NO EXEMPTION FOR ANXIETY - July 1, 2026
By Max Lucado
Anxiety is a meteor shower of what-ifs. The sky is falling, and it’s falling disproportionately on you. Anxiety ain’t fun!
One would think Christians would be exempt from anxiety. But we are not. It’s enough to make us wonder if the apostle Paul was out of touch with reality when he wrote in Philippians 4:6, “Be anxious for nothing.” Is that what he meant? Not exactly. He
wrote the phrase in the present active tense—implying an ongoing state. As if to say, “Don’t let anything in life leave you perpetually breathless and in angst.”
The presence of anxiety is unavoidable, but the prison of anxiety is optional. Could you use some calm? Of course you could. We all could. We all could use a word of comfort. And God is ready to give it.
Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World
John 15
The Message
The Vine and the Branches
15 1-3 “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.
4 “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.
5-8 “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
9-10 “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.
11-15 “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.
16 “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.
17 “But remember the root command: Love one another.
Hated by the World
18-19 “If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you.
20 “When that happens, remember this: Servants don’t get better treatment than their masters. If they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you. If they did what I told them, they will do what you tell them.
21-25 “They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don’t know the One who sent me. If I hadn’t come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn’t be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse. Hate me, hate my Father—it’s all the same. If I hadn’t done what I have done among them, works no one has ever done, they wouldn’t be to blame. But they saw the God-signs and hated anyway, both me and my Father. Interesting—they have verified the truth of their own Scriptures where it is written, ‘They hated me for no good reason.’
26-27 “When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes—the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father—he will confirm everything about me. You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start.”
Our daily Bread
Today's Scripture & Insight :
Luke 22:14-23
The Message
14-16 When it was time, he sat down, all the apostles with him, and said, “You’ve no idea how much I have looked forward to eating this Passover meal with you before I enter my time of suffering. It’s the last one I’ll eat until we all eat it together in the kingdom of God.”
17-18 Taking the cup, he blessed it, then said, “Take this and pass it among you. As for me, I’ll not drink wine again until the kingdom of God arrives.”
19 Taking bread, he blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, given for you. Eat it in my memory.”
20 He did the same with the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant written in my blood, blood poured out for you.
21-22 “Do you realize that the hand of the one who is betraying me is at this moment on this table? It’s true that the Son of Man is going down a path already marked out—no surprises there. But for the one who turns him in, turns traitor to the Son of Man, this is doomsday.”
23 They immediately became suspicious of each other and began quizzing one another, wondering who might be about to do this.
Insight
God commanded the Jews to observe the Passover to remind them how the blood of the lamb saved them from death. The Passover, a family meal, commemorated their new beginning as God’s redeemed people (Exodus 12). Jesus gave the bread and wine new meaning when He celebrated the Passover with His disciples before going to the cross (Luke 22:15-20). He instituted a new remembrance meal—the Lord’s Supper or Communion—as a reminder that He’s “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29), “our Passover lamb” (1 Corinthians 5:7), who was sacrificed to take away our sins. In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul writes of the Lord’s Supper in a worship setting, instructing us to celebrate it “in remembrance of [Him]” (v. 25): “Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (v. 26). Celebrating Communion is an act of worship where we remember His
Remaining in Jesus
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them.
John 6:56
Today's Scripture & Insight :
Luke 22:14-23
“A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered.” These words, uttered by a character in C. S. Lewis’ book Out of the Silent Planet, depict the joy one has in reminiscing over cherished experiences in life. Though we rightly delight in the breathtaking scenery along the path of a hike or in sharing an important milestone with a loved one, what we feel might be merely the initial pleasure. Often, later reflection on such moments (and those like them) compound the joy of having experienced them.
Perhaps this is another reason Jesus instructs His disciples to regularly share in what we call the Lord’s Supper. As He shared the Passover meal with them the night before His death, He infused it with a new layer of meaning. When partaking of the unleavened bread and “fruit of the vine,” Jesus described them as representing His body and His blood (Luke 22:19-20). His disciples were to share this meal regularly, doing so “in remembrance of [Him]” (v. 19).
The Jewish people remember how God delivered them from Egypt through celebrating Passover (see Exodus 12:17). Those who trust in Jesus’ sacrifice retell God’s deliverance from the consequences of sin by partaking of the Lord’s Supper—a somber, yet joyful remembrance. By sharing in it regularly, we practice what it means to “remain” in fellowship with Jesus (see John 6:56) and savor the pleasure of our communion with Him.
