Max Lucado Daily: LOOK FOR JESUS IN THE STORM - February 18, 2026
Peter and his fellow storm riders knew they were in trouble. According to Matthew 14:24-26, “But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.” About 4:00 a.m. the unspeakable happened. They spotted someone walking on the water. “‘A ghost!’ they said, crying out in terror!” They didn’t expect Jesus to come to them this way.
Neither do we. We expect to find Jesus in morning devotionals, church suppers, and meditation. We never expect to see him in a storm. But that’s where he does his finest work, for it is in storms that he has our keenest attention. He said. “Take courage; I am here” (Matthew 14:27 NLT).
Look over your shoulder friend; that’s God following you. Look into the storm friend; that’s Christ coming toward you.
Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear
Judges 17
Micah
1–2 17 There was a man from the hill country of Ephraim named Micah. He said to his mother, “Remember that 1,100 pieces of silver that were taken from you? I overheard you when you pronounced your curse. Well, I have the money; I stole it. But now I’ve brought it back to you.”
His mother said, “God bless you, my son!”
3–4 As he returned the 1,100 silver pieces to his mother, she said, “I had totally consecrated this money to God for my son to make a statue, a cast god.” Then she took 200 pieces of the silver and gave it to a sculptor and he cast them into the form of a god.
5 This man, Micah, had a private chapel. He had made an ephod and some teraphim-idols and had ordained one of his sons to be his priest.
6 In those days there was no king in Israel. People did whatever they felt like doing.
7–8 Meanwhile there was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah and from a family of Judah. He was a Levite but was a stranger there. He left that town, Bethlehem in Judah, seeking his fortune. He got as far as the hill country of Ephraim and showed up at Micah’s house.
9 Micah asked him, “So where are you from?”
He said, “I’m a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah. I’m on the road, looking for a place to settle down.”
10 Micah said, “Stay here with me. Be my father and priest. I’ll pay you ten pieces of silver a year, whatever clothes you need, and your meals.”
11–12 The Levite agreed and moved in with Micah. The young man fit right in and became one of the family. Micah appointed the young Levite as his priest. This all took place in Micah’s home.
13 Micah said, “Now I know that God will make things go well for me—why, I’ve got a Levite for a priest!”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Thursday, February 19, 2026
by Tom Felten
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Leviticus 25:35-43
“If one of your brothers becomes indigent and cannot support himself, help him, the same as you would a foreigner or a guest so that he can continue to live in your neighborhood. Don’t gouge him with interest charges; out of reverence for your God help your brother to continue to live with you in the neighborhood. Don’t take advantage of his plight by running up big interest charges on his loans, and don’t give him food for profit. I am your God who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
39–43 “If one of your brothers becomes indigent and has to sell himself to you, don’t make him work as a slave. Treat him as a hired hand or a guest among you. He will work for you until the Jubilee, after which he and his children are set free to go back to his clan and his ancestral land. Because the People of Israel are my servants whom I brought out of Egypt, they must never be sold as slaves. Don’t tyrannize them; fear your God.
Today's Insights
As the nation of Israel began to take shape, God wanted them to understand how they were to treat each other. Enslaving fellow Israelites was never to be part of the equation. “If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you,” He said, “help them as you would a foreigner and stranger” (Leviticus 25:35). And if any of them “become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves” (v. 39). Even this arrangement of indentured servitude wasn’t permanent. God said, “They are to work for you until the Year of Jubilee [every fiftieth year]. Then they and their children are to be released, and they will go back to their own clans and to the property of their ancestors” (vv. 40-41). It’s God’s desire that we never exploit one another but look out for each other’s interests. Because He lavished His love on us by sending Jesus, He’ll help us lavish His love on others.
Lavish Love
If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty . . . allow him to live with you. Leviticus 25:35 nlt
Todd invited his younger brother Alex, a recent college graduate, to come live with him in the house he’d built. He wanted to help his sibling gain some financial footing by allowing him to live rent-free for a while. After six months, Todd asked Alex to begin paying rent. Years later, Alex made an offer on his own home. When the offer was accepted, Todd surprised him by telling him that he’d deposited Alex’s rent payments in a savings account over the years and that the substantial sum of money was now his! Alex wept as he received the lavish gift.
In Leviticus 25, God gave Moses commands for the Israelites that included allowing those in need “to live with you” (v. 35 nlt). This command was part of God enacting “a jubilee year” (v. 10 nlt)—when debts were forgiven, those in poverty were helped, and the enslaved were freed (vv. 23-55). He declared that He’d lovingly led His people “out of Egypt to give [them] the land of Canaan and to be [their] God” (v. 38). He’d provided a new homeland, and now they were to imitate Him by showing love and opening their homes to others.
The apostle John would later write, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1). By Jesus’ sacrifice we can receive the fullness of that lavish love (v. 16). And as He helps us, we can lavish it on others.
