Max Lucado Daily: God as Heart Surgeon
Grace is God as heart surgeon! Grace is God cracking open your chest, removing your heart, poisoned as it is with pride and pain, and replacing it with his own.
God's dream isn't just to get you into heaven, but to get heaven into you. Grace lives because Jesus does, works because he works, and matters because he matters. To be saved by grace is to be saved by Jesus-not by an idea, doctrine, creed, or church membership, but by Jesus himself, who will sweep into heaven anyone who so much as gives him the nod. Grace won't be stage-managed. I have no tips on how to get grace. Truth is, we don't get grace. But it can sure get us.
If you wonder whether God can do something with the mess of your life, then grace is what you need! Make certain it happens to you!
From GRACE
Luke 17:20-37
When the Son of Man Arrives
20–21 Jesus, grilled by the Pharisees on when the kingdom of God would come, answered, “The kingdom of God doesn’t come by counting the days on the calendar. Nor when someone says, ‘Look here!’ or, ‘There it is!’ And why? Because God’s kingdom is already among you.”
22–24 He went on to say to his disciples, “The days are coming when you are going to be desperately homesick for just a glimpse of one of the days of the Son of Man, and you won’t see a thing. And they’ll say to you, ‘Look over there!’ or, ‘Look here!’ Don’t fall for any of that nonsense. The arrival of the Son of Man is not something you go out to see. He simply comes.
24–25 “You know how the whole sky lights up from a single flash of lightning? That’s how it will be on the Day of the Son of Man. But first it’s necessary that he suffer many things and be turned down by the people of today.
26–27 “The time of the Son of Man will be just like the time of Noah—everyone carrying on as usual, having a good time right up to the day Noah boarded the ship. They suspected nothing until the flood hit and swept everything away.
28–30 “It was the same in the time of Lot—the people carrying on, having a good time, business as usual right up to the day Lot walked out of Sodom and a firestorm swept down and burned everything to a crisp. That’s how it will be—sudden, total—when the Son of Man is revealed.
31–33 “When the Day arrives and you’re out working in the yard, don’t run into the house to get anything. And if you’re out in the field, don’t go back and get your coat. Remember what happened to Lot’s wife! If you grasp and cling to life on your terms, you’ll lose it, but if you let that life go, you’ll get life on God’s terms.
34–35 “On that Day, two men will be in the same boat fishing—one taken, the other left. Two women will be working in the same kitchen—one taken, the other left.”
37 Trying to take all this in, the disciples said, “Master, where?”
He told them, “Watch for the circling of the vultures. They’ll spot the corpse first. The action will begin around my dead body.”
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Saturday, March 07, 2026
by Lisa M. Samra
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Ephesians 4:1-7
To Be Mature
1–3 4 In light of all this, here’s what I want you to do. While I’m locked up here, a prisoner for the Master, I want you to get out there and walk—better yet, run!—on the road God called you to travel. I don’t want any of you sitting around on your hands. I don’t want anyone strolling off, down some path that goes nowhere. And mark that you do this with humility and discipline—not in fits and starts, but steadily, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences.
4–6 You were all called to travel on the same road and in the same direction, so stay together, both outwardly and inwardly. You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all. Everything you are and think and do is permeated with Oneness.
7–13 But that doesn’t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift.
Today's Insights
Disunity keeps the church weak and ineffective in its role of making disciples. In John 17, Jesus prayed for unity among believers in Him (vv. 20-23). He knew they’d need each other as they faced trials because of their faith. Paul also had much to say about the importance of unity. In Ephesians 4, he urged believers “to live a life worthy of the calling you have received” (v. 1) and to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (v. 3). In Philippians, he called Euodia and Syntyche “to be of the same mind in the Lord” (4:2). Finally, in Colossians he urged his readers to “bear with each other and forgive one another” and “put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity” (3:13-14). When believers in Christ are unified in love for Him, they bring hope and light to a dark world (Matthew 5:14-16).
One in Christ
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
In January 1967, the town of Winneconne discovered it had been mistakenly omitted from the official Wisconsin state road map, costing the town vital tourist revenue. So the town decided to secede from Wisconsin and become its own sovereign state on July 21 of that year. Some say the secession was a move to embarrass the state government, while others claim it was a tongue-in-cheek act of humor. In any case, months of negotiations resulted in state and town coming together again on July 22, 1967.
Most division isn’t as good-natured or as easily resolved. Division is such a threat that the book of Proverbs lists “the person who stirs up conflict” (6:19) as one of seven things “that are detestable to [God]” (v. 16).
Division may not only cause problems but misrepresents Jesus and His Father. The night before the cross, Christ prayed that His followers would be one in Him, “that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).
Jesus made it clear that our unity as brothers and sisters in Christ (or lack of it) impacts the world’s belief in Him! Perhaps that’s why Paul told the Ephesians, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3). May we allow the Spirit of Christ to make us one—that the world may be drawn to Him.
Reflect & Pray
What are some of the things that can divide you from other believers? How can those potential points of conflict be resolved, so that the body of Christ might know and display unity?
Dear Father, please give me a heart for my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Learn how you can cultivate unity within your church and community.
The book of Obadiah is the least read book of the Bible. Check out this offering from Reclaim Today to learn how to apply the teachings of Obadiah.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Saturday, March 07, 2026
Undaunted Radiance
In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. — Romans 8:37
In all these things . . .” Paul is speaking here of things that might seem likely to separate the sanctified soul from the love of God. But the remarkable thing is that nothing can separate the two. Certain things can and do come between God and our devotional practices or private life with him. But nothing can separate the sanctified soul from his love.
The bedrock of Christian faith is the unearned, fathomless marvel of the love of God displayed on the cross, a love we never can and never will deserve. Paul says that this is the reason we are “more than conquerors through him who loved us.” We are super-victors through Christ, and the joy we take in this fact is directly related to the magnitude of the challenges we face.
The wave that distresses the new swimmer gives the seasoned surfer the extreme joy of riding clean through it. For the sanctified soul, tribulation, distress, and persecution are not things to fight or fear or avoid: they are sources of jubilation. In them, we are more than conquerors through Christ—not in spite of them but in the middle of them. If certain things didn ’t seem likely to overwhelm us, we wouldn’t fully appreciate Christ ’s victory. We know the joy of the Lord not in spite of hardship but because of it. “In all our troubles my joy knows no bounds,” Paul says (2 Corinthians 7:4).
Undaunted radiance is not built on anything passing. It is built on the love of God, which nothing can alter. The experiences of life, however terrible or monotonous, are powerless to touch it.
Deuteronomy 3-4; Mark 10:32-52
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.”
The Shadow of an Agony, 1166 R
