Max Lucado Daily: Prayer Guidance
When I pray, I think of a thousand things I need to do. I forget the one thing I set out to do: pray! Can you relate? But wouldn't we all like to pray. . More? Better? Deeper? Stronger? With more fire, faith, or fervency?
Yet we have kids to feed, bills to pay, deadlines to meet. We want to pray, but when? We want to pray, but why? We have our doubts about prayer, our checkered history of unmet expectations, unanswered questions. We aren't the first. The sign-up for Prayer 101 contains familiar names: John, James, Andrew, and Peter. The first followers of Jesus needed prayer guidance.
So here's my challenge to you! Sign on at BeforeAmen.com. It will encourage you and give you a building block for your growth in prayer. Then get ready to change your life forever!
Proverbs 23
Restrain Yourself
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1–3 23 When you go out to dinner with an influential person,
mind your manners:
Don’t gobble your food,
don’t talk with your mouth full.
And don’t stuff yourself;
bridle your appetite.
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4–5 Don’t wear yourself out trying to get rich;
restrain yourself!
Riches disappear in the blink of an eye;
wealth sprouts wings
and flies off into the wild blue yonder.
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6–8 Don’t accept a meal from a tightwad;
don’t expect anything special.
He’ll be as stingy with you as he is with himself;
he’ll say, “Eat! Drink!” but won’t mean a word of it.
His miserly serving will turn your stomach
when you realize the meal’s a sham.
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9 Don’t bother talking sense to fools;
they’ll only poke fun at your words.
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10–11 Don’t stealthily move back the boundary lines
or cheat orphans out of their property,
For they have a powerful Advocate
who will go to bat for them.
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12 Give yourselves to disciplined instruction;
open your ears to tested knowledge.
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13–14 Don’t be afraid to correct your young ones;
a spanking won’t kill them.
A good spanking, in fact, might save them
from something worse than death.
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15–16 Dear child, if you become wise,
I’ll be one happy parent.
My heart will dance and sing
to the tuneful truth you’ll speak.
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17–18 Don’t for a minute envy careless rebels;
soak yourself in the Fear-of-God—
That’s where your future lies.
Then you won’t be left with an armload of nothing.
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19–21 Oh listen, dear child—become wise;
point your life in the right direction.
Don’t drink too much wine and get drunk;
don’t eat too much food and get fat.
Drunks and gluttons will end up on skid row,
in a stupor and dressed in rags.
Buy Wisdom, Education, Insight
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22–25 Listen with respect to the father who raised you,
and when your mother grows old, don’t neglect her.
Buy truth—don’t sell it for love or money;
buy wisdom, buy education, buy insight.
Parents rejoice when their children turn out well;
wise children become proud parents.
So make your father happy!
Make your mother proud!
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26 Dear child, I want your full attention;
please do what I show you.
27–28 A whore is a bottomless pit;
a loose woman can get you in deep trouble fast.
She’ll take you for all you’ve got;
she’s worse than a pack of thieves.
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29–35 Who are the people who are always crying the blues?
Who do you know who reeks of self-pity?
Who keeps getting beat up for no reason at all?
Whose eyes are bleary and bloodshot?
It’s those who spend the night with a bottle,
for whom drinking is serious business.
Don’t judge wine by its label,
or its bouquet, or its full-bodied flavor.
Judge it rather by the hangover it leaves you with—
the splitting headache, the queasy stomach.
Do you really prefer seeing double,
with your speech all slurred,
Reeling and seasick,
drunk as a sailor?
“They hit me,” you’ll say, “but it didn’t hurt;
they beat on me, but I didn’t feel a thing.
When I’m sober enough to manage it,
bring me another drink!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, October 03, 2026
by Bill Crowder
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Hebrews 4:14-16
The High Priest Who Cried Out in Pain
14–16 Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.
Today's Insights
The letter to the Hebrews explains what Jesus did for us, but to better appreciate that, it’s important to understand the system of sacrifice instituted in Leviticus (4:1–7:10). In Hebrews, the writer affirms the humanity of Christ who, though fully God, “had to be made like [humans], fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God” (2:17). The writer explains, “If perfection could have been attained through the Levitical priesthood . . . why was there still need for another priest to come?” (7:11). Jesus’ humanity and His divine nature enable Him to “empathize” with us in “our weaknesses” (4:15) and to redeem us once for all from our sins. Because He empathizes with us, we can seek His help as we reach out to those around us. In the process, we point them to Christ, our once-for-all sacrifice.
For further study, read: Who Is Your Neighbor?
Compassionate Understanding
[Our high priest] has been tempted . . . just as we are—yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4:15
My father-in-law was a gunner in a bomber over Europe during World War II. His plane was shot down and he was captured, spending several months as a prisoner of war. Jim rarely spoke of the experience, but those who knew him before the war said that he’d been a happy-go-lucky young man with a beaming smile. His war experiences turned him into a moody, withdrawn person.
Trying to understand his experience, I read Masters of the Air, Donald Miller’s description of the air war over Europe. Miller helped me grasp the physical and psychological price paid by these airmen. His book increased my compassion for my father-in-law.
The writer of Hebrews wrote of our “great high priest” (4:14)—Jesus Himself—who did much more than merely gain understanding of our struggles. He lived among us, learning how we feel in every situation. Hebrews tells us, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin” (v. 15). Think of it! Jesus knows what we endure. He’s been tempted just as we are.
Learning to have a heart of compassion like Jesus is a great way to show His love to those who need Him. May God give us, by His Holy Spirit, an understanding heart that reaches out to others in love and mercy.
Reflect & Pray
Who do you struggle to have compassion for? How can you develop a more understanding heart?
Dear Father, please forgive me for being harsh with others. Teach me the grace of compassion so they might see Your love in me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, October 03, 2026
The Sphere of Service
He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” — Mark 9:29
After the disciples had tried and failed to cast out an impure spirit, they went to Jesus in confusion, asking, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” (Mark 9:28). Jesus replied that it was only through prayer—only through concentration and more concentration on him, only through a personal relationship with him—that such a spirit could be driven out. The disciples had tried to do God’s work by drawing on their own ideas rather than by concentrating on God’s power.
If you approach things as the disciples did, you will remain as powerless as they were. You may be eager to work for God, but if you work for him without knowing him, you’ll end up working against him. Sometimes you are faced with a difficult situation and you pray about it, yet nothing happens—not on the outside. But if you are concentrating on Jesus, if you have a personal relationship with him, you know that emancipation will be given. The focus of your service must be to make sure that there is nothing between Jesus and yourself. If there is, you can only overcome it by facing it and going straight through it into his presence, not by ignoring it in irritation. Face the issue with the Lord, and eventually that very thing, along with everything that’s happened in connection with it, will glorify him.
The one purpose for which we are in this world is concentration on God. Get the noisy cries of religion out of your ears, the cries that say, “Do this and don’t do that.” Never! Jesus says, “Be this and that, and I will do through you.”
Isaiah 17-19; Ephesians 5:17-33
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Beware of bartering the Word of God for a more suitable conception of your own.
Disciples Indeed, 386 R