Reflect & Pray
How have you experienced God’s lavish love? How can you extend it to others?
Loving God, please help me pour out Your amazing, lavish love on others.
God's very nature is love. Learn more by reading this piece by Oswald Chambers.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 19, 2026
The Initiative against Drudgery
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. — Isaiah 60:1
Drudgery—that hard, dull, seemingly unimportant work that no one wants to do—is one of the finest tests of character there is. Drudge work is utterly lowly and grubby. It requires us to get our hands dirty. It requires us to make an effort when we feel no motivation or divine inspiration. With drudgery, we have to take the first step as if there were no God. It’s no use waiting for God to help us: he will not. But the second we arise, we find he is there.
Whenever we come into contact with drudgery, we know immediately whether or not we are spiritually real. In the book of John, we see Jesus—God incarnate, the highest and holiest of beings—doing the lowliest kind of work: washing feet. “No servant is greater than his master,” he tells the disciples (13:16). Jesus brings himself down to the level of a servant, yet the moment he begins performing his lowly task, the work is transfigured. God’s light shines upon it, and it stops being lowly and becomes divine. Whenever we allow God to do a thing through us, he always transfigures it into something divine, just as he took on human flesh and transfigured it.
Every person who has the Holy Spirit dwelling inside them is a divine temple for our Lord. Keep this in mind whenever you’re faced with drudgery. If you arise and shine, no matter the task, the glory of the Lord will rise with you.
Leviticus 25; Mark 1:23-45
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
God created man to be master of the life in the earth and sea and sky, and the reason he is not is because he took the law into his own hands, and became master of himself, but of nothing else.
The Shadow of an Agony, 1163 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Thursday, February 19, 2026
THE HAND THAT KEEPS YOU SAFE - #10204
"I don't wanna go." When our boys were little, that was sometimes what they'd tell me when we were out in the woods where it was totally dark and a little scary. Well, not for me. I mean for them, of course. But I would reach for their hand and their little hand would instinctively reach up my way when we hit a dark stretch, and they'd grab on tight. Now the strangest thing happened. Once they had their father's hand, their feet started moving. They could go where they otherwise would never think about going as long as they had my hand.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Hand That Keeps You Safe."
At the other end of life's spectrum from little boys was where my wife's grandfather was. He was 94. He was unable to remember very much, including my wife - his granddaughter. She called him one day and she said, "Hi, Granddad." She, of course, told him her name, and she said, "I love you." He wasn't very happy about it. He said, "I don't know who this is." Some strange woman was calling and saying she loved him! What is this? Well, she reminded her Granddad of his only son and that she was his daughter. "I don't know you." Finally she just said, "Well, Granddad, remember this. Jesus loves you." To which he replied, "Now Him I know!" Isn't that interesting? After 94 years, not much that he could remember, but there was one person whose love and whose presence he was still aware of - Jesus.
Listen, that's not a religion. That's a relationship so real that it's there for you through every conceivable stage of life. For my wife, it was real when she used to walk that dark stretch of road from her house to the school bus as a little girl. They lived way back in the woods, and that last stretch was beyond where she could see Mommy, or the neighbor, or anyone. Knowing those trees could be hiding the bears and the mountain lions that she knew were in their area, she would just start to sing, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me."
This Jesus - this Savior - is literally the hand you never outgrow. The hand that is there for you as my hand was there for my boys in those dark and uncertain places. Here's our word for today from the Word of God. It's the familiar words of the 23rd Psalm. They're a description of a personal relationship with God that I hope you have, or if you don't, that you'll begin it.
These are the words my own father wanted me to read to him the day he was going into that heart surgery from which he would never recover. Here are the words, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want...Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you are with me."
This deep, personal, unloseable relationship with Jesus Christ is what I pray you will begin. It's the relationship your heart has always been hungry for. This is the Savior who'll be with you through the turbulence of being a teenager, the pressures of parenting, the lonely moments of being single, the darkness of depression, the struggle of disease, or divorce, or disaster, or facing death.
The hand of Jesus I think maybe is reaching out to you right now. If you look closely you'll see nail prints in that hand. They're there because of the price He paid to tear down the wall between you and God. His brutal death on the cross was to pay the death penalty for your sins and mine. Now He waits to forgive you; to be the one constant in your life and in your eternity no matter what changes.
Don't you want to grab that hand of Jesus to be your own personal Savior, your lifetime friend? Tell Him today, "Jesus, I give my life to the One who gave His life for me. I've been running it. You run it from now on. Jesus, I'm Yours."
Experience that love for yourself today. Go to our website because it's set up to help you begin your relationship with Jesus and to know you have. It's ANewStory.com.
You know, for an elderly grandfather, for a very sick father, for a frightened little girl, for you, the same never-leave-you person is Jesus. His hand is reaching. Won't you grab it? I'll tell you, He'll never, never let go.
