Max Lucado Daily: TASTE AND SEE - October 9, 2025
Can we have the certainty of forgiven sin? God answers any hesitation with an invitation. “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8). This is God’s surprising encouragement to us. He throws open the pantry of his heart and says, “Taste and see how good I am.”
If you do not believe that God is good, you will not confess your sins to him. But if he is who he claims to be, you will. “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” Stand in the Bethlehem stable. How good of God to become flesh. At the foot of the cross, taste his forgiveness. At the vacant tomb, taste his power.
Was he not good then? Is he not good still? Will he not be good enough to receive your confession and forgive your sins? Wave the white flag. No more doubt.
Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life
Numbers 15
Matters of Worship
1–5 15 God spoke to Moses: “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you enter your homeland that I am giving to you and sacrifice a Fire-Gift to God, a Whole-Burnt-Offering or any sacrifice from the herd or flock for a Vow-Offering or Freewill-Offering at one of the appointed feasts, as a pleasing fragrance for God, the one bringing the offering shall present to God a Grain-Offering of two quarts of fine flour mixed with a quart of oil. With each lamb for the Whole-Burnt-Offering or other sacrifice, prepare a quart of oil and a quart of wine as a Drink-Offering.
6–7 “For a ram prepare a Grain-Offering of four quarts of fine flour mixed with one and a quarter quarts of oil and one and a quarter quarts of wine as a Drink-Offering. Present it as a pleasing fragrance to God.
8–10 “When you prepare a young bull as a Whole-Burnt-Offering or sacrifice for a special vow or a Peace-Offering to God, bring with the bull a Grain-Offering of six quarts of fine flour and two quarts of oil. Also bring two quarts of wine as a Drink-Offering. It will be a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to God.
11–12 “Each bull or ram, each lamb or young goat, is to be prepared in this same way. Carry out this procedure for each one, no matter how many you have to prepare.
13–16 “Every native-born Israelite is to follow this procedure when he brings a Fire-Gift as a pleasing fragrance to God. In future generations, when a foreigner or visitor living at length among you presents a Fire-Gift as a pleasing fragrance to God, the same procedures must be followed. The community has the same rules for you and the foreigner living among you. This is the regular rule for future generations. You and the foreigner are the same before God. The same laws and regulations apply to both you and the foreigner who lives with you.”
17–21 God spoke to Moses: “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When you enter the land into which I’m bringing you, and you eat the food of that country, set some aside as an offering for God. From the first batch of bread dough make a round loaf for an offering—an offering from the threshing floor. Down through the future generations make this offering to God from each first batch of dough.
22–26 “But if you should get off the beaten track and not keep the commands which God spoke to Moses, any of the things that God commanded you under the authority of Moses from the time that God first commanded you right up to this present time, and if it happened more or less by mistake, with the congregation unaware of it, then the whole congregation is to sacrifice one young bull as a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a pleasing fragrance to God, accompanied by its Grain-Offering and Drink-Offering as stipulated in the rules, and a he-goat as an Absolution-Offering. The priest is to atone for the entire community of the People of Israel and they will stand forgiven. The sin was not deliberate, and they offered to God the Fire-Gift and Absolution-Offering for their inadvertence. The whole community of Israel including the foreigners living there will be absolved, because everyone was involved in the error.
27–28 “But if it’s just one person who sins by mistake, not realizing what he’s doing, he is to bring a yearling she-goat as an Absolution-Offering. The priest then is to atone for the person who accidentally sinned, to make atonement before God so that it won’t be held against him.
29 “The same standard holds for everyone who sins by mistake; the native-born Israelites and the foreigners go by the same rules.
30–31 “But the person, native or foreigner, who sins defiantly, deliberately blaspheming God, must be cut off from his people: He has despised God’s word, he has violated God’s command; that person must be kicked out of the community, ostracized, left alone in his wrongdoing.”
32–35 Once, during those wilderness years of the People of Israel, a man was caught gathering wood on the Sabbath. The ones who caught him hauled him before Moses and Aaron and the entire congregation. They put him in custody until it became clear what to do with him. Then God spoke to Moses: “Give the man the death penalty. Yes, kill him, the whole community hurling stones at him outside the camp.”
36 So the whole community took him outside the camp and threw stones at him, an execution commanded by God and given through Moses.