By: Kirsten Holmberg
Reflect & Pray
How is remembering important in your worship of God? What might you remember about His work in your life today?
Please help me, dear Father, to remember Your good works!
The Inevitable Penalty
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. —Matthew 5:26
There is no heaven with a little of hell in it,” George MacDonald wrote. God is determined to make you pure and holy and right. Not for one second will he allow you to escape the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit.
Do you remember when the Holy Spirit convicted you? He urged you to come to judgment right away, but you didn’t listen, and the inevitable process began to unfold. Now you are in prison, and you won’t get out until you’ve paid the last penny (Matthew 5:25–26).
“Is this a God of mercy and love?” you ask. From God’s point of view, his actions are a glorious ministry of love. His goal is to make you pure and undefiled. But first, he wants you to recognize the disposition you’ve been showing. He wants you to see that you’ve been insisting on your right to yourself. The moment you agree to let God change your disposition, his re-creating forces will begin to work. Once you realize God’s purpose, which is to get you rightly related to him and then to your fellow human beings, he will tax the last limits of the universe to help you take the right road.
“You will not get out . . .” The warning Jesus issues here, in the Sermon on the Mount, points us toward the right road, calling to our conscience. Every moral call has a “should” behind it, an element that speaks to the will and the conscience, not to the intellect. If you dispute the Sermon on the Mount with your head, you will weaken its appeal to your heart.
If your relationship to God seems stuck, ask yourself, Have I done everything my conscience is telling me to do? Have I paid my debts from God’s standpoint? If not, say to the Lord, “I’ll write that apology tonight. I’ll reconcile with that person now.” Do now what you will have to do someday, and your relationship with God will be set right.
Job 20-21; Acts 10:24-48
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.
We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed.
A Word With You
Not Just When There’s Trouble - #10298
July 1, 2026
Scripture: Isaiah 30:1
One of the most amazing scientific advances in my lifetime has been those great space shuttle flights. Especially back when they were first getting started. We got to hear space news on a pretty regular basis and watch those dramatic launches. We’d hear conversations from space. We still do, from the Space Station. It looks like we’re getting back into the moon business too! You know, you could hear the familiar sound of the conversation between the NASA Mission Control Center and those astronauts up there. The space day would begin with a wake up song from Houston. They’d play something that would say, “Good morning!” Then they would communicate back and forth all day long. Of course, they were in constant communication. See, when you’re living in an environment where so much could go wrong; it’s really important to do that.
I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Not Just When There’s Trouble.”
Our word for today from the Word of God – Isaiah 30. I’ll begin at verse 1: “’Woe to the obstinate children,’ declares the Lord.” Who are those? “Those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade for refuge. But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame. Everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace.”
This is a description of God’s people off course; they’re off on their own. They’ve made some plans, they’ve made some alliances, they’ve asked for some help. But it’s only going to lead to shame and disgrace. Why are they off course? Well, he said they planned but “not by my Spirit.” They’ve gone ahead “without consulting me.”
Imagine if our astronauts had only communicated with Mission Control at launch time, and then as soon as they were safely up, they went off and did what they pleased; no input all day from the data that they have at Mission Control? Well, that would be dumb if not disaster!
And then the only other time they would contact Mission Control was when a crisis developed. I can just imagine Houston coming back and saying, “If you’d been in touch with us all along, there might not have been a crisis.” Or, “We could have helped you correct it when it was small.”
I’ve done that so many times in my relationship with my Mission Control - I mean my Heavenly Father. Have you? We have a good time talking when we’re launching something. As the day begins, I spend my time with the Lord, and we talk through the issues of that day. And then, of course, I run to Him when trouble develops. But I neglect the points in between sometimes. I tend to neglect that regular communication throughout the non-crisis details of the day and that’s a big mistake. You know, just stop for a moment and say, “Lord, what do You want done here? Which way should I go on this? Who’s the right person? What’s the best way to answer this? What’s the best way to solve this?”
Listen to those words; they’re haunting words. God says, “You’ve proceeded without consulting me. You’re carrying out plans that are not mine.” We don’t mean to. It just happens because we do not stay in close, all day communication when those little choices are being made that make the big choices. Many crises are the result of everyday decisions we make without consulting our Commander.
We need to consciously practice what Jesus calls “abiding in Him.” Not just visiting. Abiding in Him! Like those astronauts, we need to stay in constant contact with Mission Control.
