Max Lucado Daily: PRACTICE PICKY THINKING - September 8, 2025
The space between your ears occupies about six inches. It buzzes with nonstop activity—processing data, issuing commands, making selections, and determining the course of your life. It exists to filter facts and make decisions, and it was designed and built by God. One rule matters above all others: truth. Good decisions depend upon reliable information.
Where did we get the idea that every thought needs to be thought? We don’t do this with food. Just because you see chocolate doesn’t mean you have to eat chocolate. Common sense dictates that we practice discretionary eating. Thoughts do not deserve free rein, either. They do not warrant unlimited access. Just because you have a thought, you don’t have to think it. Practice picky thinking.
Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life
Leviticus 21
Holy Priests
1–4 21 God spoke to Moses: “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron. Tell them, A priest must not ritually contaminate himself by touching the dead, except for close relatives: mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband; for these he may make himself ritually unclean, but he must not contaminate himself with the dead who are only related to him by marriage and thus profane himself.
5–6 “Priests must not shave their heads or trim their beards or gash their bodies. They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because their job is to present the gifts of God, the food of their God, they are to be holy.
7–8 “Because a priest is holy to his God he must not marry a woman who has been a harlot or a cult prostitute or a divorced woman. Make sure he is holy because he serves the food of your God. Treat him as holy because I, God, who make you holy, am holy.
9 “If a priest’s daughter defiles herself in prostitution, she disgraces her father. She must be burned at the stake.
10–12 “The high priest, the one among his brothers who has received the anointing oil poured on his head and been ordained to wear the priestly vestments, must not let his hair go wild and tangled nor wear ragged and torn clothes. He must not enter a room where there is a dead body. He must not ritually contaminate himself, even for his father or mother; and he must neither abandon nor desecrate the Sanctuary of his God because of the dedication of the anointing oil which is upon him. I am God.
13–15 “He is to marry a young virgin, not a widow, not a divorcee, not a cult prostitute—he is only to marry a virgin from his own people. He must not defile his descendants among his people because I am God who makes him holy.”
16–23 God spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron, None of your descendants, in any generation to come, who has a defect of any kind may present as an offering the food of his God. That means anyone who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed, crippled in foot or hand, hunchbacked or dwarfed, who has anything wrong with his eyes, who has running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to offer gifts to God; he has a defect and so must not offer the food of his God. He may eat the food of his God, both the most holy and the holy, but because of his defect he must not go near the curtain or approach the Altar. It would desecrate my Sanctuary. I am God who makes them holy.”
24 Moses delivered this message to Aaron, his sons, and to all the People of Israel.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, September 08, 2025
by Karen Pimpo
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
John 14:1-7
“Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”
5 Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”
6–7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”
Today's Insights
In John 13-17, we encounter a scene best viewed with reverence and awe. These chapters contain Christ’s final instructions to His disciples before His arrest and crucifixion. Immediately after Judas had departed to betray Christ, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him” (13:31). The reality of His violent death for us was the pivot point of Christ’s entire mission. At first, the disciples couldn’t accept this. The crucifixion brought the rawest truth they would absorb. Yet His death was essential to providing restoration to our heavenly Father. Jesus promised, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” His words “I will come back and take you to be with me” (14:2-3) convey the culmination of that raw truth—eternal joy with our Father.
Embracing Christ’s Truth
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” John 14:6
When my friend Connor takes pictures on his old film camera, he doesn’t bother to find attractive lighting or airbrush blemishes or crop out anything unsightly. His photos are startlingly raw. They stand out in my social media feed next to heavily edited photos of gorgeous people and places. Though unconventional, his work is beautiful because it communicates truth about how things really are.
We all long for what’s real, but sometimes the truth isn’t attractive to us. Close to the time of His death, Jesus declared, “I am . . . the truth” (John 14:6). His disciples were wondering how they could get to the Father’s house that Jesus spoke so longingly about (vv. 2-3). They failed to see that Jesus standing in front of them was the answer. They struggled to understand that He would bring victory through His own sacrifice.
Isaiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would have no beauty or majesty, “nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). Much of what Jesus said was so challenging and unexpected that it turned religious people against Him (John 11:45-48). Yet He gave an open invitation to know the truth and find real life. “If you really know me,” said Jesus, “you will know my Father as well” (John 14:7). In the midst of an airbrushed and unrealistic world, we can embrace that beautiful, raw truth today!
