Daily Bible Verses

‘Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.’  PHILIPPIANS 4:8
 
Holy Spirit, please make me aware when I am feeding my mind with anything unhelpful. I choose to focus on what is noble, right, pure, and lovely.

We have choices…

‘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…

‘Praise the Lord, my soul;
    all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
 Praise the Lord, my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits –
 who forgives all your sins
    and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
    and crowns you with love and compassion.’ PSALM 103:1-4

…

‘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…

‘And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.’  EPHESIANS 6:18
 

Jesus, I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ – especially those who are being persecuted.

Another way that Christians have sought to pray continually is to practise the presence of God throughout their day.…

42 Jesus called them together and said, ‘You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 43 …

‘Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: rejoice!’  PHILIPPIANS 4:4
 
Holy Spirit, remind me in every circumstance today, whether difficult or pleasant, to rejoice in the Lord.

Rejoice in the Lord! In Paul’s world and culture, rejoicing would have meant public celebration. The people of Ephesus, Philippi, and Corinth used to organise great festivals and games to celebrate their gods…

‘You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.’  DEUTERONOMY 8:17-18 

Give Thanks in All Circumstances
Lord, I thank you for all your provision and the work you give me to do.…

‘But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
‘I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who hum ble themselves will be exalted.’  LUKE 18:13-14

‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ (Repeat this…

8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.…

39 Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. 40 On reaching the place, he said to them, ‘Pray that you will not fall into temptation.’ 41…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-03-19-the-prodigal-and-the-proud-r25

28 ‘The elder brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. …

‘No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Matthew 6:24

Richard Rohr challenges the ways we allow personal possessions and national boundaries to define us: 

Jesus primarily talked about the kingdom of God as his defining worldview. Yet, the vast majority of Christians in history have identified with their own…

‘But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.’   MATTHEW 6:6

Father God, you invite me to spend time with you. I accept!

‘The Christian spiritual journey is responding to God’s invitation to personal encounter in love. Prayer is our response. Prayer is the place of encounter. Growth…

The land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers. Leviticus 25:23

Biblical scholar Ched Myers writes of the prominence of immigrants in the Scriptures. 

Torah and the Prophets warned Israel not to discriminate against economic or political refugees, since in YHWH’s eyes even the chosen people were “but aliens and tenants” (Leviticus 25:23). Instead, they were to treat the “sojourners in your midst” with dignity and justice (…

But godliness with contentment is great gain. (1 Timothy 6:6)

Journalist Krista Tippett describes an embodied form of grace—the surprising grace of aging. As our minds and bodies slow down, we make space for simple contentment:  

To inhabit my body in all its grace and its flaws appears as a gift for the new/mundane bodily territory I’m on in midlife. Aging is the ultimate slow motion loss, inevitable for us all, and yet somehow for me and everyone I know,…

Rejoice Always  1 Thessalonians 5:16
‘Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.’ PSALMS 100:1-2
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3).

The injunction to rejoice cannot be interpreted as a general exhortation to Christians to ‘be happy at…

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.  The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’
Jesus answered, ‘It is written: “Man shall not live on bread alone.”’  LUKE 4:1–4

…

Do not press me to leave you 
or to turn back from following you! 
Where you go, I will go; 
where you lodge, I will lodge; 
your people shall be my people, 
and your God my God.  
Where you die, I will die— 
there will I be buried.
(Ruth 1:16–17) 

Theologian Julia Lambert Fogg presents a biblical story of intergenerational immigration: 

Ruth is the story of a mother and a daughter-in-law who cross…

‘Save me, O God,
    for the waters have come up to my neck.
I will praise God’s name in song
    and glorify him with thanksgiving.’ PSALM 69:1, 30
 

Lord, help me to be realistic about the difficulties I face and be determined to focus on your love, power, and faithfulness.

Sometimes we have to push through to joy in the Lord. We often see this…

He prayed to the Lord, ‘Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. (Jonah 4:2)

There are many things which are true: I could have been more patient, spent more time with my…

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 what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She…

‘About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.’ ACTS 16:25–26
 

Pray: Father, I don’t claim to understand the link between worship and freedom, but I thank you for Paul’s prison doors opening…

‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving
    and his courts with praise;
    give thanks to him and praise his name.’  PSALM 100:4 
 
Lord, I have so much to be grateful for… (list at least ten!)

