Max Lucado Daily: A PRAYER LIFE REBOOT - June 1, 2026
I’m a recovering prayer wimp. For years my prayers seemed to zig, then zag, then zig again. Maybe you can relate. Perhaps your prayer life could use a tune up, a reboot? If that sounds overwhelming, I’m inviting you to a simpler plan. Four minutes, plus four weeks, equals forever change! Every day for four weeks, pray for four minutes, focusing on these core elements of prayer:
Father, You are good.
I need help.
They need help.
Thank you.
It’s that simple. Really! Talking with God doesn’t have to be complicated or complex. The power isn’t in the words we pray, but in the One who hears them. Here’s my challenge for you: every day for four weeks, pray four minutes. Then get ready to connect with God like never before.
Before Amen: The Power of a Simple Prayer
Psalm 3
A David Psalm, When He Escaped for His Life from Absalom, His Son
1–2 3 God! Look! Enemies past counting!
Enemies sprouting like mushrooms,
Mobs of them all around me, roaring their mockery:
“Hah! No help for him from God!”
3–4 But you, God, shield me on all sides;
You ground my feet, you lift my head high;
With all my might I shout up to God,
His answers thunder from the holy mountain.
5–6 I stretch myself out. I sleep.
Then I’m up again—rested, tall and steady,
Fearless before the enemy mobs
Coming at me from all sides.
7 Up, God! My God, help me!
Slap their faces,
First this cheek, then the other,
Your fist hard in their teeth!
8 Real help comes from God.
Your blessing clothes your people!
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, June 01, 2026
by Amy Boucher Pye
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Deuteronomy 14:23-29
Bring this into the Presence of God, your God, at the place he designates for worship and there eat the tithe from your grain, wine, and oil and the firstborn from your herds and flocks. In this way you will learn to live in deep reverence before God, your God, as long as you live. But if the place God, your God, designates for worship is too far away and you can’t carry your tithe that far, God, your God, will still bless you: exchange your tithe for money and take the money to the place God, your God, has chosen to be worshiped. Use the money to buy anything you want: cattle, sheep, wine, or beer—anything that looks good to you. You and your family can then feast in the Presence of God, your God, and have a good time.
27 Meanwhile, don’t forget to take good care of the Levites who live in your towns; they won’t get any property or inheritance of their own as you will.
28–29 At the end of every third year, gather the tithe from all your produce of that year and put it aside in storage. Keep it in reserve for the Levite who won’t get any property or inheritance as you will, and for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow who live in your neighborhood. That way they’ll have plenty to eat and God, your God, will bless you in all your work.
Today's Insights
Scripture reveals that God has been generous to us and calls us to be generous to others (Deuteronomy 14:29). The ultimate way that He’s demonstrated His generosity is in the giving of His Son. In Philippians 2, Paul says that Jesus “gave up his divine privileges; . . . he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being” (v. 7 nlt). Then “he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross” (v. 8 nlt). All that we have comes from God, our generous creator. In response, He’ll help us give freely to others.
Generous Giving
Bring all the tithes . . . so that . . . the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows . . . may come and eat and be satisfied. Deuteronomy 14:28-29
When Oswald and Biddy Chambers ran a Bible college in London from 1911 to 1915, they continued with their life principle of not turning away those in need. Astute Londoners were aghast at this practice, thinking the college would be taken advantage of. In response, Oswald observed, without inviting others to follow in the practice, “My responsibility is to give. God will look after who asks.”
The couple followed the example of our generous Creator. Through His instructions to Moses, God laid out gracious ways for His people to live and serve others, including the giving of their food and possessions. Moses told the Israelites at the end of every three years to “bring all the tithes” so the Levites, “foreigners, the fatherless and the widows,” could come and “eat and be satisfied” (Deuteronomy 14:28-29). Through the generosity of His people, God cares for the vulnerable.
The Chambers’ trust in God was so strong that they gave willingly and without question. They’d learned to “revere . . . God always” (v. 23) and receive His blessing “in all the work of [their] hands” (v. 29).
We may also feel inspired to give freely while we lean on God for wisdom and discernment. We know that God will generously lead and guide as He provides for the foreigners, the fatherless, and the widows.
Reflect & Pray
What’s your view and practice of giving? How has God provided for your physical, emotional, and spiritual needs.
