Max Lucado Daily: 'Birthdays'
What is it about birthdays that causes us to quiver so? Certainly part of the problem is the mirror. Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician. But the real pain is deeper. Sometimes a dream-come-true-world has come true and it’s less than you’d hoped. Regret becomes a major pastime.
Luke 17:33 says, “Whoever tries to keep his life safe will lose it, and the one who’s prepared to lose his life will preserve it.” “There are two ways to view life,” Jesus is saying, “those who protect it or those who pursue it. The wisest are not the ones with the most years in their lives, but the most life in their years.”
You can take the safe route. Or you can hear the voice of adventure—God’s adventure. Adopt the child. Teach the class. Change careers. Make a difference. Sure it isn’t safe, but what is?
from He Still Moves Stones
Mark 1:23-45
Suddenly, while still in the meeting place, he was interrupted by a man who was deeply disturbed and yelling out, “What business do you have here with us, Jesus? Nazarene! I know what you’re up to! You’re the Holy One of God, and you’ve come to destroy us!”
25–26 Jesus shut him up: “Quiet! Get out of him!” The afflicting spirit threw the man into spasms, protesting loudly—and got out.
27–28 Everyone there was incredulous, buzzing with curiosity. “What’s going on here? A new teaching that does what it says? He shuts up defiling, demonic spirits and sends them packing!” News of this traveled fast and was soon all over Galilee.
29–31 Directly on leaving the meeting place, they came to Simon and Andrew’s house, accompanied by James and John. Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed, burning up with fever. They told Jesus. He went to her, took her hand, and raised her up. No sooner had the fever left than she was up fixing dinner for them.
32–34 That evening, after the sun was down, they brought sick and evil-afflicted people to him, the whole city lined up at his door! He cured their sick bodies and tormented spirits. Because the demons knew his true identity, he didn’t let them say a word.
The Leper
35–37 While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed. Simon and those with him went looking for him. They found him and said, “Everybody’s looking for you.”
38–39 Jesus said, “Let’s go to the rest of the villages so I can preach there also. This is why I’ve come.” He went to their meeting places all through Galilee, preaching and throwing out the demons.
40 A leper came to him, begging on his knees, “If you want to, you can cleanse me.”
41–45 Deeply moved, Jesus put out his hand, touched him, and said, “I want to. Be clean.” Then and there the leprosy was gone, his skin smooth and healthy. Jesus dismissed him with strict orders: “Say nothing to anyone. Take the offering for cleansing that Moses prescribed and present yourself to the priest. This will validate your healing to the people.” But as soon as the man was out of earshot, he told everyone he met what had happened, spreading the news all over town. So Jesus kept to out-of-the-way places, no longer able to move freely in and out of the city. But people found him, and came from all over.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, July 19, 2025
by Marvin Williams
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
John 17:1-5, 13-19
Jesus’ Prayer for His Followers
1–5 17 Jesus said these things. Then, raising his eyes in prayer, he said:
Father, it’s time.
Display the bright splendor of your Son
So the Son in turn may show your bright splendor.
You put him in charge of everything human
So he might give real and eternal life to all in his charge.
And this is the real and eternal life:
That they know you,
The one and only true God,
And Jesus Christ, whom you sent.
I glorified you on earth
By completing down to the last detail
What you assigned me to do.
And now, Father, glorify me with your very own splendor,
The very splendor I had in your presence
Before there was a world.
13–19 Now I’m returning to you.
I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing
So my people can experience
My joy completed in them.
I gave them your word;
The godless world hated them because of it,
Because they didn’t join the world’s ways,
Just as I didn’t join the world’s ways.
I’m not asking that you take them out of the world
But that you guard them from the Evil One.
They are no more defined by the world
Than I am defined by the world.
Make them holy—consecrated—with the truth;
Your word is consecrating truth.
In the same way that you gave me a mission in the world,
I give them a mission in the world.
I’m consecrating myself for their sakes
So they’ll be truth-consecrated in their mission.
Today's Insights
In John 1:1-18, readers are introduced to biblically weighty words that appear throughout the book, such as life and light (v. 4) and believe (v. 7). John 17 includes significant words that are also found in John 1—Word, glory/glorify, and truth. In John 1:14, these words are clustered together: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Of note is the word truth. There’s perfect harmony between Jesus, the living Word who declared Himself to be “the truth” (14:6), and the written Word (17:14, 17). Christ, the living Word, helps us to be authentic by aligning our lives according to His truth.
By God’s Truth
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. John 17:17
Merriam-Webster’s 2023 Word of the Year was authentic. It means “not false or imitation” and “true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.” People search for truth, but discerning fact from fiction can be challenging. Editor Peter Sokolowski said, “Can we trust whether a student wrote this paper [or] . . . whether a politician made this statement? We don’t always trust what we see anymore. We sometimes don’t believe our own eyes or our own ears. We are now recognizing that authenticity is a performance itself.”
As what is real becomes less clear, authenticity is something most people crave. This kind of “crisis of authenticity” can be averted as we take in and live out the wisdom of Scripture. Jesus spoke to His disciples just before His arrest, trial, and death (John 13-17). Preparing His disciples for His departure from earth, He also “looked toward heaven and prayed” for them (17:1). He prayed that the Father might “sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (v. 17). This implies that what God has revealed in the Bible doesn’t conform to some other standard of what’s true, but it is truth itself and the standard by which everything else is judged.
God calls us to align our lives with Scripture, to conduct ourselves according to its truth. Only by doing so can we become truly authentic, which is very much what the world needs today.
Reflect & Pray
How does the Bible reveal God’s truth? How is it truly authentic?
Dear God, please sanctify me with the truth of Scripture as I serve You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, July 19, 2025
Authority over the Believer
You call me “Teacher” and “Lord,” and rightly so, for that is what I am. —John 13:13
Our Lord never insists on having authority. He never says, “You must.” He leaves us perfectly free. So free that we can spit in his face, as people did, so free that we can put him to death, as people did, and he will never say a word. But when his life has been created inside me by his redemption, I instantly recognize his right to absolute authority over me. It is a moral domination: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power” (Revelation 4:11).
Only the thing that is unworthy in me refuses to bow down to what is worthy. When I meet people who are more righteous than me, I must recognize their worthiness and obey what comes through them. If I don’t, it reveals my own unworthiness. God educates us through people who are a little better than we are—not intellectually better, but “holily” better. He does this until we come under the rule of the Lord himself. When we are under his rule, the attitude of our entire life is one of obedience to him.
The way I understand obedience reveals my growth in grace. We use the word obedience to mean the submission of an inferior to a superior. Our Lord used the word to describe a relationship of equals, that of a Son and a Father: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Jesus obeyed his Father not because he had no choice in the matter but because he loved him. “I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me” (14:31).
When we truly see our Lord, we cannot help but recognize his moral authority over us. We obey him instantly, eager to show our love for him: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me” (v. 21).
Psalms 23-25; Acts 21:18-40
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
It is an easy thing to argue from precedent because it makes everything simple, but it is a risky thing to do. Give God “elbow room”; let Him come into His universe as He pleases. If we confine God in His working to religious people or to certain ways, we place ourselves on an equality with God.
Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
