Max Lucado Daily: The State of Your Heart
The State of Your Heart
“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart.” Luke 6:45, NIV
When you are offered a morsel of gossip marinated in slander, do you turn it down or pass it on? That depends on the state of your heart . . .
The state of your heart dictates whether you harbor a grudge or give grace, seek self-pity or seek Christ, drink human misery or taste God’s mercy.
Exodus 3
Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up.
3 Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”
4 God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
He said, “Yes? I’m right here!”
5 God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.”
6 Then he said, “I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”
Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.
7–8 God said, “I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
9–10 “The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I’ve seen for myself how cruelly they’re being treated by the Egyptians. It’s time for you to go back: I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt.”
11 Moses answered God, “But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
12 “I’ll be with you,” God said. “And this will be the proof that I am the one who sent you: When you have brought my people out of Egypt, you will worship God right here at this very mountain.”
13 Then Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the People of Israel and I tell them, ‘The God of your fathers sent me to you’; and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What do I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I-AM-WHO-I-AM. Tell the People of Israel, ‘I-AM sent me to you.’ ”
15 God continued with Moses: “This is what you’re to say to the Israelites: ‘God, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob sent me to you.’ This has always been my name, and this is how I always will be known.
16–17 “Now be on your way. Gather the leaders of Israel. Tell them, ‘God, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, appeared to me, saying, “I’ve looked into what’s being done to you in Egypt, and I’ve determined to get you out of the affliction of Egypt and take you to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, a land brimming over with milk and honey.” ’
18 “Believe me, they will listen to you. Then you and the leaders of Israel will go to the king of Egypt and say to him: ‘God, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness where we will worship God—our God.’
19–22 “I know that the king of Egypt won’t let you go unless forced to, so I’ll intervene and hit Egypt where it hurts—oh, my miracles will send them reeling!—after which they’ll be glad to send you off. I’ll see to it that this people get a hearty send-off by the Egyptians—when you leave, you won’t leave empty-handed! Each woman will ask her neighbor and any guests in her house for objects of silver and gold, for jewelry and extra clothes; you’ll put them on your sons and daughters. Oh, you’ll clean the Egyptians out!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, June 01, 2025
by James Banks
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
2 Kings 20:12-19
Shortly after this, Merodach-Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, having heard that the king was sick, sent a get-well card and a gift to Hezekiah. Hezekiah was pleased and showed the messengers around the place—silver, gold, spices, aromatic oils, his stockpile of weapons—a guided tour of all his prized possessions. There wasn’t a thing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah didn’t show them.
14 And then Isaiah the prophet showed up: “And just what were these men doing here? Where did they come from and why?”
Hezekiah said, “They came from far away—from Babylon.”
15 “And what did they see in your palace?”
“Everything,” said Hezekiah. “There isn’t anything I didn’t show them—I gave them the grand tour.”
16–18 Then Isaiah spoke to Hezekiah, “Listen to what God has to say about this: The day is coming when everything you own and everything your ancestors have passed down to you, right down to the last cup and saucer, will be cleaned out of here—plundered and packed off to Babylon. God’s word! Worse yet, your sons, the progeny of sons you’ve begotten, will end up as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
19 Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “If God says it, it must be good.” But he was thinking to himself, “It won’t happen during my lifetime—I’ll enjoy peace and security as long as I live.”
Today's Insights
The Babylonian king sent envoys to Hezekiah seeking to forge an alliance with Judah against Assyria. In a foolish bid to impress them, Hezekiah showed them the wealth of his kingdom. God was testing Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:31). He had previously acted powerfully on Hezekiah’s behalf, but Hezekiah trusted in himself and the military alliance instead of God (see 2 Kings 19:35-36; 20:4-11; 2 Chronicles 32:25). Although Hezekiah repented (v. 26), he brought God’s judgment upon Judah. Later, Jerusalem would be destroyed and the people exiled to Babylon (2 Kings 20:16-19; Isaiah 39). Unlike Hezekiah, God provides the perfect example of loving others.
Our Thoughtful God
Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime? 2 Kings
“Do you want to see my scar?” My friend Bill had been paralyzed from the chest down after falling off a ladder years ago, and now he was in the hospital for a severe infection acquired during a surgery. As we discussed his new challenge, he lifted his blanket to show me the long incision made to treat his infection. “Does it hurt?” I asked. “I can’t feel it at all,” he said.
As soon as he said it, I felt convicted. During all the years I’d known him as a friend, I’d been unaware that his injury prevented both his mobility and ability to feel. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t had more empathy for him and his injury to better understand what he faced daily.
My lack of thoughtfulness about my friend reminds me of something King Hezekiah of Judah did. When the prophet Isaiah told him that everything in his palace would one day “be carried off to Babylon,” and his own descendants “taken away” (2 Kings 20:17-18), Hezekiah was pleased. “For he thought, ‘Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?’ ” (v. 19). Even though he was a good king, Hezekiah was focused more on himself than on what others would face.
How different God is. “This is love,” John wrote, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son” to save us (1 John 4:10). God cares so deeply for us that He suffered for us, so that we might live in His love forever.
Reflect & Pray
What does God’s thoughtfulness mean to you? How might you think of others today?
Thank You for thinking of me, dear God. Please let Your love flow through me to others.
Click here to find out more about how Jesus suffered for us.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, June 01, 2025
The Staggering Question
Son of man, can these bones live? — Ezekiel 37:3
Can that sinner be turned into a saint? Can that twisted life be put right? There is only one answer: “Sovereign Lord, you alone know” (Ezekiel 37:3).
Some of us think we know exactly what another soul needs. We come trampling in, armed with religious common sense, and say, “Oh, yes. With a little more Bible reading and devotion and prayer, I see how it can be done.” If we think this way, we are mistaking panic for inspiration. It’s much easier to do something than to trust in God. That is why so few of us work with God, while so many of us run around doing tasks he never asked us to do, saying we’re working for him. We would rather busy ourselves with work for God than believe in him.
If I believe in God, I know that he will do what I can’t. I despair of his ability to help others when I fail to see how he has helped me. Once I realize what God’s power has accomplished in my own life, I will stop despairing of others. But if I’ve never had any spiritual work done, I will panic. I panic to the exact degree that I lack personal spiritual experience.
“My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is apart from his presence, he has to show it to you inside yourself. If the Holy Spirit has given you this vision—the vision of what you are apart from the grace of God—you know that the worst criminal is only half as bad in practice as you are in possibility. “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Romans 7:18). God’s Spirit continually reveals what human nature is apart from his grace.
2 Chronicles 15-16; John 12:27-50
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray.
So Send I You, 1325 L
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