Max Lucado Daily: Jesus Knows Just How You Feel
The next time your world goes from calm to chaos-ponder this: Jesus knows how you feel. His eyes have grown weary. His heart has grown heavy. He knows how you feel. You're no doubt convinced Jesus is acquainted with sorrow and has wrestled with fear. Most people accept that. But can God relate to the hassles and headaches of your life? For some reason this is harder to believe.
Listen to Hebrews 4:15, ". . .he Himself has shared fully in all our experience of temptation, except that He never sinned." The writer of Hebrews anticipates our objections. "God, it's easy for you up there. You don't know how hard it is from down here." Listen again. He has shared fully. Not nearly. Not to a large degree, but entirely! In all our experience, in every hurt and every ache. Why? So that when you hurt, you'll go to Him-who knows how you feel!
From In the Eye of the Storm
Mark 4:1-20
The Story of the Scattered Seed
1–2 4 He went back to teaching by the sea. A crowd built up to such a great size that he had to get into an offshore boat, using the boat as a pulpit as the people pushed to the water’s edge. He taught by using stories, many stories.
3–8 “Listen. What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled among the weeds and nothing came of it. Some fell on good earth and came up with a flourish, producing a harvest exceeding his wildest dreams.
9 “Are you listening to this? Really listening?”
10–12 When they were off by themselves, those who were close to him, along with the Twelve, asked about the stories. He told them, “You’ve been given insight into God’s kingdom—you know how it works. But to those who can’t see it yet, everything comes in stories, creating readiness, nudging them toward receptive insight. These are people—
Whose eyes are open but don’t see a thing,
Whose ears are open but don’t understand a word,
Who avoid making an about-face and getting forgiven.”
13 He continued, “Do you see how this story works? All my stories work this way.
14–15 “The farmer plants the Word. Some people are like the seed that falls on the hardened soil of the road. No sooner do they hear the Word than Satan snatches away what has been planted in them.
16–17 “And some are like the seed that lands in the gravel. When they first hear the Word, they respond with great enthusiasm. But there is such shallow soil of character that when the emotions wear off and some difficulty arrives, there is nothing to show for it.
18–19 “The seed cast in the weeds represents the ones who hear the kingdom news but are overwhelmed with worries about all the things they have to do and all the things they want to get. The stress strangles what they heard, and nothing comes of it.
20 “But the seed planted in the good earth represents those who hear the Word, embrace it, and produce a harvest beyond their wildest dreams.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 02, 2025
by Kenneth Petersen
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Romans 8:9-17
But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!
12–14 So don’t you see that we don’t owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There’s nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15–17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike “What’s next, Papa?” God’s Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what’s coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we’re certainly going to go through the good times with him!
Today's Insights
Paul describes believers in Jesus as being “children of God” (Romans 8:14). We’ve received “adoption to sonship” (v. 15) and no longer live as fearful slaves. To call God the Father “Abba” describes the family relationship and the boldness that believers can have when they approach Him. The word sonship is important because it implies inheritance. Paul isn’t erasing daughters but instead showing that all believers are now “heirs of God” (v. 17). Through the Spirit, believers stand next to Jesus as full “co-heirs.” The adopted children of God have the same full rights as the Son, and the Spirit seals that privileged status (v. 15).
The Family of God
We are God’s children. Romans 8:16
It was 1863. Edwin stood on a railroad platform in Jersey City. He watched as a young man was forced by crowds against a train car. The man dangerously fell into the crevice between the train and the platform. The train started to move. Edwin reached down and, at the last minute, pulled the man to safety.
The saved man was Robert Todd Lincoln, son of President Abraham Lincoln. Robert later wrote that his rescuer’s “face was of course well known to me,” because Edwin Booth was a famous actor. In fact, he was the brother of another actor—John Wilkes Booth—who would assassinate the president two years later.
This historical oddity illustrates a reality for us. We don’t choose the family we’re born into. Perhaps our siblings or parents made wrong choices. Maybe we’re the ones who’ve made a mess of everything. But the Bible tells of God’s family plan: “those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God” (Romans 8:14). As His children, “we are [his] heirs” (v. 17). Amazingly, we’re invited to call Him “Abba, Father” (v. 15).
We may long wrestle with the dysfunctions of our earthly family. But we can take comfort that God has changed our spiritual heritage. He adopts us into His family. Most precious of all—He invites us to call Him our Father.
Reflect & Pray
What does it mean to you to be part of God’s family? How does it compel you to live differently?
Abba Father, thank You for adopting me as Your child into Your family.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 02, 2025
The Discipline of Difficulty
In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. — John 16:33
An average view of the Christian life is that it means deliverance from trouble. It is deliverance in trouble, which is very different. If you are a child of God, there certainly will be troubles to face. Jesus says not to be surprised when they come: “In this world you will have trouble.” But he also says that troubles are no match for him: “Take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Sometimes people who never wanted to complain or go on about their troubles before they were saved become frail in the face of trouble afterward. This happens because they had the wrong idea of what salvation meant. They thought it meant that God would allow them to triumph easily over all adversity. But God does not give us overcoming life; he gives us life as we overcome.
Are you asking God to give you life and liberty and joy? He cannot—not unless you also accept the strain. The strain is the strength. Where there is no strain, there is no strength.
Overcome your timidity. Take the step God is telling you to take, and he will nourish you: “To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life” (Revelation 2:7). If you push yourself to your physical limits, you will become exhausted, but if you push yourself spiritually, you will get more strength. God never gives strength for tomorrow or for the next hour, only for the strain of the minute.
Face your troubles with courage and gladness, remembering that you have nothing to fear. The saint is filled with hilarity when crushed by difficulties, because the situation is so ludicrously impossible to anyone but God. “If you say, ‘The Lord is my refuge,’ and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you” (Psalm 91:9–10). No plague can come near the place where you are at one with God.
Psalms 60-62; Romans 5
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
