Max Lucado Daily: Come to Me
Invitations are special.
"You're invited to a gala celebrating the grand opening of. . ."
"Mr. and Mrs. John Smith request your presence at the wedding of their daughter. . ."
To be invited is to be honored-to be held in high esteem! The most incredible invitations aren't found in envelopes, but rather, they are found in the Bible. God invited Eve to marry Adam, the animals to enter the ark, and Mary to give birth to His son.
"Come," he invited, "Come to me all of you who are tired and have heavy loads, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28)."
"Come," he would say. God is the King who invites us to come, who prepares the palace, sets the table, and invites his subjects to come in. His invitation for you, however, is not just for a meal, it's for life!
From And the Angels Were Silent
Judges 13
Samson
1 13 And then the People of Israel were back at it again, doing what was evil in God’s sight. God put them under the domination of the Philistines for forty years.
2–5 At that time there was a man named Manoah from Zorah from the tribe of Dan. His wife was barren and childless. The angel of God appeared to her and told her, “I know that you are barren and childless, but you’re going to become pregnant and bear a son. But take much care: Drink no wine or beer; eat nothing ritually unclean. You are, in fact, pregnant right now, carrying a son. No razor will touch his head—the boy will be God’s Nazirite from the moment of his birth. He will launch the deliverance from Philistine oppression.”
6–7 The woman went to her husband and said, “A man of God came to me. He looked like the angel of God—terror laced with glory! I didn’t ask him where he was from and he didn’t tell me his name, but he told me, ‘You’re pregnant. You’re going to give birth to a son. Don’t drink any wine or beer and eat nothing ritually unclean. The boy will be God’s Nazirite from the moment of birth to the day of his death.’ ”
8 Manoah prayed to God: “Master, let the man of God you sent come to us again and teach us how to raise this boy who is to be born.”
9–10 God listened to Manoah. God’s angel came again to the woman. She was sitting in the field; her husband Manoah wasn’t there with her. She jumped to her feet and ran and told her husband: “He’s back! The man who came to me that day!”
11 Manoah got up and, following his wife, came to the man. He said to him, “Are you the man who spoke to my wife?”
He said, “I am.”
12 Manoah said, “So. When what you say comes true, what do you have to tell us about this boy and his work?”
13–14 The angel of God said to Manoah, “Keep in mind everything I told the woman. Eat nothing that comes from the vine: Drink no wine or beer; eat no ritually unclean foods. She’s to observe everything I commanded her.”
15 Manoah said to the angel of God, “Please, stay with us a little longer; we’ll prepare a meal for you—a young goat.”
16 God’s angel said to Manoah, “Even if I stay, I won’t eat your food. But if you want to prepare a Whole-Burnt-Offering for God, go ahead—offer it!” Manoah had no idea that he was talking to the angel of God.
17 Then Manoah asked the angel of God, “What’s your name? When your words come true, we’d like to honor you.”
18 The angel of God said, “What’s this? You ask for my name? You wouldn’t understand—it’s sheer wonder.”
19–21 So Manoah took the kid and the Grain-Offering and sacrificed them on a rock altar to God who works wonders. As the flames leapt up from the altar to heaven, God’s angel also ascended in the altar flames. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell facedown to the ground. Manoah and his wife never saw the angel of God again.
21–22 Only then did Manoah realize that this was God’s angel. He said to his wife, “We’re as good as dead! We’ve looked on God!”
23 But his wife said, “If God were planning to kill us, he wouldn’t have accepted our Whole-Burnt-Offering and Grain-Offering, or revealed all these things to us—given us this birth announcement.”
24–25 The woman gave birth to a son. They named him Samson. The boy grew and God blessed him. The Spirit of God began working in him while he was staying at a Danite camp between Zorah and Eshtaol.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, February 14, 2026
by Karen Pimpo
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Jeremiah 31:1-4, 7, 9
“And when that happens”—God’s Decree—
“it will be plain as the sun at high noon:
I’ll be the God of every man, woman, and child in Israel
and they shall be my very own people.”