Reflect & Pray
When and why have you sought superficial beauty instead of truth? How can you embrace Jesus’ words more and more?
Dear Jesus, I choose to follow You as the source of all truth.
Watch this video to see how Jesus is the way!
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, September 08, 2025
Determinedly Demolish Some Things
Demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. — 2 Corinthians 10:5
Deliverance from sin isn’t deliverance from human nature. There are certain things in human nature, such as prejudice, which the Christian has to destroy by neglect; we have to flat-out refuse to give these things air. Other things we have to hand over to God, then stand still and witness the power of his salvation.
But there are also things which have to be destroyed by violence—by drawing on the divine strength imparted to us by God’s Spirit. Any theory or idea that raises itself up against the knowledge of God has to be determinedly demolished, not through fleshly effort or compromise but by drawing on his power. “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4).
Only when God has altered our disposition and we have entered into the experience of sanctification can this fight begin. Our fight isn’t against sin. We can never fight against sin; sin is Jesus Christ’s domain, and he deals with it through redemption. The war we must fight is the war of turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never easily done, nor does God intend it to be easily done. It’s done only through a series of moral choices. God doesn’t make us holy in the sense of instantly giving us a good character. He makes us holy in the sense of imparting innocence. It’s up to us to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices.
These choices are continually in conflict with the entrenched habits of our natural lives—the pretensions and arguments that raise themselves up against the knowledge of God. We can refuse to make the moral choice, knowing that if we do, we’ll be of no account in his kingdom. Or we can determinedly demolish every pretension, and let Jesus bring us to glory.
Proverbs 3-5; 2 Corinthians 1
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, September 08, 2025
THE ALARM INSIDE YOU - #10086
The attack on the USS Stark was really a double tragedy. It happened during the Iraq War, and an Iraqi pilot fired a missile into the side of our missile frigate, the USS Stark. And 37 American sailors died in an awful inferno that followed. Actually, one of the reasons for the tragedy wasn't even so much the missile. It appears now that someone had turned off a vital alarm; one that actually could have alerted the crew in time to respond. Well, there's the double tragedy. The American sailors died, yes. But none of them had to. An attack was underway and the alarm was off. Well, wait a minute! Let's be careful, because you and I might be making that same mistake.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Alarm Inside You."
At the moment you committed your life to Christ, God actually activated inside of you this flawless, internal guidance system. He's called the Holy Spirit. The guidance system is described in John 16:8, which says this: "When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." So the Holy Spirit is this alarm system that lets us know when we're crossing or when we're about to cross God's boundaries.
Then in 1 Thessalonians 5:19 we find our word for today from the Word of God. It simply says, "Do not quench the Spirit." Man, this is a blazing warning! It says, "Don't turn off God's alarm!" It could be that knowing what only God knows about you, He is sounding one more alarm in your life through our visit today. This could be an alarm. That's a sobering thought. The Holy Spirit in you has been warning you about the compromises you've been making long before you tuned in today; about those things He's been trying to pull you away from; or that sin that you've been trying to rationalize or justify. He's been making you feel uncomfortable about some of those wrong choices. He knows where they're going to take you. He sees the destruction that's headed right for you, and you don't. He's sounding the alarm.
Please listen to God the Holy Spirit! The alarm has been going off as you've been telling less than the truth, or as you've been saying hurtful things in anger and frustration. That alarm's been going off as you've been flirting with that sexual sin, or maybe even as you've committed it; or as you've talked about what you never should have talked about, or you've been watching what you never should have watched, or listening to what you never should have listened to.
It could be that you have felt that alarm in the middle of criticizing somebody - backstabbing - and the Holy Spirit is saying inside of you, "Don't do this." He has sounded the alarm, and honestly, you have felt this spiritual heartburn that is trying to pull you the other way. It's a frightening thing that you can actually quench the Holy Spirit and become immune to His warnings. You say, "Oh, that's good! Yeah, I'd actually like to be immune to it." No, it's deadly! When you turn off the warning system of the Holy Spirit; when you quench the Spirit, it will lead you to spiritual death and destruction. Because you will end up going farther than you ever thought you'd go, staying longer than you'd ever thought you'd stay, and paying much more than you ever thought you'd pay.
If the missile of sin's destruction is headed your way, I guarantee you, the Holy Spirit's alarm is going off in you now. Turn off the alarm and the price will be too high to pay. Respond to the alarm, and you will be able to get out while you can.
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