Max Lucado Daily: REAL REST - March 14, 2025
How we handle our tough times stays with us for a long time. When you’re tired of trying, tired of forgiving, tired of hard-headed people, how do you manage your dark days? With a bottle of pills? An hour at the bar, a day at the spa? Many opt for such treatments. So many, in fact, we assume they reenergize the sad life. But do they? They numb the pain, postpone the pain, but do they remove the pain?
Is there a solution? There is. Be quick to pray. Stop talking to yourself and talk to Christ, who says, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me. Get away with Me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest” (Matthew 11:28 MSG). God, who is never downcast, never tires of your down days. “Come to Me,” Jesus says, “and I’ll give you real rest.”
Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible
Job 18
BILDAD’S SECOND ATTACK
Plunged from Light into Darkness
1–4 18 Bildad from Shuhah chimed in:
“How monotonous these word games are getting!
Get serious! We need to get down to business.
Why do you treat your friends like slow-witted animals?
You look down on us as if we don’t know anything.
Why are you working yourself up like this?
Do you want the world redesigned to suit you?
Should reality be suspended to accommodate you?
5–21 “Here’s the rule: The light of the wicked is put out.
Their flame dies down and is extinguished.
Their house goes dark—
every lamp in the place goes out.
Their strong strides weaken, falter;
they stumble into their own traps.
They get all tangled up
in their own red tape,
Their feet are grabbed and caught,
their necks in a noose.
They trip on ropes they’ve hidden,
and fall into pits they’ve dug themselves.
Terrors come at them from all sides.
They run helter-skelter.
The hungry grave is ready
to gobble them up for supper,
To lay them out for a gourmet meal,
a treat for ravenous Death.
They are snatched from their home sweet home
and marched straight to the death house.
Their lives go up in smoke;
acid rain soaks their ruins.
Their roots rot
and their branches wither.
They’ll never again be remembered—
nameless in unmarked graves.
They are plunged from light into darkness,
banished from the world.
And they leave empty-handed—not one single child—
nothing to show for their life on this earth.
Westerners are aghast at their fate,
easterners are horrified:
‘Oh no! So this is what happens to perverse people.
This is how the God-ignorant end up!’ ”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, March 14, 2025
by Leslie Koh
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Ephesians 2:6-10
Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7–10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.
Today's Insights
The creation account in Genesis says that “God created mankind in his own image” (1:27). Ephesians 2:10 also declares that “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Jesus set the example for us during His earthly ministry by doing “many good works from the Father” (John 10:32). Peter elaborates and says: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, . . . he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him” (Acts 10:38). As believers in Christ, the Spirit will provide the opportunities and empowerment to follow in Jesus’ footsteps and do good works. The fruit of the Spirit’s work in us is “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23).
Made to Do Good for God
We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Ephesians 2:10
At first, I ignored the card fluttering to the ground. The father and his little girl who dropped it were just twenty feet away, and I was late for work. Surely they would have realized it, I told myself. But they kept walking. My conscience got the better of me, and I went over to pick it up. It was a prepaid bus ride pass. When I gave it to them, their effusive thanks left me feeling unexpectedly satisfied. Why do I feel so good about doing such a small thing? I wondered.
It turns out that the human body produces chemicals that improve our mood when we’re kind to others. We’re made to feel good when we do good! That’s not surprising, because we were created by a good God who made us to be like Him.
Ephesians 2:10 shows us that blessing others is a part of our very purpose: “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” This verse doesn’t simply give an instruction to do good; in a way, it also reflects a part of our God-made nature. We don’t have to be doing great things all the time. If we do something small to help others in our daily lives, we not only get the reward of satisfaction, but we also know that we’re pleasing God—doing exactly what He made us to do.
Reflect & Pray
Who needs a helping hand or an encouraging word? What kind word or simple gesture can you extend to a friend, colleague, or neighbor?
Dear Father, please open my eyes to see how I can be kind to someone today.