37–41 God spoke to Moses: “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them that from now on they are to make tassels on the corners of their garments and to mark each corner tassel with a blue thread. When you look at these tassels you’ll remember and keep all the commandments of God, and not get distracted by everything you feel or see that seduces you into infidelities. The tassels will signal remembrance and observance of all my commandments, to live a holy life to God. I am your God who rescued you from the land of Egypt to be your personal God. Yes, I am God, your God.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, October 09, 2025
by Sheridan Voysey
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Ecclesiastes 5:13-20
Here’s a piece of bad luck I’ve seen happen:
A man hoards far more wealth than is good for him
And then loses it all in a bad business deal.
He fathered a child but hasn’t a cent left to give him.
He arrived naked from the womb of his mother;
He’ll leave in the same condition—with nothing.
This is bad luck, for sure—naked he came, naked he went.
So what was the point of working for a salary of smoke?
All for a miserable life spent in the dark?
Make the Most of What God Gives
18–20 After looking at the way things are on this earth, here’s what I’ve decided is the best way to live: Take care of yourself, have a good time, and make the most of whatever job you have for as long as God gives you life. And that’s about it. That’s the human lot. Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what’s given and delighting in the work. It’s God’s gift! God deals out joy in the present, the now. It’s useless to brood over how long we might live.
Today's Insights
In Ecclesiastes, Solomon seeks to answer the perplexing question of the meaning of life. He shows that life without God is futile, unfulfilling, miserable, and meaningless “under the sun” (see 1:3, 13-14; 12:8). Then he explains how and why God must fit into our lives (2:24-26; 3:11-14; 5:7, 18-20). He examines human accomplishments, pleasures, and intellectual pursuits (chs. 1-2); the repetitive mundane existential/experiential life (ch. 3); and social interactions and community (ch. 4). Though accumulating wealth through hard work in itself isn’t wrong, pursuing materialism for its own sake brings disillusionment and despair (chs. 5-6). But the person who reverently worships and fears God (5:1-7) will see and enjoy the fruit of his labor as a gift from God (vv. 18-20). Solomon offers us this recipe for a fulfilled life: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind” (12:13).
See how the wisdom of Ecclesiastes matches the teaching of Jesus.
A Cautionary Tale
I have seen a grievous evil under the sun: wealth hoarded to the harm of its owners. Ecclesiastes 5:13
In the classic film Citizen Kane, Charles Foster Kane amasses wealth and power by building a newspaper empire. In a story reminiscent of Ecclesiastes 2:4-11, Kane spares himself no pleasure, building a castle with grand gardens full of artistic treasures.
Like other tycoons, what Kane really wants is adulation. He bankrolls his own political career and, when it fails, he blames the defeat on voter “fraud” to save face. He builds his wife an opera house and forces her into an ill-suited singing career to make him look good. Here too Kane’s story echoes Ecclesiastes, where wealth is found to harm those who chase and hoard it (5:10-15), leaving them eating “in darkness, with great frustration” (5:17). By the end of his life, Charlie Kane lives in that castle alone, isolated and angry.
Citizen Kane ends with the revelation that Charlie’s pursuits have been driven to fill a void in his heart—the parental love he lost as a child. I can imagine the author of Ecclesiastes agreeing. Our Father God has “set eternity in the human heart” (3:11), and life can only be enjoyed with Him (2:25). Charlie Kane’s cautionary tale speaks to us all: Don’t seek spiritual fulfilment through wealth and power, but through the one who pours His love into our hearts (Romans 5:5).
Reflect & Pray
How do you see yourself imitating Charlie Kane? What spiritual need does God need to meet in you today?
Loving God, please forgive my attempts to feel important through buying things or seeking praise. My spiritual need can only be met by You!
For further study read, Translucent Fruit: The Cost of Wealth.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, October 09, 2025
Pull Yourself Together
Offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. — Romans 6:19
There are many things I cannot do: I cannot save and sanctify myself; I cannot redeem the world; I cannot make right what is wrong, pure what is impure, holy what is unholy. All this is the sovereign work of God. Do I have faith in what God, through Jesus Christ, has done? He has made for us a perfect atonement, placing us back in a right relationship with him. Am I in the habit of constantly realizing it?
