Max Lucado Daily: WAITING ON HELP - October 7, 2026
The man near the pool of Bethesda didn’t use the word “stuck,” but he sure could have. For 38 years near the edge of a pool, it was just him, his mat, and his paralyzed body. And since no one would help him, help never came.
Crowds of people, despondent, dejected, one after the other, awaited their chance to be placed in the pool where healing waters bubbled up. Can you envision them? And more important, can you envision Jesus walking among them?
All the gospels’ stories of help and healing invite us to embrace this wonderful promise: “Wherever Jesus went, he healed people of every sort of illness. And what pity he felt for the crowds that came because their problems were so great and they didn’t know what to do or where to go for help” (Matthew 9:35-36 TLB).
My friend, remember Jesus sees you and you are never alone.
You Are Never Alone: Trust in the Miracle of God's Presence & Power
Proverbs 26
Fools Recycle Silliness
1 26 We no more give honors to fools
than pray for snow in summer or rain during harvest.
2 You have as little to fear from an undeserved curse
as from the dart of a wren or the swoop of a swallow.
3 A whip for the racehorse, a tiller for the sailboat—
and a stick for the back of fools!
4 Don’t respond to the stupidity of a fool;
you’ll only look foolish yourself.
5 Answer a fool in simple terms
so he doesn’t get a swelled head.
6 You’re only asking for trouble
when you send a message by a fool.
7 A proverb quoted by fools
is limp as a wet noodle.
8 Putting a fool in a place of honor
is like setting a mud brick on a marble column.
9 To ask a moron to quote a proverb
is like putting a scalpel in the hands of a drunk.
10 Hire a fool or a drunk
and you shoot yourself in the foot.
11 As a dog eats its own vomit,
so fools recycle silliness.
12 See that man who thinks he’s so smart?
You can expect far more from a fool than from him.
13 Loafers say, “It’s dangerous out there!
Tigers are prowling the streets!”
and then pull the covers back over their heads.
14 Just as a door turns on its hinges,
so a lazybones turns back over in bed.
15 A shiftless sluggard puts his fork in the pie,
but is too lazy to lift it to his mouth.
Like Glaze on Cracked Pottery
16 Dreamers fantasize their self-importance;
they think they are smarter
than a whole college faculty.
17 You grab a mad dog by the ears
when you butt into a quarrel that’s none of your business.
18–19 People who shrug off deliberate deceptions,
saying, “I didn’t mean it, I was only joking,”
Are worse than careless campers
who walk away from smoldering campfires.
20 When you run out of wood, the fire goes out;
when the gossip ends, the quarrel dies down.
21 A quarrelsome person in a dispute
is like kerosene thrown on a fire.
22 Listening to gossip is like eating cheap candy;
do you want junk like that in your belly?
23 Smooth talk from an evil heart
is like glaze on cracked pottery.
24–26 Your enemy shakes hands and greets you like an old friend,
all the while conniving against you.
When he speaks warmly to you, don’t believe him for a minute;
he’s just waiting for the chance to rip you off.
No matter how cunningly he conceals his malice,
eventually his evil will be exposed in public.
27 Malice backfires;
spite boomerangs.
28 Liars hate their victims;
flatterers sabotage trust.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
by Lisa M. Samra
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Philippians 3:17-21
Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal. There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I’ve warned you of them many times; sadly, I’m having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ’s Cross. But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites.
20–21 But there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven! We’re waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ, who will transform our earthy bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He’ll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him.
Today's Insights
When Paul wrote Philippians, he was writing from prison (1:13). While there, he also wrote Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon, which are referred to as the Prison Epistles. How did the apostle endure such difficult times? In part, by focusing beyond that moment to when he’d see his Savior and in part by focusing on others. While imprisoned, his heart was breaking for those who were living in opposition to the gospel: “As I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18). His tears demonstrated his concern for others. Our hope in Jesus and concern for others can lift us beyond our present circumstances to lives of hope and purpose as we wait for our longings to be fulfilled when Christ returns (vv. 14, 21).
For further study, read: All Things New
Longing For Jesus’ Return
Our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:20
When I was young, I loved going to Chick-fil-A, a US-based fast-food restaurant, for waffle fries and sweet tea. When, as an adult, I moved to another state, I was shocked to discover there weren’t any locations for hundreds of miles! On family road trips, we’d even plan our routes to allow for stops at Chick-fil-A, all the while hoping someday one would open closer to home.
Longing. We all experience it. Sometimes we don’t actually need what we long for, such as a favorite restaurant. Other times, our longings reflect deeper, more desperate yearnings.
Writing to the Philippian believers, Paul reminded them to live their lives in light of their deepest longing—Christ’s return and the full coming of His kingdom (Philippians 3:20). Jesus’ coming would make everything whole and transform believers to be like Him (v. 21).
