Be Still And Know

Romans 15:5-6 May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus. Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You don’t need to be a genius to work out why Paul so often spoke about the issue of unity! He knew how hard it was to achieve. If the early Church had always enjoyed harmonious relationships, he could have kept quiet on the subject. His continual reiteration of the message of unity was because he knew that it was the demanding daily work of the Church – and it still is! It is often very small issues which cause huge disputes in churches. It’s just the same in marriage. When I’ve had the privilege of walking with couples who have encountered difficulties, almost always when I ask them to trace back to the original dispute, they fall about laughing at the absurd triviality of the issue. If a small disagreement is not resolved, it

Romans 14:1 Accept other believers who are weak in faith, and don’t argue with them about what they think is right or wrong. In every generation, there are issues on which Christians disagree. This will always be the case – the question is what to do with those disputes, particularly in relation to young Christians. Paul offers very strong and practical advice. He is desperately concerned that such issues shouldn’t be a stumbling block to those who are younger and weaker in the faith. He encourages his readers to respect one another’s different opinions and not to make a big issue of it. The two areas of tension in the Roman Church concerned food and the celebration of special days. Those from a Jewish background had some very strict rules about their food and the Sabbath. They were absolutely convinced that they were right, and clearly had no willingness to negotiate. Paul said that what mattered was doing what they believed was right before the Lord. If someone ate a particular food and another person

Romans 13:11-12 You know how late it is; time is running out. Wake up, for our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here. So remove your dark deeds like dirty clothes, and put on the shining armour of right living. In this life, everything is limited by time. You might want to have another day to complete your revision, but when the examination day comes, there is no more time. You might have lots of worthy things to do, but the aeroplane won’t wait for you. You may be a great athlete and keen to do some more training, but when the starting pistol is fired, there is no more time. Paul wanted his readers to have a clear understanding that their time was fast running out, so they needed to be on their toes, ready to serve God here and now, and not put it off. It would seem that Paul, in common with most of the early Christians, was expecting Jesus to return at any moment. However, whether we die or the Lord returns before our dea

Romans 13:1 Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. Our society has a high level of cynicism towards those in authority, and the media takes every opportunity to shoot politicians down in flames whenever they slip up. However, the apostle Paul would encourage us to look at our politicians with spiritual eyes and to remember that all authority on this earth ultimately comes from God. Therefore, it is vital that we pray for those in authority and play our part as good citizens, obeying the laws of the land and showing our willingness to support the community. I can hear you asking a very big question: “What should we do if the governing authorities command us to do something that is contrary to God’s law?” Paul doesn’t address this issue and it might well be because, at this stage, he hadn’t encountered any particular difficulties. The Jews had a special status of protection within the Roman Empire and

Romans 12:17-18 Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see you are honourable. Do all that you can to live in peace with everyone. The Christian life involves a complete rewiring of the way we think and live. It involves a total revolution in our lives because when someone does something evil to us, the natural reaction is to retaliate. Everything in us makes us want to hit back. We want justice and we don’t want our attacker to think that they can get away with it. Jesus’ way is different. He calls us never to take revenge but to leave that to God. Our job is to feed our enemies when they are hungry and to give them a drink when they are thirsty. We are to go out of our way to bless them and help them, and that is tough. That’s not the way we are naturally inclined to act, but it is the way of Christ and it is the way of peace. Paul wasn’t unrealistic. His life brought him into conflict with many people and he had no illusions that his teaching would be easy to live

Romans 12:9-10 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other. Napoleon once said: “Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I founded empires; but upon what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ alone founded his empire upon love.” It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of love. Without love there can be no Church, no blessing, no joy, no future worth having. Everything depends upon love, and here, Paul was concerned that the Christians in Rome didn’t make do with a phoney love. He recognised that it is possible to pretend to love other people. We can do it by being superficial and merely polite with others, glancing over the surface of their lives without really engaging with them and their needs. What Paul longed for was for deep, compassionate, sacrificial love which would totally transform their lives together. It is interesting that Paul

Romans 12:7-8 If your gift is serving others, serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If it is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. In three of his letters, Paul talks about the gifts that God has given to Christians, and each list is very different. Here and in Ephesians 4 and 1 Corinthians 12, he makes it clear that every follower of Christ has been given a unique gift from God which is vital for the Church, the body of Christ. God gives his gifts according to the needs of the Church, and I am quite sure that if Paul were writing today, he would be keen to add the gift of helping with public address systems and digital technology. The Holy Spirit gives just the right gifts to his Church to enable it to be effective. The point that Paul is making here is that once you have found your gift, you need to get on and

