Be Still And Know

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

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

Proverbs 1:7 Fear of the LORD is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. You need to be careful with the book of Proverbs. It’s very easy to read too much of it and get indigestion! It’s a book which needs lots of time for careful reflection, and this is the wisest and most crucial verse of all. True knowledge begins with knowing God personally. It’s our relationship with the creator of the universe that enables us to gain access to real knowledge which will help us to live our lives to the full. I wonder what you understand by the expression “fear of the Lord”. I have been brought up to think of God as my friend and my companion, the one who is always looking out for me. Fear might seem to clash with that sort of understanding of God, but it doesn’t have to. We need to remember that the God who offers us his friendship is not like other friends. None of my other friends has created the universe. None of them has all wisdom, power and authority. Our Friend God is awesome

Mark 8:36-37 What do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul? Our cynical, materialistic society was well summed up by Oscar Wilde as knowing “the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Like many one-liners, that’s a bit harsh, but he was making an important point. It’s very easy for our money-mad society to overlook the most important things because of its obsession with the temporary things that have a price tag. Jesus pours scorn on this way of thinking. Forget owning a really large house or becoming the exclusive owner of every property in your town – Jesus encourages you to imagine what it would be like to own the whole world. That, he suggests, would be completely pointless if you lost your soul, your very reason for living. Jesus is encouraging us to think about our priorities. What matters most to us? Whether we are conscious of it or not, the answer to that question will shape every day of our lives. It’s an issue to which Jesu

Mark 8:34-35 Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, [Jesus] said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.” Jesus’ breathtaking honesty is very striking. Day by day, we are constantly being encouraged to sign up to organisations which can improve our health, wealth or general wellbeing. Their marketing is slick and highly polished and calculated to get us to subscribe to their products or services. They help us to dream of a happier and more successful life and cram in every attractive and glossy image to lure us into signing up. Jesus took a completely different approach. He spoke straight to people about the costs of following him. It reminds me of Winston Churchill, who during the second world war offered people “blood, toil, tears and sweat.” I am firmly convinced that living for Christ is the most amazing and wonderful life. I would recommend it to anyone. However, that doesn’

Mark 8:33 Jesus turned around and looked at his disciples, then reprimanded Peter. “Get away from me, Satan!” he said. “You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” I have a soft spot for Peter. When Jesus informed his disciples that he was going to suffer at the hands of the Jewish authorities and then be killed, Peter did what any friend would do. He told Jesus off for saying such terrible things. He loved Jesus and hated the thought of him going through such suffering, but Jesus would have none of it. “Get away from me, Satan!” was as complete a reprimand as he could have uttered, and then he explained that Peter was just thinking things through from a human point of view. He needed to start thinking from God’s point of view. This is an important challenge for us all. It is easy for us to become so immersed in the busyness of daily life and the demands of our world that we struggle to think of anything from God’s point of view. Like Peter, it’s very easy for us to respond to