Rather than merely longing for what can’t bring lasting satisfaction, Paul says it’s this coming reality that believers “eagerly await” (v. 20)—the day when there will be no more suffering, when we’ll see Jesus face-to-face.
Knowing our longings will one day be satisfied gives us the hope we need to live for Christ each day (vv. 12-14).
A Chick-fil-A recently opened a few miles from my house, a small reminder that a much more important longing will one day be fulfilled. Until then, we wait.
Reflect & Pray
What do you long to see Jesus make right? What do you most anticipate about your future with Jesus?
Dear Jesus, please fill us with hope as we wait for Your return.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
Reconciliation
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. — 2 Corinthians 5:21
Sin is a fundamental relationship. It isn’t wrongdoing; it’s wrong being. Sin is deliberate and emphatic independence from God. The Christian religion bases everything on the radical, singular nature of sin. Other religions deal with sins; the Bible alone deals with sin. The heredity of sin in humankind was the first thing Jesus Christ addressed. Because we have ignored this in our preaching, the message of the gospel has lost its sting and its explosive power.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us.” The revelation of the Bible isn’t that Jesus Christ took upon himself our sins, but that he took upon himself the heredity of sin, which no human being can touch. God made his Son to “be sin” so that any sinner could “become the righteousness of God.”
The Bible reveals that our Lord bore the sin of the world by identifying himself with sin, not by sympathizing with it. He deliberately took the whole massed sin of humankind and placed it on his own shoulders; he bore that sin in his own being. By doing this, he redeemed all of humanity, rehabilitating it and putting it back where God designed it to be. Now, thanks to what Jesus Christ did on the cross, anyone can enter into union with God.
Human beings cannot redeem themselves. Redemption is God’s work, and it is work that has already been done; it’s finished and complete. How individuals experience redemption is a question of their individual choices. A distinction must always be made between the revelation of redemption, which applies equally to all, and the conscious experience of salvation in an individual’s life.
Isaiah 28-29; Philippians 3
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1465 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, October 07, 2026
No Time For Picnics - #10368
Scripture: Numbers 32:6
It was the strangest picnic in American history I think. It was July 1861, on a hill in Northern Virginia, overlooking a stream called Bull Run. The Southern states had seceded from the Union, they’d attacked a Union fort in April, and now what the North called “the rebel army” was headed for Washington, D.C. Most people in the capitol thought the Union Army was going to mop up these Southern forces in a matter of weeks, and they wanted to see it happen as the Northern troops moved to engage the Confederates at Bull Run. They came from church in their Sunday best, the ladies and gentlemen of Washington arriving at the hill overlooking Bull Run in their carriages. They laid out their tablecloths, commenced their picnic, and started passing the fried chicken. Down below, the men in blue and the men in gray mingled their blood in the waters of Bull Run.
I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “No Time For Picnics.”
How can people have a picnic when there’s a battle going on? That’s a question God must be asking of His own children—those who are supposed to be the soldiers in His army.
It’s a scene reminiscent of the day the ancient Jews were getting ready to invade the Promised Land, and a couple of the tribes asked if they could just take their inheritance on the safe side of the Jordan River and settle in there. In Numbers 32:6, our word for today from the Word of God, Moses asks them this haunting question, “Shall you sit here while your brothers go to war?” Well that’s a great question. How can you just settle into a comfortable little spot while there are battles to fight for God that require every one of us to be in the fight? A picnic while a battle is going on.
We were shocked that September 11, 2001, when nearly 3,000 Americans died in one day. Did you know that more than twice that many will die in America every day? On an average day in the United States, over 6,000 people go into eternity. Sadly, many—maybe most of them—will not be ready for eternity. Today in our world, over 150,000 people will go into eternity. Again, many with no relationship with Jesus and no hope of heaven. And there is a battle raging to get the Good News about Jesus to those folks in time!
There’s a small army of believers who understand that the battle is the responsibility of every one of us who belongs to Jesus. But, tragically, so many of those who could help rescue the spiritually dying are sitting on a hill with other believers, enjoying the view, passing the blessings, and playing no active role in the battle for human souls.
Yes, it’s true. God has to draw people to Him—spiritual rescue is totally a God-thing! But the same man who wrote the verses about us being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world is the same Apostle Paul who was driven to get the Gospel to as many people as possible…even at the cost of his own life.
The battle for a lost world. You know where it begins? It begins with your own family, your own co-workers, fellow students, and friends. When it comes to telling them what you know about Jesus, silence is not golden. No, it’s deadly. They need to see Jesus in your life but they need to hear about Jesus from your lips.
You can’t just enjoy the fellowship of those who are already headed for heaven while so many around you are headed for hell! God has a place for you in this battle, my friend, and the battle is the Lord’s! For you, this is no time to be passing the chicken. It’s time to be passing the ammunition!
As that great missionary Amy Carmichael said, “We will have all eternity to celebrate our victories, but only a few short hours to win them.” And we are in those few short hours.
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