Be Still And Know

Mark 4:21 Then Jesus asked them, “Would anyone light a lamp and then put it under a basket or under a bed? Of course not! A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light will shine.” Jesus often spoke using parables. On the surface, they were just simple stories, but they all had a very deep spiritual meaning. Like me, you may well have been listening to the parables since you were young, and I’m sure you’d agree that they keep challenging and encouraging us in new ways. We are not always in a position to understand what God is saying to us, but he is always in the business of shining his light on our lives. He wants us to understand what his will is, and the Bible is one of the main ways in which he chooses to speak with us. So the question we all need to ask is this: “How are we going to make sure that God’s light shines in our lives?” First of all, we need to set aside time to receive God’s truth. However busy your life is, you need to make sure you have time to reflect on what God is saying to you. These

Mark 3:34-35 [Jesus] looked at those around him and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. Anyone who does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” The Gospels tell us remarkably little about Jesus’ family. We would so love to know about all his family members and his relationships with them, but the Gospels are largely silent. However, we meet them on this occasion because they had clearly got the impression that Jesus wasn’t looking after himself. Earlier in this chapter, we are informed that Jesus and his disciples were so busy that they couldn’t even find time to eat. Mark records that they had formed the view that Jesus was out of his mind. When Jesus was told that his mother and brothers had come to see him, his response was to identify who his true family was: people who did God’s will. I don’t believe for a moment that Jesus was abandoning his birth family or seeking to insult them. He always sought to uphold the law, which affirmed the God-given responsibility for caring for one’s

Mark 3:13 Afterward Jesus went up on a mountain and called out the ones he wanted to go with him. And they came to him. The calling of the twelve disciples is a fascinating moment in Jesus’ ministry. It’s greatly significant that he chose to work with a group of people and not operate alone. In this, he affirmed the importance of fellowship. However gifted we may be, we need one another and our very different outlooks and abilities. Going it alone is never Jesus’ way. I remember as a teenager meeting a very enthusiastic Christian who was determined that my home town should all follow Jesus. It was a wonderful vision to have, but he was quite clear that he was going to do this by himself. He had a large leather bag full of Christian tracts and he was confident that he would be able to get the job done. His enthusiasm was commendable, but his method was sadly wrong. We are never called to go off on heroic solo adventures but to work closely with our Christian brothers and sisters. Jesus’ disciples were a fas

Mark 2:27-28 Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord, even over the Sabbath!” Some years ago, I spent a couple of months living in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, which is home to a very large number of ultra-orthodox Jews. I very soon learned, to my surprise, that the Sabbath begins late afternoon on Friday, when the first star is seen in the sky. From that moment, the shops shut and people go home to begin their rituals to mark the start of the Sabbath. There is something incredibly special about setting aside one day in seven as a day of rest. This was the example that God set when he created the world, and the law of Moses protected the day with a penalty of death for anyone who worked on the Sabbath. Over the centuries, the laws of the Sabbath were developed extensively, and by the time of Jesus, there were scores of laws regulating people’s activities on the day. There were, essentially, 39 for

Mark 2:22 [Jesus said:] “No one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins.” We all know what happens to leather after a few years: it becomes hard and brittle. Just imagine what happens when you put wine into an old leather wineskin – the wine inevitably leaks away. In Jesus’ day, wine was largely stored in wineskins, so everyone got the point. If you want to keep your wine, you need to make sure that you only put it into new wineskins. Jesus’ teaching was radical and new. He was telling people about the new wine of the kingdom of God. This wonderful new wine was so precious that there was no point in trying to put it into the old wineskins of Judaism. There needed to be a complete revolution. It was vital for them to be born again. A new life needed to begin. Many people hear the teaching of Jesus and conclude that they need to turn over a new leaf. They need to start being more loving, and s

Mark 2:17 [Jesus] told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Jesus’ way of life was a shock to the respectable religious leaders of his day. So far as they were concerned, the priority was to ensure they were ritually pure so they could participate in the temple worship. Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan powerfully describes the situation. The first two people who walked past the wounded man were a priest and a Levite. Jesus wasn’t suggesting that they didn’t care – their priority was to remain ritually clean so they could perform their duties. Jesus, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be bothered about staying ritually clean according to the Jewish law. He gladly associated with dodgy people, even though he must have known that this would offend the religious leaders. Here, Jesus explained the reason why he did this: he had come for the sake of people who knew that they were sick, and