2–6 This is the way God put it:
“They found grace out in the desert,
these people who survived the killing.
Israel, out looking for a place to rest,
met God out looking for them!”
God told them, “I’ve never quit loving you and never will.
Expect love, love, and more love!
And so now I’ll start over with you and build you up again,
dear virgin Israel.
You’ll resume your singing,
grabbing tambourines and joining the dance.
7 Oh yes, God says so:
“Shout for joy at the top of your lungs for Jacob!
Announce the good news to the number-one nation!
Raise cheers! Sing praises. Say,
‘God has saved his people,
saved the core of Israel.’
Today's Insights
God disciplined His chosen people because of their unfaithfulness. Jerusalem was destroyed and the Israelites exiled to Babylon (Jeremiah 1:14-16; 5:15-19; 6:22-23; 25:9-11). But once the discipline was complete, God brought them back from exile (30:8-17), restored their privileges as His chosen nation (vv. 18-24), and, most important, restored the people to Himself (ch. 31). He did this because of His special love and unmerited mercy. God is “Israel’s father and [Israel] is [his] firstborn son” (v. 9). He assured them, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (v. 3). God’s discipline isn’t inconsistent with His love, for “the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in” (Proverbs 3:12). We can be assured that God loves us and pursues us with His everlasting love.
God’s Eternally Beloved
I have loved you with an everlasting love. Jeremiah 31:3
One of the most dramatic and mysterious love letters of all time was penned by composer Ludwig van Beethoven and was only discovered after his death in 1827. The hastily handwritten letter is full of passionate lines like, “My eternally beloved . . . I can only live either wholly with you or not at all.” Tragically, it appears the letter was never sent, and his intended recipient remains unknown.
Beethoven’s letter is treasured by readers who can identify with his desperate yearning for love. We seek love and fulfillment in many people, things, and experiences that cannot fully satisfy. But far greater than a fleeting romance is the love of God for His covenant people, to whom He showed great love for the sake of all people. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God declared, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). Because of His great love, God promised a future of rest and favor (v. 2) and the restoration of anything that was broken (v. 4). Despite their repeated rejection and rebellion, God vowed to bring them back to Himself (v. 9).
Many years later, that same everlasting love motivated Jesus to endure death for sinners, even before we ever returned His love (Romans 5:8). We don’t have to search for love or try to earn it. We’re already loved with an everlasting love!
Reflect & Pray
In what ways do you look for love on earth? How has God demonstrated His eternal love to you?
Loving God, I’m so grateful for the way You pursue me with an everlasting love.
How can we love each other the way God calls us to? Find out more by watching A Different Kind of Love.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, February 14, 2026
The Discipline of Darkness
What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight. — Matthew 10:27
At times, God puts us into the shadow of his hand, holding us in darkness so that we might be still and learn to listen. Songbirds are taught to sing in the dark; we are taught to hear our Lord.
Are you in the dark right now, confused about your circumstances or your life with God? If you are, keep quiet: darkness is the time to listen. If you talk in the dark, you will talk in the wrong mood. Don’t consult other people about your problem; don’t seek the answers in a book. Other people’s voices and opinions will drown out what God is trying to tell you. Listen to God in the dark, and he will give you a precious message for someone else when you get back into the light.
After every time of darkness, there comes a mixture of delight and humiliation. There is delight at finally hearing God, and humiliation at how long it took to listen. “How slow I’ve been in understanding!” you’ll say. “And yet, God has been saying it all these days and weeks.” If you feel only delight, it is doubtful you have heard him at all.
Learn to welcome the humiliation as a gift: it is God’s way of teaching you how to listen better in the future. If you do, you will develop the softness of heart that always hears God now.
Leviticus 15-16; Matthew 27:1-26
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Sincerity means that the appearance and the reality are exactly the same.
Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, 1449 L
