Max Lucado Daily: PROBLEM OF UNRESOLVED GUILT - July 15, 2026
What kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one, forever hiding, running, denying, pretending. As one man admitted: “I was always living a lie for fear someone might see me for who I really was and think less of me. I hid behind my super spirituality but this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing.”
Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess. In a psalm David wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the king said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat” (Psalm 32:3-4 NLT).
As Paul told Titus, “God’s grace is the fertile soul out of which courage sprouts! God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11, 15 MSG).
Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World
Psalm 26
A David Psalm
1 26 Clear my name, God;
I’ve kept an honest shop.
I’ve thrown in my lot with you, God, and
I’m not budging.
2 Examine me, God, from head to foot,
order your battery of tests.
Make sure I’m fit
inside and out
3 So I never lose
sight of your love,
But keep in step with you,
never missing a beat.
4–5 I don’t hang out with tricksters,
I don’t pal around with thugs;
I hate that pack of gangsters,
I don’t deal with double-dealers.
6–7 I scrub my hands with purest soap,
then join hands with the others in the great circle,
dancing around your altar, God,
Singing God-songs at the top of my lungs,
telling God-stories.
8–10 God, I love living with you;
your house glows with your glory.
When it’s time for spring cleaning,
don’t sweep me out with the quacks and crooks,
Men with bags of dirty tricks,
women with purses stuffed with bribe-money.
11–12 You know I’ve been aboveboard with you;
now be aboveboard with me.
I’m on the level with you, God;
I bless you every chance I get.
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
by Winn Collier
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Ephesians 5:15-20
So watch your step. Use your head. Make the most of every chance you get. These are desperate times!
17 Don’t live carelessly, unthinkingly. Make sure you understand what the Master wants.
18–20 Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him. Sing hymns instead of drinking songs! Sing songs from your heart to Christ. Sing praises over everything, any excuse for a song to God the Father in the name of our Master, Jesus Christ.
Today's Insights
Ephesians 5 invites us to walk in Christ’s light rather than stumble through the darkness of the world (v. 8). In verses 15-20, we encounter a surprising source of spiritual strength: gratitude. Paul urges us to “be filled with the Spirit” (v. 18) and to “[give] thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 20). Gratitude is a posture and attitude that returns our focus to the source of all good things (see James 1:16-18). When we express our thankfulness—even in ordinary or difficult moments—we acknowledge God’s presence and goodness. This reorientation helps us to live intentionally, reflecting Christ’s love. The apostle’s command to give thanks is paired with God’s enabling presence (Ephesians 5:18). The Holy Spirit fills, shapes, and empowers us to live a life of gratitude, which turns our hearts toward God.
For further study, read God at the Center: Habits for Spiritual Growth.
Always Giving Thanks
Be very careful, then, how you live . . . . always giving thanks to God. Ephesians 5:15, 20
A fifty-ton, female humpback whale swam into a web of crab lines off the coast of California, trapping her in a tangled mess. Hundreds of feet of line and hundreds of pounds of traps wrapped around her body as she struggled to stay afloat. Four divers came to her rescue, swimming under her belly. For an hour, they cut rope—dangerous work since one flap of her tail could have killed them. After they freed her, rather than immediately escaping, she swam to and gently nudged each diver. “It felt to me like she was thanking us,” one rescuer said.
Whether or not whales are able to express gratitude, being thankful is truly an important part of being human. It’s vital for our life with God. Many of us thank Him for larger blessings (the birth of a child or healing from a disease). However, Paul tells us to offer gratitude for every gift we receive, for every bit of goodness we encounter. We’re to be “always giving thanks to God,” the apostle writes (Ephesians 5:20). Not sometimes. Not only for exceptional moments. Always. And to make sure he’s made his point, Paul adds a bit more. “[Make] the most of every opportunity” and give thanks “for everything,” he says (vv. 16, 20).
Genuine gratitude is more than an occasional word we offer; it’s the posture of our lives. Gratitude turns us to God over and over again, always giving thanks in celebration.
Reflect & Pray
What gifts can you thank God for today? How can you move toward a posture of gratitude?
Dear God, please help me to live a life of gratitude to You.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Spiritual Honor
I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome. —Romans 1:14-15
Paul’s obligation to others came from an overwhelming sense of his indebtedness to Jesus Christ, and he spent himself to express it. The great inspiration in Paul’s life was his view of Jesus Christ as his spiritual creditor. Do I feel this same sense of obligation to Christ, so that I preach the gospel to “Greeks and non-Greeks . . . the wise and the foolish”—to every unsaved soul? The spiritual honor of my life is to pay my debt to Jesus Christ in relation to them.
