Max Lucado Daily: OTHERS ARE WATCHING - May 20, 2026
A vibrant, shining face is the mark of one who has stood in God’s presence. After speaking to God, Moses had to cover his face with a veil. But not only does God change the face of those who worship; he changes those who watch us worship.
Paul told the Corinthian church to worship in such a way that if an unbeliever entered, “he would find…the secrets of his heart revealed; and…would fall down on his face and worship God…” (1 Corinthians 14:25 NKJV)
Seekers may not understand all that happens in a house of worship. They may not understand the meaning of a song or the significance of communion. But they know joy when they see it. And when they see your face changed, they may want to see God’s face. People, including your family, are watching. Believe me. They are watching.
Just Like Jesus
Mark 14:1-26
Anointing His Head
1–2 14 In only two days the eight-day Festival of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread would begin. The high priests and religion scholars were looking for a way they could seize Jesus by stealth and kill him. They agreed that it should not be done during Passover Week. “We don’t want the crowds up in arms,” they said.
3–5 Jesus was at Bethany, a guest of Simon the Leper. While he was eating dinner, a woman came up carrying a bottle of very expensive perfume. Opening the bottle, she poured it on his head. Some of the guests became furious among themselves. “That’s criminal! A sheer waste! This perfume could have been sold for well over a year’s wages and handed out to the poor.” They swelled up in anger, nearly bursting with indignation over her.
6–9 But Jesus said, “Let her alone. Why are you giving her a hard time? She has just done something wonderfully significant for me. You will have the poor with you every day for the rest of your lives. Whenever you feel like it, you can do something for them. Not so with me. She did what she could when she could—she pre-anointed my body for burial. And you can be sure that wherever in the whole world the Message is preached, what she just did is going to be talked about admiringly.”
10–11 Judas Iscariot, one of the Twelve, went to the cabal of high priests, determined to betray him. They couldn’t believe their ears, and promised to pay him well. He started looking for just the right moment to hand him over.
Traitor to the Son of Man
12 On the first of the Days of Unleavened Bread, the day they prepare the Passover sacrifice, his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and make preparations so you can eat the Passover meal?”
13–15 He directed two of his disciples, “Go into the city. A man carrying a water jug will meet you. Follow him. Ask the owner of whichever house he enters, ‘The Teacher wants to know, Where is my guest room where I can eat the Passover meal with my disciples?’ He will show you a spacious second-story room, swept and ready. Prepare for us there.”
16 The disciples left, came to the city, found everything just as he had told them, and prepared the Passover meal.
17–18 After sunset he came with the Twelve. As they were at the supper table eating, Jesus said, “I have something hard but important to say to you: One of you is going to hand me over to the conspirators, one who at this moment is eating with me.”
19 Stunned, they started asking, one after another, “It isn’t me, is it?”
20–21 He said, “It’s one of the Twelve, one who eats with me out of the same bowl. In one sense, it turns out that the Son of Man is entering into a way of treachery well-marked by the Scriptures—no surprises here. In another sense, the man who turns him in, turns traitor to the Son of Man—better never to have been born than do this!”
“This Is My Body”
22 In the course of their meal, having taken and blessed the bread, he broke it and gave it to them. Then he said,
Take, this is my body.
23–24 Taking the chalice, he gave it to them, thanking God, and they all drank from it. He said,
This is my blood,
God’s new covenant,
Poured out for many people.
25 “I’ll not be drinking wine again until the new day when I drink it in the kingdom of God.”
26 They sang a hymn and then went directly to Mount Olives.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
by Alyson Kieda
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11 When I was an infant at my mother’s breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12 We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13 But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
Today's Insights
As 1 Corinthians 13:12 reminds us, one day we’ll see clearly when we see Jesus “face to face.” Grand and glorious realities await us at death and with the return of Christ, but even now some of those good things are ours to experience. Through the encouragement of Scripture, the life we share with believers in Jesus, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we get “sneak previews” and a “foretaste” of things to come. Such things are particularly meaningful to those undergoing trials. The apostle Peter’s words included the following encouragement: “Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (1 Peter 1:8-9). Today, we can look for glimpses of joy around us as a reminder of the fullness of joy that’s yet to come.
Learn more about longing for home.
Joy in Jesus
Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
Do you ever long for something you see glimpses of but can’t quite grasp? C. S. Lewis longed for joy. He wrote, “Our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is . . . the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be . . . the healing of that old ache. . . . The whole man is to drink joy from the fountain of joy.”
Lewis writes of the joy we’ll experience in full when we see Jesus face-to-face. As believers in Jesus, we have the joy of Christ through our relationship with Him and the work of His Spirit inside us. But sadly our joy is hampered by sin and death, the forces of evil, and the world’s brokenness. Paul writes, “Now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In verse 10, Paul talks of the coming “completeness.” This is when we’ll know and experience joy fully because we’re with Jesus.
