Max Lucado Daily: CONSIDER THE CONSEQUENCES - November 13, 2026
You’re gonna regret it.” I waved away the warning without turning around. “What was to regret? I took the shortcut.” I was on my way to a picnic. The table sat on the other side of a marsh. The parks department had kindly constructed a bridge over the marsh. But who needed a bridge?
I ventured in. The mud swallowed my feet. Squiggly things swam past me. I think I saw a set of eyeballs peering in my direction. I backpedaled, flip-flops sucked into the abyss. I exited, mud-covered, mosquito-bitten, and red-faced. I walked over and took my seat at the picnic table.
Made for a miserable picnic, but makes for an apt proverb. Life comes with voices, and voices lead to choices, and choices have consequences.
God Is with You Every Day
Ecclesiastes 5
God’s in Charge, Not You
15Watch your step when you enter God’s house.
Enter to learn. That’s far better than mindlessly offering a sacrifice,
Doing more harm than good.
2Don’t shoot off your mouth, or speak before you think.
Don’t be too quick to tell God what you think he wants to hear.
God’s in charge, not you—the less you speak, the better.
3Overwork makes for restless sleep.
Overtalk shows you up as a fool.
4–5When you tell God you’ll do something, do it—now.
God takes no pleasure in foolish gabble. Vow it, then do it.
Far better not to vow in the first place than to vow and not pay up.
6Don’t let your mouth make a total sinner of you.
When called to account, you won’t get by with
“Sorry, I didn’t mean it.”
Why risk provoking God to angry retaliation?
7But against all illusion and fantasy and empty talk
There’s always this rock foundation: Fear God!
A Salary of Smoke
8–9Don’t be too upset when you see the poor kicked around, and justice and right violated all over the place. Exploitation filters down from one petty official to another. There’s no end to it, and nothing can be done about it. But the good earth doesn’t cheat anyone—even a bad king is honestly served by a field.
10The one who loves money is never satisfied with money,
Nor the one who loves wealth with big profits. More smoke.
11The more loot you get, the more looters show up.
And what fun is that—to be robbed in broad daylight?
12Hard and honest work earns a good night’s sleep,
Whether supper is beans or steak.
But a rich man’s belly gives him insomnia.
13–17Here’s a piece of bad luck I’ve seen happen:
A man hoards far more wealth than is good for him
And then loses it all in a bad business deal.
He fathered a child but hasn’t a cent left to give him.
He arrived naked from the womb of his mother;
He’ll leave in the same condition—with nothing.
This is bad luck, for sure—naked he came, naked he went.
So what was the point of working for a salary of smoke?
All for a miserable life spent in the dark?
Make the Most of What God Gives
18–20After looking at the way things are on this earth, here’s what I’ve decided is the best way to live: Take care of yourself, have a good time, and make the most of whatever job you have for as long as God gives you life. And that’s about it. That’s the human lot. Yes, we should make the most of what God gives, both the bounty and the capacity to enjoy it, accepting what’s given and delighting in the work. It’s God’s gift! God deals out joy in the present, the now. It’s useless to brood over how long we might live.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Friday, November 13, 2026
by Patricia Raybon
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
1 Peter 3:8-12
Suffering for Doing Good
8–12Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.
Whoever wants to embrace life
and see the day fill up with good,
Here’s what you do:
Say nothing evil or hurtful;
Snub evil and cultivate good;
run after peace for all you’re worth.
God looks on all this with approval,
listening and responding well to what he’s asked;
But he turns his back
on those who do evil things.
Today's Insights
Peter’s call to kindness in 1 Peter 3:8-9 is a call to Christlikeness. An examination of the life of Jesus in the Gospels shows that He epitomized what we see here. The five characteristics listed in verse 8 are beneficial individually and collectively: “Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble” (the message). Paul writes something similar in Ephesians 4:31-32 but reverses Peter’s pattern. He begins with what not to do before listing positive encouragement: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Included in both passages is the word compassionate from the Greek word eusplagchnos, which means “well-compassioned” and “tenderhearted.” Kind actions are rooted in a kind heart. In our interactions with others, God can help us react with kindness instead of anger.
For additional reflection, read: The Marks of Real Love.
Kindness Instead
Repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called. 1 Peter 3:9
When Denis started his candy company in an economically depressed neighborhood, a potential investor asked about his rate of “churn.” Churn is how many employees quit because they hate their job. “Not one person,” Denis said. The investor was surprised. But Denis’ low churn described the workplace he’d set out to build—a kind place where he’d learned everyone’s name, greeted each worker every workday, and ensured all felt seen and valued. He’d created an atmosphere where “everybody felt recognized, safe, and respected.”
His commitment to creating a kind workplace isn’t unlike the harmony the apostle Peter urged believers in Jesus to live out in our homes, churches, and communities. “All of you,” he wrote, should “be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult” (1 Peter 3:8-9).
This instruction was sent to first-century church members scattered throughout Asia Minor, where persecution, put-downs, and poor treatment of believers in Jesus were common. But in response, “repay evil with blessing” and “seek peace and pursue it” (vv. 9-11), said Peter.
