Be Still And Know

Romans 12.3 NLT '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. But 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, then we are liable to be steam-rollered 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 that we are of infinite worth. Nothing that we do is unimportant when we know that the Holy Spirit is filling us and directing our actions. The

Romans 12.2 NLT '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 there is no way in which we can 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 that what was needed was for 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.

Romans 12.1 NLT '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” which normally consists 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.

Romans 11.33-36 NLT 'Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways! For who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to give him advice? And who has given him so much that he needs to pay it back? For everything comes from him and exists by his power and is intended for his glory. All glory to him forever! Amen.' Paul has spent three chapters agonising over the issue of his people, the Jews. He is desperately keen that they should follow Christ and receive the gift of salvation. But Paul acknowledges with pain that they have, to a large extent, rejected the offer of new life in Jesus. I love the way in which he ends this part of the letter. He does so in worship by celebrating the greatness of God’s riches, wisdom and knowledge. In the previous chapters he has given the best of his mind to setting out the dilemma and his thinking about the situation. But, at the end of the day, he knows how real are the limits of his und

Romans 9.2-3 NLT 'My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters. I would be willing to be forever cursed—cut off from Christ!—if that would save them.' These are amazing words. The apostle Paul was proud of his Jewish heritage, and was absolutely passionate that his Jewish brothers and sisters should share in the wonder of knowing Christ as their personal Saviour. But look at the language he used. He was willing to be cursed forever if it meant that the Jewish people could find salvation. This is incredibly strong language and shows very clearly that it meant everything to him. He knew that the Jewish people were in an incredibly privileged position. They had been chosen to be God’s adopted children. God had revealed his glory to them, made covenants with them and given them the law. They had Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as their ancestors and Christ himself was a Jew. They had every advantage and Paul couldn’t cope with the pain of seeing them reject J

Romans 8.38-39 NLT 'And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.' When I lived in India I got to know an elderly missionary who had lived in the area for a very long time. She had asthma and found that the tropical climate was very helpful for her condition so when she retired she stayed in India and continued to have a powerful ministry. Whenever I said goodbye to her, she would come out onto her veranda and wave and she always used the same words. She would say “No separation.” It was an unusual greeting but what she was celebrating was that when we become Christians nothing can separate us from God’s love. Even if we travel away from ou

Romans 7.24-25 NLT Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. It’s a great privilege when someone shares their inner struggles. It isn’t easy to talk about the battles that go on in our lives, but here Paul let it all pour out! Here this mature Christian leader and brilliant teacher admitted that, although he wanted to do what was right, he often found himself doing the precise opposite. He recognised that there was a power inside him that encouraged him to be a slave of sin. It was an agonising dilemma and it left him feeling very miserable. But here he celebrated the fact that sin didn’t have to have the last word. And the answer was Jesus. By looking to Jesus and placing his trust in him he could find the liberty that he craved. The problem with sin is that it keeps knocking at the door of our lives. However long we may have been a Christian it keeps having a go, trying to find a foothold in ou

Romans 5.1 NLT 'Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us.' Everyone will agree that it is desirable to find inner peace. Go along to any book shop and you will find dozens of books that will offer you a quick route to inner tranquility. They will give you a wide range of suggestions from those that encourage you to change your diet, minimise your exposure to conflict or start meditation. None of those things are necessarily wrong but they won’t get to the heart of the problem which is that, as human beings, we fundamentally lack peace because our lives are not right with God. It is only when that relationship is sorted out that we can begin to experience God’s gift of peace. Here Paul celebrates the fact that that is precisely what Jesus has done through dying on the cross. When we are at peace with God, Paul declares that the door is flung open to all of God’s other blessings. The person who find

Romans 4.20 NLT 'Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God.' Paul is absolutely clear that faith is all important for those who want to be put right with God and he uses Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, as the supreme example. He trusted God completely even when life was tough and there was little encouragement. It all began with God calling him to leave his home together with his family and set off on a journey into the unknown. When God promised Abraham, as an old man, that he and his aged wife would have a son, he trusted God even though all the evidence pointed in the opposite direction. I love verse 18 of this same chapter which reads, “Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping—believing that he would become the father of many nations.” That’s faith! – total confidence in God. Now let’s bring this up to date. Let’s talk about today, because God is calling you and me to be people of faith ami

Romans 3:29-30  'After all, is God the God of the Jews only? Isn’t he also the God of the Gentiles? Of course he is. There is only one God, and he makes people right with himself only by faith, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.' The apostle Paul was a Jew and was very proud of the fact. In this letter he goes to great lengths to show that Jews have a very important place in the plans of God, but he wants his Roman readers to understand that God’s love wasn’t in any sense confined to the Jews. Indeed, God sent Jesus into the world for non-Jews (who he calls Gentiles) as well the Jews, because all of them had an equal need for forgiveness. Jesus’ death on the cross was for every kind of person because we all fall short of God’s standards.   Earlier in this chapter Paul asks the question whether Jews were in some sense better than other people and he flatly rejects the idea. Privileged as the Jews undoubtedly are, they all stand in the same place before God. Just like every Gentile they are sinners and

