Max Lucado Daily: JESUS HAS RISEN TO YOUR DEFENSE - April 13, 2026
Satan’s condemnation brings no repentance or resolve, just regret. Satan has come to steal, kill, and destroy. To steal your peace, to kill your dreams, to destroy your future. Satan has deputized people to peddle his poison. Friends dredge up your past, preachers proclaim all guilt and no grace, and parents—oh your parents! They own a travel agency that specializes in guilt trips. “Why can’t you grow up?” they say. “When are you going to make me proud?” they say.
But your accusers will not have the last word. Jesus has acted on your behalf. Jesus has risen to your defense. Hebrews 10:22 (NCV) says, “Let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, because we have been made free from a guilty conscience.” Not just for our past mistakes, but also for our future ones.
Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine
Psalm 52
A David Psalm, When Doeg the Edomite Reported to Saul, “David’s at Ahimelech’s House”
1–4 52 Why do you brag of evil, “Big Man”?
God’s mercy carries the day.
You scheme catastrophe;
your tongue cuts razor-sharp,
artisan in lies.
You love evil more than good,
you call black white.
You love malicious gossip,
you foul-mouth.
5 God will tear you limb from limb,
sweep you up and throw you out,
Pull you up by the roots
from the land of life.
6–7 Good people will watch and
worship. They’ll laugh in relief:
“Big Man bet on the wrong horse,
trusted in big money,
made his living from catastrophe.”
8 And I’m an olive tree,
growing green in God’s house.
I trusted in the generous mercy
of God then and now.
9 I thank you always
that you went into action.
And I’ll stay right here,
your good name my hope,
in company with your faithful friends.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, April 13, 2026
by Dave Branon
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Ephesians 2:1-9
He Tore Down the Wall
1–6 2 It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.
7–10 Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing!
Today's Insights
When C. S. Lewis was asked what makes Christianity unique, he didn’t hesitate: “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.” God’s grace is the overarching theme of Ephesians 2. Paul points out how, without grace, we wouldn’t even be aware of our spiritual condition. “You [all of us] were dead in your transgressions and sins,” he wrote (v. 1). A dead body can do nothing to rescue itself. And we were all spiritually dead, “gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts” (v. 3). But God “made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved” (v. 5). It’s all God’s grace, “so that no one can boast” (v. 9). God’s grace draws us to Him. God’s grace keeps us. His grace sets us free “to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (v. 10).
Visit go.odb.org/041326 to learn about the extent of God’s grace in offering us salvation.
The Power of Grace
It is by grace you have been saved, through faith. Ephesians 2:8
When Mark was pulled over by an officer for driving while intoxicated, he was afraid his college football career was over. He was sure he was going to jail. But the policeman instead dropped him off at his college. When Mark asked why, he said, “I’m giving you grace.”
Still, the young man was certain his coach would find out, and he’d lose his scholarship. So when his coach asked to see Mark after practice the next day, he was very apprehensive. Surprisingly the coach said, “I know what happened last night, but I’m giving you grace.” He then suggested that Mark consider attending church the next Sunday.
He went. And guess what the pastor talked about? The grace of Jesus in offering us salvation when we don’t deserve it. Mark got the message. That day, he trusted Jesus as Savior, and he spent the rest of his life serving Him—starting a ranch for boys who need a second chance—who need grace.
It’s by God’s grace that believers in Jesus “have been saved” (Ephesians 2:8). Grace does what good works can’t do (v. 9; Romans 11:6). It’s a gift provided by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
The burden of our sin doesn’t have to weigh us down. As Mark discovered, God’s grace can free us and give us life “to the full” (John 10:10).
Reflect & Pray
How have you experienced God’s grace in your life? What are some ways you can show it to others?
Dear God, thank You for showering Your grace on me. Please help my life to be marked by grace and mercy.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, April 13, 2026
You Who Are Weary and Burdened
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. — Matthew 11:28
Are you weary and burdened? The Lord says to come to him, and he will give you rest. Just make sure the burden you are bearing is the right kind of burden. We should never bear the burden of sin or doubt, but at times God places other burdens on us he doesn’t intend to lift. He gives them to us so that we will give them back to him: “Cast your cares on the Lord” (Psalm 55:22).
If we take on work for God and then get out of touch with him, the sense of responsibility is crushing. But if we roll back onto God the burden he’s placed on us, he takes away our sense of responsibility, removing it by bringing in a strong realization of himself.
Many who do God’s work start out with high courage and fine intentions. But if they aren’t in intimate fellowship with Jesus Christ, they are soon overwhelmed. Their cares exhaust them, and their fine beginning comes to a bitter end.
“For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). You have been bearing it all. Jesus wants to ease the strain. Deliberately put one end of the yoke on his shoulders. Commit to God the burden he has given you. Never disassociate yourself from it; never fling it carelessly away. Instead, put the burden over on God, and yourself beside him. If you do, the sense of companionship you’ll find with your Lord will immediately lighten your load.
1 Samuel 22-24; Luke 12:1-31
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, 903 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, April 13, 2026
MIRACULOUSLY CHANGED - #10241
Think about what you looked like in seventh grade. You say, "Oh, no! Please, I'd rather not." Are you thinking, "Man, what a hunk I was! What a Miss America!" Probably not.
Our daughter had a funny experience in her senior French class in high school. There was some down time and some girls were comparing their wallet pictures, including our daughter. She had her senior picture and she also had her seventh grade picture. The teacher asked what everybody was laughing at. Now, my daughter has always had a beautiful smile, but I've got to tell you in seventh grade it was decorated with braces. She had glasses. Her hair was kind of kinky and curly, and she looked like a seventh grader.
Well, her French teacher looked at that picture next to the very beautiful senior in her graduation picture; no glasses, long hair, carefully curled hair, big, blue eyes not concealed by glasses. And that teacher had a simple two-word reaction. I think it was the French words, "La Miracle!" Well, my daughter was laughing with her friends and her teacher at that seventh grade picture because, it wasn't her anymore.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Miraculously Changed."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 1 Corinthians 6:9. It starts out with very bad news and ends with some really good news. We read about people with a past here, with a reputation - a record. "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." That's a lot of guilt, a lot of shame, a lot of pain there.
But listen to 1 Corinthians 6:11. Stand by for the very good news. "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified." That means made special again. "You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." People who are cleaned up, made special again, made right with God; only one possible way, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's like my daughter with her seventh grade picture. She couldn't laugh at it when she was that person, but she sure could as a senior because that photo represented who she was then, not now. That's the "la miracle" of being a new creation in Jesus Christ.
Here's what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 - "When you're in Christ you're a new creation. The old is gone; a new life has begun." He not only changes your eternal future from hell to heaven and makes your present meaningful and satisfying, but He miraculously makes your past sins irrelevant. It may be that you're sometimes pursued by a past you wish you could do over or erase, but the question is, "Did you honestly bring it to Jesus' cross and repent of it?"
Well, if that's so, Acts 3:19 says, "Repent and turn to God and your sins will be wiped away and times of refreshing will come from the Lord." It's gone! God is treating you as if you're a whole new person.
Listen to this: "He carried our sins in His own body on the tree that we might die to sin and live for righteousness" (1 Peter 2:24). He's dealt with your past. It's all paid for on His cross. It's all part of the sorrows He carried and the sin He was crushed for.
This very day you can have every one of those sins erased from God's Book if you would come to Jesus and say, "Jesus, you died for my sin, I'm putting my trust in You." That miracle could take place for you this very day. I would love to show you how. Just go to our website - it's ANewStory.com.
You can tear up the old photo. That was you. It won't be you any more because of Jesus.
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