READ: Psalm 31:9-10 NLT 'Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am in distress. Tears blur my eyes. My body and soul are withering away. I am dying from grief; my years are shortened by sadness. Sin has drained my strength; I am wasting away from within.' Dav...
READ: Psalm 29:3 NLT 'The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.' The Bible clearly reveals that God loves to speak to us, and that he does this in an endless variety of ways. Much of...
READ: Psalm 27:14 NLT 'Wait for the Lord. Be strong. Let your heart be strong. Yes, wait for the Lord.' Our society has been especially designed to exclude waiting. The advertising industry seeks to persuade us that everything can be obtained instant...
READ: Psalm 27:1 NLT 'The Lord is my light and my salvation — so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?' If you’ve ever looked through a list of phobias you will have been amazed by the va...
READ: Psalm 25:4-5 NLT 'Show me Your ways, O Lord. Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me. For You are the God Who saves me. I wait for You all day long.' Everyone wants guidance. We all want to know how to have the most peaceful, fu...
READ: Psalm 24:1 NLT 'The earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it, the world, and all who live in it.' Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenage climate activist, has been amazingly effective in helping the world to wake up to the reality of our abuse o...
READ: Psalm 23:4 NLT 'Even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not be afraid of anything, because You are with me.' Life and death live alongside one another. It has been said that we all live with a terminal disease – it’s ca...
READ: Psalm 23:1 NLT The Lord is my Shepherd. I will have everything I need. When I was a student minister I was given responsibility for a wonderful little Baptist church in rural Oxfordshire. It had eight members and the largest congregation I eve...
READ: Mark 6:37 NLT Jesus said to his disciples, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back...
READ: Mark 4:26,27 NLT Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, while he’s asleep or awake, the seed sprouts and grows, but he does not understand how it happens.” We have the privilege of be...
READ: Mark 4:21 NLT Then Jesus asked them, “Would anyone light a lamp and then put it under a basket or under a bed? Of course not! A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light will shine.” After leaving University I spent two years working in South...
READ: Mark 2:27 NLT Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made to meet the needs of people, and not people to meet the requirements of the Sabbath.” The Pharisees were out to get Jesus and were clearly delighted to have spotted his disciples brea...
READ: Mark 2:21 NLT ‘Besides, who would patch old clothing with new cloth? For the new patch would shrink and rip away from the old cloth, leaving an even bigger tear than before.’ Let’s be honest. We all make mistakes. We do things we don’t mean to...
READ: Mark 2:15 NLT Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.) Levi’s first action after becom...
READ: Mark 4:2 NLT ‘They couldn’t bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus.’ Can you imagine what it must have been like? The house...
