Be Still And Know

2 Corinthians 8.20-21 NLT 'We are traveling 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 could be accusations about the misuse of money, so he put in place measures to prevent this happening. 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 that 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 there have been far too many occasions when treasurers of churches and charities have been found guilty of misusing funds. It has often been observed that such crimes are more easily

2 Corinthians 8.11-12 NLT '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 here are incredibly helpful. It is more than likely that the majority of people in the Corinthian church were quite poor and his intention wasn’t to make their lives more difficult. But, at the same time, he knew that it was very important that they should give in a disciplined and thoughtful way. And so he encouraged them to give money in proportion to what they had. I was brought up in a family which practiced 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 that box seemed to have more money in it than anywhere else in the house! It showed me, from the beginning of my life, how important it was to set aside money for God. I don’t believe

2 Corinthians 8.10-11 NLT '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. Here in Corinth, the church had shown a desire to give money to support Paul’s collection for the Christians living in poverty in Judea. But, over time, they seem to have forgotten about it. Paul is now eager to remind them of their earlier enthusiasm and encourage them to turn that into action. It is said that the path to hell is paved with good intentions. That is to say, anyone can have good intentions, but what matters is that we do something about them. Another wise saying is that people with good intentions make promises

2 Corinthians 8.9 NLT '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. Because that’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 says, “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. I believe that we need to find a deeper understanding of where our money and resources come from. When we realise that they have all

2 Corinthians 8.7 NLT 'Since you excel in so many ways— in your faith, your gifted speakers, your knowledge, your enthusiasm, and your love — 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, disorganised in its worship and in which there were serious disciplinary issues that hadn’t been addressed. And yet Paul was able to come up with a long list of their good qualities! I love the fact that he is so encouraging to them. It’s so easy to become overwhelmed by the failures of people and churches. We get depressed by their inadequacies, but the danger is that we could overlook their qualities, and everyone has some. It would be a good exercise to think about the most annoying person that you know and write down a list of their excellent qualities. The trouble is that if we concentrate too much on people’s shortcomings we will never see their finer qualities, and ou

Psalm 101.1-2 NLT 'I will sing of your love and justice, Lord. I will praise you with songs. I will be careful to live a blameless life— when will you come to help me? I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.' This is one of David’s psalms and we hear him as he here reflects on his responsibility as king to care for the whole of society and to ensure that justice prevails. The final verse of the psalm gives us a powerful picture of his daily work “to ferret out the wicked and free the city of the Lord from their grip.” It was no easy task, but he knew that it was impossible to bring justice and integrity to his community if he wasn’t practising it at home. Whenever we are told that a politician’s private life is their own personal matter and of no consequence to their public duties we know that they are talking nonsense! King David was far from perfect, but he was clear that it was vital for him to live a consistent life of integrity, even when he was at home and far away from his kingly duties. Li

Psalm 98.7-9 NLT 'Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise! Let the earth and all living things join in. Let the rivers clap their hands in glee! Let the hills sing out their songs of joy before the Lord for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with justice, and the nations with fairness.' When we think about praising God we will naturally think of people joining together in chapels, churches and cathedrals around the world every Sunday. It’s inspiring to think of millions of people every week sharing in acts of worship. But the psalmist doesn’t want us to think that this is the sum total of worship, because he sees the whole of creation involved in praising God. Nothing is left out! Even the sea joins in. The rivers clap their hands in glee! It is beautiful, poetic language that reminds us that absolutely everything is bound to be part of the chorus of praise, because God is so great. He wants to blast open every attempt that we make to limit the scale and importance of worsh

Psalm 98.1 NLT '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 the people to sing, and that was because of God’s salvation. Throughout his dealings with his people, he had shown them his ability to save, most supremely when he led them out of slavery in Egypt. After four hundred years in that land God set them free in the most dramatic way. Nothing has changed. It is salvation that should spur us into singing today. In one sense, 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; what always strikes me is that each is a one off. God comes to us as individuals and me

Psalm 97.10 NLT '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. That kind of burning hatred is critically important, because the many great evils in the world will never come to an end unless people start hating them. The evil transatlantic slave trade only stopped when people started to identify its horror and start hating it. I once visited the ancient fort at Cape Coast in Ghana, where slaves were held before being ferried to the slave ships. For me, the most horrific discovery was that the dungeons in which the slaves were brutally held 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. Eventually, albeit far too slo

