Max Lucado Daily:The Gladdest News of All
Grace is simply another word for God’s reservoir of strength and protection. Not occasionally or miserly but constantly and aggressively, wave upon wave. We barely regain our balance from one breaker, and then, bam, here comes another!
We dare to stake our hope on the gladdest news of all: if God permits the challenge, he will provide the grace to meet it. We never exhaust his supply. “Stop asking so much! My grace reservoir is running dry.” Heaven knows no such words. God has enough grace to solve every dilemma you face, wipe every tear that you cry, and answer every question you ask.
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all. How will he not also graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32).
Having given the supreme and costliest gift, how can he fail to lavish upon us all he has to give?
From GRACE
Deuteronomy 22
If you see your kinsman’s ox or sheep wandering off loose, don’t look the other way as if you didn’t see it. Return it promptly. If your fellow Israelite is not close by or you don’t know whose it is, take the animal home with you and take care of it until your fellow asks about it. Then return it to him. Do the same if it’s his donkey or a piece of clothing or anything else your fellow Israelite loses. Don’t look the other way as if you didn’t see it.
4 If you see your fellow’s donkey or ox injured along the road, don’t look the other way. Help him get it up and on its way.
5 A woman must not wear a man’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing. This kind of thing is an abomination to God, your God.
6–7 When you come across a bird’s nest alongside the road, whether in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, don’t take the mother with the young. You may take the babies, but let the mother go so that you will live a good and long life.
8 When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof to make it safe so that someone doesn’t fall off and die and your family become responsible for the death.
9 Don’t plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard. If you do, you will forfeit what you’ve sown, the total production of the vineyard.
10 Don’t plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.
11 Don’t wear clothes of mixed fabrics, wool and linen together.
12 Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you use to cover yourself.
13–19 If a man marries a woman, sleeps with her, and then turns on her, calling her a slut, giving her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I slept with her I discovered she wasn’t a virgin,” then the father and mother of the girl are to take her with the proof of her virginity to the town leaders at the gate. The father is to tell the leaders, “I gave my daughter to this man as wife and he turned on her, rejecting her. And now he has slanderously accused her, claiming that she wasn’t a virgin. But look at this, here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” And then he is to spread out her bloodstained wedding garment before the leaders for their examination. The town leaders then are to take the husband, whip him, fine him a hundred pieces of silver, and give it to the father of the girl. The man gave a virgin girl of Israel a bad name. He has to keep her as his wife and can never divorce her.
20–21 But if it turns out that the accusation is true and there is no evidence of the girl’s virginity, the men of the town are to take her to the door of her father’s house and stone her to death. She acted disgracefully in Israel. She lived like a whore while still in her parents’ home. Purge the evil from among you.
22 If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both must die. Purge that evil from Israel.
23–24 If a man comes upon a virgin in town, a girl who is engaged to another man, and sleeps with her, take both of them to the town gate and stone them until they die—the girl because she didn’t yell out for help in the town and the man because he raped her, violating the fiancée of his neighbor. You must purge the evil from among you.
25–27 But if it was out in the country that the man found the engaged girl and grabbed and raped her, only the man is to die, the man who raped her. Don’t do anything to the girl; she did nothing wrong. This is similar to the case of a man who comes across his neighbor out in the country and murders him; when the engaged girl yelled out for help, there was no one around to hear or help her.
28–29 When a man comes upon a virgin who has never been engaged and grabs and rapes her and they are found out, the man who raped her has to give her father fifty pieces of silver. He has to marry her because he took advantage of her. And he can never divorce her.
30 A man may not marry his father’s ex-wife—that would violate his father’s rights.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, December 07, 2025
by John Blase
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Daniel 9:4-6, 15-19
I poured out my heart, baring my soul to God, my God:
4–8 “ ‘O Master, great and august God. You never waver in your covenant commitment, never give up on those who love you and do what you say. Yet we have sinned in every way imaginable. We’ve done evil things, rebelled, dodged and taken detours around your clearly marked paths. We’ve turned a deaf ear to your servants the prophets, who preached your Word to our kings and leaders, our parents, and all the people in the land.