Although we wait expectantly for that day, He gives us a small foretaste now of the overflowing, unhindered joy of heaven!
Reflect & Pray
What do you think it will be like to see Jesus? What do you most look forward to in heaven?
Heavenly Father, thank You for the moments of joy I experience here on earth. I’m anticipating the day when I can know it in full.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Stand firm, and you will win life.— Luke 21:19
For some time after we are born again, we aren’t as quick in our thinking and reasoning as we were before. We have to learn how to express our new life by forming the mind of Christ, and this takes time, effort, and patience.
“In your patience possess ye your souls” (Luke 21:19 KJV). Many of us prefer to stay at the threshold of the Christian life. We refuse to move on to the arduous work of constructing a soul—a soul that reflects the new life God has put inside us. We fail at this because we are ignorant of the way we are made. We blame our shortcomings on the devil, instead of on our own undisciplined natures.
We try to pray our weaknesses away, not understanding that there are certain things we must not pray about—moods, for example. Moods go by kicking, not by praying. When we are tired or hungry or in pain, it is a tremendous effort not to listen to our mood. But we must not listen, not even for a second. We have to pick ourselves up and shake off our mood. Once we do, we realize that we can do the things we’d thought impossible. The trouble with most of us is that we won’t. We refuse to stand up to our moods, and they end up sapping our energy and motivation.
Think what we can be when we are motivated! If we will stand firm in obedience to the Lord, if we will obey him instead of our own natures, he will guide us in building a soul that harmonizes perfectly with the Spirit inside. The Christian life is a life of incarnate spiritual pluck: “Stand firm, and you will win life.”
1 Chronicles 10-12; John 6:45-71
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
If there is only one strand of faith amongst all the corruption within us, God will take hold of that one strand.
Not Knowing Whither, 888 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
The Password For Heaven - #10267
Scripture: Acts 4:12
I couldn't just sit down and start using your personal computer. If you work in an office, chances are they make sure that they can have access to the company computer that you use. Your computer, my computer, your company's computer - obviously they're all protected from any funny business by something we call a password. I can't get into my computer without typing in my password. Would you like to know what it is? Nope!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Password For Heaven."
Our word for today from the Word of God is important mostly for one group of people - people who want to go to heaven when they die; Isn't that just about all of us? This statement by the God whose heaven it is reveals the only password that will get you in. And the last thing God wants for it to be is a secret. He really wants you to be there with Him forever, but there's only one way possible.
Acts 4:12 - The disciples have just healed a lame man in the name of Jesus. Then, through them, God says, "Salvation is found in no one else." (When you hear that word salvation, think rescue - like first responders going in to save the lives of people trapped in a collapsed building.) "Salvation (rescue) is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." No one else but Jesus. No other name but Jesus - the only way to be saved, to be rescued.
From what? From the eternal death penalty that the Bible says we all have facing us because we've taken the life God gave us and, in essence, we've made ourselves "God" in our life. My Creator was supposed to run this life that He gave me and I ran it instead. The Bible says every one of us has done that. And there's no religion that can possibly pay or remove that death penalty, including the Christian religion. What we need to be saved from is hell itself. Without that, any hope you or I have for heaven is false hope.
But why is there "no one else," "No other name," other than Jesus? Why is He God's password to heaven? In a world that so values tolerance and open-mindedness, isn't it colossal arrogance to say He's the only way to heaven? Well, I didn't say it. The Bible did. Jesus did when He said, "I am the way...no man comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6). It isn't so much about one religion being right and the others wrong. In fact, it's not about religion at all. It's about a spiritual death penalty that can only be paid one way-Somebody's got to die. And that's why Jesus came. When Jesus died on the cross, He was dying so you don't have to. And the day He walked out of His grave, He proved He's got the power to turn your death sentence into eternal life.
Which leaves us with the question on which everything rests, "On what are you basing your hope for heaven?" If your password is the good things you've done or your spiritual background or your religion - no chance. Because your only hope is pinning all your hopes on Jesus Christ.
Has there ever been a time when you clearly, consciously, personally told Jesus that you were placing all your trust in Him? The day you do is the day you trade forever the hell you deserve for the heaven you could never deserve. And this could be that day. With your forever at stake and with life so unpredictable, waiting another day just doesn't make sense.
So today would you say, "Jesus, I understand that You and You alone are the password to heaven, the door to Heaven, the One who opened that door by Your death on the cross for me. And Jesus, beginning today, I am Yours." I want to be sure that you really do belong to Him and that's why we have our website. Would you check out ANewStory.com today?
Your hell cancelled, your heaven guaranteed - today. If you'll enter in through the only name God will accept. That is His son. That is Jesus.