Joy and gratitude are linked. Researcher Brené Brown found, without exception, that every person she interviewed who described living a joyful life…

Deep within them I will plant my law, writing it on their hearts. Then I will be their God and they shall be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).

Richard Rohr presents the journey of the prophets as one that ends in trusting God’s unconditional love and grace. He uses the prophet Jeremiah as an example: 

The first covenant between YHWH and Israel appeared to be bilateral: “If you obey my voice and hold fast to my covenant, you of all the nations shall be my very own” (…

“From God’s fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” John 1:16 

Richard Rohr insists that grace is the essence of who God is.  

The goodness of God fills all the gaps of the universe, without discrimination or preference. God is the gratuity of absolutely everything. The space in between everything is not space at all but Spirit. God is the “goodness glue” that holds the dark and light of things together, the free energy that carries all death…

 ‘Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
 to loose the chains of injustice
 and untie the cords of the yoke,
 to set the oppressed free
 and break every yoke?
 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
 and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and…

‘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:…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-03-10-the-spirit-during-lent-part-3-give-it-up-for-jesus-r25 

1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-03-21-hungry-r25 

19 ‘There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 …

‘For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him’ (Colossians 1:16).

Sam Brown, London Institute of Contemporary Christianity writes ….

When I was 17, I heard something on a podcast I’m still thinking about today.  

How do you account for the essential meaninglessness…

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, (Luke 4:1)
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life…

‘… and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’ MATTHEW 28:20
 

Lord Jesus, thank you that you are with me always. May I become more conscious of your presence.

Think how different our lives would be if we were constantly aware of God’s presence with us – his loving, welcoming presence. If we allowed his life to flow…

They will come with weeping;
    they will pray as I bring them back.
I will lead them beside streams of water
    on a level path where they will not stumble,
…

18 Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. 19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20…

9 Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labour:
10 if either of them falls down, one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who…

Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honour the emperor. (1 Peter 2:17)

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-03-3-do-you-want-to-walk-r25 …

Jesus Wept John 11:35

Richard Rohr considers Jesus a model of prophetic tears.  

The realisation that all things have tears, and most things deserve tears, might even be defined as a form of salvation from ourselves and from our illusions. The prophets knew and taught and modelled that anger must first be recognised, allowed—even loved!—as an expression of the deep, normally inaccessible sadness that each of us carry. Even Jesus, our enlightened one, “…

Blessed are you who weep now,
    for you will laugh. (Luke 6:21)

Richard Rohr describes the path of tears as one that leads to sympathy with suffering and communion with reality.

Are we the only animal that cries and sheds tears as an emotional response? It seems so, but what function do they serve…

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 …

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.’ 1 THESSALONIANS 5:16–18
 
Father, I want to live out my faith in every area of my life. Please help me use these three simple guidelines to do that.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet[a] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-02-28-time-r25 

¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed to the Lord: ‘Lord, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. ¹⁶ Give ear,…

The tongue has the power of life and death,
    and those who love it will eat its fruit. (Proverbs 18:21)

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-02-24-words-of-life-r25

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,  (Luke 4v1)

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-03-5-the-spirit-during-lent-part-1-turning-on-the-power-r25 

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

John Ruusbroec’s famous text The Divine Espousals, describes intimate union with God “without difference”:  

In this storm of love two spirits struggle—the Spirit of God and our spirit. God, by means of the Holy Spirit, inclines [Godself] toward us, and we are thereby touched in love; our spirit, by means of God’s activity…

15 ‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognise them. Do people pick grapes from thorn-bushes, or figs from thistles?…

Alexia Salvatierra and Peter Heltzel explore how we can live out the biblical virtue of solidarity: 

While recognising the value of every vantage point, faith-rooted community organising also understands that a fair hearing of differing perspectives is necessary for truth to emerge. Fair hearings for those with low social status are hard to come by, however. In contrast to a society that gives inordinate weight to the perspective of those with more social status, we read…

But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.  (2 Corinthians 12:9)

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-02-19-control-freak-r25 

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
    And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
    …

‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
…

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do. (Luke 10:21) 

As its Greek root form mu (closed eyes or lips) implies, mysticism is pointing to something that is somehow hidden and cannot be easily seen or talked about

As children of God, we…

May you be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God

 https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-02-10-pauls-prayer-for-the-ephesians-part-3-live-full-lives-r25 