Generous God, I look to You for all I need. I know that You’re the source of all good things. I worship You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, June 01, 2026
The Staggering Question
Son of man, can these bones live? — Ezekiel 37:3
Can that sinner be turned into a saint? Can that twisted life be put right? There is only one answer: “Sovereign Lord, you alone know” (Ezekiel 37:3).
Some of us think we know exactly what another soul needs. We come trampling in, armed with religious common sense, and say, “Oh, yes. With a little more Bible reading and devotion and prayer, I see how it can be done.” If we think this way, we are mistaking panic for inspiration. It’s much easier to do something than to trust in God. That is why so few of us work with God, while so many of us run around doing tasks he never asked us to do, saying we’re working for him. We would rather busy ourselves with work for God than believe in him.
If I believe in God, I know that he will do what I can’t. I despair of his ability to help others when I fail to see how he has helped me. Once I realize what God’s power has accomplished in my own life, I will stop despairing of others. But if I’ve never had any spiritual work done, I will panic. I panic to the exact degree that I lack personal spiritual experience.
“My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is apart from his presence, he has to show it to you inside yourself. If the Holy Spirit has given you this vision—the vision of what you are apart from the grace of God—you know that the worst criminal is only half as bad in practice as you are in possibility. “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Romans 7:18). God’s Spirit continually reveals what human nature is apart from his grace.
2 Chronicles 15-16; John 12:27-50
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The great word of Jesus to His disciples is Abandon. When God has brought us into the relationship of disciples, we have to venture on His word; trust entirely to Him and watch that when He brings us to the venture, we take it.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, June 01, 2026
Finding Your Way Home - #10275
May 29, 2026
Scripture: Galatians 2:20
A police officer spotted this little guy standing on a busy street corner in this huge city, crying. Of course, he tried to help the boy by asking him his address, and Scotty didn't know. The officer asked him his phone number, and he just said through his tears, "I can't remember." The officer was running out of options. He was just about to take that little guy down to the station when he thought of one last question: "Little boy, is there anything near your house that I might recognize?" That was the moment the little guy discovered the one thing that really helped him finally get home.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Finding Your Way Home."
There was one landmark that lost boy was able to identify for the policeman. He said, "Mister, next to my house there's this big church, and it's got a big cross on the top. And if you can get me to that cross, I can find my way home." So can you - home to the love that you've been looking for your whole life; home to the only relationship that will finally fill that hole in your heart. And, one day, home to the heaven we all want to go to but that none of us deserves. Finding your way home means first "getting to the cross."
Not long ago, a friend of mine met a 30-something man on a plane who had left the church of his childhood years to embark on a search for spiritual reality. Along the way, there were a lot of religions, many spiritualities, no satisfaction. Then, he said, "One day I stepped back into the church I'd grown up in. I was the only one there. Up in front, I saw the cross that I'd looked at so many times as a kid. But suddenly something hit me that I had missed all those years. I found myself saying, "For me. That cross was for me." And that's where his long search ended.
That's where the spiritual search of millions has ended. Looking at that cross, seeing what Jesus did there, and suddenly saying those two words that change everything, "for me." Our word for today from the Word of God, Galatians 2:20, puts it this way: "Christ loved me and gave Himself for me." For many people in recent times, Mel Gibson's portrayal of Jesus' death in his movie, "The Passion of the Christ," revealed the enormity of the suffering and the sacrifice that Jesus went through. And one can understandably ask, "What made such a bloody, horrific death necessary?" Answer, my sin - and your sin.
Because sin isn't just breaking some religion's rule. Na, no, no. It's declaring ourselves "God" of our own life; taking a life God made and doing with it what we want. That sin carries the death penalty of an unbearable hell - an eternal separation from God. And that's what Jesus was carrying for you in His body and His soul as He agonized on that cross. And three days later, He walked out of His grave under His own power.
Which means you can have, not a religion about Him, but a relationship with Him. If you will make personal what He did on that cross by telling Him, "Jesus, I believe that when You died, You were dying for me. I'm putting my total trust in you to be my personal rescuer from my personal sin. Beginning right here; beginning right now, I am Yours."
If you're ready to trade your emptiness for His peace, and your hell for His heaven, make sure that this is the day you say "Jesus, I'm Yours," Don't put this off another day. No other day is guaranteed, but today. To support you in this I want to invite you to our website where many people have gone and confirmed their own relationship with Jesus Christ. That website is ANewStory.com. Go there as soon as you can today, please.
The search of a lifetime ends at the foot of an old rugged cross. And if you can get to the cross my friend, you can finally find your way home.
No comments:
Post a Comment