Max Lucado Daily: ANOTHER PLAN - November 5, 2026
My wife and I spent five years on a missionary team in Brazil. Our first two years felt fruitless and futile. More often than not I went home frustrated. So we asked God for another plan.
We prayed and read the Epistles. We especially focused on Galatians. When I compared our gospel message with Paul’s, I saw a difference. His was high-octane good news. Mine was soured legalism. So, as a team, we resolved to focus on the gospel. I did my best to proclaim forgiveness of sins and resurrection from the dead.
We saw an immediate change. We baptized forty people in twelve months. Quite a few for a church of sixty members! God wasn’t finished with us yet. We just needed to put God’s plan in place. Why don’t you ask God for his plan?
God Is with You Every Day
1 Kings 10
The Queen of Sheba Visits
1–510The queen of Sheba heard about Solomon and his connection with the Name of God. She came to put his reputation to the test by asking tough questions. She made a grand and showy entrance into Jerusalem—camels loaded with spices, a huge amount of gold, and precious gems. She came to Solomon and talked about all the things that she cared about, emptying her heart to him. Solomon answered everything she put to him—nothing stumped him. When the queen of Sheba experienced for herself Solomon’s wisdom and saw with her own eyes the palace he had built, the meals that were served, the impressive array of court officials and sharply dressed waiters, the lavish crystal, and the elaborate worship extravagant with Whole-Burnt-Offerings at the steps leading up to The Temple of God, it took her breath away.
6–9She said to the king, “It’s all true! Your reputation for accomplishment and wisdom that reached all the way to my country is confirmed. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself; they didn’t exaggerate! Such wisdom and elegance—far more than I could ever have imagined. Lucky the men and women who work for you, getting to be around you every day and hear your wise words firsthand! And blessed be God, your God, who took such a liking to you and made you king. Clearly, God’s love for Israel is behind this, making you king to keep a just order and nurture a God-pleasing people.”
10She then gave the king four and a half tons of gold, and also sack after sack of spices and expensive gems. There hasn’t been a cargo of spices like that since that shipload the queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon.
11–12The ships of Hiram also imported gold from Ophir along with tremendous loads of fragrant sandalwood and expensive gems. The king used the sandalwood for fine cabinetry in The Temple of God and the palace complex, and for making harps and dulcimers for the musicians. Nothing like that shipment of sandalwood has been seen since.
13King Solomon for his part gave the queen of Sheba all her heart’s desire—everything she asked for, on top of what he had already so generously given her. Satisfied, she returned home with her train of servants.
14–15Solomon received twenty-five tons of gold in tribute annually. This was above and beyond the taxes and profit on trade with merchants and assorted kings and governors.
16–17King Solomon crafted two hundred body-length shields of hammered gold—seven and a half pounds of gold to each shield—and three hundred smaller shields about half that size. He stored the shields in the House of the Forest of Lebanon.
18–20The king built a massive throne of ivory accented with a veneer of gold. The throne had six steps leading up to it, its back shaped like an arch. The armrests on each side were flanked by lions. Lions, twelve of them, were placed at either end of the six steps. There was no throne like it in any of the surrounding kingdoms.
21King Solomon’s chalices and tankards were made of gold and all the dinnerware and serving utensils in the House of the Forest of Lebanon were pure gold—nothing was made of silver; silver was considered common and cheap.
22The king had a fleet of ocean-going ships at sea with Hiram’s ships. Every three years the fleet would bring in a cargo of gold, silver, and ivory, and apes and peacocks.
23–25King Solomon was wiser and richer than all the kings of the earth—he surpassed them all. People came from all over the world to be with Solomon and drink in the wisdom God had given him. And everyone who came brought gifts—artifacts of gold and silver, fashionable robes and gowns, the latest in weapons, exotic spices, and horses and mules—parades of visitors, year after year.
