Be Still And Know

Psalm 98:1 Sing a new song to the LORD, for he has done wonderful deeds. His right hand has won a mighty victory; his holy arm has shown his saving power! I love the fact that God’s people through thousands of years have enjoyed singing. The psalmist had a very clear reason for encouraging people to sing: God’s salvation. Throughout his dealings with his people, he had shown them his ability to save, supremely when he led them out of slavery in Egypt. After 400 years in that land, God set them free in the most dramatic way. Nothing has changed. Salvation should spur us into singing today. Salvation never changes because God has always been in the business of setting people free from sin, guilt and lifelessness, but the way in which that salvation is experienced will be unique for every individual. I love hearing the testimonies of other Christians, and what always strikes me is that each is a one-off. God comes to us as individuals and meets us in the specific context of our lives, so there is endless va

Psalm 97:10 You who love the LORD, hate evil! He protects the lives of his godly people and rescues them from the power of the wicked. One of the signs that we truly love God is that we start to hate evil, and this is critically important because the many great evils in the world will never come to an end unless people begin hating them. The Transatlantic Slave Trade only stopped when people identified its horror and started hating it. I once visited the ancient fort at Cape Coast in Ghana where slaves were held before being ferried to the slave ships off the coast. For me, the most horrific discovery was that the dungeon in which the slaves were brutally stored was underneath the chapel. As the slave traders worshipped God, they must have heard the cries of the slaves. For centuries, people lived with the slave trade as an acceptable, if regrettable, part of life. It was only when people started to hate it and fight against it that the tide turned and finally, albeit very slowly, it was dismantled. There

2 Corinthians 13:14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. As Paul concludes this tough letter in which he has responded to fierce criticism of his ministry, he ends by blessing the church in Corinth. These beautiful words are repeated millions of times every year as Christians meet together because they are the strongest words of blessing that could be imagined. They summarise the majestic work of the Trinity. Jesus’ life and ministry are wonderfully summed up in the word grace. Grace means gift, and his life and death were God’s perfect gift to the world. In a world in which there is often brokenness, sadness and a distinct lack of grace, it is wonderful to be able to pray for people to experience the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, which brings healing, forgiveness and restoration. Many things could be said of God the Father, the creator of the world. He is all powerful and all-knowing and no word of praise and adoration is too g

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 [The Lord] said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. The apostle Paul revealed that he had suffered a thorn in the flesh. He didn’t give any hint of what kind of thorn this was, so there have been endless suggestions over the centuries. It may well have been a physical difficulty, and it has often been suggested that he had a speech impediment. This would account for him being described as a poor preacher. It might well have been a mental or spiritual difficulty instead. We just don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter. What matters is the spiritual lesson that it taught him, namely that God finds it easiest to work in us through our weakness rather than our strength. A strong person is tempted to th

2 Corinthians 10:3-4 We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. Paul was under attack from people within the church in Corinth. Some of them thought he was quite timid when he was with them in person but extremely bold in his letters while away from them. It’s never pleasant to be the target of criticism, and Paul responds by helping his critics understand that he wasn’t trying to impress them with powerful oratory and clever arguments. He was content to be thought of as a dull preacher because what mattered was not his clever performance but the declaration of the cross of Christ. That’s where true wisdom is found. When people challenge Christian teaching, it is absolutely right that we should give a thoughtful and sensitive response, but we should never imagine that people will be won over by the power of our clever reasoning. We need to rely upon the power of the Spi

2 Corinthians 9:10-11 For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat. In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. We can likely all think of occasions when we have been really generous and times when other people have been generous to us. They are precious moments, but that’s just it – they are moments, and they come and go. What the apostle Paul is talking about here is very different. He is talking about generosity as a way of life, not as an occasional and unusual outburst, and he says that God makes it possible for us to always be generous. Generosity has everything to do with our hearts and little to do with the quantity of what we give. The widow, who Jesus observed giving a tiny gift into the temple collection box, was supremely generous. Her two little copper coins were just a tiny fraction of what the rich people gave, but sh

2 Corinthians 9:7 You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” Some years ago, I was involved with setting up a new hospice. There was a desperate need to raise funds and, although I had never done such a thing before, I offered to organise a house-to-house collection. I recruited collectors and off we went. It was the most beautiful experience. Almost everyone was not only keen to give but thankful that we went to the trouble of knocking on their door. Many of you will have been involved in door-to-door collections and may have had a very different experience. I certainly have. On occasions, doors have been slammed in my face, but more often, there has been an attitude of indifference and an eagerness to put some small change in my box to encourage me to go away! God loves cheerful givers, and it is easy to understand why. He loves to see the cheerfulness because it shows the giver has understood

