Daily Bible Verses

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:  
Who, being in very nature God,  
   did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;  
rather, he made himself nothing  
   by taking the very nature of a servant,  
   being made in human likeness.  

Philippians 2:5–7  

Jesus shows us what it is like to be truly and beautifully human…

Praise the Lord.  
Praise the Lord, my soul.  
I will praise the Lord all my life;  
   I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.  
Do not put your trust in princes,  
   in human beings, who cannot save.  
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground;  
   on that very day their plans come to nothing.  
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob,  
   whose…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-12-3-the-feast-by-still-waters-r25

38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to…

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob,
   whose hope is in the Lord their God,
who made heaven and earth,
   the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith forever Psalm 146:5–6

Every winter, millions of monarch butterflies make an extraordinary journey. Fragile as paper, weighing less than a paperclip you’d lose in a desk drawer, they travel nearly 3,000 miles from Canada to the forests of central Mexico. No maps. No guides. Astonishingly,…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-12-15-courageous-teenagers-r25

35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come over you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the one who is to be born will be holy. He will be called God’s Son. 36 …

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God – the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his earthly life was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for…

46 And Mary said:

‘My soul glorifies the Lord
47     and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
…

“Give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). Brian McLaren highlights how gratefulness is a recurring theme in the Gospels: Jesus makes it clear that a life lived to fulfill God’s dream for creation will involve suffering. But even here, Jesus implies that there is reason for gratitude. You see it in the Beatitudes, Jesus’s eightfold way of happiness (Matthew 5:3–12). There is a blessing in poverty, he says; to the degree you miss out on the never-enough system, you partake of…

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: his mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.  

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary…

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;  
   from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.  
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him –  
   the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,  
   the Spirit of counsel and of might,  
   the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord –  
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.  
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,  
…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R-G2i_ezH0

‘Glory to God in the highest heaven,
    and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests.’ Luke 2:14

For a child has been born for us, 
   a son given to us; 
authority rests upon his shoulders, 
   and he is named 
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, 
   Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace  Isaiah 9:6

Allowing ourselves time to stop and wonder is a beautiful but tricky thing to do. Pausing long enough to rediscover the wonder of the Christmas story can be hard, but is, non the less, rewarding.

Isaiah 9…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-12-19-episode-2-wonderful-news

6 For to us a child is born,
    to us a son is given,
    …

    
The wonderful art of knitting  (Psalm 139:6-14)

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,  
   too lofty for me to attain.  
Where can I go from your Spirit?  
   Where can I flee from your presence?  
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;  
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,  
   if I settle on the far…

‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ (Luke 1:38)

All my life, I have been enamoured of the God-intoxicated ones. Those rarefied souls who slip into ecstatic states and spontaneously utter poetry. The ones who exude deep stillness, embody equanimity, listen more than they speak. The initiated and the ordained, the monastics…. 
I wanted to be one of them. Until I didn’t. 
I want you not to want that as well…. I…

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

In 1963, C.S. Lewis wrote an essay entitled ‘The Seeing Eye’. It was a response to Nikita Krushchev, the Russian politician who famously declared of the first man in space, ‘Gagarin flew into space but didn’t see God there’.

Krushchev considered the fact that God wasn’t spotted up there to be…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-12-5-tools-r25

1 When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal…

1 The desert and the parched land will be glad;
    the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom;
…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-12-12-struggling-with-what-feels-like-his-absence-r25

7 ‘Will the Lord reject for ever?
    Will he never show his favour again?
…

So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’  

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, ‘I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession…

11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!’
…

Richard Rohr reminds us that when we receive everything as a gift, we can live gratefully, allowing the energies of life and love to flow through us for the benefit of the whole. 
In Philippians 4:6–7, Paul sums up an entire theology of prayer practice in very concise form: “Pray with gratitude, and the peace of Christ, which is bigger than knowledge or understanding, will guard both your mind and your heart in Christ Jesus.” From that place we stop making…

35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that…