26–29Solomon collected chariots and horses: fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses! He stabled them in the special chariot cities as well as in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common as rocks and cedar as common as the fig trees in the lowland hills. His horses were brought in from Egypt and Cilicia, specially acquired by the king’s agents. Chariots from Egypt went for fifteen pounds of silver and a horse for about three and three-quarter pounds of silver. Solomon carried on a brisk horse-trading business with the Hittite and Aramean royal houses.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, November 05, 2026
by Tim Gustafson
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Joshua 15:13-19
Joshua gave Caleb son of Jephunneh a section among the people of Judah, according to God’s command. He gave him Kiriath Arba, that is, Hebron. Arba was the ancestor of Anak.
14–15Caleb drove out three Anakim from Hebron: Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, all descendants of Anak. He marched up from there against the people of Debir. Debir used to be called Kiriath Sepher.
16–17Caleb said, “Whoever attacks Kiriath Sepher and takes it, I’ll give my daughter Acsah to him as his wife.” Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s brother, took it; so Caleb gave him his daughter Acsah as his wife.
18–19When she arrived she got him
to ask for farmland from her father.
As she dismounted from her donkey
Caleb asked her, “What would you like?”
She said, “Give me a marriage gift.
You’ve given me desert land;
Now give me pools of water!”
And he gave her the upper and the lower pools.
Today's Insights
In Joshua 15:13-19, we read about Caleb’s generosity when he gave away the land with valuable springs. Generosity is a recurring theme throughout the Bible and was one of the refreshing attributes of the early believers in Jesus. Their embrace of Christ and His teaching was reflected in their openhandedness. Luke says, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. . . . God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them” (Acts 4:32-34). The early church lived together as a community which factored into how they functioned, but they also demonstrated their love for Jesus by caring for the needs of others. Today, we can ask God to give us compassion for others and show us how to be generous with what He’s given us.
For further study, listen to the podcast: Discovering His Generous Heart
Give While We Live
Since you have given me land in the Negev, give me also springs of water. Joshua 15:19
With his team winning comfortably, Philadelphia Eagles’ superstar football player Saquon Barkley rested on the bench. There was no need for him to continue playing. Then his coach approached and told him he was close to breaking a record. Would he like to go back in? “I’m good,” said Barkley. “I’d rather see the young boys eat.” Barkley chose to give up a record so his young teammates could get playing time.
When Israel inhabited the promised land, Caleb was one of only two Israelites to survive the exodus all the way from Egypt (see Numbers 14:30). He’d enjoyed military success and had driven out an enemy nation (Joshua 15:14). Now, as he faced a Canaanite stronghold, he said, “I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher” (v. 16). Othniel did so, and Aksah married him. Caleb gave them land in the Negev desert (v. 19), but Aksah approached her father with a request. “Do me a special favor,” she said. “Give me also springs of water” (v. 19).
For four decades, Caleb had toiled to get to the promised land. Still in good health (14:10-11), he could have kept the valuable springs for himself. But he didn’t.
Accumulating things for ourselves never means as much as we expect it to. Personal records get broken. Our possessions go to others. Let’s give while we live. As Saquon Barkley said, “[Let] the young boys eat.”
Reflect & Pray
What have others given to you? What has God given you that you might share with others?
Generous Father, please help me wisely share what You’ve given me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, November 05, 2026
Participants in His Sufferings
Rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ. —1 Peter 4:13
If you are going to be used by God, he will take you through a multitude of difficult experiences, asking you to participate in the sufferings of Christ. These experiences aren’t meant to enrich you or benefit you personally. They’re meant to make you useful in God’s hands and to enable you to understand what occurs in other people’s souls, so that you will never be surprised by what you encounter. If you don’t go willingly through these experiences, you might often find yourself saying, “I can’t deal with that person.” You should never feel this way about another soul. God has given you ample opportunity to come before him and soak up his wisdom about others.
It might seem pointless to spend time soaking before God in this way; you have to get to the place where you are able to understand how he deals with us, and this is only done by being rightly related to Jesus Christ and participating in his sufferings. The sufferings of Christ aren’t those of ordinary life. He suffered “according to God’s will” (1 Peter 4:19), not because his individual desires or pride were thwarted. It is part of Christian culture to know what God’s will is, yet in the history of the church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with Christ’s sufferings. People have tried to carry out God’s will using shortcuts. God’s way is always the “long, long trail,” the way of suffering.