Mark 2:5 Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralysed man, “My child, your sins are forgiven.” I love this story. Four men had decided that, however difficult it might be, they were going to get their paralysed friend to Jesus. They knew it would be a challenge because Jesus was already very popular and large crowds were following him. On this particular day, Jesus was preaching in a house in Capernaum where he had been staying. The house was already crammed with people, so there was no possibility of the men getting their friend to Jesus through the door. They needed to use their initiative, and for them the obvious answer was to break through the roof. The owner of the house probably wasn’t quite so thrilled with their conclusion but it was, nonetheless, effective, and the paralysed man was brought to the feet of Jesus. Everybody could see what the need was. The man was paralysed and needed healing, so surely Jesus, who had already acquired a reputation as a miraculous healer, would reach out his hand

Mark 1:35 Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray. Although Jesus’ ministry had only recently begun, he was already very busy. His authoritative preaching and miraculous healings were attracting great interest and he had little time to himself, but he knew that his authority came from God his Father, so he needed to keep in close contact with him. He had to work hard to find a special time and place to pray. He knew that his ministry relied upon it. As we walk in the footsteps of Jesus, we need to work just as hard to find our special times and places to pray. One thing is certain: personal prayer won’t happen without discipline and determination. We will always be able to fill our time with other activities. The key thing is for us to become convinced that prayer is our priority and that other activities, however worthy and enjoyable, are of lesser importance. That’s often hard to accept because we tend to judge ourselves, and others tend to measure us, by

Mark 1:16-18 One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” And they left their nets at once and followed him. 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 and, as we saw it, it was so easy to imagine Jesus walking along beside it, coming to a couple of fishermen and inviting them to follow him. The truly incredible thing is that nothing has changed. Two thousand 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. Religions normally

Mark 1:14-15 Later on, after John was arrested, Jesus went into Galilee, where he preached God’s Good News. “The time promised by God has come at last!” he announced. “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!” We all know what we need to do when we are driving in the wrong direction: turn around. These days, I rely on satnav for most of my journeys, but every now and again, I trust my memory. Most of time that works brilliantly, but I have had a number of embarrassing experiences when I got things wrong. I remember one time when I was driving home at the end of the day. I wasn’t far from home, but I suddenly realised that I was driving north when I needed to drive south. All I could do was swallow my pride and turn around! 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 mu

Mark 1:12-13 The Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness, where he was tempted by Satan for forty days. He was out among the wild animals, and angels took care of him. We’d probably all like to think that if our lives were totally led by the Spirit like Jesus’ was, we would be able to avoid all challenges and difficulties. Life would be one long succession of blessings and smiling people. The experience of Jesus shows us that this isn’t how 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, and he himself was very clear about this. 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 said: “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials

Mark 1:9-11 One day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and John baptised him in the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, “You are my dearly loved Son, and you bring me great joy.” Here, in a gentle yet 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 essential that the whole Trinity was involved. 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 that we see most clearly how they all work together. We must be constantly 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 in the power of the Holy Spirit. T

Mark 1:7-8 John [the Baptist] announced: “Someone is coming soon who is greater than I am—so much greater that I’m not even worthy to stoop down like a slave and untie the straps of his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit!” 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 carpenters, car mechanics, ministers, teachers and accountants 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 they can. That well describes John the Baptist. He knew exactly what his God-given role 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, not to him. Do you know what your God-given role is? People often struggle with this question. They tend to be quite dismissive of what they’re currently doing. They don’t see it as very import

Mark 1:1 This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. When Mark put together his Gospel, he had a very clear purpose. You might have expected him to take us through Jesus’ life story, 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 so fascinated to know about all of those things, but Mark wants to get to the heart of the matter: 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 Gospels were written in very different circumstances over the next 30 or 40 years, but it was Mark who was breaking the 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 think he was writing around the year AD 60, a full generation after