“ ‘Master, you are our God, for you delivered your people from the land of Egypt in a show of power—people are still talking about it! We confess that we have sinned, that we have lived bad lives. Following the lines of what you have always done in setting things right, setting people right, please stop being so angry with Jerusalem, your very own city, your holy mountain. We know it’s our fault that this has happened, all because of our sins and our parents’ sins, and now we’re an embarrassment to everyone around us. We’re a blot on the neighborhood. So listen, God, to this determined prayer of your servant. Have mercy on your ruined Sanctuary. Act out of who you are, not out of what we are.
18 “ ‘Turn your ears our way, God, and listen. Open your eyes and take a long look at our ruined city, this city named after you. We know that we don’t deserve a hearing from you. Our appeal is to your compassion. This prayer is our last and only hope:
19 “ ‘Master, listen to us!
Master, forgive us!
Master, look at us and do something!
Master, don’t put us off!
Your city and your people are named after you:
You have a stake in us!’
Today's Insights
Daniel’s commitment to prayer is seen throughout the book that bears his name. When threatened with death in response to Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (ch. 2), he and his three friends prayed for God’s provision of an answer. We also see his commitment in chapter 6 when he continued his habit of prayer despite the king’s decree and the threat of death in the lions’ den. Here in chapter 9, we find Daniel’s great intercessory prayer on behalf of himself and his fellow captives. These situations demonstrate the priority he placed on prayer. As we make prayer a priority in our lives, we can boldly bring our concerns to God.
Pray What’s on Your Heart
Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. Daniel 9:17
Brenda and Eddie got in the car and began their Thursday evening ritual. “Where would you like to eat?” “Oh, Eddie, I don’t care, anywhere is fine, really.” Eddie’s been here before. “Okay, how about The Windmill?” Brenda bristles. “No, anywhere but there!” Eddie sighs. “So where, then?” Brenda insists, “Really, anywhere is fine.”
It’s the stuff of comedy sketches, humorous from a distance because we know how maddening it is in the moment.
Sometimes it can be that way in our prayer lives too. We’re too vague. In contrast, the prayer in Daniel 9 reveals Daniel boldly saying what he wants. First, he confesses the sins of his people: “We have sinned and done wrong” (v. 5). Then he makes his requests. “Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant” (v. 17). “Lord, listen! Lord, forgive! Lord, hear and act” (v. 19). God owed nothing to Daniel, but such was Daniel’s trust in God’s “great mercy” (v. 18) that he felt free to bring the full weight of his desires to Him.
It’s always right to pray “not as I will, but as you will,” as Jesus prayed to His Father the night before He was crucified (Matthew 26:39). But there are also times when saying what we want is the way forward. God honors our boldness when we come before Him with repentant hearts. So be bold, pray what’s on your heart, and entrust it to the God of great mercy.
Reflect & Pray
How do your prayers compare to Daniel 9:4-19? What might you need to confess before making your requests to God?
Now, my God, please hear the prayers of Your servant.
To learn more, check out Forgiveness & Reconciliation Reading Plan.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, December 07, 2025
Repentance
Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. — 2 Corinthians 7:10
Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things ever to strike us. It brings us to the threshold of a true understanding of God, showing us precisely whom we wrong when we sin: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight” (Psalm 51:4).
“When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin”(John 16:8). When the Holy Spirit rouses our conscience, bringing us into the presence of God and showing us that we are in the wrong about sin, what bothers us isn’t our relationship with other human beings but rather our relationship with our heavenly Father.
“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret.” Conviction of sin is so interwoven with the marvel of forgiveness and with holiness that it is only the forgiven person who is the holy person. The forgiven prove they are forgiven by becoming, by the grace of God, the opposite of what they were before. Repentance always brings us to this realization: “I have sinned.” The surest sign that God is at work in us is when we say this and mean it. Anything less is simply regret for having messed up, the reflex reaction of disgust at ourselves.
The entrance into the kingdom is through the pains of repentance. The Holy Spirit produces these pains and sends them crashing against our respectable “goodness.” Then the Spirit begins to form the Son of God in our old lives, transforming them into something new. This new life manifests itself in conscious repentance and unconscious holiness, never the other way around.
Repentance is the bedrock of Christianity. Strictly speaking, we can’t choose to repent; repentance is a gift from God, the result of “godly sorrow.” The Puritans used to pray for “the gift of tears.” If you ever stop knowing the virtue of repentance, you are in darkness. Examine yourself and see if you’ve forgotten how to be sorry.
Daniel 5-7; 2 John
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Crises reveal character. When we are put to the test the hidden resources of our character are revealed exactly.
Disciples Indeed, 393 R
