Max Lucado Daily: UFOS - September 18, 2025
Overreactions are understandable. If I trigger your unseen emotional wound, you might react in a manner disproportionate to my action. Overreactions have their reasons. They also have their consequences. They can trap us in a stronghold.
Untruths lead to False narratives that prompt Overreactions. UFOs.
We need to follow Paul’s instructions: “Fight to capture every thought until it acknowledges the authority of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 PHILLIPS). You confront worry at the door of your brain. You grab worry by the nape and march him into the presence of the Prince of Peace. With the confidence of a burly barroom bouncer, toss anxiety out the door.
This is the version of you God wants to create. He will help you tame your thoughts.
Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life
Mark 11:19-33
At evening, Jesus and his disciples left the city.
20–21 In the morning, walking along the road, they saw the fig tree, shriveled to a dry stick. Peter, remembering what had happened the previous day, said to him, “Rabbi, look—the fig tree you cursed is shriveled up!”
22–25 Jesus was matter-of-fact: “Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it, and nothing will be too much for you. This mountain, for instance: Just say, ‘Go jump in the lake’—no shuffling or shilly-shallying—and it’s as good as done. That’s why I urge you to pray for absolutely everything, ranging from small to large. Include everything as you embrace this God-life, and you’ll get God’s everything. And when you assume the posture of prayer, remember that it’s not all asking. If you have anything against someone, forgive—only then will your heavenly Father be inclined to also wipe your slate clean of sins.”
His Credentials
27–28 Then when they were back in Jerusalem once again, as they were walking through the Temple, the high priests, religion scholars, and leaders came up and demanded, “Show us your credentials. Who authorized you to speak and act like this?”
29–30 Jesus responded, “First let me ask you a question. Answer my question and then I’ll present my credentials. About the baptism of John—who authorized it: heaven or humans? Tell me.”
31–33 They were on the spot, and knew it. They pulled back into a huddle and whispered, “If we say ‘heaven,’ he’ll ask us why we didn’t believe John; if we say ‘humans,’ we’ll be up against it with the people because they all hold John up as a prophet.” They decided to concede that round to Jesus. “We don’t know,” they said.
Jesus replied, “Then I won’t answer your question either.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, September 18, 2025
by Adam R. Holz
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Job 41:1-5, 10-14
I Run This Universe
1–11 41 “Or can you pull in the sea beast, Leviathan, with a fly rod
and stuff him in your creel?
Can you lasso him with a rope,
or snag him with an anchor?
Will he beg you over and over for mercy,
or flatter you with flowery speech?
Will he apply for a job with you
to run errands and serve you the rest of your life?
Will you play with him as if he were a pet goldfish?
Will you make him the mascot of the neighborhood children?
If you can’t hold your own against his glowering visage,
how, then, do you expect to stand up to me?
Who could confront me and get by with it?
I’m in charge of all this—I run this universe!
12–17 “But I’ve more to say about Leviathan, the sea beast,
his enormous bulk, his beautiful shape.
Who would even dream of piercing that tough skin
or putting those jaws into bit and bridle?
And who would dare knock at the door of his mouth
filled with row upon row of fierce teeth?
Today's Insights
Job 41 represents part of the lengthy discourse—which began in Job 40:6—between God and His struggling servant Job about His authority and power proven by the things He’s created. After many chapters of defending his innocence and righteousness, Job can’t maintain his own personal goodness when confronted by the greatness of God, and he responds to His speech with true brokenness and repentance (42:1-6). There can be no question that Job was a good man, but confronted by the God of the universe, Isaiah’s comparison is clear: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Creation reminds us of the greatness of God. It reveals our smallness before Him and our deep dependence on Him.
Of Megalodons and Leviathan
Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me. Job 41:11
Years ago, a lumpy package arrived in my mailbox. I noticed my best friend’s return address on it and smiled. Joe sometimes sends me unexpected things. This package qualified: Inside was a dark brown shark’s tooth—five inches long.
Joe’s letter explained it was a fossilized tooth from a prehistoric shark, a megalodon, many times bigger than a great white shark. I tried to fathom how big a fish’s jaw would have to be to contain rows of such teeth. Scientists offer a speculative answer: nine by eleven feet. What a sight these creatures must have been!
Scripture doesn’t mention megalodons. But in the book of Job, God describes a sea beast called Leviathan. Job 41 details its impressive frame. “I will not fail to speak of Leviathan’s limbs, its strength and its graceful form,” God tells Job (v. 12). “Who dares open the doors of its mouth, ringed about with fearsome teeth?” (v. 14).
The answer? Only Leviathan’s creator. And here, God reminds Job that as great as this beast might be, it’s nothing compared to its Creator: “Everything under heaven belongs to me” (v. 11).