2 Corinthians 9:6 Remember this – a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. The law of the harvest is easy to understand: you reap what you sow. If you are miserly with your giving, you need to expect a deeply disappointing harvest. However, if you give generously, you can be sure of an amazing crop, probably far larger than anything you had imagined. Money is particularly important because, as Jesus observed, it is a rival god. You have to make a choice between serving God or money. You can’t serve both. Money makes huge boasts. It pretends that it can offer security, popularity, contentment and satisfaction, and it demands worship in return. In every generation, people have fallen for the god of money. However, money is not inherently bad. It is part of God’s creation and so is, in fact, inherently good. The problem is when it becomes the master and it drives our thinking and actions. The best way to prove that money is not our

2 Corinthians 8:20-21 We are travelling together to guard against any criticism for the way we are handling this generous gift. We are careful to be honourable before the Lord, but we also want everyone else to see that we are honourable. Paul had spent some time encouraging people to give money towards a collection that would help the Christians in Judaea who had suffered a severe famine. He knew how easily there can be accusations about the misuse of money, so he put measures in place to prevent this. One of them was to appoint Titus as his travelling companion when the money was taken to Jerusalem. He wanted to ensure that the way he handled the money was not only honouring to the Lord, but also to everyone else. Such wisdom in the handling of money is necessary in every generation. Through the years, treasurers of churches and charities have been found guilty of misusing funds far too many times. It has often been observed that such crimes are more easily committed within the trusting environment of C

2 Corinthians 8:11-12 Give in proportion to what you have. Whatever you give is acceptable if you give it eagerly. And give according to what you have, not what you don’t have. People often ask what amount of money they should give to the Lord, and I think Paul’s words are incredibly helpful. It is probable that the majority of people in the Corinthian church were poor, and his intention wasn’t to make their lives more difficult. At the same time, he knew it was very important that they should give in a disciplined and thoughtful way, so he encouraged them to give money in proportion to what they had. I was brought up in a family which practised tithing. One tenth of my father’s income went into a small wooden box in the sideboard in our dining room. What impressed me as a child was that this box seemed to have more money in it than anywhere else in the house! It would often have a number of crisp bank notes, and it showed me from the beginning of my life how important it was to set aside money for God. I

2 Corinthians 8:10-11 Here is my advice: It would be good for you to finish what you started a year ago. Last year you were the first who wanted to give, and you were the first to begin doing it. Now you should finish what you started. Let the eagerness you showed in the beginning be matched now by your giving. Does any of this ring a bell with you? It certainly does with me! We begin to do something and we feel very enthusiastic about it, but then other things get in the way. In Corinth, the church had shown a desire to give money to support Paul’s collection for the Christians in Judea, but they then seemed to have forgotten about it. Time had passed and Paul was now eager to remind them of their earlier enthusiasm and to take action. It is said that the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Anyone can have good intentions, but what matters is that we turn them into action. Another wise saying is that people with good intentions make promises but people with good character keep them. If we are to

2 Corinthians 8:9 You know the generous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty he could make you rich. The Christian life is, before anything else, characterised by giving, and the reason for this is that it’s how Jesus lived. As we follow in his footsteps, our lives need to be shaped by giving generously. His generosity was so complete that he gave everything and became totally poor in order to make other people rich. This is a huge challenge to all of us in a society that is deeply acquisitive. The assumption is that life is found in acquiring more and more, but Jesus turns that thinking completely on its head. There is an old proverb which runs: “He who takes but never gives, may last for years but never lives.” That’s a scary thought and should redouble our determination to work out how we should go about our giving. We need to find a deeper understanding of where our money and resources come from. When we realise that it’s all fro

2 Corinthians 8:7 Since you excel in so many ways – in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge, your enthusiasm, and your love from us – I want you to excel also in this gracious act of giving. This is a remarkable verse. The two letters that Paul wrote to the church in Corinth lift the lid on a community which was very divided and disorganised in its worship, and in which there were serious disciplinary issues that hadn’t been addressed. However, Paul was able to come up with a long list of their good qualities! I love how encouraging he was to them. It’s easy for any of us to become overwhelmed by the failures of people and churches. It would be a good exercise to think about the most annoying person that you know and write down a list of their positive characteristics. If we concentrate too much on people’s shortcomings, the danger is that we will miss their finer qualities, and our relationship with them will never stand a chance. In just the same way, if we only look at a church’s weaknesses,

