Episodios

  • January 7th - Mark 1:1

    January 7th - Mark 1:1
    Jan 7 2026
    Mark 1:1 This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. When Mark put together his Gospel, he had a very clear purpose. You might have expected him to take us through Jesus’ life story, but he doesn’t. He totally disregards the first 30 years of Jesus’ life. He doesn’t tell us about Jesus’ birth, education, employment or relationships. We would be so fascinated to know about all of those things, but Mark wants to get to the heart of the matter: Jesus was nothing other than the Son of God. He was the Messiah, the one that the Jews had been anticipating for centuries. It is generally agreed that Mark was the first person to write a Gospel. Matthew, Luke and John’s Gospels were written in very different circumstances over the next 30 or 40 years, but it was Mark who was breaking the new ground. He was probably relying on Peter’s eye-witness account of Jesus’ ministry, and it is believed that he wrote it in Rome. Many scholars think he was writing around the year AD 60, a full generation after the earthly life of Jesus. Mark devoted himself to describing a short period of Jesus’ life, from the time he started his public ministry to the time, after his death and resurrection, when he ascended to his Father in heaven. Mark moved at breathtaking speed from one incident in Jesus’ life to another because of his fixed purpose to declare the good news and to reveal that Jesus was fully man and fully God. Mark knew that if Jesus was merely a human being, his life story might be interesting, but it wouldn’t be good news. It was precisely because Jesus was both man and God that he was able to open the way for people to find life in all its fulness. These days, Jesus is warmly spoken about by many people. They love that he was compassionate and radical, and happy to stand up to the authorities, but they don’t know how to cope with the fact that he was the Son of God. To our society, we have nothing less than good news to share as we declare, with Mark, that Jesus was both fully man and fully God. Question How do you relate to the fact that Jesus was both God and man? Prayer Loving God, I thank you for the good news. Help me to let it shape every part of my life. Amen
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  • January 6th - Psalm 96:1-3

    January 6th - Psalm 96:1-3
    Jan 6 2026
    Psalm 96:1-3 Sing a new song to the LORD! Let the whole earth sing to the LORD! Sing to the LORD; praise his name. Each day proclaim the good news that he saves. Publish his glorious deeds among the nations. Tell everyone about the amazing things he does. Many people see life as divided into two categories: the sacred and the secular. The sacred is, for example, what we do when we go to church and worship God, and the secular is our normal daily routine of family life, working and relaxing. This way of looking at life is strongly Greek in origin and is very different from Hebrew thinking, which we see reflected in this psalm. The psalmist had no thought of confining his worship to his visits to the temple! He was eager to proclaim the good news of God’s salvation every day. Whatever he was doing, he wanted to declare the greatness of God and encourage other people to do the same. The idea of living in two separate compartments was completely unknown to him. When we see God at work in every aspect of our lives, it gives a new importance to everything we do. Work is no longer simply a way of making money to feed the family, but an opportunity to serve God and to extend his kingdom. Our sport is no longer something we do merely to keep fit and healthy, but an opportunity to live for God and to represent him to people who may not know him. Our finances are no longer our possession to use in ways that please us, but an exciting God-given opportunity to bless other people. I could go on – God’s desire is to bless every part of our lives. Nothing could be more exciting than to see God at work in every area of life. Dividing up the sacred and secular robs us of the joy that God wants us to experience. God is constantly working in new ways and leading us into new experiences, so the psalmist recognised the need to sing new songs to the Lord. Throughout history, God’s people have come up with new songs, and that continues to happen at an impressive rate! It’s not because there’s anything wrong with the old songs, but because God’s people are continually seeing him at work in new ways throughout all areas of life. Question In what new ways have you seen God at work recently? Prayer Thank you, Lord, that every day you give me new reasons to praise and worship you. Amen.
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  • January 5th - Psalm 95:6-7

