Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Ephesians 4:21-23 NLT

'Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.'

Some time ago, over a period of months, I lost a considerable amount of weight. One consequence was that my clothes were too large for me and I had to replace them with new outfits.

When we pursue God, metaphorically we change our diet. We no longer feed off the contemporary drivers that inform culture, but invite God to signpost how we are to live. Becoming a Christian is not to accessorise our life, but to completely change our fashion sense. Our lives slowly reflect a set of values that are not instinctive.

The God life demands we pay close attention to our conscience, which is an inbuilt navigation guide. Just as a yacht that has been sailing the globe for some time needs to be taken into dry dock so that the barnacles and other growths can be scraped off to enhance its seaworthiness, so we may need to pay some attention to sensitising our conscience. All too often it has become numb to God through overexposure to the fierce and changing tides of secular culture.

When losing weight, many people encouraged me to keep the clothes that no longer fitted me, convinced I would yo-yo, and put the weight back on. I didn’t take that advice, passing them on to the charity shop. The walk of the disciple is always forward, never backward or circular. The excitement is that we can continuously get to know God better day by day and grow in our appreciation and in the character of our discipleship. Ageing simply means getting closer to God.

QUESTION: How sensitive are you to God’s navigation aid, your conscience?

PRAYER: May I pay attention to you and discard all that gets in the way of our friendship.

Ephesians 4:16 NLT

'He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.'

The wonderful truth is that we are not born to live isolated and lonely lives. Just as God is a Trinity, a community of interrelating persons of divinity, so we are created for relationship or, more simply, friendship. We enjoy friendship with God and that finds its fullest expression within the mutuality of our interpersonal relationships. Church is the vehicle which is intended to give the fullest expression to that mutuality.

Just as our hearts yearn for companionship with God, we are designed to live in communion with each other. It’s why none of us is gifted for everything. Work gets done as we pull together and draw upon the rich diversity of gifts dispersed across humanity. While all humanity seeks relationship, it is most clearly achieved within the Church, for here by Christ’s action there is no separation of ethnicity, gender or economics. We are one not because of a single thing we’ve done, but simply because we have been found by God.

This mutuality ensures that the whole body is encouraged, strengthened and released to realise aspects of God’s kingdom on earth. As one who sits closer to the introspective end of the spectrum, I can find it a challenge to engage with people. I am always attracted to my own company, be that a walk or a good book. The world within my head is always moving and demanding my attention. It is a very satisfying space to explore. So, I can easily be persuaded to draw back from God’s hard-won gift of mutuality, yet I am diminished in my God life if I pursue that course. I also rob others of the life that God has awoken and nurtured within me.

QUESTION: How engaged are you with others? Do you choose to pursue mutuality with others and so realise God’s purpose as Church?

PRAYER: Thank you for the richness of mutuality and for the gift of the Church as a rich resource for my life and faith.

Ephesians 4:15 NLT

'Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.'

Speaking the truth can prove daunting. It’s often easier to modify what we say to save ourselves and others embarrassment. Working as I’ve done for many years with people from diverse international backgrounds, I’ve discovered a lot about how we Brits are perceived. With all our courteous language, our ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous’, we are often seen as difficult to understand. Remember the old Western movies where the phrase, ‘White man speaks with forked tongue’ would occur? That’s how we are often understood by others who tend to be more direct in their speech.

At the same time, I do not want to use the truth to cause someone else to lose face and feel awkward. I want them to benefit from what I am saying, and they can’t do that if in some way I shame them or subsequently it is clear I was economical with the truth I shared with them. Jesus is always straightforward with us, as Peter discovered. We must learn to speak with an honesty that doesn’t deliver offence, even though another may take offence. For the truth can give an offence for which we make no apology.

There is an essential relationship between truth and honesty. A clarity must exist in what I am saying and why I am saying it. Without this, what I say can merely be an expression of my momentary emotions or current mood. These I am responsible for managing so that I don’t unnecessarily offload my unresolved inner angst onto someone else. An awful lot of our conversation is driven from the subterranean depths of our emotions and psychological state of being. When honest with ourselves, we’d acknowledge that such filters lead to a misrepresentation of the truth we wish to express.

Truth-telling lays the foundation for trust-building. Trust is the fruit born of honesty and therefore the mortar that holds all of our relationships together.

QUESTION: How well are you doing at speaking the truth?

PRAYER: “Teach me your ways, O Lord, that I may live according to your truth” (Psalm 86:11a, NLT).

Ephesians 4:14 NLT

'Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth.'

In the Oratory garden we have a number of fruit trees. Every spring their future harvest is heralded by the appearance of blossom, which is beautiful, but only the promise of what is yet to come. In much the same way, we begin our Christian journey as blossom. Bright and beautiful expressions of the future promise of God seeded within each one of us.

Finding Christ is but the first stage; the end goal is to grow up into maturity. Every one of us who has passed through childhood, into adolescence and then the stages of adulthood recognises that even at a physical and emotional level, maturing is tough. It demands decisions and constant readjustments as those decisions, despite being well-intentioned, prove to be no longer appropriate. Equally, in our pursuit of God we are to mature from childhood to adulthood.

In childhood, we entrust ourselves to the decisions of others. However, slowly we develop the desire and ability to make decisions for ourselves. Our lives are directly shaped by the decisions we take.

Discerning God’s path and purpose for my life is my responsibility. After all, I will have to give an account of my life to God. Of course, my choices may well have been constrained through circumstances beyond my immediate control, yet my response is always determined by me. Will the blossom that expressed the first fruits of my God life actually develop into the harvest for which it was the precursor? There are significant fallers from our fruit trees, unripe fruit that never fulfils its ultimate destiny.

Maturity is primarily a consequence of desire and decision. Desire is woken by many elements which form an essential part of your life’s course.

QUESTION: How do you decide when to pursue such desire and when to quench it? This is the process of maturing in God.

PRAYER: May my life with you grow and bring forth much fruit. May I not be blown by the winds of change and become a faller, but remain in Christ, growing to maturity.

Revelation 3:20 NLT

'Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.'

One day last winter I became distracted by a background sound, which while not loud, was constant and invaded my consciousness. After a long, exasperating search, I eventually tracked the source to a heating valve. A simple adjustment and what had become a significant distraction was dealt with. Once again, I could hear silence and the regular sounds of our home.

Listening to God is a bit like that. God’s faint knocking is persistent in the background, seeking to attract our attention. However, with so many distractions demanding our consideration, legitimately and illegitimately, it’s all too often lost within the cacophony of sounds that fill our lives. These are the daily demands of work, family, friendship and fun. The anxieties that besiege us together with the fears we each carry. This is one key reason we can feel as though God is silent. The immediate pressures from daily life do the work of God’s enemy and direct our focus away from God.

It is only as we begin to seek after that dim knocking that we seek out God’s voice. Like tracking down my faulty radiator valve, I’ve to go in search of just where exactly I am to hear God’s voice, which is a test of my patience and my desire. I am now very relaxed with the fact that I have no clue where and how I’ll hear God each day. One thing’s for sure, I am seeking to listen in each and every moment.

God’s voice is not something to be ignored, although it may be distinctly discomforting. So, the invitation becomes clear: will you pause and listen, discern what God is saying and open your heart and life to what God has for you?

QUESTION: How aware are you of that faint knocking that calls for your attention?

PRAYER: Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.