Daily Bible Verses

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-09-24-a-tale-of-two-sons-r25    
11Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger son said to him, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
13After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living.
14After…

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2

Richard Rohr offers a summary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s principles of nonviolence:  …

Love your enemies (Matthew 5:44)

King so imbued this understanding of nonviolence into his followers that it became the ethos of the entire civil rights movement. One evening … the large crowd of black and white activists standing outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church was electrified by the sudden arrival of a black funeral home operator from Montgomery. He reported that a group of black students demonstrating near the capitol just that afternoon had been surrounded by police on…

Of all powers, love is the most powerful and the most powerless. It is the most powerful because it alone can conquer that final and most impregnable stronghold which is the human heart. It is the most powerless because it can do nothing except by consent. 

In the Christian sense, love is not primarily an emotion but an act of the will. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbours, he is not telling us to love them in the sense of responding to them with a cosey emotional feeling.…

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, (Matthew 5:44)

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  said … 

When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality…. …

Jeremiah 17v7-8

7But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in Him.
8He is like a tree planted by the waters
that sends out its roots toward the stream.
It does not fear when the heat comes,
and its leaves are always green.…

We are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always carrying around in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies.  (2 Corinthians 4:8–10)

When suffering hits, it’s natural to wonder why God allows it to happen. The Bible is disarmingly honest about the issue. It publishes numerous complaints to the Almighty from people in pain.…

Jesus instructed, “I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” Matthew 10:16
 
Faith-based organizer Rev. Dr. Alexia Salvatierra reflects on Jesus’ teaching in Scripture about wielding power: 
In Matthew 10:16, Jesus calls his disciples to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Serpent power is evident and measurable—it is the power of force, wealth, social influence and numbers. There is nothing wrong with…

12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14…

For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one an other.  Mark 9:49–50 

Australian theologian Sally Douglas considers Jesus’ teachings about power:   

In Mark 9, we hear about an argument between Jesus’ male disciples. They have been disputing amongst themselves which one of them is the…

It is precisely the parts of the body that seem to be the weakest which are the indispensable ones.
 —1 Corinthians 12:22 

How ingeniously you get around the commandment of God in order to preserve your own traditions! 
—Mark 7:9 

Father Richard Rohr examines different ways of understanding and using power: 

The epigraphs above are two subtle scriptures that I…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-09-17-lamenting-church-economics-r25

James 2v1-9

1My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism. …

Richard Rohr explores the ways we have used our God-given power for good and ill:  

Despite the many abuses of power documented throughout history, power itself cannot be inherently bad. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is described as dynamis, which means power (Acts 10:38; 1 Corinthians 2:4–5). Jesus tells his disciples before his Ascension that “You will receive power when the…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-09-22-deep-roots-real-life-r25

But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.  They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.”

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-09-1-heroes-r25

Hebrews 11: 32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness…

When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (Genesis 28:16)

Every day I would sit at a particular set of five-way traffic lights at the end of my road. It always seemed like an interminably long red light, but one day, it seemed even longer than usual, and I clearly heard God saying to me, “Richard, are you really going to be any happier on the other side of the traffic light?”   …

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. (1 John 4v16)

In his letters to a laywoman, Brother Lawrence shares: 

God does not ask much of us, merely a brief thought of them from time to time, a little love, sometimes asking for…

God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. (Genesis 1:31)

• In Genesis, God makes humans in his own image. Seeing a troublesome neighbour as someone bearing the image of God will change how we deal with them.
• In Genesis, Adam and Eve are told to steward creation on God’s behalf. Understanding that creation is God’s handiwork will affect how we make use of its resources.
• In Genesis, Adam and Eve listen to the voice of temptation and disobey…

Surrender yourself to the Lord, and wait patiently for him (Psalm 37:7)

In the mid-17th century, a man named Nicolas Herman joined the Carmelite monastery in Paris, France. Wounded from fighting in the European Thirty Years’ war, and suffering a sustained leg injury, he took the monastic name “Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection.” He worked in the monastery kitchen and eventually became the head cook. Amid the chaos of food preparation and the clanging of pots and…

There was silence in heaven for about half an hour. (Rev 8:1)

Father Richard Rohr describes prayer as a practice of being present before the mystery of God.  

I believe that immediate, unmediated contact with the moment is the clearest path to divine union. Naked, undefended, and nondual presence has the best chance of encountering the Real Presence.

Prayer is the way to make contact with God, but it is not an attempt to change God’s mind about us or…

45 ‘Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought…

He will judge between the nations
    and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into ploughshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks.
…

“Love your neighbour as yourself” Leviticus 19:18

Brian McLaren recalls how he felt led to reach out to local mosques in the days after the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks: 

While praying, I felt a voice speaking, as it were, in my chest: Your Muslim neighbors are in danger of reprisal. You must try to protect them. The next morning, I wrote and made copies of a letter extending,…

‘Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell – and great was its fall…

Blessed are the pure of heart; for they shall see God. —Matthew 5:8  

Cynthia Bourgeault explains how understanding the ancient meaning of the word passion can help us gain emotional equilibrium:   
The tradition from about the 4th century on has been unanimous with what gets in the way of becoming pure of heart. I will quote directly from the Philokalia: “The problem with the passions is that they divide the heart.” The passions are the culprit that sucks the…