Daniel 10.18-19 NLT Then the one who looked like a man touched me again, and I felt my strength returning. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, “for you are very precious to God. Peace! Be encouraged! Be strong!” Daniel’s amazing courage comes across powerfully in this book. His willingness to face up to tyrannical kings and even hungry lions is very impressive. But that isn’t the whole story. We also meet Daniel when he is feeling ill and weak. The vision that he received about the future in the previous chapter left him feeling terrible for three weeks. He was in a state of mourning throughout that time and commented, “my strength left me, my face grew deathly pale, and I felt very weak.” (Daniel 10.8). I suspect that, like Daniel, we can all identify times when we have felt on top of the world and then other moments when we have felt completely weak and useless. That is to say, none of us can be strong all the time. And it was in this time of great weakness that God sent precious he was to God. When things go

Daniel 9.5-6 NLT 'But we have sinned and done wrong. We have rebelled against you and scorned your commands and regulations. We have refused to listen to your servants the prophets.' As Daniel reflected on the history of his people, he realised that he needed to come to God with a prayer of confession. He knew that he was part of a nation that had rebelled against God for many centuries. He recognised that their history was a tragic catalogue of failure and disobedience. God had given them every opportunity to put things right, but they had chosen to live in opposition to him. However, Daniel knew that his generous God was ready to forgive their sins if only the people would turn to him. When we confess our sins what we are doing is facing the facts about ourselves and our world. This is something we have to do in everyday life, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to us. My wife’s car recently broke down. The clutch had gone. What we needed to do was to face up to the fact that the old clutch was no longer any

Daniel 9.4 NLT “O Lord, you are a great and awesome God! You always fulfil your covenant and keep your promises of unfailing love to those who love you and obey your commands.” God gave Daniel a number of alarming visions. They left him confused and exhausted and he felt sick for many days. The future was full of questions and threats, but things became clearer as he studied the prophecy of Jeremiah and reflected on the past. He acknowledged that everything that had happened had been the result of the unfaithfulness of God’s people. God had loved his people and wonderfully provided for them, but they had consistently disobeyed him and gone their own way. But as he looked at God himself, he recognised that God was the complete opposite of his people. Their consistent unfaithfulness was matched by God’s constant faithfulness. God could always be trusted to keep his word, and that is because it was based upon a covenant. Throughout the whole of the Bible we discover the importance of covenant. It is similar

Daniel 6.10 NLT 'But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God.' When King Darius took over from King Nebuchadnezzar he found Daniel to be a very effective administrator and so gave him more and more responsibilities. This stirred up the envy of other leaders who were determined to bring Daniel down a peg or two. But they had a problem, because no one could find anything for which to criticise him. He was said to be faithful, always responsible and completely trustworthy (Daniel 6.4). The only way they could trip him up was by introducing a new law which said that no one could pray to anyone other than the King. The King duly passed this law and the penalty for disobeying it would be to be thrown into a den of lions – a horrifying way to die. Daniel was in the habit of praying three times a day and nothing was going to

Daniel 4.27 NLT Daniel said, ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, please accept my advice. Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper.’ Daniel was an incredibly courageous person, and here’s the proof! He was talking to one of the most powerful people who has ever walked this earth and giving him some staggeringly bad news. He was telling King Nebuchadnezzar that he was going to be driven away from human society and would live with wild animals where he would eat grass like a cow. This isn’t the sort of encouraging message that you would want to deliver to a powerful despot who was inclined to kill his opponents at a moment’s notice. And Daniel informed him that the king’s life would only improve when he had learnt his lesson. This was an incredibly tough message but Daniel knew that he had to be faithful to God and tell the king the truth. The result was amazing. Nebuchadnezzar suffered in all the ways that were prophesied and en

