Open the Bible UK Daily

Colin Smith

3 minute daily Bible reflections from Open the Bible UK, authored by Colin Smith, read by Sue McLeish.

  1. 1h ago

    Are You Looking to Yourself for Salvation?

    “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.”John 5:39-40As long as you are looking to yourself for salvation, there is absolutely no hope for you. Salvation does not come from within you. It cannot. The life you need is found in Christ and your hope lies in Him. If you are drawn to Jesus today, then turn away from yourself and look to Him. Look to Him for what you do not have in yourself. Ask Him to be for you what you cannot be in yourself. Do you lack a feeling of love for God? Look to Christ to give you what you do not have. Do you feel that you cannot live this Christian life? Look to Christ to give you the strength you do not have. Don’t sit there looking at yourself. There’s no hope there. You may feel that you are far from God today. You may even wonder why you are reading this. You don’t need to take a long journey to come to Christ. He is able to make you a new man, a new woman, today. The resurrection of Jesus happened in a moment. God just raised Him, and He is able to do that for you today. He is able to give you a new mind, a new heart, new desires, new affections, new power, new direction, and a new spirit. He is able to make you a new creation. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Where are your eyes focused right now? Are you looking to yourself to generate some hope? Or are you looking to Jesus to give you what you do not have?

  2. 1d ago

    What Do We Need Jesus to Do for Us?

    “An hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”John 5:25The first thing we learn about God in the Bible is that when He speaks, things are created that did not exist before. God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light (Gen. 1:3). Now here is God the Son, God in the flesh, and when He comes to people who are dead in their sins, He says, “Let there be life!” And the dead who hear the voice of the Son of God live. We see this in the Gospels. Jesus speaks to the daughter of Jairus, “Talitha cumi” which means “Little girl, I say to you, arise” (Mark 5:41). And when Jesus speaks, what happens? Life enters into her, and Jesus “told them to give her something to eat” (5:43). Lazarus was in the grave for four days when Jesus said, “Lazarus, come out” (John 11:43). John tells us, “The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth” (John 11:44). The Son of God speaks and physical life is imparted to the dead. When Jesus speaks to those who are dead in their sins, He creates in them a new heart, a new mind, and a new spirit. The Bible calls this the new birth. Those who are dead in their sins hear His voice and live! Jesus is in the business of raising people who are spiritually dead. We see this throughout the Gospels, and He is still doing it today. He gives new life through His Word and by His Spirit. For this reason the Bible says that we are born again of the Word (1 Pet. 1:23), and born again of the Spirit (John 3:6). New life is generated in the person who was dead.If you are a Christian today, is there someone in your life that you could ask Jesus to do this for? And if you are not yet a Christian, do you think it is possible that Jesus could do this for you?

  3. 2d ago

    What Does “Grace” Mean?

    By grace you have been saved.Ephesians 2:5Grace is more than God making salvation possible. It’s more than God opening a door and then standing back to see who will come through. By nature nobody would come through. An open door is no different from a closed door to a dead man. Grace means more than God making your salvation possible. Grace is God saving you. Here’s what has happened to you if you are a Christian. “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ”(2:4-5). This is what the Bible says happened. Yes, but how did it happen? Jesus tells us: “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24). What did Jesus mean when He spoke about “passing from death to life”? Death is where we all begin. But it need not be where we end. Jesus holds out this marvellous offer: “Whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me does not come into judgment.” The Son of God has life, and He gives life. New life, eternal life can be yours if you will hear His word and believe the Father who sent Him. How can a person who is spiritually dead hear the word of Jesus and believe? Jesus gives life to people who are spiritually dead. “As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will” (John 5:21). Death is the end of all hope for us, but not for God. The Father raises the dead. And, in the same way, the Son gives life to whom He will. How would you explain God’s grace to someone who has never heard of it?

  4. 3d ago

    What Is Your View of Sin and Salvation?

