Daily Bible Verses

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) So the sisters sent word to Jesus, ‘Lord, the one you love is sick.’
 
When he heard this, Jesus said, ‘This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be...

1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer – at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. ...

27 ‘But to you who are listening I say: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you. (Luke 6)

Franciscan peacemakers Rosemary Lynch and Alain...

6 “Be careful that you don’t do your charitable giving^[a] ...

19 Having therefore, brothers, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, 21 and having a great priest over God’s house, ...

21 Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus also had been baptized, and was praying. The sky was opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form like a dove on him; and a voice came out of the sky, saying “You are my beloved Son. In you I am well pleased.”

John Dear writes:...

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,  since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. (COLOSSIANS 3:23–24)

In these verses, Paul instructs the Colossians to work in all contexts with all their heart. Our culture presents hard work as the endless grind, morning routines that start before the sun is awake...

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you

Rev. James Lawson (1928–2024), an influential teacher of nonviolence in the civil rights movement, insists on the effective power of nonviolence: 

There is impracticality to violence. It’s ineffective and has been ineffective throughout the world for too many years. We must not let people who romanticize or mythologize violence persuade us that it has proven to be...

Blessed are the peacemakers: They shall be recognized as children of God.  
—Matthew 5:9  

Richard Rohr considers what it means to be a peacemaker:  

This verse in Matthew’s Gospel is the only time the word peacemakers is ever used in the whole Bible. Peacemakers literally are the “ones who reconcile quarrels.” We can clearly see Jesus is not on the side of the violent but on the side of the nonviolent. Jesus is saying there must be a...

21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Nonviolence teacher Ken Butigan understands God’s love to be at the center of nonviolence. 

Our true calling is to love one another as God has loved us. When we take this seriously, we are transformed into lovers who care for all beings. In practical terms this means resisting the tendency of the violence system to divide the world into various enemy camps. A fundamental...

The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment;
    he stretches out the heavens like a tent
and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.  He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind.  
He makes winds his messengers,
    flames of fire his servants. - Psalm 104:2-4

Dear Heavenly Father,

One glance at a sky full of clouds and I can see your majesty and grandeur.  What a...

13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-09-18-overflow-with-hope-r3

“forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”  

Brian McLaren identifies how prayers of petition help us to experience forgiveness:   

Since being wounded or sinned against is a terribly common experience, I suspect we need to pay more attention to it. In fact, being wronged is directly linked in the Lord’s Prayer to the reality of doing wrong; we pray, “forgive us...

The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” Matthew 20:28

I’m not called to die on a cross. But I am called to do last night’s washing up without expecting a medal.
Simon Martin from London Institute for Contemporary Christianity writes:  

The latest season of one of my favourite shows, ...

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, ‘Let us go over to the other side.’ 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 ...

9 As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. ‘Follow me,’ he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.  10 While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples....

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing. 

Many of us pray similar words of Jesus when we say, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

When we pray this when we meet for Gathered Worship and in our personal prayers, sometimes we are not challenged by these words, but at other times we are struck how hard it is to forgive someone who has deeply offended and hurt us…. It is difficult to let go of the past and be present now to...

“Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” —Luke 23:34 

Author Megan McKenna considers Jesus’ ability to forgive and how we are called to the same:  

We were created to be the friends of Jesus, the friends of God, friends with one another…. And so, we begin this journey of becoming, this way of being in the world guided by Jesus’s own words and actions that we will repeat over and over again in all our relationships and in...

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
    He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
    he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,...

¹ You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, ² in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience. ³ We also all once lived among them in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. ⁴ But...

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you.
    You have held my right hand.
24 You will guide me with your counsel,
   ...

Give thanks to Yahweh,^[a] for he is good,
    for his loving kindness endures forever.
...

Heavenly father
lead us not into the temptation of taking it out on other people when we are suffering ourselves. 

³⁸ Then there were two robbers crucified with him, one on his right hand and one on the left.
³⁹ Those who passed by blasphemed him, wagging their heads 
^40 ...

Heavenly Father
Give us grace today to

⁴ When Yahweh saw that he came over to see, God called to him out of the middle of the bush, and said, “Moses! Moses!”
He said, “Here I am.”
⁵ He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.” 
...