Romans 12:3 Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. It is vital for all of us to have a true understanding of ourselves. If we go around with an inflated view of our own importance, the whole of life will look distorted. Relationships will be damaged, and we will add layers of difficulty to everyday life. It is just as damaging to have too low a view of ourselves. If we go into the day feeling that we are unimportant and don’t count, we are liable to be steamrollered by the smallest of difficulties. What we need is an accurate understanding of who we are, and that’s what we gain by faith. As we place our trust in God, we learn that we are made in his image and are of infinite worth. Nothing we do is unimportant when we know that the Holy Spirit is filling us and directing our actions. The apostle Paul is clearly ver

Romans 12:2 Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Every day, our thinking is being shaped by our society. Most of the time, we are totally unaware that this is happening, but there is no way that we can avoid being influenced by the expectations and standards of the people around us, by the information and views that we receive through the media and by ingenious and attractive advertising. We won’t swallow all of it whole, but we cannot be immune from those many powerful influences. As J B Phillips put it in his famous Bible translation, we need to resist the world’s attempts to squeeze us “into its own mould”. The apostle Paul said we need God to transform us by changing the way we think. This is incredibly radical, but without it we will continue to be the same as we have always been. When Jesus met Nicodemus, a respected Jewish r

Romans 12:1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. We use the word worship in a wide variety of ways. Sometimes we use it to refer to a church service, and at other times we use it for a part of the service which is called “a time of worship”, normally consisting of prayers and singing. Here, Paul is using the word in a much bigger way. He is talking about us giving our whole lives to God as an act of worship, and he suggests that this is the only fitting response to a God who has done everything for us. Paul has absolutely no thought that we could worship God for a while and then get on with our own life, as if we could divide up life into different compartments. Our whole life needs to be focused on worshipping God. Paul invited the Christians in Rome to offer their worship to God as a living and holy sacrifice. Wi

Psalm 88:1-3 O LORD, God of my salvation, I cry out to you by day. I come to you at night. Now hear my prayer; listen to my cry. For my life is full of troubles, and death draws near. This is possibly the saddest of all the psalms. The psalmist cried out to God in a state of total despair. Many of the psalms are referred to as psalms of lament, but this one goes even further and is full of absolute desperation. It is painful to read because it is so bleak, but I am so glad that it is part of the Bible. It reminds us that God is there for us, whatever the circumstances. His love reaches out to us even in the darkest of places. It reminds me of Psalm 139 where the psalmist declared that it is impossible to escape from God’s Spirit: “I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I go down to the grave, you are there” (vv7-8). We are all different and you might not have been through such desperate times, and perhaps never will, but we will all meet people who are struggling

Psalm 86:11 Teach me your ways, O LORD, that I may live according to your truth! I wonder what your school teachers were like. I suspect that we all had a wide range of experiences. Some of my teachers were strict, others were encouraging, a few were inspiring. Some seemed to be in the wrong job, others were funny - and some just thought they were funny! Teachers vary enormously, but when it comes to learning about life itself, we need the very best teacher. Here, David recognises that God is that person. God is often spoken of as Israel’s teacher. In Isaiah 2:3, the prophet identified Jerusalem as the centre of education for the world when he wrote: “People from many nations will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of Jacob’s God. There he will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.’ For the LORD’s teaching will go out from Zion; his word will go out from Jerusalem.” Sadly, God’s teaching was often rejected. In Jeremiah’s prophecy we hear God saying:

Psalm 86:8 No pagan god is like you, O Lord. None can do what you do! There have always been lots of gods on offer. A god is anything that calls for our commitment and devotion, and in every age, there has been a colourful variety of options. I once stayed with a journalist in Mumbai who had a remarkable variety of gods in his flat. There were pictures of many Hindu deities, but Jesus and Mary were there as well. Gods also come in more subtle forms. A person’s family or their job, house, bank balance, hobby or sport can be their god. All of those things are good in themselves, but when they are turned into gods, they take on a completely different and potentially destructive significance. King David was well aware of the wide range of gods that he could worship, but he concluded that the God of Israel was incomparably great. He alone was worthy of David’s commitment and devotion. The prophets spent a lot of time mocking the false gods of their time. Isaiah mocked the wood carver who carefully worked with h

Psalm 86:5 O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help. Sooner or later, everything breaks down. Whether you are thinking of your health, car, bicycle, microwave, computer, vacuum cleaner or heating system, all of them will, one day, encounter problems. In this psalm, David faces up to the fact that we all sin. It’s not pleasant to admit, but we would be crazy to suggest that it doesn’t affect us. Of course, we may try to wriggle out of this by suggesting that our sins are not nearly as bad as other people’s sins but, at the end of the day, we need to acknowledge that we are sinners, falling well short of God’s standards. The Bible doesn’t draw our attention to our sin in order to humiliate us, or to encourage us to beat ourselves up. It shines the light on our sin in order to show us the remedy. In Romans 3:23, the apostle Paul wrote: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.” Sadly, we let God down each day through

