Daily Bible Verses

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters.
3 God said, “Let there be light,”…

My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.  
—2 Corinthians 12:9 

It is sufficient to recognise one’s weakness and to abandon oneself as a child into God’s arms.

People who follow this more humble and honest path are invariably more loving, joyful, and compassionate, and have plenty of time for simple gratitude about everything

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. …

“Keep silent before me, islands,
    and let the peoples renew their strength.
Let them come near,
    then let them speak.
  …

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 those who were ill. 3 He told them: …

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God”.  (1 John 4:7)

If our only goal is to love, there is no such thing as failure. 

We are invited to encounter a love that just keeps opening to us, and then pass on the same by “opening and opening” to the increasingly larger world around us, willingly falling into the “bright abyss,” where all…

Matthew 5:8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Imagine living with one purpose: to have a heart centred on the will and love of God, so that this determines all our actions each day. 

Being committed to something keeps life expanding for us, even when we think that there’s…

Jesus said ²⁰  Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

You don’t have to enter a monastery to be a mystic. 

You don’t have to renounce chocolate or forsake pop culture.

To be a mystic in our times is not about renunciation; it is about intention. 

Living as a mystic means orienting the whole of yourself toward the sacred.…

3 ‘Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel, you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born. 4 Even to your old age and grey hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you

. https://www.thefuelcast.com/library/2024-09-27-autumn-r3 

Praise the Lord.^[a]

Sing to the Lord a new song,…

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”

Authors Adam Bucko and Rory McEntee envision what a “new monasticism” could mean today:  

Monastic [life], then, represents for us a complete commitment to the transformative journey, … which takes us into the fullness of our humanity, allowing divinity to flower within us in increasing degrees of love, compassion, joy, sorrow, and wisdom. The…

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, …