Daniel 3.25 NLT “Look!” Nebuchadnezzar shouted. “I see four men, unbound, walking around in the fire unharmed! And the fourth looks like a god!” Nebuchadnezzar was an incredibly powerful king and he was used to getting his own way. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego defied his command to worship his vast golden statue he was determined that they should suffer, and his fiery furnace seemed like a fairly decisive punishment. In order to ensure their immediate death, he had the furnace heated up seven times hotter than usual. Indeed, it was so hot that it killed the soldiers who threw them into it. Nebuchadnezzar watched the spectacle knowing that they would be burnt to a cinder. But the outcome was completely different from what he had anticipated. Not only were they not burnt, but they weren’t even singed and, more amazingly, he saw that they were accompanied by a fourth person who he assumed must be a god. This was more than enough to change Nebuchadnezzar’s mind and to cause him to worship the God of th

Daniel 3.16-18 NLT Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego declared, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty. But even if he doesn’t, we want to make it clear to you, Your Majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.” Living in exile is bound to present many challenges. When Nebuchadnezzar set up his enormous golden statue and demanded that everyone fall down and worship it, these Jewish young men knew that they had to draw a line. They couldn’t possibly obey the King’s law. The consequences couldn’t have been more severe, and they were all thrown into a great furnace. But before they were thrown into it, they had the opportunity to state their position and they pointed out to the King that their God was so mighty that he could save them but, even if he didn’t, they would refuse to worship the gold statue. We also

Daniel 2.47 The king said to Daniel, “Truly, your God is the greatest of gods, the Lord over kings, a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this secret.” This was quite a turnaround! One moment Daniel was being threatened with death and now, having revealed the meaning of his dream, King Nebuchadnezzar makes him ruler of the province of Babylon. At the same time, he showers him with expensive gifts and declares that Daniel’s God is the greatest God of all. Given that Daniel was a foreigner from a land far away that had been defeated by the Babylonians this was a truly revolutionary change. However, Nebuchadnezzar’s acknowledgement that Daniel’s God was the one true God did nothing to change his behaviour and shortly afterwards we find him setting up an enormous golden statue which he expected the people to worship. There is no question that King Nebuchadnezzar was deeply impressed by all that Daniel had done. And there is no reason to doubt that he was genuinely in awe of the power and w

Daniel 2.44 NLT 'During the reigns of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed or conquered. It will crush all these kingdoms into nothingness, and it will stand forever.' Daniel had the seemingly impossible task of not only interpreting King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream but actually telling the King what he had dreamt. Amazingly he did exactly that and told the powerful King of Babylon that there were going to be four kingdoms, all of which gave an impression of strength, but which would all fall. However, at the same time, God was establishing his own kingdom which would last for ever. Through the years, people have wanted to identify the four kingdoms. There have been lots of candidates, but that is not the point of the dream. The point is that when God establishes his kingdom, it will endure. That is to say, history is in God’s hands. Through the centuries there have been a succession of powerful kingdoms. At the time they gave the impression of being all-powerful. T

Daniel 2.23 NLT “I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors, for you have given me wisdom and strength. You have told me what we asked of you and revealed to us what the king demanded.” Daniel had been given what looks to me like an impossible job. Not only did he have to tell King Nebuchadnezzar the interpretation of his dream, but he had also been told to inform the King what he had dreamt about in the first place! The King’s highly trained wise men complained, not unreasonably, that the job was impossible, and they were threatened with death as a result. But Daniel knew that he was in touch with the source of all wisdom, God himself. And so he prayed. You wouldn’t blame Daniel if he had prayed a desperate prayer screaming at God to do the impossible and save him from certain death. But he didn’t. His prayer was one of worship and adoration. He acknowledged that God was the source of all wisdom and power and that, ultimately, everything that happened in the world was in the Lord’s hands. He was, theref

Daniel 1.17 NLT 'God gave Daniel the special ability to interpret the meanings of visions and dreams.' The book of Daniel transports us to the time when Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, invaded Judah and took thousands of its residents into exile. This happened in the 6th Century BC. God had clearly prophesied that this would happen if the people failed to obey him, and Babylon’s victory was complete and humiliating. To be dragged hundreds of miles away to a completely unfamiliar place and culture represented Judah’s total failure. But King Nebuchadnezzar recognised that amidst the exiles were some very gifted young men. He chose four of them, who were strong, healthy and good-looking, and trained them up for service in the royal palace. They were Daniel and his three friends – who we know best by their adopted Babylonian names Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The four exiles clearly fitted into their new life really well. We are told that they had an unusual aptitude for understanding every aspect of