Proverbs 4:18-19 The way of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, which shines ever brighter until the full light of day. But the way of the wicked is like total darkness. They have no idea what they are stumbling over. I have spent most of my life in towns or cities, which means I have had very little experience of darkness. However, when I lived in a village in India, I found out exactly what it was like. I can recall occasions when I would walk around on our compound without a single clue as to what was in front of me. I would reach out my hands in the hope that I would feel a building or tree before I collided with it. Such complete darkness is very threatening, and it isn’t surprising that the Bible often uses it as a picture of living without God. With none of his light to shine on life’s path, it is certain that a person will spend their life stumbling about, lurching from one danger to the next. The contrast couldn’t be sharper for the person who walks in God’s way. The righteous person,

Proverbs 3:13-14 Joyful is the person who finds wisdom, the one who gains understanding. For wisdom is more profitable than silver, and her wages are better than gold. The writer of Proverbs spends a lot of time reflecting on wealth, and the question is: where can you find it? It is fascinating that the writer often speaks of the preciousness of silver and gold. Some things don’t change. Over the last few years of intense instability on the world’s financial markets, the price of silver and gold have shot up. After thousands of years, even though the world has changed out of all recognition, people are still trying to find safety in the same things. However, true wealth lies elsewhere. The writer of Proverbs is convinced that what really matters is wisdom, which needs to be treasured far more than any possessions, beautiful and impressive as they might seem to be. Possessions try to persuade us that they can give us everything we need to live fulfilled lives, but the writer is clear that wisdom alone unlo

Proverbs 3:9-10 Honour the LORD with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with good wine. There are many different ways of giving. Some people give in order to impress. Jesus once spotted rich people placing their gifts in the temple treasury, no doubt giving a significant amount of money which would be a great help to the temple. Then, Jesus noticed a poor widow, who put two very small copper coins into the treasury. Her gift was tiny and unlikely to be much help to the temple’s accounts. However, it was her gift which really impressed Jesus. He commented: “For they have given a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she has” (Luke 21:4). The writer of Proverbs encourages us to give God our best. It was King David who pointed out that when we give to God, all we are doing is giving what he first gave to us. We will never be able to outgive God. It has been wisely said that y

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take. Trusting is something we do all the time. We trust mechanics, electricians, gas engineers, teachers, police, judges, doctors, nurses – the list could go on and on. However, our trust in them can never be complete, because they are human. They will have good days, but they will have some bad ones as well. Occasionally, there are some people who are totally untrustworthy and let us down completely. God is different. When we trust in God, we can rely on him unreservedly. We can trust him with the whole of our heart and be confident that he will never let us down. Proverbs is an amazingly practical book that is concerned with how to live life to the full, and the writer is clear that trusting God is the most crucial issue. Every detail of our lives in our families, work and leisure turns on this, so he encourages us to make sure that God is at the

Proverbs 3:1-2 My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart. If you do this, you will live many years, and your life will be satisfying. What’s your memory like? Time and again, I trudge upstairs to get something and haven’t a clue what I’m looking for by the time I get there! Pathetically, I try to find something else useful to do while I’m there to justify the journey. Forgetting things is part of the human condition and always has been, and the writer of Proverbs often addresses the issue. He urges us not to forget what we’ve been taught, whether it was by our parents or our spiritual teachers. This involves planning. We need to pepper our lives with reminders of essential truths. We need to evolve a rhythm to our lives so that we are repeatedly reminded of what matters most. From earliest times, Jews had a variety of articles which gave them a constant reminder of the law. Phylacteries are small leather boxes which contain the Hebrew texts on vellum and are wor

Proverbs 3:1-2 My child, never forget the things I have taught you. Store my commands in your heart. If you do this, you will live many years, and your life will be satisfying. What’s your memory like? Time and again, I trudge upstairs to get something and haven’t a clue what I’m looking for by the time I get there! Pathetically, I try to find something else useful to do while I’m there to justify the journey. Forgetting things is part of the human condition and always has been, and the writer of Proverbs often addresses the issue. He urges us not to forget what we’ve been taught, whether it was by our parents or our spiritual teachers. This involves planning. We need to pepper our lives with reminders of essential truths. We need to evolve a rhythm to our lives so that we are repeatedly reminded of what matters most. From earliest times, Jews had a variety of articles which gave them a constant reminder of the law. Phylacteries are small leather boxes which contain the Hebrew texts on vellum and are wor

Proverbs 1:8-9 My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honour around your neck. I would be fascinated to know what you remember your parents teaching you. Their words shape the whole of our lives. I clearly remember my father insisting that we show “instant obedience”, presumably because we so often failed to do it! I remember my mother giving us great encouragement when we were kind to others. My parents are no longer with us, but their influence lives on. I can still hear their words of guidance, encouragement and warning. When we became foster parents a few years ago, we were encouraged to spend a lot of time reflecting on parenting skills. Bringing up our own three children we didn’t reflect much on the process – we just did it! Parents are never perfect, and I’ve heard it said that what we need to be is “good enough parents”. I like that expression. We won’t always get it right, but be