Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

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May 27th - Jeremiah 10:12-13
Jeremiah 10:12-13 The LORD made the earth by his power, and he preserves it by his wisdom. With his own understanding he stretched out the heavens. When he speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain. He causes the clouds to rise over the earth. He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses. The fact that God created the world is the foundation of the Bible’s understanding of him. The first couple of chapters of Genesis tell us how God did this, and then the rest of the Bible points back to it. Here in Jeremiah, the prophet laughs at the uselessness of the idols that the people were worshipping. He highlights that, unlike the God of Israel, the idols have never created anything. They are a complete waste of time. We need to make sure that our thinking about God is continually shaped by remembering he is our creator. Creation should be the springboard for our daily worship, and its vast scale surely makes us want to burst out in praise and adoration. Let’s stand back from our amazing universe for a moment. During the daytime we can’t see very far. The sun is merely 93 million miles from earth. It’s on our doorstep! The light of the sun only takes about eight minutes to reach us. At night, it is a very different story – we can see stars that are light years away from us. Our closest star is Alpha Centauri which, at four light years away, is about 270,000 times further from us than the sun. However, all of this is still very close to home. Incredibly, even with the naked eye, it is possible to see Andromeda, which is 2.6 million light years away from us, and with a pair of binoculars, you can see stars that are as much as ten million light years away. These numbers are completely mind boggling, but they must encourage us to respond in worship to our great creator God. Question In what ways is your own worship inspired by creation? Prayer Lord God of Creation, as we look at the vastness of our universe, we fall down before you in worship and adoration. Amen
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3:33
May 26th - Jeremiah 10:2
Jeremiah 10:2 This is what the LORD says: “Do not act like the other nations, who try to read their future in the stars. Do not be afraid of their predictions, even though other nations are terrified by them.” If you’ve ever looked at a horoscope, you’ll probably have concluded that it is all a lot of nonsense. They may have told you that today is a good day to make friends, or to avoid puddles or to plan your holidays. However, horoscopes are nothing new. For more than 4,000 years, people have taken astrology very seriously and have developed sophisticated ways of reading the stars in order to guide their lives. In the time of Jeremiah, the Babylonians were particularly committed to this way of predicting the future, but the prophet was clear that this was no way to seek guidance. His confidence was in his God, and he refused to be swayed by astrology, however much others were influenced by it. We are all immensely interested in the future. Inevitably, we wonder what is going to happen, but just imagine if you knew when and where you were going on holiday for the rest of your life, when you were going to fall ill or when you were going to die. I think most of us would rather not know the details. However, what we do need to know is that our future is secure in God’s hands, and that is precisely the security the psalmist celebrated when he wrote: “I am trusting you, O Lord, saying: ‘You are my God!’ My future is in your hands” (Psalm 31:14-15). As we live for God today, we need to praise him for his continual presence with us, and for the sure knowledge we have that he will never leave our side, whatever the future holds. Question What are your thoughts about your future? Prayer Loving Father, I am content to know that my future is in your hands. Thank you that you will never leave my side. Amen
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3:15
May 25th - Jeremiah 9:23-24
Jeremiah 9:23-24 The LORD says: “Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom, or the powerful boast in their power, or the rich boast in their riches. But those who wish to boast should boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the LORD.” What are the things you boast about – the things that give you the most pride and pleasure? For many people, it’s their family, but for others it’s their education, their achievements, their influence or their wealth. Almost certainly, the answer is found in the things you are most keen to talk about when you have a chance! In these verses, God was not saying that wisdom, power and riches were bad. There is much that can be very good about all three, but they should never take pride of place in our lives. All three of them are of passing significance, but the Lord is different and our knowledge of him is something with enduring importance. The Bible constantly invites us to reflect on our lives and the way that we think. Every day, we are under pressure from all directions. Our family, friends, work, church, hobbies and the media are all seeking to shape our thinking. Jeremiah’s desire was for the people to correctly