Learn how we can take hope to a lost and divided world.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, March 14, 2025
Obedience
You are slaves of the one you obey. — Romans 6:16
The first thing to do when confronting a habit or mindset that controls me is to face an unwelcome fact: I am responsible for being controlled, because at some point I gave in. If I am a slave to myself—to my habits and urges, my egotisms and selfishness—I am to blame, because I gave in to myself. Likewise, if I obey God, it’s because I’ve yielded myself to him.
We learn the truth of this in the most ridiculously small things. “I can give up that habit whenever I want,” you say. You cannot. Try it, and you will find that the habit absolutely dominates you. Give in to selfishness in childhood, and you will find it the most binding tyranny on earth. Yield for one second to any form of lust—to the thought “I must have this thing at once”—and you will be chained to that thing, even if you hate yourself for it.
No human power can break the bondage of a character that has been shaped by giving in. Only the power of the redemption is sufficient. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only one who can set you free, the Lord Jesus Christ: “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and … to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18). It is easy to sing “He can break every fetter” and still be living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. Only Jesus can break the chains, and only when you let him. Yield yourself to the Lord, and he will set you free.
Deuteronomy 23-25; Mark 14:1-26
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us.
Disciples Indeed, 388 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, March 14, 2025
The Most Sinful Part of Your Body - #9960
I used to sing this little song in Sunday school. Actually, all of the kids sang it: "Be careful little eyes what you see." That was the first verse. And then we went on to "Be careful little ears what you hear." And then "Be careful little hands what you do." Of course, "Be careful little feet where you go," and so on. Actually, there is a practical truth hidden in that little song. It's about this thing called sin, which isn't just a church word or a preacher's word. I mean, it's real. I mean, your hands sin, your eyes sin, your ears sin; it's not just a concept.
I've always found it convenient to think of sin in terms of things that someone else is doing, right? Well, when I make a list of the worst sins there are, it's usually things that I don't do. Maybe you do. Then I realize the body part that should be voted most likely to sin. Suddenly I'm on the list.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Most Sinful Part of Your Body."
Here's our word for today from the Word of God. We're in the third chapter of the book of Romans. It's a very interesting passage because it's like a spiritual X-ray, and the doctor, if you want to put it that way, gives the conclusion of this X-ray and what he has discovered in chapter 3 verse 12 and then again in verse 23. In verse 12 he says, "All have turned away, all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one." Then in verse 23 it's reiterated when he says, "For all have sinned..." I mean, there is no exception here. "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." The spiritual X-ray shows that we all have cancer - spiritual cancer.
Then he goes into more detail between verses 12 and 23 with how that sinful cancer shows up. Listen to these statements, "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." "Their feet are swift to shed blood." "There is no fear of God before their eyes."
Did you notice there are six statements here that show the kind of spiritual cancer we have, and they all are really like biological; they involve parts of the body? One had to do with the eyes; one had to do with our feet. The other four had to do with the same area of the body: the tongue, lips, mouth and throat. So it would appear that most sinning is done with your mouth. Isn't that interesting? The most spiritually infected part of your body - the cancer comes out through our mouth more often than anywhere else.
The Bible says, "No human being can tame the tongue." That's in James 3:8. We tend to think of sin in terms of adultery, abortion, murder, abuse, drugs, stealing. But this brings it right down to where I live, because the greatest sins - the most frequent sins - are sins of the tongue. Think about it, the hurt that you and I inflict on people, the things we say in anger, the putdowns, the lies, the criticism, the negative comments, the gossip. They all come through our mouth.
This indictment tells me two things. Number one: I really need a Savior because if sin is mostly sin done with my mouth and my tongue, I really need a Savior. And you may have never experienced what it is to have the man who died for you on a cross forgive you of every wrong thing, every hurting thing, every angry thing, every dirty thing you've ever said or done. It's so wonderful to be clean. He can do that for you!
Secondly, I must focus the lordship of Christ on my mouth and say, "Jesus, be Lord of what I say; how I talk. The cancer of sin has poisoned our daily speech, but David said, "The Lord put a new song in my mouth."
Don't you want this transforming relationship with Jesus Christ? He'll make you a whole new creation, the Bible says. Let me show you how at our website. Check out ANewStory.com because maybe this is the first day of your new story.