Psalm 96:1-3 Sing a new song to the LORD! Let the whole earth sing to the LORD! Sing to the LORD; praise his name. Each day proclaim the good news that he saves. Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does. Many people see life as divided into two categories: the sacred and the secular. The sacred is, for example, what we do when we go to church and worship God, and the secular is our normal daily routine of family life, working and relaxing. This way of looking at life is strongly Greek in origin and is very different from Hebrew thinking, which we see reflected in this psalm. The psalmist had no thought of confining his worship to his visits to the temple! He was eager to proclaim the good news of God’s salvation every day. Whatever he was doing, he wanted to declare the greatness of God and encourage other people to do the same. The idea of living in two separate compartments was completely unknown to him. When we see God at work in every aspect of our li

Psalm 95:6-7 Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the LORD our maker, for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. If only you would listen to his voice today! These words of invitation are often used at the beginning of church services to remind us of how wonderful God is, and how much he deserves our worship. However, although God is perfect and worthy of our complete devotion, he will never impose himself on us. It is up to us to respond, and listening is a crucial part of that response. The sad reality is that we often fail to listen. The psalmist reflects on a time when the people of Israel did just that. They were at the start of their wilderness wanderings and there was no water to drink. I don’t want to minimise the acute difficulty of such a dilemma, but the people’s response was to complain and not to listen to God. Although he had miraculously delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and provided regular food for them through the provision of quai

Psalm 94:18-19 I cried out, “I am slipping!” but your unfailing love, O LORD, supported me. When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer. Sharing honestly and openly what God has done in our lives is incredibly powerful. The most wonderful thing about it is that nobody can deny it. Other people might choose to interpret our experiences differently from us, but the moment we declare our personal accounts of how we have seen God at work in our lives, they are bound to take note of what we have said. I draw the conclusion from this that we need to give one another generous opportunities to share what God has done. Sharing our personal testimonies is good at every level. In a large congregation, they can inspire faith and stimulate worship. When we share our experiences in small groups where we can be totally honest with one another, one person’s testimony can trigger other people to share what they have been through. Probably the best time to speak of what God has done is one-to-on

Psalm 93:4 Mightier than the violent raging of the seas, mightier than the breakers on the shore – the Lord above is mightier than these! I was brought up by the sea and have always enjoyed the sight of waves breaking on the shore. I love the rhythm and the drama as they crash onto the beach. There is a timelessness about waves, and it is easy to understand why the psalmists often refer to them. But, however powerful and violent the sea might be, the psalmists insist that God is even more powerful. He is incomparably great. Whatever threat you are facing, God is more than able to cope. I wonder what challenges you are facing at the moment. They may be connected with your family, work, church, neighbours, community or something completely different. Life in our broken world inevitably produces a stream of challenges for all of us, and when we think beyond our immediate lives, we can see incredible problems engulfing our world. There are fires, floods and famine arising from climate change; huge numbers of p

Psalm 92:1-3 It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp and the melody of a lyre. Throughout the psalms, we are continually reminded how good it is to worship God. In Psalm 84:10, the psalmist says that he would rather spend a single day in the presence of God than a thousand anywhere else! Our verses today remind us of the importance of worshipping God throughout the day. Worship needs to be woven into the fabric of our lives. We can’t do it occasionally or half-heartedly. It needs to claim the best of our energy and attention. Worship is of such huge importance because it needs to affect absolutely every aspect of life. The thought of worship being confined to a couple of hours in church once a week is completely foreign to the Bible. When we worship, we declare the greatness of God and seek to bring our lives into line with his will.

Psalm 91:2 This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him. I will never forget where I was when I heard the news of the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 2001. I was buying carpet with my wife in a large store in Exeter, standing at the till. A woman was describing to the shop assistant the awful events in such a way that I assumed that she was talking about a film. Such things don’t happen in real life – or so I thought! As I listened to the conversation, it suddenly became clear that she was talking about a real event, and the horror of it started to sink in. Thousands of people were snatched away in an instant. All of them had gone to work that day with the not unreasonable expectation that they would return home safe and well, but they didn’t. Such events are exceptional, thank God, but we all live in a precarious world where none of us enjoys complete safety and security. In such a world, it is important that we recogni