Max Lucado Daily: Defiant Joy
My friend Rob cried freely telling his story about his young son's challenging life.
Daniel was born with a double cleft palate, dramatically disfiguring his face. He had surgery, but the evidence remains, so people constantly notice and occasionally make remarks.
Daniel, however, is unfazed! He just tells people God made him this way so, what's the big deal? He was named student of the week, so was asked to bring something to show his classmates for show and tell. Daniel told his mom he wanted to take the pictures that showed his face prior to the surgery. His mom was concerned. "Won't that make you feel a bit funny?" she asked. But Daniel insisted, "Oh, no, I want everyone to see what God did for me!"
Try Daniel's defiant joy and see what happens. God has handed you a cup of blessings. Sweeten it with a heaping spoonful of gratitude!
From You'll Get Through This
Mark 14:54-72
Peter followed at a safe distance until they got to the Chief Priest’s courtyard, where he mingled with the servants and warmed himself at the fire.
55–59 The high priests conspiring with the Jewish Council looked high and low for evidence against Jesus by which they could sentence him to death. They found nothing. Plenty of people were willing to bring in false charges, but nothing added up, and they ended up canceling each other out. Then a few of them stood up and lied: “We heard him say, ‘I am going to tear down this Temple, built by hard labor, and in three days build another without lifting a hand.’ ” But even they couldn’t agree exactly.
60–61 In the middle of this, the Chief Priest stood up and asked Jesus, “What do you have to say to the accusation?” Jesus was silent. He said nothing.
The Chief Priest tried again, this time asking, “Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed?”
62 Jesus said, “Yes, I am, and you’ll see it yourself:
The Son of Man seated
At the right hand of the Mighty One,
Arriving on the clouds of heaven.”
63–64 The Chief Priest lost his temper. Ripping his clothes, he yelled, “Did you hear that? After that do we need witnesses? You heard the blasphemy. Are you going to stand for it?”
They condemned him, one and all. The sentence: death.
65 Some of them started spitting at him. They blindfolded his eyes, then hit him, saying, “Who hit you? Prophesy!” The guards, punching and slapping, took him away.
The Rooster Crowed
66–67 While all this was going on, Peter was down in the courtyard. One of the Chief Priest’s servant girls came in and, seeing Peter warming himself there, looked hard at him and said, “You were with the Nazarene, Jesus.”
68 He denied it: “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He went out on the porch. A rooster crowed.
69–70 The girl spotted him and began telling the people standing around, “He’s one of them.” He denied it again.
After a little while, the bystanders brought it up again. “You’ve got to be one of them. You’ve got ‘Galilean’ written all over you.”
71–72 Now Peter got really nervous and swore, “I never laid eyes on this man you’re talking about.” Just then the rooster crowed a second time. Peter remembered how Jesus had said, “Before a rooster crows twice, you’ll deny me three times.” He collapsed in tears.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, October 11, 2025
by Nancy Gavilanes
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:1-6
The High Priest Who Cried Out in Pain
14–16 Now that we know what we have—Jesus, this great High Priest with ready access to God—let’s not let it slip through our fingers. We don’t have a priest who is out of touch with our reality. He’s been through weakness and testing, experienced it all—all but the sin. So let’s walk right up to him and get what he is so ready to give. Take the mercy, accept the help.
1–3 5 Every high priest selected to represent men and women before God and offer sacrifices for their sins should be able to deal gently with their failings, since he knows what it’s like from his own experience. But that also means that he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as the peoples’.
4–6 No one elects himself to this honored position. He’s called to it by God, as Aaron was. Neither did Christ presume to set himself up as high priest, but was set apart by the One who said to him, “You’re my Son; today I celebrate you!” In another place God declares, “You’re a priest forever in the royal order of Melchizedek.”
Today's Insights
Jesus, our “great high priest” (Hebrews 4:14), is able to sympathize with us because He’s lived as a man, although without sin (vv. 14-15; 5:1-2). Christ took on “flesh and blood . . . for only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil” and offer “a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people” (2:14, 17 nlt). “Because of what Christ has done for us” (Ephesians 2:18 nlt), “we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence” (3:12 nlt). What a great privilege to offer prayers before “God’s throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16), for He’s our King and our Father.
Access Through Christ
Let us then approach God’s throne . . . with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us. Hebrews 4:16
As a young journalist, I quickly learned about the power of a “press pass.” That one credential—displaying my name, picture, and media outlet—granted me access to meet and interview athletes and celebrities before or after major events.
However, after I received Jesus as my Savior, I realized sports and my career had become my idols. Following God’s call elsewhere, I lost my press pass but gained access to God’s heavenly throne room through prayer because of Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection.
The writer of Hebrews points out that a high priest was selected from among the Israelites, specifically one of Aaron’s descendants, and appointed as the go-between representing the people before God. He alone could enter the Most Holy Place in the temple once a year “to offer gifts and sacrifice” to atone for his and the people’s sins (5:1), for he too was a mortal man.
Then Christ came, our great and perfect high priest. When He died, the veil in the temple was torn and the barrier that existed between God and humanity was removed (Matthew 27:51).
Because our loving Redeemer has reconciled us to His Father, we can freely pray to God: “Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
What a privilege to have access to God’s throne room as we talk to Him in prayer.
Reflect & Pray
How can you make time to pray more often? What stops you from praying?
Dear Jesus, thank You for giving me access to the Father.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, October 11, 2025
After God’s Silence, What?
When he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days. — John 11:6
Has God trusted you with a silence, one that is full of meaning? God’s silences are his answers. Think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany, as Lazarus lay sick and dying, tended by Mary and Martha (John 11). Is there anything similar to those days in your life? Can God trust you as he trusted Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, or are you still asking for a visible answer? If you refuse to go on without certain blessings, God will give them to you. But his silence is the sign that he is bringing you into a marvelous understanding of himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? You will find that God has trusted you in the most intimate way possible—with a silence that is not of despair but of pleasure, because he saw that you could handle a bigger revelation.
If God has given you a silence, praise him. He is bringing you into the great flow of his purpose. Precisely when the answer will manifest itself is a matter of God’s sovereign choice. Time is nothing to God. Perhaps you’ve grown impatient and you think, “I asked God to give me bread, and he gave me a stone.” He did not. Soon you will find he gave you the bread of life.
A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that the contagion of his stillness gets into you and you become perfectly confident: “I know God has heard me.” His silence is the proof that he has. As long as you have the idea that God will bless you in answer to a prayer, he will do it. But he will never give you the grace of silence. When Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer isn’t for blessings but for the glorifying of the Father, he will give you the first sign of his intimacy—silence.
Isaiah 37-38; Colossians 3
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
God does not further our spiritual life in spite of our circumstances, but in and by our circumstances.
Not Knowing Whither, 900 L