Max Lucado Daily: We’re Made Whole
Sin sees the world with no God in it! Where we might think of sin as slip-ups or missteps, God views sin as a godless attitude that leads to godless actions.
Isaiah 53:6 says, “All of us have strayed away like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own.” Sin proclaims, “It’s your life, right? Pump your body with drugs, your mind with greed, your nights with pleasure.” The godless life is a a me-dominated, childish life, a life of doing what we feel like doing, whenever we feel like doing it.
God says to love. I choose to hate. God instructs, forgive. I opt to get even. God calls for self-control. I promote self-indulgence. This is sin.
Jesus took the punishment for that sin, and made us whole. God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong on him.
Trust his work for you, then trust His work in you.
From Come Thirsty
Leviticus 1
Whole-Burnt-Offering
1–2 1 God called Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting: “Speak to the People of Israel. Tell them, When anyone presents an offering to God, present an animal from either the herd or the flock.
3–9 “If the offering is a Whole-Burnt-Offering from the herd, present a male without a defect at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting that it may be accepted by God. Lay your hand on the head of the Whole-Burnt-Offering so that it may be accepted on your behalf to make atonement for you. Slaughter the bull in God’s presence. Aaron’s sons, the priests, will make an offering of the blood by splashing it against all sides of the Altar that stands at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. Next, skin the Whole-Burnt-Offering and cut it up. Aaron’s sons, the priests, will prepare a fire on the Altar, carefully laying out the wood, and then arrange the body parts, including the head and the suet, on the wood prepared for the fire on the Altar. Scrub the entrails and legs clean. The priest will burn it all on the Altar: a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to God.
10–13 “If the Whole-Burnt-Offering comes from the flock, whether sheep or goat, present a male without defect. Slaughter it on the north side of the Altar in God’s presence. The sons of Aaron, the priests, will throw the blood against all sides of the Altar. Cut it up and the priest will arrange the pieces, including the head and the suet, on the wood prepared for burning on the Altar. Scrub the entrails and legs clean. The priest will offer it all, burning it on the Altar: a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to God.
14–17 “If a bird is presented to God for the Whole-Burnt-Offering it can be either a dove or a pigeon. The priest will bring it to the Altar, wring off its head, and burn it on the Altar. But he will first drain the blood on the side of the Altar, remove the gizzard and its contents, and throw them on the east side of the Altar where the ashes are piled. Then rip it open by its wings but leave it in one piece and burn it on the Altar on the wood prepared for the fire: a Whole-Burnt-Offering, a Fire-Gift, a pleasing fragrance to God.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, August 09, 2025
by Sheridan Voysey
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Matthew 26:26-29
The Bread and the Cup
26–29 During the meal, Jesus took and blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples:
Take, eat.
This is my body.
Taking the cup and thanking God, he gave it to them:
Drink this, all of you.
This is my blood,
God’s new covenant poured out for many people
for the forgiveness of sins.
“I’ll not be drinking wine from this cup again until that new day when I’ll drink with you in the kingdom of my Father.”
Christ commanded His believers to remember His death through which forgiveness has been secured (Matthew 26:26-30; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26). In the observance of Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, believers in Jesus partake of the bread and the cup as visible symbols of His death.
In 1 Corinthians 11:24-25, Paul instructs believers on how to observe Communion. The way the Corinthians were observing the Lord’s Supper wasn’t commendable and was ripe for rebuke (1 Corinthians 11:17-22). Why? The conduct they displayed was out of character with what Jesus had done. There were reports of “divisions among” them (v. 18). They were inconsiderate and self-indulgent (vv. 19-22). There was something wrong with this picture, so Paul noted pointedly, “So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat” (v. 20). His subsequent teaching highlighted the gravity of their error in how they observed this remembrance (vv. 23-34). Communion continues to be a reminder that because of Jesus’ sacrifice, God became friends with us and can help us to love others well.
Aristotle at the Table
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. Matthew 26:28
Aristotle said that no one can be friends with a god. Why? Because friendship requires equality, and what god would step down from their heavenly status to become equal with lowly human beings?
I wonder what Aristotle would’ve done if he’d been present at the Last Supper (Matthew 26:26-35). For there, Jesus—the Creator of all, who left His heavenly status to become a lowly human being (Philippians 2:6-8; Colossians 1:16)—told His disciples He no longer called them servants but friends (John 15:15).
Aristotle would’ve been surprised too at who sat at that table. There was Matthew, the Roman-friendly tax collector; and then Simon, the Roman-denouncing Zealot (Matthew 10:3-4); along with James and John, the “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17) sitting with quiet Philip. I imagine Aristotle watching quizzically as Jesus described some bread and wine as His “body” and “blood,” broken and poured out for the “forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:26-28). What god would die for mere mortals, even those who’d soon abandon Him (v. 56)?
That’s one reason Communion is so profound. Through Jesus, God became friends with humans and enabled friendships between those with political and temperamental differences. As we eat and drink at the Lord’s Table, we celebrate the one who rewrote friendship’s rules, human and divine.
Reflect & Pray
How else does Jesus rewrite the rules of friendship? How can His example help you reach across relational differences today?
Dear Jesus, thank You for making me a friend of God and others.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, August 09, 2025
Prayer in the Father’s Hearing
Father, I thank you that you have heard me. — John 11:41
When the Son of God prays, he has only one consciousness: the consciousness of his Father. God always hears the prayers of his Son, and if his Son is formed in me, God will always hear my prayers. I have to make sure that the Son of God is manifested in my mortal flesh, through the indwelling Holy Spirit. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?” (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Is the Son of God getting his chance with me? Is the direct simplicity of his life being worked out in me? When I come in contact with the events of life as an ordinary human being, is the prayer of the eternal Son to his Father being prayed in me? “In that day you will ask in my name” (John 16:26). In which day? The day when the Holy Spirit has come to me and made me one with my Lord.
Ask yourself if Jesus Christ is being abundantly satisfied in your life, or if you’ve got your spiritual strut on. Never let common sense break in and push the Son of God to the side. Common sense is a gift that God gave human nature, but the gift that comes from his Son is supernatural sense. The Son detects the Father. Common sense has never once detected the Father, and never will. Don’t enthrone common sense.
Our ordinary wits never worship God unless they are transformed by his indwelling Son. We have to keep our mortal flesh in perfect subjection to him, letting him work through us moment by moment. Are we living in such dependence on Jesus Christ that his life is being manifested in us?
Psalms 77-78; Romans 10
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
An intellectual conception of God may be found in a bad vicious character. The knowledge and vision of God is dependent entirely on a pure heart. Character determines the revelation of God to the individual. The pure in heart see God.
Biblical Ethics, 125 R
