Daily Bible Verses

‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.’   EXODUS 20:17
 
Holy Spirit, please may I be mindful of any tendency to compare myself to others. Forgive any attitude of entitlement or envy.

Research has shown that the practice of gratitude as a discipline protects a person from the destructive impulses of envy, resentment, greed, and bitterness.…

⁷ Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the ‘tent of meeting’. Anyone enquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp.  ¹¹ The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young assistant Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.

¹² Moses said to the Lord, ‘You have been telling me, “Lead these…

Then Moses said to the Israelites, ‘See, the Lord has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver, and bronze,  to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of artistic crafts.’  (Exodus 35:30–33) 

Dr John Dennison from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity writes: 

In Bezalel we have an example of a human…

19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

²⁶ So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptised into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 

4 But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, (Galatians 4:4) 

Richard Rohr reflects: 

Since the very beginning of time, God’s Spirit has been revealing its glory and goodness through the physical creation. Christians believe that this universal Christ presence was later “born of a woman under the law” (Galatians 4:4) in a moment of chronological time. This is the great Christian leap of faith!  

We daringly believe that God’s presence was poured into a single human…

¹ Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted. ² Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. ³ For if a man thinks himself to be something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. ⁴ But let each man examine his own work, and then he will have reason to boast in himself, and not in someone else. ⁵ For each man will bear his own burden.

…

‘Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.’ (Galatians 6:2)

God’s calling to ‘carry each other’s burdens’ begins with individuals, but it can also inspire whole communities to collectively reflect Christ’s love by supporting and serving others. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), violence had divided one village in the Ituri province for years. But through Tearfund’s peacebuilding workshops, local churches held community dialogues, which involve gathering information and ideas from a group of people and using…

⁷ Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. ⁸ For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. ⁹ Let’s not be weary in doing good, for we will reap in due season, if we don’t give up. ¹⁰ So then, as we have opportunity, let’s do what is good toward all men, and especially toward those who are of the household of the faith.

In the beginning there was God, and no explanation is given, but rather just a state of affairs that we are invited to experience.

And God created - that is he brought into being something which had not existed.

God created everything, both what is unseen (the heavens) and what is seen (the earth).

All was not completely satisfactory in four different ways.

            the earth was formless  
           …

test

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

…

In the beginning

Genesis 1: Creation summary:
* God speaks words of permission: “Let there be ….”
* What God permits then occurs “And there was …”  “And it was so”
* God separates - and makes things different and distinct
* God gives names to what is created so that they can be part of our lives
* God sees that creation is good
* Creation follows a rhythm :”there was evening and there was…

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

James Finley says:  

This is a paraphrase of Meister Eckhart: Imagine you’re standing before a full-length mirror, and imagine the image…

Heavenly Father, give me grace to finish the work that I have been doing and rest for one day.

¹ Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
² By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. 
³ Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had…

Heavenly Father, thank you for the gift of life-giving water in all its forms: mist, rain and rivers. 
* Thank you too that “back in the day” you gave us the breath of life - that which makes us humans conscious living beings.

⁴ This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

⁵ Now no shrub had yet appeared on the earth^[…

Prayer: Heavenly Father,
* give grace to those we know who are married to be at one with each other.
* give grace to those we know who seek to be married to discern who it is right for them to marry
* give grace and comfort to those we know whose marriages ended in separation, divorce or death
* today and everyday

¹⁸ The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

¹⁹ Now the Lord God had…

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, 
       …

When Genesis says that God created the heavens (what is unseen) and the earth (what is seen) it means that God created absolutely everything
When Genesis says that there was a tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it is talking about the knowledge of absolutely everything.

Why is it that the knowledge of absolutely everything leads to death?

• is it that knowledge is power, and that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”?
• is it that the beauty of life is that we don’t know everything? If we knew what others are thinking, we…

Prayer: Heavenly Father, when I make foolish decisions give me grace to hear your voice calling me;
and when others act foolishly and are afraid give me grace to call out to them in your name.

⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

⁸ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

Heavenly father, give me grace today to be responsible for my own actions (rather than playing the blame game)

¹¹ And the Lord God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you…

Heavenly Father Thank you for your many kindnesses to us
* for giving us clothes to help us feel less vulnerable
* for making temporary our lives which have so much difficulty and pain and suffering arising from our misuse of free will,

²⁰ Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.
²¹ The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

^22 …

Heavenly father give me grace to turn to you when I am disappointed at life and at myself.
I repent of the unkindness which arises from my jealousy of others.
Give me grace to rejoice with my brothers and sisters when they succeed, particularly when I don’t.

4 Adam^[a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.^[…

Heavenly Father, pour out your grace on me so that I may be attentive to the needs of others
* so that I may look after their interests
* and so that I may hear cries of injustice.
* What I ask for myself I ask for those who fail to see the humanity in those affected by their actions.

⁹ Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

¹⁰ …

Heavenly Father
Make me a channel of your grace to those whose self inflicted misery is more than they can bear.

¹⁰ The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. ¹¹ Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. ¹² When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its…

Heavenly Father
* When things go well in my life and I have the benefits of food, leisure activities and technology,
* may I call out to you for the grace to see what is not good,
* particularly in any disproportionate, oppressive or ungracious response to those who have hurt me.

¹⁷ Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.
Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. 
¹⁸ …

Heavenly Father
* Give me grace to all people as being in your image
* and give me grace not just to live, but to walk with you, as Enoch did.

¹ In the day that God created people, he made them God’s likeness, both ²  male and female, and blessed them.
 ³ Adam then became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth

The first humans lived a long time.  The male…

Heavenly Father, when I see the wickedness, corruption and violence of human kind, and am grieved in my heart, and wish that such wickedness should not exist; I thank you that you feel the same way.
Thank you that you are able to see what is good in human kind and that you desire to live in covenant relationship with us.
Give me grace to walk with you today.

⁵ Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, & that every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart…

Heavenly Father
            in amongst all the destruction that takes place in this world,
            give me grace to do what is right
            and give me grace to allow you and others do what I cannot do (e.g. “close the door of the ark”)

¹ Yahweh said to Noah (⁶ who was 600 years old) , “Come with all of your household into…