    January 5th - Psalm 95:6-7
    Jan 5 2026
    Psalm 95:6-7 Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the LORD our maker, for he is our God. We are the people he watches over, the flock under his care. If only you would listen to his voice today! These words of invitation are often used at the beginning of church services to remind us of how wonderful God is, and how much he deserves our worship. However, although God is perfect and worthy of our complete devotion, he will never impose himself on us. It is up to us to respond, and listening is a crucial part of that response. The sad reality is that we often fail to listen. The psalmist reflects on a time when the people of Israel did just that. They were at the start of their wilderness wanderings and there was no water to drink. I don’t want to minimise the acute difficulty of such a dilemma, but the people’s response was to complain and not to listen to God. Although he had miraculously delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and provided regular food for them through the provision of quail and manna, they immediately blamed him. Happily, Moses did listen to God, and the result was that he struck the rock at Horeb and fresh water came gushing out. In his letter, James challenges his readers: “You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry” (James 1:19). James seems to have had an acute understanding of how people tick. He knew the grim truth that we are inclined to be quick to speak and get angry, and slow to listen. It’s easy to understand why: listening is hard work. It demands time and effort, and when we are facing a difficulty, we are inclined to want an instant response. Listening sounds like a very slow and unattractive option. The Bible is astonishingly honest about the repeated disasters of the people of Israel, which all occurred because they stopped listening. If only they had listened, things would have gone so very differently. It is the same for us today. We need to be quick to listen, knowing that God loves to speak with us and will be seeking to do so today through other people, the Bible, literature, music, art, nature and 1,000 other ways. Question How could you improve your ability to listen to God? Prayer Loving God, thank you that you love to speak to me. Help me to listen hard for your voice today. Amen
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  • January 4th - Psalm 94:18-19

    January 4th - Psalm 94:18-19
    Jan 4 2026
    Psalm 94:18-19 I cried out, “I am slipping!” but your unfailing love, O LORD, supported me. When doubts filled my mind, your comfort gave me renewed hope and cheer. Sharing honestly and openly what God has done in our lives is incredibly powerful. The most wonderful thing about it is that nobody can deny it. Other people might choose to interpret our experiences differently from us, but the moment we declare our personal accounts of how we have seen God at work in our lives, they are bound to take note of what we have said. I draw the conclusion from this that we need to give one another generous opportunities to share what God has done. Sharing our personal testimonies is good at every level. In a large congregation, they can inspire faith and stimulate worship. When we share our experiences in small groups where we can be totally honest with one another, one person’s testimony can trigger other people to share what they have been through. Probably the best time to speak of what God has done is one-to-one. Within the intimacy of a private conversation, we can share our experiences and then explore them with one another. The most important thing is that we don’t keep our testimonies to ourselves. They need to be shared. In the New Testament, we often find the apostle Paul sharing the account of his conversion, but he also loved to speak of the new things that God was doing in his life. He travelled from church to church around the Eastern Mediterranean, bringing them up to date with the ways in which the Holy Spirit was blessing the Church. In his letters, he spoke openly and honestly about how God was using him, even when he was in prison and battling with his “thorn in [the] flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7). Whoever we are, and whatever experiences we may have, each of us has a unique account of what God has done in our lives – and we need to share it. Question What is your own testimony of God at work in your life? Prayer Dear Father, thank you that you are alive and at work in my life day by day. Give me courage and determination to share my testimony with others. Amen
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  • January 3rd - Psalm 93:4

    January 3rd - Psalm 93:4
    Jan 3 2026
    Psalm 93:4 Mightier than the violent raging of the seas, mightier than the breakers on the shore – the Lord above is mightier than these! I was brought up by the sea and have always enjoyed the sight of waves breaking on the shore. I love the rhythm and the drama as they crash onto the beach. There is a timelessness about waves, and it is easy to understand why the psalmists often refer to them. But, however powerful and violent the sea might be, the psalmists insist that God is even more powerful. He is incomparably great. Whatever threat you are facing, God is more than able to cope. I wonder what challenges you are facing at the moment. They may be connected with your family, work, church, neighbours, community or something completely different. Life in our broken world inevitably produces a stream of challenges for all of us, and when we think beyond our immediate lives, we can see incredible problems engulfing our world. There are fires, floods and famine arising from climate change; huge numbers of people fleeing their home countries because of oppressive regimes; and Christians suffering persecution simply because of their faith. As we face these gigantic challenges, it is very easy for us to feel overwhelmed. So, with the psalmist, we need to fix our eyes on the incomparable greatness of God. God doesn’t always fix our problems immediately – the psalmists often complained about God’s apparently slow response – but we can be confident that he is incomparably powerful and, as we place our lives in his hands, we can be sure that he will be present with us in our times of difficulty. We all need to keep watching the waves, enjoying the drama of their power and thanking God that he is incomparably greater. Question What challenges are you facing at the moment? In what way does God’s strength give you confidence as you confront them? Prayer Lord God, help me to live today with a continual awareness of your mighty power. Amen
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  • January 2nd - Psalm 92:1-3