    You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.Ephesians 2:1Many church people have bought into a view of sin that goes like this: We all mess up in various ways, and nobody is perfect. But God is gracious and kind. If we are sorry and want to do better, God will forgive us and help us, and it was Jesus who made all this possible. If this is the size and the scale of the problem, Jesus will not seem to you like a very great saviour. But the wrong things we do are only the tip of the iceberg. Once you understand the Bible’s doctrine of sin, it will provide the building blocks to understanding the nature of salvation. The Word of God teaches that, by nature, we are sinners from birth. By nature, we are children of wrath. By nature, we can’t change our position. And, by nature, we are completely hopeless. This is the inside story of human life, according to the Bible. Someone might object, “Wait a minute… I have a question. You say that I’m dead in my sins, but I’ve already taken some steps toward God—I repented, I believed, and I’m following Christ. How did I do all that if I was dead in my sins?” Here is the Bible’s answer: When you were dead in your sins, God made you alive with Christ! After Paul lays out the inside story of human life in verses 1 to 3, he says: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us… made us alive together with Christ” (2:4-5). This is what Paul says to all his Christian readers, and this is what he is saying to you, if you’re a believer today. When you think about your own salvation, do you tend to emphasise how good of a person you’ve been or how great of a salvation Jesus earned for you?

  5. 4d ago

    How Does God Describe Our Ability to Do What He Commands?

    You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.Ephesians 2:1We must take the Bible seriously here. It doesn’t say, “You were trapped in your sins.” It says, “You were dead in your sins”! If a man falls into a pit, you can throw him a rope. But if he is dead in the pit, the rope is of no use to him. Imagine a full-size mannequin standing next to you. Let’s call him “Manny.” Manny is a good-looking fellow—tall, dark, and handsome. But there’s no life in him. He’s dead. Now, as a good friend, let’s suppose you were to do your best to influence him:“Manny, you need to live a life that honours God! Follow the Ten Commandments! Love God with all your heart and your neighbour as yourself!” Manny doesn’t seem very responsive, does he? It doesn’t help to yell at Manny, or to try and encourage his self-esteem. Why? Manny can’t do it. He does not have the capacity. He’s dead. Think about what God is saying here, and He is saying it about us: You were dead in your sins. The Bible doesn’t say that the sinner is weak, it says that the sinner is dead. That means he can’t act, he can’t feel, and he can’t move. He is completely unresponsive to God. No matter how hard a problem, a man will feel good about himself if he thinks that he has the ability to get out of it. Tell him he has a sinful nature, and he’ll tell you that he will fight it. Tell him that he is under the wrath of God, and he’ll tell you that he will live a life that wins the admiration of God. But if you tell him that he is dead, there is nothing he can do about his own position. You have insulted him, and he will not accept your doctrine. Yet, this is precisely the teaching of the Bible. Do you think of yourself as… “trapped” in your sins? “Weak” in your sins? “Dead” in your sins? Other? Why?

  6. Oct 24

    Why Did Jesus Come into the World? Why Did He Have to Die? And What Was the Cross All About?

    Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.Isaiah 53:5Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). On the cross, He became the sin bearer: “He himself bore our sins in the body on the tree” (1 Pet. 2:24). “He… bore our sins” means that Jesus came under all the consequences that sin brings. On the cross, He absorbed the Divine wrath. He entered into all that hell is, so that those who come to Him should never know what it is like. Jesus absorbed the wrath of God for us, so that we could know the love of God through Him. Have you taken this truth seriously? This is a truth that should make us tremble. If it were not for the grace and mercy of God to us, personally, in Jesus Christ, we all would endure a future in which we were against God and God was against us forever, a future in which we have no place for God and God has no place for us. People who reject Jesus will endure the gnawing of an activated conscience in which they see the full extent of their own sin. They will have clear knowledge that there is a God of love and that they could have been reconciled to Him, but now He is beyond their reach because they chose to live without Him. They will live with unending regret and a loathing of self because of their own wretched choices and the miserable consequences. They will experience an ongoing rebellion against God that keeps foaming up from within, from which there is no deliverance. Like the addict who keeps going back to what he knows is destroying his life, apart from Christ we would all spend an eternity in the company of those who are in rebellion against God, with no one to blame but ourselves. Have you considered what Jesus has saved you from?

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3 minute daily Bible reflections from Open the Bible UK, authored by Colin Smith, read by Sue McLeish.

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