Romans 1:20  'For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.' People often ask how God will judge those who have never responded to him. Here Paul makes it clear that everyone has had an opportunity to respond to God, because he has made it so clear in creation. People have no excuse. The tragedy is that people have ended up worshipping what God has created rather than the Creator himself. They have got things exactly the wrong way round.   Of course our mission, like Paul’s, is to present the Good News to people. We want to help people to understand why Jesus came into the world and we can all have a share in that. We are not all evangelists but everyone who follows Jesus is a witness. We have our story to tell from our own personal experience, and our stuttering words are often far more persuasive than any silver-tongued

Romans 1:17  'This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith.' I once heard about a group of rowdy young people who had too much time on their hands and decided that it would be great fun to push a piano down the stairs in the building where they were meeting and see what happened. With great gusto they launched the piano and the result was inevitable. The piano was wrecked. Hearing what had happened an elderly man decided to take the battered and damaged piano on as a project and he spent the following year restoring it to its former glory. Don’t you love stories like that? We all love hearing when bad situations have been turned to good. But when we look at the world today the problems are so overwhelming and at the heart of them is the fact that humankind is out of step with God. Here in Paul’s amazing letter to the Romans he is going to set out with meticulous care how we can be put right with God. Nothing could possibly be more impo

Romans 1:16  'I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes – the Jew first and also the Gentile.' We are told that the apostle Paul had a particularly unimpressive appearance. According to tradition he was an ugly little chap with heavy eyebrows, bandy legs, a bald head, a hooked nose, bad eyesight and with no great gifts as a speaker. How could such a person have an impact on the awesome city of Rome which stood at the heart of a vast and confident empire? The fact is that his ministry had an enormous impact on that city and it was because he was absolutely sure of what God had called him to do. He was bursting with pride about the Good News. I love the expression that he was not ashamed of the Good News! It almost sounds like a joke because he was the complete opposite. He was willing to give every second of his time and every ounce of energy to letting people know about Jesus and his gift of salvation.   I wonder what you speak about

Romans 1.9 NLT 'God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart by spreading the Good News about his Son.' Prayer is a blessing in every way. It is the way in which we communicate with God and so it is at the heart of the Christian life. Prayerlessness is the surest path to spiritual weakness and discouragement. By contrast, the person who takes prayer seriously will find every aspect of their life being blessed. However, the blessings of prayer don’t end there. They also strengthen our relationships with our Christian brothers and sisters. One of the greatest privileges of my life is the knowledge that every day people pray for me. I couldn’t demand or deserve it, but I receive it with enormous gratitude. Here we get an insight into Paul’s life as we hear that he was persistent in his prayers for the Christians in Rome. He prayed for them night and day which shows the intensity of his commitment to them. These were not

Romans 1.7 NLT 'I am writing to all of you in Rome who are loved by God and are called to be his own holy people.' Paul’s letter to the church in Rome is sometimes described as the Gospel according to Paul. It’s not a bad description because in this letter he gives the fullest explanation of his understanding of the Good News of Jesus. Paul never met Jesus during his earthly ministry but his miraculous meeting with Jesus on the Road to Damascus turned his life upside down and from that moment on he lived for Jesus and sought to encourage others to do the same. Paul began his letter by explaining that he had been called by God and was a slave to Jesus. Paul had an incredibly tough ministry but it was founded upon the complete security of his relationship with God. That’s what sustained him when he was imprisoned, stoned, shipwrecked, mocked, accused and betrayed. As foster carers my wife and I often reflect on the importance of attachment, that is to say the relationship which a child has with their parent

Psalm 88.1-3 NLT '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 the psalm 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.” (Psalm 139.7-8) We are all different and it may be that you have never been through such desperate times and never will. But from time to time

Psalm 86.11 NLT '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 experiences. I reflect on my own teachers. Some of them were strict, others were encouraging, a few were inspiring, some seemed to be in the wrong job, others were funny and more of them thought they were funny! Teachers vary enormously. But when it comes to learning about life itself, we need the very best teacher, and here David recognises that God is that teacher. 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 by the people. In

Psalm 86.8 NLT '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 in India 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. But gods come in other 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 wor

Psalm 86.5 NLT 'O Lord, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask for your help.' I am sorry to remind you of this but, sooner or later, everything breaks down. Whether you are thinking of your health, car, bicycle, microwave, vacuum cleaner or heating system all of them will, one day, encounter problems. No one can go through life without facing these challenges. It is simply a fact of life. In this psalm David faces up to the fact that all of us sin. It’s not a pleasant fact to face 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 apost

Psalm 86.1 NLT '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 about 1000BC and had that experience time and again. This is clearly one of those times. He knew that, although he was incredibly wealthy and powerful, he couldn’t manage without God. Bernard Levin was one of the most respected political commentators in this country. 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 be