The great need in each of our lives isn’t to do things or to experience things but to believe them. The atonement isn’t something I experience. It is the great act of God, upon which I build my faith. If instead I build my faith upon my experiences, I will produce the kind of life that isn’t found in Scripture—an isolated life, in which I fix my eye upon my own spotlessness. Isolation has no basis in the atonement. The piety isolation produces is useless for God and a nuisance to other people, because it denies the reality of how things actually are. It’s easy to shine in the sun when we’re up on the mountaintop, alone with God, but Jesus wants us to shine where there is no sun, down in the valley, where it is dark with the press of practical things.
Do I understand that Jesus Christ wants his atonement to be recognized in every practical thing I do? In my home life? In my business? The grace of God is absolute, but I must prove, through obedience, that I do not receive his grace in vain. I must continually bring myself to judgment and ask, “Am I looking at this matter in the light of the atonement, or am I lacking Christ’s discernment?” Every time I obey, absolute Deity is on my side. Obedience means that I’ve placed all my hope in the atonement, and everything I do is met by the supernatural grace of God.
Isaiah 32-33; Colossians 1
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We can understand the attributes of God in other ways, but we can only understand the Father’s heart in the Cross of Christ.
The Highest Good—Thy Great Redemption, 558 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, October 09, 2025
PARALYZED PARENTS - #10109
I was once held hostage by a dragonfly. This is very embarrassing, but it is true. I was just a little guy and my cousin and I were sitting on these swings in her backyard. I believed everything she said. And a dragonfly started to circle us on the swings. He was a big old guy - at least he looked big compared to the size I was then. And then he landed on the swing, and my cousin said to me, "You know, if they get mad at you they'll drill a hole through you."
I took one look at him and he kind of dived back and forth and started to dive bomb us. I started imagining him boring a hole in me, and it seemed reasonable. So I was frozen to the swing. I must have been there for a half hour... maybe an hour, I don't know. I didn't move until the crazy dragonfly left. Did I mention this is embarrassing? Well, today I know a dragonfly is nothing to fear, but my cousin that day made me afraid of something that I didn't need to be afraid of. That might be happening at your house.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Paralyzed Parents."
Our word for today from the Word of God is from 2 Timothy 1:7. "For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline." This is a great verse for parents isn't it? Parents especially who are raising children in a very pagan, out-of-control world like ours. In fact, earlier in this chapter Paul talks about Timothy's Mother, Eunice, and how her faith was passed on to her son. She had an unbelieving husband, the Bible tells us, she was raising Timothy in a lost culture, and yet she turned out a son who was a great spiritual leader.
Now, one of the keys is in this seventh verse, "don't parent out of fear." You know, I'm a Dad of three kids that grew up in this kind of a world, and I know that we tend to look at a world where lies are taught as truth and where wrong is promoted as the right thing to do, and where sex outside of marriage is expected. That's the kind of world we're living in no doubt about it. Sin is boasted about. Our tendency is to grab our child and run to a cave with him or her and try to keep that child from ever rubbing shoulders with that nasty world.
Do you know what we're communicating? We're saying, "You know, that darkness out there is really big and strong, and I'm not sure Jesus is strong enough to compete with it." We're giving the Devil and we're giving the darkness a lot of credit when we teach our children to be afraid of it. Yes, we need to teach them to live in a dark world, but not to be afraid of it. We serve a Christ who blew the doors off of death. We serve a Jesus to whom demons surrender. Let's not hide from the darkness. He empowers His children to change the darkness.
Many days our kids came home from school with words they heard or ideas or questions. And, well, we found that those are the moments to seize, not to freeze. We can say to our kids, "You know, I'm glad that came up. Let me show you how much better Jesus' idea is." See, Jesus called us to be salt and light, and they have to be in contact with something if they're going to change it. Right? But we forfeit a whole generation if our kids withdraw from the people who've never touched Jesus. They're not sacrificial lambs. They're people who can make a difference and raise their kids on the two words I raised ours on: GO MAD! Go make a difference! You need to change things. Don't let them change you. You are their hope of another way to be.
I sat on a swing one day as a boy, paralyzed by something I didn't need to fear. As Christian parents let's not do that or cause our children to do it. Teach them the dangers of a lost world for sure; expose the darkness. And then outfit them with a strong version of Jesus who doesn't run from the darkness. He challenges the darkness.
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