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’  (John 20:19)

Richard Rohr says: “For the great mystics, God is always experienced as abiding in their own soul and, in seeming contradiction, as totally transcendent and mysterious at the same time! God is both intimate and ultimate, no…

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-02-5-psalm-29-r25 

1 Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings,
    ascribe to the…

[They[ Do not cry out or shout aloud,  or make their voice heard in the streets; 
But faithfully they bring true justice  refusing to be wavered or crushed, 
until true justice is established on earth.  —Isaiah 42:2–4 

Richard Rohr identifies the elusive nature of prophetic leadership:  

The normal power systems of our world worship themselves and not God. For that reason, prophets almost never hold official positions, like…

The king gave a banquet lasting seven days. […] The garden had hangings of linen, fastened to silver rings on marble pillars. […] There were couches of gold and silver. Served in goblets of gold, the royal wine was abundant. […] On the seventh day, when King Xerxes was in high spirits, he commanded that Queen Vashti be brought before him, in order to display her beauty. But Queen Vashti refused to come.  ESTHER 1:5, 6a, 7, 11–12

Margaret …

There appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God.  Luke 13:11–13 

Nadia Bolz-Weber considers how healing can be a painful process:  

I found myself wondering if it hurt ……

17 One day while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem were sitting nearby, and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18 Just then some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, …

I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-18)

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/…

“Lord, I believe,”  (John 9:38)

Disability rights activist and author Amy Kenny challenges the implications of Jesus’ healing of “the blind man” in John 9, whom she refers to as Zach or Zechariah, which means “God remembers.” 

Zach is so much more than his blindness…. Structurally, the focus [of John 9] is not on the physical but on something deeper and richer that Jesus offers to Zach. It is true that Jesus cured people’s bodies as part of his ministry, but…

“Your faith has saved you” (Luke 7:50)

Richard Rohr offers one way we might understand the exorcisms Jesus performed:  

When a person has a constantly changing reference point, they have a very insecure life. They will take on any persona, negative or positive, and become incapable of much personal integrity. This is the celebrity-obsessed world in which we are living today. The biblical tradition uses the language of “having a demon” to describe such…

Awake, my soul!     Awake, harp and lyre!      I will awaken the dawn. (Psalm 57:8)

https://www.thefuelcast.…

A leper came to him begging…, “If you choose, you can make me clean.” Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, “I do choose. Be made clean!” —Mark 1:40–41 

Walter Brueggemann emphasizes that we are all in need of Jesus’ healing touch: 

Jesus touched him. He put his strong hand into the sore skin. He risked touching the contagious skin and thereby making himself, as well, socially unacceptable and ritually impure. He risked all of…

And the king will answer them, “Truly, I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” —Matthew 25:40

Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reflects on how we are called to love imperfect people imperfectly:

This is the kind of love Rabbi Jesus was talking about. If they’re in prison, if they’re hungry, if they’re naked, if they’re lonely, if they’re a stranger, a widow, a child, if they’re an outsider, if they’re last, they…

But who can discern their own errors?       Forgive my hidden faults. 
Keep your servant also from wilful sins      may they not rule over me. 
Then I will be blameless,      innocent of great transgression. 
May these words of my mouth       and this meditation of my heart 
be pleasing in your sight,   …

3 ‘Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck…

For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Cor 13:12)

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-01-22-what-we-dont-understand-r25 

Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was. (Job 2:13)

https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2025-01-20-bridge-r25

“people who are turning the whole world upside down” (see Acts 17:6)

An essential aspect of Franciscan spirituality is what Richard Rohr calls “the integration of the negative.” Rather than insisting that God values perfection or an idealized morality, Francis of Assisi intuited, through the example of Jesus’ life and death, that God could be found in all things, even those our religion and culture urge us to reject. 

I…

Jesus taught them, “But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” —Matthew 5:44 

Richard Rohr describes how loving our enemies is a practice of “integrating the negative,” accepting what we find unacceptable within ourselves: 

Our enemies always carry our own shadow side, the things we don’t like about ourselves. We will never face our own shadow until we embrace those who threaten us (as…

And you will know the truth , and the truth will set you free  (John 8: 32) 

Based on some thoughts of spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr

One of the things it means to be fully human is to bow at the feet of your everyday existence, with its disappointments and…