In a world where online anger, workplace wrath, road rage, political fury, and family flare-ups seem sadly common, we can ask God to tone down any rage within us. As believers in Christ, His Spirit can fill us with His love and light.
Reflect & Pray
When are you tempted to react with rage or evil actions? How can you offer kindness instead?
Please help me show Your compassion, loving God, and soften any rage within me.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Friday, November 13, 2026
Faith and Experience
I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. — Galatians 2:20
We have to battle through our moods into absolute devotion to Jesus Christ, to get out of the hole of our own experience into abandoned devotion to him. Think about what the New Testament says about Jesus Christ, and then think about the trifling, inadequate faith many of us have. The New Testament says that Jesus Christ can present us faultless before the throne of God, unutterably pure, absolutely rectified, and profoundly justified. It says that he has “become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). Yet we base our faith not in him but in our experiences. We complain that this or that hasn’t happened to us, and we talk about all the difficult things we’ve done on his behalf. How can we talk of making sacrifices for the Son of God? He has saved us from hell and perdition, and we talk about making sacrifices!
We have to continually move beyond our experiences into faith in Jesus Christ. We have to seek the New Testament Jesus Christ—not a prayer meeting Jesus Christ or a book Jesus Christ, but the Jesus Christ who is God incarnate, the Christ whose majesty so overwhelms us that we fall at his feet as if dead (Revelation 1:17). Our faith must be not in our experience but in the One from whom our experience springs. We can never directly experience Jesus Christ nor even hold him within the compass of our hearts, but we can build our faith in strong, emphatic confidence in him.
No wonder the Holy Spirit has such a rugged impatience with unbelief. He knows that all our fears are wicked, and that we fear because we won’t nourish ourselves in our faith. How can anyone who is identified with Jesus Christ suffer from doubt or fear! Our lives in him should be psalms of irrepressible, triumphant belief.
Lamentations 1-2; Hebrews 10:1-18
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end.
Not Knowing Whither, 901 R
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Friday, November 13, 2026
Twenty-Six Words That Can Change Your Forever - #10395
Scripture: John 3:16
We hear millions of words in our life…especially if you spend much time around me or our family. We forget most of the words we hear, don't we, except for some that are just too important to forget. Like our baby’s first words, or the last words of someone we love, or the words that end up changing our life. Our five-year-old grandson called me one day and he said, “Granddad, I stayed up extra late tonight till I could call and talk to you and tell you what I memorized.” It took me a while to recover from what he said, and turns out I’ll never forget it.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Twenty-Six Words That Can Change Your Forever.”
What my grandson quoted to me happens to be from the Bible, and perhaps the most important words in that whole book that’s filled with important words. And they’re our word for today from the Word of God. It’s 26 words—words you may have heard a thousand times, or maybe you’ve never heard before. Whatever the case, would you listen as if your life depends on them. It does. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Those words are the key to everything you’ve been looking for your whole life…the answer to your greatest need…the deciding factor in whether you will spend eternity in heaven or hell. They really are the 26 words that change everything.
Nearly a century ago, a ruined man was walking along South State Street in downtown Chicago. He headed for Lake Michigan where he was going to end his alcoholic, drug-addicted life. Suddenly he heard a familiar song coming from a building that he was walking by. The building was Pacific Garden Mission and the song was one his mother had sung to him as a little boy. As he entered, one of the workers greeted him and began to share with him those 26 life-changing words from John 3:16.
That night Bill Ward opened his life to the Man who died for all his sin, Jesus Christ. And he would testify for the rest of his life that, from that moment on, he never needed or wanted another drink or another drug. My wife is Bill Ward’s granddaughter, and she would not have ever been here if it were not for the night he traded death for life.
For years, Bill Ward and his wife traveled this country, pulling a trailer with 26 words lettered on the side: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” The same words his great-great grandson quoted to me on that wonderful night I'll never forget.
When I told him that every time I tell a group of people about Jesus, I tell them those words, he said, “Well, if I keep going to Sunday School and learning more Bible stories, maybe someday I can be a preacher and I can tell them those words.”
Well, now those words have come to you, demanding the same verdict that they have demanded for 2,000 years. God’s Son has died to pay for your sins. Now what are you going to do with Him? There are only two choices. You can abandon all hope in any religion or self-righteousness and you pin all your hopes on God’s “one and only Son” who paid your death penalty.
See, agreeing with Jesus won’t do it. Liking Him, knowing all about Him isn’t enough. Either you grab Jesus in total trust, or you reject Him and you pay forever for the sins He already paid for. This is your life-or-death decision—eternal life or death. Would you let this be the day that you commit yourself totally to Jesus, making the same choice that has transformed five generations of our family and so many lives for so many years?
Just tell him right where you are, "Jesus, I'm yours." And let me urge you to go to our website, because there you're going to find the information I've put there that just simply explains how you can be sure you have begun this relationship with Jesus Christ. The website is ANewStory.com.
Right now Jesus is waiting with open arms to welcome you home to the relationship that He died to give you.
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