Every bit of my life that is of value I owe to the redemption of Jesus Christ. Am I doing anything to help him manifest his redemption in others’ lives? Only when the Spirit forges inside me a sense of obligation to Christ will I be able to spend myself for him.
“You are not your own; you were bought at a price” (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). If I have a sense of indebtedness, I know that I am not a superior person but a slave of Jesus Christ. Paul sold himself to Jesus Christ and became the debtor of all. “I owe something to everyone on the face of the earth because of the gospel of Jesus,” Paul is saying in Romans 1:14. “I owe it to the world to preach his word.” Paul’s sense of spiritual honor meant that he was free to be an absolute slave only. Quit worrying about yourself and be spent for others as the slave of Jesus. That is the meaning of being made broken bread and poured-out wine for him.
Psalms 13-15; Acts 19:21-41
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We should always choose our books as God chooses our friends, just a bit beyond us, so that we have to do our level best to keep up with them.
Shade of His Hand, 1216 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Helping Others Live - #10308
Ron Hutchcraft
Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:11
I first learned about the United States Life-Saving Service years ago on a family vacation. We got to see a life-saving station that actually has been preserved at a strategic point along the Atlantic coastline. There used to be a lot of them. In some areas, they were like just seven miles apart, you know, along the coast. Each one was staffed by a seven-man crew. I’m going to tell you, these guys were ultimate heroes in every sense of the word! When a ship was in distress near their assigned area, they’d go out into the surf, out into the storm, even a hurricane to try to rescue the people on board. They lived their motto: “You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.” They saved countless lives who otherwise would have been lost.
But it was only recently that I learned how this heroism actually all began. William Newell was a medical doctor, and he was at the New Jersey Shore at a place called Barnegat the day after a ship had gone down during an overnight storm. He was at the beach and the bodies of 13 crewmen washed ashore. He said, “Here I was, a man who spent his life trying to save lives. And here was a situation where I was absolutely powerless to do anything to help them. Something’s got to be done about this.” Something was. A few years later, Dr. Newell was Congressman Newell; in a position to make a difference. So, he led the effort to birth the United States Life-Saving Service. It started with a few life-saving stations in New Jersey, and then it quickly spread all along the Atlantic Coast because of one man’s heart for those who were being lost.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Helping Others Live.”
One man looked at lives being lost and he said, “I cannot just let them die.” Jesus is like that. That’s why He went to an awful cross to rescue us from the otherwise inevitable eternal death penalty for our sins. And He’s looking for others who will have a heart like his; a heart that looks at people around you and says, “I can’t just let them die. I’ve got to do something about this.”
One of Jesus’ original rescuers, the Apostle Paul, expressed the heart that Jesus wants to plant in all of us in 2 Corinthians 5, beginning with verse 11. It’s our word for today from the Word of God. He said, “Since we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade men.”
Paul never wanted anyone he knew to have to face the awful judgment of God for their sin. He went on to say, “Christ’s love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all.” If Jesus could die to save them, can’t I at least tell them what He did for them? I can’t just let them die. Where I live, where I work, where I go to school, the groups I’m in - that’s my stretch of beach. I am His life-saving crew for the people there who don’t know Christ.
This isn’t about getting them to change their religion. It’s not about religion at all. It’s about the only One who died for their sins. There are a lot of religions. There’s only one Savior. There’s only one Rescuer. Your mission is to take them by the hand, walk with them up Skull Hill to that cross and say, “This was for you.”
The church you’re in, the ministry you’re in - is it committed as top priority to saving lives on the stretch of beach you’ve been assigned by God, or are you just feeding and comforting the life-saving crew? If your ministry, your church, your Bible study isn’t about rescuing those who will die otherwise, you might need a quick heart exam. Do you have the heart of your Savior? Because He said His reason for coming was to seek and rescue the lost. So you can’t say you’re following Jesus and not be reaching the lost. Because if you follow Him, that’s where He’s going.
An 1883 Life-Saving Service report to Congress displayed a photo of a life-saving crew and it asked this question, “Why would a group of ordinary men risk everything?” The answer explains why you and I must take whatever risks are necessary to help people we know be in heaven with us. Here’s the answer: “That others might live.”