order their thinking and put God first. Their refusal to do so was an agony for him because he knew the destructive consequences. He longed that they should start focusing their lives on God and bragging about him. When the apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, he spoke about how God turns all our human thinking upside down. Greek society was impressed by great wisdom, but God doesn’t work in that way. Paul reflected that there is no basis on which we can ever boast in the presence of God. Agreeing with the words from Jeremiah, he wrote: “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:31). Question What are you most inclined to boast about? Prayer Loving Father, forgive me for those times when I boast about things of temporary importance. Teach me how to boast of what you have done. Amen
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3:26
May 24th - Jeremiah 8:21
Jeremiah 8:21 I hurt with the hurt of my people. I mourn and am overcome with grief. The power of Jeremiah’s prophecy lies in the fact that he didn’t stand at a distance from the people. Their hurts were his hurts, and he described himself as being heartbroken and having grief that was beyond healing (Jeremiah 8:18). He knew that they were suffering because they had abandoned God’s way and had found other gods. As a result, they were just about to be defeated by an enemy who would come from the north and overwhelm them. Jeremiah was in such a state of distress that he cried out: “If only my head were a pool of water and my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night for all my people who have been slaughtered” (Jeremiah 9:1). Leaders of God’s people should never stand at a distance from the people they are serving. If they are to be faithful to their calling, they will share the joys and the sorrows of the people among whom they minister. They will feel the pain of their failure and disobedience and long, with Jeremiah, that they will find forgiveness and restoration. The privilege of leading God’s people is enormous, but the weight of it is very great. I am always a little anxious when people tell me that Christian leaders need to have a thick skin. If they mean that they need to be strong and resilient in the face of large pressures and difficulties, I agree. If they mean that Christian leaders need to be totally untouched and untroubled by the challenges they face, then I fundamentally disagree. Jeremiah entered fully into the tragic situation that faced him. The people rejected his message from God, and he felt the pain of that so profoundly that he was in a state of constant distress. We need to pray that Christian leaders will love people so much that they will fully identify with them in the way that Jeremiah did. Question How does the example of Jeremiah help you to pray for the Christian leaders you know? Prayer Loving God, we thank you for all Christian leaders. Help them to give their whole selves to the people they serve. Amen
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3:24
May 23rd - Jeremiah 7:5-6
Jeremiah 7:5-6 I will be merciful only if you stop your evil thoughts and deeds and start treating each other with justice; only if you stop exploiting foreigners, orphans, and widows; only if you stop your murdering; and only if you stop harming yourselves by worshiping idols. Most of the time, we probably think of justice as being in the hands of other people. We look to the police and the law courts to handle issues of justice, and we wish them well as they do so. However, these verses make it clear that justice involves us all. We all need to think and to act justly, and that is a challenge every day of our lives. We have to continually make judgments about what is just, whether it’s in our family, business, school, college, church or sports club. God was clear that he would only be merciful to his people if they were willing to take their responsibility for justice seriously. We live in a deeply unfair world. Although massive strides have been made in recent centuries, people still suffer because of their age, gender, ethnicity, poverty, appearance, disability or education. The whole Bible encourages us to look out for those who are vulnerable in our society, and, wherever we live, we won’t need to look far. It isn’t good enough to merely wish them well. We need to stand with them and explore ways in which they can be supported. The Old Testament was particularly sensitive to the vulnerability of foreigners. Having lived in another country for a couple of years, I understand this, but my situation was not that of a refugee. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to be forcibly displaced from this country, but the United Nations high commissioner for refugees believes that there are more than 80 million people in that position. The number has doubled in the past ten years. We can’t change the world by ourselves, but we can reach out to those in our own communities who need our prayers, love and practical support. Question What can you do to promote justice in your own community? Prayer Loving God, forgive me for those times when I have left issues of justice to others, and haven’t been eager fight for it and protect the vulnerable people that I know. Amen
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3:37