    January 2nd - Psalm 92:1-3
    Jan 2 2026
    Psalm 92:1-3 It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp and the melody of a lyre. Throughout the psalms, we are continually reminded how good it is to worship God. In Psalm 84:10, the psalmist says that he would rather spend a single day in the presence of God than a thousand anywhere else! Our verses today remind us of the importance of worshipping God throughout the day. Worship needs to be woven into the fabric of our lives. We can’t do it occasionally or half-heartedly. It needs to claim the best of our energy and attention. Worship is of such huge importance because it needs to affect absolutely every aspect of life. The thought of worship being confined to a couple of hours in church once a week is completely foreign to the Bible. When we worship, we declare the greatness of God and seek to bring our lives into line with his will. One of the most comprehensive definitions of worship was provided by William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury during the second world war. He wrote: “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.” Those challenging words demand very careful reflection, because all too easily what we do in church can be cheapened. Whatever style of worship we are used to, it is so easy for it to become a performance which we judge by our own particular musical preferences. Worship needs to be focused entirely on God. It is very easy for us to focus instead on the people who lead us and our reactions to their gifts and idiosyncrasies. True worship of the living God brings us to life in a way that nothing else can, so we need to make sure it becomes increasingly central to our lives, however busy we happen to be. Question Give yourself a few minutes to think this through. How central is worship in your life? Prayer Lord God, I ask you in the power of your Holy Spirit to give me a constantly renewed desire to worship you with all of my heart. Amen
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  • January 1st - Psalm 91:2

    January 1st - Psalm 91:2
    Jan 1 2026
    Psalm 91:2 This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him. I will never forget where I was when I heard the news of the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 2001. I was buying carpet with my wife in a large store in Exeter, standing at the till. A woman was describing to the shop assistant the awful events in such a way that I assumed that she was talking about a film. Such things don’t happen in real life – or so I thought! As I listened to the conversation, it suddenly became clear that she was talking about a real event, and the horror of it started to sink in. Thousands of people were snatched away in an instant. All of them had gone to work that day with the not unreasonable expectation that they would return home safe and well, but they didn’t. Such events are exceptional, thank God, but we all live in a precarious world where none of us enjoys complete safety and security. In such a world, it is important that we recognise where our ultimate security lies. This is a theme which the psalmists returned to time and again. They often reflected on the reality of life’s dangers and the ferocity of their enemies. They were often surrounded by attackers. They were fully aware that God didn’t stop them going through difficult and dangerous times, and neither does he offer to do that for us. We might like God to be a ‘Bridge over troubled water’, but time and again, the Bible tells us that he actually invites us to wade through the middle of those troubled waters. Our security lies in the fact that, as we face threats and challenges, he is with us. In Isaiah 43:2, God says: “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.” We might prefer it if God gave us a detour, but he doesn’t. His promise is that he will be with us when we face the waters, because he is our true security for time and eternity. Question How do you respond to the fact that in God, you are eternally secure? Prayer Lord God, I thank you that you are my refuge and place of safety and that I can look to the future with confidence and peace. Amen
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  • December 31st - Luke 2:37-38

    December 31st - Luke 2:37-38
    Dec 31 2025
    Luke 2:37-38 [Anna] never left the Temple but stayed there day and night, worshipping God with fasting and prayer. She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem. In this part of Luke’s gospel, our eyes are focused on Jesus and his young parents. A new day had dawned that was full of hope for the future. It is important, however, that it was two old people, Simeon and Anna, who recognised the significance of his birth. They had lived so close to God that they were ready for this moment. Age can change people in very different ways. Anna had only been married for seven years before her husband died. She was now an old woman and had been a widow for many decades. She could have become sour and cynical with the passing of time, but her life was clearly focused upon God. She spent her days in the temple worshipping God, and this meant she was spiritually alert and quick to see what he was doing. In this beautiful moment, she came alongside Simeon as he spoke with Mary and Joseph and joined in the celebration. At the time, there were godly people, who were known as The Quiet in the Land. They devoted their lives to prayer and waited patiently for God to come. Simeon and Anna were such people, and their godly example should inspire us today. Over the years, I have met many older people who, as their mobility has decreased, have increasingly devoted themselves to prayer. I have been so grateful for their godly influence and encouragement and delighted that they haven’t gone the way of so many in becoming increasingly grumpy and negative with the passing of time. As we get older, let’s allow Simeon and Anna to set the standard for how we should serve God: always prayerful, expectant and full of praise. Question As you get older, what are you going to do to ensure that you become increasingly prayerful? Prayer Loving God, thank you for the wonderful example of people like Simeon and Anna. Help me to get closer to you and become more gracious and loving as I get older. Amen
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