Max Lucado Daily: Connected But Not Altered
When you give your life to Christ, He moves in, unpacks his bags and is ready to change you into His likeness. So why do I still have the hang-ups of Max?
Part of the answer is in the story of a wealthy but frugal lady living in a small house at the turn of the century. Friends were surprised when she had electricity put in her home. Weeks afterward, a meter reader appeared. “Your meter shows scarcely any usage,” he said. “Are you using your power?” “Certainly,” she answered. “Each evening I turn on my lights long enough to light my candles; then I turn them off.”
She’s tapped into the power but doesn’t use it. Her house is connected but not altered. Don’t we make the same mistake? God is willing to change us into the likeness of the Savior. Shall we accept His offer?
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” (Ephesians 1:18-19a).
From Just Like Jesus
Luke 13:23-35
A bystander said, “Master, will only a few be saved?”
He said, “Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you’ll sit down to God’s salvation banquet just because you’ve been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you’re going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you’ll find the door locked and the Master saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not on my guest list.’
26–27 “You’ll protest, ‘But we’ve known you all our lives!’ only to be interrupted with his abrupt, ‘Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don’t know the first thing about me.’
28–30 “That’s when you’ll find yourselves out in the cold, strangers to grace. You’ll watch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets march into God’s kingdom. You’ll watch outsiders stream in from east, west, north, and south and sit down at the table of God’s kingdom. And all the time you’ll be outside looking in—and wondering what happened. This is the Great Reversal: the last in line put at the head of the line, and the so-called first ending up last.”
31 Just then some Pharisees came up and said, “Run for your life! Herod’s on the hunt. He’s out to kill you!”
32–35 Jesus said, “Tell that fox that I’ve no time for him right now. Today and tomorrow I’m busy clearing out the demons and healing the sick; the third day I’m wrapping things up. Besides, it’s not proper for a prophet to come to a bad end outside Jerusalem.
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killer of prophets,
abuser of the messengers of God!
How often I’ve longed to gather your children,
gather your children like a hen,
Her brood safe under her wings—
but you refused and turned away!
And now it’s too late: You won’t see me again
until the day you say,
‘Blessed is he
who comes in
the name of God.’ ”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Sunday, February 08, 2026
by James Banks
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Deuteronomy 15:7-11
When you happen on someone who’s in trouble or needs help among your people with whom you live in this land that God, your God, is giving you, don’t look the other way pretending you don’t see him. Don’t keep a tight grip on your purse. No. Look at him, open your purse, lend whatever and as much as he needs. Don’t count the cost. Don’t listen to that selfish voice saying, “It’s almost the seventh year, the year of All-Debts-Are-Canceled,” and turn aside and leave your needy neighbor in the lurch, refusing to help him. He’ll call God’s attention to you and your blatant sin.
10–11 Give freely and spontaneously. Don’t have a stingy heart. The way you handle matters like this triggers God, your God’s, blessing in everything you do, all your work and ventures. There are always going to be poor and needy people among you. So I command you: Always be generous, open purse and hands, give to your neighbors in trouble, your poor and hurting neighbors.
Today's Insights
As the Israelites prepared to enter the promised land, they were to demonstrate God’s love by giving “generously to [the needy]” (Deuteronomy 15:10). Today, believers in Jesus also have the honor of making God and His love visible to the world by loving others. “No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us” (1 John 4:12 nlt). God demonstrated His love for us in the person and work of Christ: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us” (3:16). But loving others has a price tag. It may involve giving time, money, or material goods. The key word is giving: “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Galatians 6:10). And as we do, others can see God’s love and compassion through us.
When Love Shows Up
Give generously to [the needy] . . . and do so without a grudging heart. Deuteronomy 15:10
“Why are you crying?” The question was asked by a volunteer for a Christian relief ministry helping those whose homes had been destroyed by Hurricane Helene. The woman (who had burst into tears in the previous moment) replied, “I’m not crying because I lost everything. I’m crying because love just showed up.”
God’s heart shows itself in His desire that we help those in need. When Moses gave the people of Israel God’s instructions before they entered the land He’d promised them, he told them, “Do not be hardhearted or tightfisted” toward the poor. “Rather, be openhanded and freely lend them whatever they need” (Deuteronomy 15:7-8). Their hearts toward the poor were to reflect God’s own: “Give generously to them and do so without a grudging heart” (15:10).
Whether in disastrous situations or everyday life, when we give to those in need out of the blessings God has kindly given us, we make evident the love of His Son, who came “to proclaim good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). In fact, God promises He “will bless” those who share His unselfishness with others (Deuteronomy 15:10), both in this life and the next (see Luke 14:14). We can’t see God yet, but others may catch a glimpse of Him when we emulate His compassion for them. May His love show up as kindness through us today.
Reflect & Pray
How has God shown you kindness when you were in need? How might you show Jesus’ love to someone in need today?
Merciful, generous Father, please help me give to others with an open heart, so that they may see Your love in me.
Dig deeper into understanding God's heart by reading The Meaning of Compassion.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Sunday, February 08, 2026
One with Him
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. — 1 Thessalonians 5:23
When we pray to be sanctified, are we praying for the standard Paul sets here—the “through and through”? We take the term sanctification much too superficially. Sanctification means an intense narrowing of our earthly interests and an immense broadening of our interests in God. It means an intense concentration on God’s point of view—every power of body, soul, and spirit bound and kept for him. Are we prepared to let God do his work in us? And when his work is done, are we prepared to set ourselves apart, as Jesus set himself apart?
God wants us to be sanctified entirely. The reason some of us haven’t entered into the experience of entire sanctification is that we haven’t understood the meaning of it from God’s viewpoint: “For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified” (John 17:19). Sanctification means being made one with Jesus, so that the mindset which ruled him will also rule us. Are we prepared for what that will cost? It will cost everything that is not of God in us.
To be caught up in the swing of Paul’s prayer, the “through and through,” means asking God to make us as holy as he can make sinners saved by grace. Jesus prayed that we might be one with him as he is one with the Father (v. 21). The sanctified soul has one defining characteristic: a strong family resemblance to Jesus, a freedom from everything that doesn’t resemble him. Are we prepared to embrace this freedom by setting ourselves apart? Will we agree to let Jesus make us one with him, as he is one with the Father?
Leviticus 4-5; Matthew 24:29-51
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The great point of Abraham’s faith in God was that he was prepared to do anything for God.
Not Knowing Whither
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