Daily Bible Verses

‘I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.’  JOHN 15:11
 
Lord, thank you that your joy is my strength (Nehemiah 8:10). I celebrate your great love for me.

Joy is essential to our spiritual lives. Jesus reveals to us the Father’s love so that his joy may become ours and that our joy may become complete. Joy is the experience of knowing that we are unconditionally loved and that nothing – sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even…

Heavenly father give us grace to love one another in such a way that is life giving to those we love

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. 
¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 
¹⁴ You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you. 
¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does.
But I have called you friends…

“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s own life for one’s friends” 

Love is a firm commitment to act for the well-being of someone other than yourself. It can be personal or political, individual or communal, intimate or public. Love will not be segregated to the private, personal precincts of life. Love, as I read it in the Bible, is ubiquitous. It affects all aspects of life.…  

An oft-quoted passage in the New Testament says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son” [John 3:16]. The Greek word used by the New Testament…

‘You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.’   JOHN 15:14–15
 

Lord, I long for true friendship with you. Help me to hear your voice and obey your commands.

Pray Continually: One way to acknowledge God’s presence with us throughout the day is to talk with him, as with a…

Heavenly father
give us grace to be obedient to your command to love all others, particularly when there is pressure not to. 

¹⁷ “I command these things to you, that you may love one another. 
¹⁸ If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. 
¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own.
But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 

Heavenly father
give us grace to endure the pain of suffering when we have done what is right. 

²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’
If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 
²¹ But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me. 
²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse…

Heavenly father
give us grace to receive your Spirit of truth today
give us discernment to know what truth needs speaking, whatever the consequences

^15:26 “When the Counsellor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. 
²⁷ You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

^16:1 “I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble. …

Heavenly father
give us all grace to be open to the Holy Spirit, our Counsellor, so that we may have conviction about sin, righteous and judgement arising from our saviour Jesus. 

⁵ But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 
⁶ But because I have told you these things, sorrow has filled your heart. 
⁷ Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It
is to your advantage that I go away, for if I don’t go away, the Counsellor won’t come to you.
But if I…

Heavenly father
give us grace to live in the truth today

¹² “I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now.
¹³ However when he, the Spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth,
for he will not speak from himself; but whatever he hears, he will speak.
He will declare to you things that are coming. 
¹⁴ He will glorify me, for he will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you. 
¹⁵ All things that the Father…

Heavenly father
give us grace in times of weeping and lamenting to experience the everlasting joy of the resurrection

¹⁷ Some of his disciples therefore said to one another,
“What is this that he says to us, ‘A little while, and you won’t see me, and again a little while, and you will see me;’ 
and, ‘Because I go to the Father’?” 
¹⁸ They said therefore, “What is this that he says, ‘A little while’? We don’t know what he is saying.”
¹⁹ Therefore Jesus perceived that they…