Max Lucado Daily: GRACE IS PERSONAL - April 16, 2026
Christ took away your sins. He endured not just the nails of the Romans, the mockery of the crowd, and the spear of the soldier, but he endured the anger of God.
God didn’t just overlook your sins, lest he endorse them. He didn’t punish you, lest he destroy you. Instead he found a way to punish the sin and preserve the sinner. Jesus took your punishment, and God gave you credit for Jesus’ perfection.
As long as the cross is God’s gift to the world, it will touch you but it will not change you. Precious as it is to proclaim, “Christ died for the world,” even sweeter it is to whisper, “Christ died for me.” For my sins he died. He took my place on the cross. He felt my shame, he spoke my name. Thank God for the day Jesus took your place, for the day grace happened to you.
Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine
Luke 22:24-46
Get Ready for Trouble
24–26 Within minutes they were bickering over who of them would end up the greatest. But Jesus intervened: “Kings like to throw their weight around and people in authority like to give themselves fancy titles. It’s not going to be that way with you. Let the senior among you become like the junior; let the leader act the part of the servant.
27–30 “Who would you rather be: the one who eats the dinner or the one who serves the dinner? You’d rather eat and be served, right? But I’ve taken my place among you as the one who serves. And you’ve stuck with me through thick and thin. Now I confer on you the royal authority my Father conferred on me so you can eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and be strengthened as you take up responsibilities among the congregations of God’s people.
31–32 “Simon, stay on your toes. Satan has tried his best to separate all of you from me, like chaff from wheat. Simon, I’ve prayed for you in particular that you not give in or give out. When you have come through the time of testing, turn to your companions and give them a fresh start.”
33 Peter said, “Master, I’m ready for anything with you. I’d go to jail for you. I’d die for you!”
34 Jesus said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Peter, but before the rooster crows you will have three times denied that you know me.”
35 Then Jesus said, “When I sent you out and told you to travel light, to take only the bare necessities, did you get along all right?”
“Certainly,” they said, “we got along just fine.”
36–37 He said, “This is different. Get ready for trouble. Look to what you’ll need; there are difficult times ahead. Pawn your coat and get a sword. What was written in Scripture, ‘He was lumped in with the criminals,’ gets its final meaning in me. Everything written about me is now coming to a conclusion.”
38 They said, “Look, Master, two swords!”
But he said, “Enough of that; no more sword talk!”
A Dark Night
39–40 Leaving there, he went, as he so often did, to Mount Olives. The disciples followed him. When they arrived at the place, he said, “Pray that you don’t give in to temptation.”
41–44 He pulled away from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” At once an angel from heaven was at his side, strengthening him. He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.
45–46 He got up from prayer, went back to the disciples and found them asleep, drugged by grief. He said, “What business do you have sleeping? Get up. Pray so you won’t give in to temptation.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, April 16, 2026
by Lisa M. Samra
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Proverbs 11:11-13
When right-living people bless the city, it flourishes;
evil talk turns it into a ghost town in no time.
12 Mean-spirited slander is heartless;
quiet discretion accompanies good sense.
13 A gadabout gossip can’t be trusted with a secret,
but someone of integrity won’t violate a confidence.
Along with today’s passage, the book of Proverbs has much to say about the trouble gossiping causes. Proverbs 16:28 states, “A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.” Twice we read, “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to the inmost parts” (18:8; 26:22). In the NLT Study Bible, a note on 18:8 says: “It’s as hard to refuse to listen to rumors or gossip as it is to turn down a delicious dessert. Taking just one morsel of either one creates a taste for more.” Verse 20:19 warns, “A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid anyone who talks too much.” Listening to or spreading gossip destroys friendships and leads to a desire for more gossip. As believers in Jesus, God can help us be people of integrity who use speech that honors Him.
Listen and learn more about rediscovering friendship.
Hollow Willow
A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret. Proverbs 11:13
When explaining how valuable he found time with an older advisor who regularly listened to his concerns, Tomáš said, “He is my hollow willow.” When I looked at him blankly, Tomáš explained that the phrase is a Slovak expression signifying someone who keeps your secrets. In essence, the person is like a willow tree holding confidential information safely within its trunk.
It’s a treasure to have someone to whom we can confide our deepest fears and longings. Perhaps speaking from his own experience, in a section of Proverbs highlighting the power of our words, King Solomon commended the individual who displays discretion or can “[hold] their tongue” (Proverbs 11:12). He also contrasted two people: “A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret” (v. 13). The comparison is a helpful reminder to carefully steward private conversations, though we shouldn’t remain silent if we’re genuinely concerned for someone’s safety.