Are you participating in Christ’s sufferings? Are you prepared for God to entirely stamp out your personal ambitions and destroy your individual determination? It doesn’t mean you’ll know exactly why God is taking you a certain way. In the moment, it’s never clear; you go through more or less blindly. Then, suddenly, you come to a luminous place and say, “Why, God was there all along, and I didn’t know it!”
Jeremiah 34-36; Hebrews 2
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
God engineers circumstances to see what we will do. Will we be the children of our Father in heaven, or will we go back again to the meaner, common-sense attitude? Will we stake all and stand true to Him? “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” The crown of life means I shall see that my Lord has got the victory after all, even in me.
The Highest Good—The Pilgrim’s Song Book, 530 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, November 05, 2026
Someone to Trust With the Keys to Everything - #10389
Scripture: Romans 8:32
It was home improvement time at our house, and I have a chronic sense of "uncoordinitis," so we obviously needed some help. And our friend Tim, he was the man for the job for two reasons. First, he’s good at designing and building and problem-solving. Of course, there are a lot of people who are craftsmen like that. The second reason is what really made Tim the man for the job. Sometimes we were gone when he was going to be at our house working. And since he was working in every part of the house, he needed keys to everything, and there was no place in our home he couldn’t go. That meant we needed not only someone who could do the job, yea, you got it. We needed someone we could totally trust. And we had someone like that.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Someone to Trust With the Keys to Everything.”
Finding someone to trust these days; I don't know about you, but I think it's getting harder and harder. Especially when it comes to someone you can trust with you; with your deepest hurts, your darkest secrets, your fondest hopes, your greatest needs. Someone from whom you have no fear of betrayal or desertion or rejection. I think we all hunger in our soul for one person we can just totally trust and we can trust them with all the keys to every corner of our house. Ultimately, you need someone you're never going to lose, not after you’ve trusted them with your heart and soul.
You know, deep in our soul there's this deep need for someone we can open up to, confide in, lean on completely, someone to give ourselves to. Actually, we were created for such a person. Your Creator. He's the only one who can fill the vacuum at the center of you, because that vacuum was made for Him.
So many who have looked for a harbor relationship where they won’t be hurt, won’t be used, won’t be left alone, have found that harbor in one man—Jesus Christ. Now you read what the Bible says about the purpose of your life, that shouldn’t be a surprise. For example, in Colossians 1:16, God says, about His Son, Jesus, “All things were created by Him and for Him.” So, you were created by Jesus; and for Jesus, and you’re going to have this huge hole in your heart until you have Jesus.
But He can be trusted with all the keys to your heart and your life. Why? Listen to Romans 8:32, our word for today from the Word of God, “God did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all—will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?”
See, the answer to whether you can trust Jesus completely is settled at the foot of that cross where He proved He loves you so much that He died to pay for every wrong thing you’ve ever done. And this man who loved you enough to die for you will never do you wrong. Beyond that, He’s proved there’s nothing He can’t do when He walked out of His grave under His own power. This is the end of your lifelong trust search. It's the greatest love there is and the greatest power there is. He’ll never leave you, never divorce you, or never die on you. He wants you with Him forever. He gave His life to make that possible.
But He's not going to force His way into your life. He is waiting for you to reach out to Him in total trust, like a child trusting his daddy to protect him, like a dying person grabbing a rescuer’s hand. If you’ve never given yourself to Jesus like that, you’re still on your own. But this could be your last day without Him.
If you want to finally begin your personal relationship with Him, experience this love for yourself, would you tell Him that this very moment, this very day? And let me invite you to check out our website because there’s where you're going to find a lot of great information about how to begin this relationship. You need to go to ANewStory.com.
In an insecure world like ours, it’s really hard to find a hand to hold that you can be sure will never let you go. There is one—that hand has nail prints in it because of His love for you. Would you grab His hand, would you give Him all the keys? Because then, you’re finally safe.
