heart of God, and that always produces joy. Like many of you I’ve had a bad back for many years. At times I’ve had to live with pain night and day and that’s not great. It’s certainly not fun. But I thank God for the way in which he has

READ: Psalm 34:10 NLT 'Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those who trust in the LORD will lack no good thing.' Have you ever thought that in following God you will miss out on lots of good things? I certainly did. When I heard the call to ministry I was 19 and I struggled with the idea of answering the call, because it seemed to me that I would be sure to miss out on so much. I was clearly going to miss out on the money which my chosen profession would have brought me. And then this particular verse came to my attention. It was God’s promise to me that I wouldn’t miss out. And I haven’t. And you won’t. God is better able to provide for us than anyone and when we are obedient to him then he will generously provide us with everything we need.This same principle applies to all aspects of following God. When you give to God you will never miss out. When you give him your time, your talents, your possessions or your future you will never lose out. As Paul wrote in Romans, “And who could ever give hi

READ: Psalm 34:8 NLT 'Taste and see that the LORD is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!' After leaving University I spent two years living in Kerala, South India. It’s a beautiful state and the vegetation is so lush and dense that, from the air, it looks like a huge jungle. One of the most amazing discoveries was the vast range of new fruits. I had never heard of custard apple or jack fruit and could hardly believe it when I was told that they had 63 different varieties of banana! During those two years my taste-buds worked overtime. I could have played it safe and stayed with the fruits and other foods that I was used to, but I am so glad that I explored an amazing variety of entirely new tastes. Day by day God is constantly inviting us to step into new experiences in order to taste different aspects of his love and grace. Throughout the world and history, people have worshipped God in an amazing variety of ways. It is often good for us to step out of our familiar ways of worshipping to see

READ: Psalm 33:2,3 NLT 'Praise the LORD with melodies on the lyre; make music for him on the ten-stringed harp. Sing a new song of praise to him; play skilfully on the harp, and sing with joy.' The psalmist often speaks about singing new songs to the Lord. That has always made me wonder what is wrong with the old songs? The psalmist doesn’t give us an answer but in every generation as God has touched people’s lives they have created new songs. Many of the old songs are fantastic and a real blessing but when the Spirit is at work there is no way of stopping the production of new ones! Singing is a wonderful expression of our life together as the people of God. In 1979 I visited Romania for the first time. The Iron Curtain was very firmly in place and Ceausescu’s terrible dictatorship had ten more cruel years to run. We spoke with many Christians about the constant pressure that they lived under and it would be easy to understand if we came away with memories of their moans and dissatisfactions. But no, the mos

READ: Psalm 31:9-10 NLT 'Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am in distress. Tears blur my eyes. My body and soul are withering away. I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within.' David is clearly at the end of his tether. Physically he is in a bad way and he feels that everyone is out to get him. Even his friends have rejected him and in verse 11 he reports that when they see him in the street they run away from him. Just imagine how awful that must be. In addition to all that, he knows that he has let the side down by his own sin. He is in a state of complete grief. Everything has gone wrong. I wonder if you have ever felt as desperate as that? If you have, then the last thing in the world you want is for people to tell you,” I’m sure it will all turn out all right in the end,” ... or, “Just hang in there and you can be sure that things will improve.” We would, I think, both feel inclined to throw the nearest available large Bible at them! 

READ: Psalm 29:3 NLT 'The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.' The Bible clearly reveals that God loves to speak to us, and that he does this in an endless variety of ways. Much of the time we expect communication to be in the form of words, whether written or spoken, but God isn’t limited by words or anything else. This psalm reminds us that God’s commanding voice can be clearly heard in creation if only we have ears to hear it. I love those moments when the only way you can respond to creation is by gasping. I remember travelling through Nepal and being overwhelmed by the grandeur of the Himalayas. I remember many visits to the coast where the crashing waves are awesome in their power. I recall beautiful gardens where the profusion of colour and the intricate beauty of the flowers has been stunning. I remember many visits to zoos where the sheer variety of the animals, birds and fish has been astounding. I think of those moments gazing in

READ: Psalm 27:14 NLT 'Wait for the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart be strong. Yes, wait for the Lord.' Our society has been especially designed to exclude waiting. The advertising industry seeks to persuade us that everything can be obtained instantly: instant credit, instant satisfaction, instant rewards. One of the first credit cards had as its slogan, “Taking the waiting out of wanting” and that’s not a bad summary of how our society works. The psalmist had an altogether different approach. For him, waiting was something good and he encourages his fellow worshippers to wait for the Lord. The truth, of course, is that the most valuable things in life require waiting – and often a great deal of it. There is no way in which you can instantly acquire maturity, a godly character or a strong and trusting relationship. They require years of patient, thoughtful, prayerful development. At times it looks as if God takes a long time to get round to answering our prayers. He doesn’t conform to the requirements of our

READ: Psalm 27:1 NLT 'The Lord is my light and my salvation — so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?' If you’ve ever looked through a list of phobias you will have been amazed by the variety. I’ve only recently come across Nomophobia which is the fear of not having mobile access; Ephebiphobia, which is the fear of teenagers; and Syngenesophobia which is the fear of relatives. We might laugh for a moment, but only for a moment, because all fears are serious. If you are afraid then your life is distorted and restricted by the fear. David had every reason to be fearful. His life as a shepherd would have introduced him to a wide range of potential fears, and his relationship with Saul must have been reasonably scary even on the calmest days. All of those experiences would have done little to prepare him for the extraordinary threats and challenges of life as a King. Skilful and successful as he was as a military commander there must have been many d

READ: Psalm 25:4-5 NLT 'Show me Your ways, O Lord. Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me. For You are the God Who saves me. I wait for You all day long.' Everyone wants guidance. We all want to know how to have the most peaceful, fulfilling and useful life. We want to know who to marry, which career to follow, how to spend our money, how to resolve conflict and a thousand other things. The bible steadfastly refuses to be a manual on guidance. It does something far more wonderful. It introduces us to a Guide. God wants to be that Guide and the better we get to know him the more clearly we discover the way in which he wants us to go. The person who looks for guidance is normally saying “I want to stay in charge and run my life, but I’d like a little bit of information to help me on my way.” God doesn’t work on that basis. It is when we hand over the controls to him and offer to him our hopes and our future that he is able to guide us in the way that he longs to. I have often struggled with gui