In our digital world where we can quickly spread information, it can be tempting (and easy) to share juicy details that might generate reactions. But gossip not only hurts the individual who trusted you enough to share, it also causes significant damage to relationships when confidences are broken. We can all aspire to be “hollow willows,” people of integrity who can be trusted to keep a confidence.
Reflect & Pray
Who’s someone you know that embodies the ideal of a “hollow willow?” How might you hold others’ words well?
Dear God, please help me steward others’ words responsibly.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, April 16, 2026
Can You Come Down?
Believe in the light while you have the light. — John 12:36
We all have moments when we feel better than our best, moments when we’re up for anything. “If only I could always feel like this!” we say. We aren’t meant to. Moments of inspiration are moments for us to live up to after the moment has passed. Many of us are no good for this workaday world when we’re not inspired. We have to learn that God wants us to bring our workaday life up to the standard revealed to us on high.
Never allow a feeling stirred in you on the mountaintop to evaporate when you descend into the valley. Don’t sit back, put up your feet, and say, “What a wonderful state of mind to be in!” Instead, act immediately, if only because you’d rather not. If you are praying and God shows you something he wants you to do, don’t says, “I’ll do it.” Get up and do it. Take yourself by the scruff of the neck and shake off your laziness.
Laziness is always seen in cravings for the mountaintop experience. We talk about “working toward” the great experience or “working up to” the moment of glory. We have to learn to live in the gray day according to what we saw on the mount. Don’t cave in because your experience has failed to live up to your expectations. Get at it again. Burn your bridges behind you. Stand committed to God; stand as an act of your own free will. Never go back on your decisions—but be sure to make them in the light of the vision you received on high.
1 Samuel 30-31; Luke 13:23-35
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The vital relationship which the Christian has to the Bible is not that he worships the letter, but that the Holy Spirit makes the words of the Bible spirit and life to him.
The Psychology of Redemption, 1066 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, April 16, 2026
I imagine it's been a little while since you've asked somebody, "How's your liver today?" I never thought about it until my wife got sick. She had hepatitis, and for many months I learned how vital the liver is; never thought about it before. It's the filtration plant of your body. We've got all kinds of toxic materials pumping into us every day in medicines that we take, and foods that we eat, and our liver keeps those poisons from getting into our blood stream. Now, liver disease like hepatitis or cirrhosis can cripple you or even kill you if the poison can't be filtered. See, it's deadly if the poisons don't get filtered and they get into your blood stream. And there is one toxin that is on the loose, and it has a long history of being a killer.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Poison In the Blood Stream."
Now, our word for today from the Word of God is going to come from Matthew 27. I'll begin reading from verse 18. And you are going to see the identification of perhaps one of life's most deadly toxins. We're in the middle of one of history's most ironic and most tragic episodes. Israel's Messiah has come in the person of Jesus Christ, and yet ironically it is the religious leaders who are clamoring to have Him executed. They bring Him to Pilate, because they don't have the authority to put Him to death. And there was a sobering footnote here as He is on trial before Pilate. You may have read past it many times. It's sort of a spiritual EKG that looks inside the human heart; what makes people so mean, so critical, so destructive. And it identifies that awful poison in the human blood stream.
Here's what it says in a little footnote to the trial of Jesus. "For Pilate knew it was out of envy that they had handed Jesus over to him." In the words of the King James Bible, "Out of envy they had delivered Jesus up to him." Oh, they offered a lot of smoke screens; they gave other reasons. A lot of it was spiritual talk. There were religious reasons, and they sounded very, very spiritual about it. But the real issue - bottom line - was envy. Jesus was delivered up because of it, and people are still being delivered up because of envy.
The dictionary says that envy is, "A feeling of discontent or jealousy, usually with ill will at seeing another's superiority, advantages or success." You see, envy is a denial of God's faithful provision for His children. It's saying, "You know what? He's got one and I don't. How come? How come I don't have any? It's not fair." And it often causes us to crucify people with religious words of course.
But envy is a poison in the blood stream. It always starts with comparing. You can't envy unless you first compare homes, children, or beauty, or opportunities, or clothes, or positions with what somebody else has. Isn't it interesting that one of the Ten Commandments of God is "You shall not covet." And you know what? You'll never covet if you don't compare. It always starts with comparing.
Think of someone you've been critical of lately - maybe negative toward them. When they come around you, you start getting some dark feelings. I wonder if you'd be honest enough to examine your motives today. Could it be envy at the root? You've seen what you perceive to be maybe their superiority, or their advantages, or their success. Ask yourself this, "If envy is in my life, Lord, who is the object of it? Envy gets all dressed up, starts to deliver someone up for destruction. It is an ugly poison in the blood stream. Pray for that person that you might be comparing yourself with and envying.
Call envy by name, and trust your Shepherd to give you what's right for you. Filter out that poison of envy. It's a killer!
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