Psalm 86:1 Bend down, O LORD, and hear my prayer; answer me, for I need your help. Finding peace and purpose in our lives is something that we all want, and the first step to achieving it is recognising that we need God’s help. David, the author of this psalm, was Israel’s king in about 1000BC and had that experience time and again. This was clearly one of those times. He knew that although he was incredibly wealthy and powerful, he simply couldn’t manage without God. Bernard Levin was one of the most respected political commentators in the UK. He once wrote: “Countries like ours are full of people who have all of the material comforts they desire, yet lead lives of quiet (and at times noisy) desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there is a hole inside them and that however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motorcars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it…it aches!” I firmly believe

Psalm 85:8 I listen carefully to what God the LORD is saying, for he speaks peace to his faithful people. Listening is crucial to every part of life, but that doesn’t mean it is a simple process. It requires a huge amount of thought and care, so it isn’t surprising that courses in listening are widely available these days. There are essentially five stages to the listening process: receiving, understanding, evaluating, remembering and responding. I am sure the psalmist would have seen this as a good description of what it meant to “listen carefully” to the Lord. It’s possible to hear someone speaking without taking on board anything that they have said, but when you listen, you deliberately receive what they are saying. However, even that isn’t enough. You need to understand the words they are using. Without that, their words are nothing more than sounds. Having understood the words, they need to be evaluated. What exactly was the person trying to say, and how does it apply to you personally? When God spea

Psalm 84:10 A single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else! I would rather be a gatekeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the homes of the wicked. I wonder if you’ve ever experienced homesickness. I certainly have. I loved the years I spent in India and my Indian friends couldn’t have been kinder or welcoming, but there was still a deep longing to see my family and friends and to experience cold weather! At the time, the phone connection between India and the UK was very poor, and in two years I only managed to make one incredibly expensive call to my parents. The line was very crackly and it was very difficult to hear anything, but there were tears rolling down my cheeks as I heard their distant voices. I think the only information we shared that could be clearly heard was them telling me it was raining in Essex, and me informing them that it was hot in India! The psalmist was thoroughly homesick when he wrote this particular psalm. The home that he longed to be

Psalm 82:3-4 Give justice to the poor and the orphan; uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute. Rescue the poor and helpless; deliver them from the grasp of evil people. When I was in my 20s, I lived in an Indian village for a year. I had the incredible privilege of living with a family of Dalits, who have generally been known as untouchables. Dalits form about a quarter of the Indian population and have always been regarded as the lowest of the low. My Indian family was a typical extended family with a granny, mum, dad, three children and various aunts who would stay with us from time to time. They generously opened their home and their hearts to me and gave me the most amazing insight into their way of life. In doing so, they opened my eyes to injustice on a scale I had never seen before. Every part of their lives was defined by the fact that they were Dalits. Life was a daily struggle as they lived with the certainty that they would never receive fair treatment from society. It was distress

Psalm 81:10-11 “For it was I, the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things. But no, my people wouldn’t listen. Israel did not want me around.” We probably all know the feeling when someone doesn’t want us around. It’s painful. For some reason, they don’t come out with it plainly and clearly, but we get the clear impression that we are not welcome. However, it is much more tragic when people decide that they don’t want God around, and that’s how the psalmist described Israel. He was the God who had led them out of slavery in Egypt. He was nothing less than their God of salvation, but time and again they rejected him and refused to listen to him. We are not just talking about ancient history – we are describing our society today. The majority of people totally ignore God. They don’t want him around because they think he will spoil their fun. They are concerned that they will lose their freedom. However, we need to take every opportunit

Psalm 80:19 Turn us again to yourself, O LORD God of Heaven’s Armies. Make your face shine down upon us. Only then will we be saved. When someone looks at us with their full attention and warmth, it tells us everything we need to know – that we are welcome and that they are on our side. On three occasions in this psalm, Asaph expresses his longing that God’s face would shine upon the people. This psalm was probably written at the time of the fall of Samaria to the Assyrians in the 8th century BC. The destruction of the ten northern tribes left little Judah terribly exposed and the people feared for their lives. In their despair, they turned to God and longed that he would turn his face to them and give them his blessing. God longed to give his people his blessing. Any loving father does, and the Old Testament makes clear to us that it was consistently God’s desire. Today’s verse reminds us of the Aaronic Blessing which we find in Numbers 6:24-26: “May the LORD bless you and protect you. May the LORD smile