That meg tooth sits on my desk, a visual token of our Creator’s majesty and creativity. And that unlikely reminder of God’s character comforts me when it feels like the world might eat me up and spit me out.
Reflect & Pray
How do certain aspects of creation remind you of God’s powerful, creative nature? How does His work in creation encourage you?
Dear Father, Your creation speaks of Your splendor and power. Please help me trust You when life feels overwhelming.
Learn more about what we can learn from nature by reading What Leviathan Teaches Us About God.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, September 18, 2025
His Temptation and Ours
For 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 . . . yet he did not sin. — Hebrews 4:15
Until we are born again, the only temptation we understand is the kind mentioned in the book of James: “Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed” (1:14). After we are born again and become Jesus’s brothers and sisters, we are lifted into a different realm, where we begin to face the kinds of temptation our Lord faced during his human lifetime. Before our spiritual rebirth, our Lord’s temptations and ours moved in different spheres. His were the temptations of God-as-man, while ours were merely the temptations of man.
Once the Son of God was formed inside us through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit began to detect certain of Satan’s temptations—temptations which we, on our own, could never recognize. Satan doesn’t tempt believers to sin; he tries to lure us away from what has been put into us by our spiritual rebirth, in the hopes that we’ll no longer be of value to God. He tempts us to change our point of view, so that we’ll no longer see things from Christ’s perspective. Only the Spirit of God can detect this as a temptation of the devil.
What happens in temptation is that an outside power comes to test the things we hold dear within us, the things that define our personality. This explains the way in which our Lord was tempted. Within his person, he held the fact that he was to be the king of humankind and the savior of the world, and these are precisely what Satan came to test him on. Jesus went through the temptation and “did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15), emerging from the battle with his personality intact. If we will commit ourselves to him, his Spirit will take us through every temptation in the same way, and we will emerge from the battle victorious.
Proverbs 30-31; 2 Corinthians 11:1-15
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
There is nothing, naturally speaking, that makes us lose heart quicker than decay—the decay of bodily beauty, of natural life, of friendship, of associations, all these things make a man lose heart; but Paul says when we are trusting in Jesus Christ these things do not find us discouraged, light comes through them.
The Place of Help, 1032 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, September 18, 2025
The Temple In The Mirror - #10094
I had the opportunity to spend 24 hours of my life in the city of Athens in Greece. I was on my way home from a teaching mission, and if I only had 24 hours, well, I knew what I wanted to see. I wanted to see the Acropolis, and there it was on a hill that just dominates the entire city. That's where the ancient Greeks built a temple to their goddess, Athena, after whom, obviously, the city was named.
Even after 21 centuries, I've got to tell you it is still an impressive, imposing, dominating structure up there on the mountain. Maybe you can even see a picture of it in your mind, if you've ever seen one before. It was the most sacred, most protected, most honored place in all of Athens. In fact, it was actually a crime to violate that temple. Of course it was that way in many cultures. The temple always got first-class treatment because your gods live there. Well, those ancient people had the wrong god, but they knew what to do with a temple.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Temple In The Mirror."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. It's not about the Acropolis, it's not about the ancient Jewish temple, but it's about temples. Listen to where the temple is. "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." This is one of Christianity's most revolutionary ideas - you are the building God lives in.
You can go in the bathroom, look in the mirror and see His temple. Even pagan people knew that the way you take care of your god's dwelling place tells a lot about how you feel about your god. Now, if you know Christ, you are God's two-legged temple. He's come to live in you by the presence of His Holy Spirit. That puts a whole new significance on your body - what happens with your mouth, your mind, your eyes, your ears, your hands, your feet, and every part of your body. Because in a sense, what you do with that body - everything you do with it - God is a part of. He lives in that temple. Everything you do to that body, you do to God.
Now, even people without God in ancient days recognized that you guard, and you protect, and you keep special, and you honor the place where God lives. Let me ask you, "Have you been treating your body like the temple treasure that it is?" See, if you really care about your God much, you won't let His temple get run down. You won't let it have to carry the extra weight it's been carrying. You won't let it be too out-of-shape. You won't poison it with things that should never go into it; things that will degrade your body. It's a temple you're talking about, not just your body. That's a whole new reason to take care of it.
See, that temple advertises what your god is like, and God deserves the best! Maybe you've devalued that temple with some junk you've been putting into it. Maybe you have defamed the temple of God by playing around sexually with His temple, dragging the name of God and the presence of God into things He is so much against, using His temple to satisfy your glands.
Your body isn't yours. See, it was bought with the price of Jesus' blood. Your God lives there! Keep it special.
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