Be Still and Know Daily Bible Devotion

Mark 6:37
Jesus said, “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!”
The feeding of the 5,000 was a spectacular miracle, but Jesus didn’t rush into performing it. First of all, he challenged the disciples with a blunt command: “You feed them.” Just imagine how they would’ve felt! Suddenly, they had to come up with an answer. They started thinking through the implications and quickly worked out that they would need to work for a long time to earn enough to feed such a huge crowd. They were firmly convinced that Jesus’ challenge was completely impossible.
The problem with the disciples was that they were thinking in purely human terms. Jesus was trying to help them think beyond the normal limitations of life. Their response was entirely reasonable, but the snag with it was that it didn’t take account of God. It left no room for miracles. As disciples of Jesus, they needed to stop thinking in purely practical terms and start seeing things from God’s perspective. The miraculous feeding of the 5,000 must have been a major moment in their development as disciples. They had to start thinking in completely new ways.
I have spent a large slice of my life in church leadership meetings. In every single meeting, we have had to make decisions, and often we have had to face very challenging situations. I believe that God wants us to make good plans and think carefully through the implications of all our actions, but at the same time we always need to be listening for the voice of God, who will often call us to do things which don’t make any human sense. God is still the God of miracles, and he calls us to see things from his point of view and to never forget his amazing generosity and miraculous power.
Question
In what situations are you looking for God to do a miracle at the moment?
Prayer
Loving God, forgive me for those times when I only think in a human way. Help me to always remember that you are a God of miracles. Amen

Mark 6:31
Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat.
The disciples had just returned from their first mission trip, and they were full of it. They couldn’t wait to update Jesus and he, in turn, was keen to hear what had been going on. He invited them to head off with him to a quiet place where they could have quality time together and catch up on all the news. It was a great plan, but it failed spectacularly. As they headed off in their boat, the crowd spotted them and reached their destination before they did!
I draw two conclusions from this fascinating account. Firstly, Jesus valued the opportunity for taking time out. He cared for his disciples and was aware of the pressure that they were under. Mark records that there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his disciples didn’t even have enough time to eat. They desperately needed to get away from it all. We are just the same. We can’t keep going at full pace all the time. There are times when we need to have a deliberate plan to stop.
However, the second conclusion I draw is that our plans don’t always work out! If Jesus’ plan for having some quiet time with his disciples failed, we shouldn’t be surprised when ours don’t work out. We ought to plan to have quiet times and breaks in our busy routines, but we always need to be light on our feet. Mark tells us that when Jesus stepped out of the boat, he had compassion on the people because they were like sheep without a shepherd. He wasn’t going to ignore their needs, so he scrapped the original plan and ministered to the crowds.
I love the realism of this account and the fact that Jesus was so flexible. His intention was to serve God his Father and he was committed to doing so even when it mucked up his original plans.
Question
How good are you at being flexible when your plans suddenly change?
Prayer
Loving Father, help me to serve you effectively, even when things don’t work out in the way that I had planned. Amen

Mark 6:3
Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.
This was an agonising moment. Jesus was rudely dismissed by the people of Nazareth. They couldn’t work out how someone they’d known for nearly 30 years had such an amazing ministry. Some of the people may have gone to school with Jesus and others would probably have known him and Joseph through their business. Through the centuries, it has been believed that Joseph, and presumably Jesus, were carpenters, although we can’t sure. The word in Greek describes people who worked with stone and metal as well as wood. However, whatever their precise line of work, they would have had customers. Jesus was being rejected by people who knew him well, and their rejection was brutal – they wanted nothing to do with him.
The problem that the people of Nazareth had was that they could only see Jesus in human terms. They knew his family and everything about him. They couldn’t bring themselves to believe that a local boy could be anything special, and that continues to be the challenge with Jesus. People are happy to see him as a remarkable human being. They warm to his teaching; they love how he reached out to every kind of person; they are amazed by his miracles and impressed by his consistent love for people. However, they want to leave him there. They are resistant to the idea of him being the Son of God, but Mark’s Gospel is good news only because Jesus was both human and divine at the same time. Only in that way was he able to bring salvation to the world and so, however dismissive people might be, we need to be absolutely clear that Jesus was both God and man.
Question
Why do you think the people of Nazareth were so reluctant to accept that Jesus was the Son of God?
Prayer
Lord Jesus Christ, I worship you and praise you for entering into the life of our world so fully. Amen

Mark 5:18-19
As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon possessed begged to go with him. But Jesus said, “No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful he has been.”
This healing took place on the east side of the Sea of Galilee. It was a very different area from the other side of the lake, where Jesus spent most of his time living and ministering. Most of the people on the east side were Gentiles. Jesus was confronted with a man who lived in the burial caves and who couldn’t be restrained. He was known as Legion because there were so many evil spirits in him. No doubt the local population lived in great fear of him. Whenever he was put in chains and shackles, he just snapped the chains with his wrists and smashed the shackles. Jesus healed the man and ordered the evil spirits to enter a local herd of pigs. Two thousand of them hurtled down the hillside and drowned in the lake. Inevitably, the owners of the pigs were outraged by this, and the local population begged Jesus to leave the area.
It was clear that Jesus’ ministry in this area had come to an end, so although he was keen to stay with Jesus, Legion had a job to do. The people’s hostility meant Jesus couldn’t remain there, so Legion needed to be the messenger. Jesus ordered him to go to his family and tell them what had happened, and he was clearly very effective in this. We learn that he travelled throughout the region telling people the amazing things that Jesus had done.
There are many occasions when, like Legion, we might choose to keep things the way they are, but God wants us to move on. He wants us to go for the harder option of speaking to other people about him and helping them to understand how great he is.
Question
Are there times in your life when you should have been going out and speaking about your faith, but you chose the easier option of meeting up with other Christians?
Prayer
Loving Father, thank you for the amazing things that you have done in my life. Help me to always be ready to share them with others. Amen

Mark 4:38-39
Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?” When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm.
The account of Jesus stilling the storm is well known, but only Mark records the rather rude question of the disciples. To imply that Jesus didn’t care that they were about to drown suggests that they didn’t know him very well. They were still trying to work out who he was, and when he had brought calm to the situation, the disciples were absolutely terrified, asking with shock and surprise: “Who is this man? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” (v41).
When things go wrong, it is easy to lash out at God. In the heat of the moment, it is easy to suggest that God doesn’t care when we face rejection, or an illness, failure or accident, but it’s a question that we never need to ask. God always cares for us, whatever the circumstances. We will often face difficulties and challenges, but they are a consequence of sin and the brokenness of our ungodly world. They should never lead us to doubt the unchanging nature of God and of his love for us.
The psalmists had many moments when they accused God of being absent, but it is never true. God is always present. Psalm 103:8 reads: “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.” The Hebrew word translated as ‘unfailing love’ is hesed. The word is often used in the Old Testament and it speaks of the fact that God is a covenant-keeping God. He will never stop loving us because he has promised to be faithful, and he will keep his word whatever the circumstances.
I totally understand you may sometimes feel that God is far away and doesn’t care, but you need to know that you are wrong. He will never stop loving you.
Question
In what way is your life blessed by knowing that God’s love is unfailing?
Prayer
Lord God, forgive me for those moments when I have doubted your love for me. Thank you that you will never leave me or forsake me. Amen