Leviticus 24, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: OPEN THE BOOK - September 12, 2025

I’ve listened to lesser voices. Locker-room know-it-alls. Godless teachers. Messed-up movie stars. Self-absorbed talk show hosts. They don’t know what they are talking about. I need an authoritative voice, an owner’s manual. And so do you.

I played catcher in Little League baseball, Pony League baseball, and high school baseball. I noticed something: the width of home plate never changed. It was always seventeen inches wide. The width of the plate was permanent.

So is the truth of God. It’s why Jesus said in John 8:31-32 (NIV), “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Healthy thinking happens as we submit to Scripture. Do you want to know God’s thoughts about anything? Open the book!

Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life

Leviticus 24
Light and Bread

1–4  24 God spoke to Moses: “Order the People of Israel to bring you virgin olive oil for light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually. Aaron is in charge of keeping these lamps burning in front of the curtain that screens The Testimony in the Tent of Meeting from evening to morning continually before God. This is a perpetual decree down through the generations. Aaron is responsible for keeping the lamps burning continually on the Lampstand of pure gold before God.

5–9  “Take fine flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using about four quarts of flour to a loaf. Arrange them in two rows of six each on the Table of pure gold before God. Along each row spread pure incense, marking the bread as a memorial; it is a gift to God. Regularly, every Sabbath, this bread is to be set before God, a perpetual covenantal response from Israel. The bread then goes to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in a Holy Place. It is their most holy share from the gifts to God. This is a perpetual decree.”

10–12  One day the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites. A fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the Name of God and cursed. They brought him to Moses. His mother’s name was Shelomith, daughter of Dibri of the tribe of Dan. They put him in custody waiting for God’s will to be revealed to them.

13–16  Then God spoke to Moses: “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. Have all those who heard him place their hands on his head; then have the entire congregation stone him. Then tell the Israelites, Anyone who curses God will be held accountable; anyone who blasphemes the Name of God must be put to death. The entire congregation must stone him. It makes no difference whether he is a foreigner or a native, if he blasphemes the Name, he will be put to death.

17–22  “Anyone who hits and kills a fellow human must be put to death. Anyone who kills someone’s animal must make it good—a life for a life. Anyone who injures his neighbor will get back the same as he gave: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. What he did to hurt that person will be done to him. Anyone who hits and kills an animal must make it good, but whoever hits and kills a fellow human will be put to death. And no double standards: the same rule goes for foreigners and natives. I am God, your God.”

23  Moses then spoke to the People of Israel. They brought the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The People of Israel followed the orders God had given Moses.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Friday, September 12, 2025

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Philippians 4:4-9

Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!

6–7  Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

8–9  Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

Today's Insights

In this “joyful” letter (Philippians 1:4, 25; 2:2, 29; 4:1), Paul challenged believers in Jesus to “rejoice in the Lord always” (4:4). He explains why he’s rejoicing and encourages believers to do the same (1:18; 2:17-18; 3:1; 4:4, 10). When he first visited the Roman colony of Philippi on his second missionary journey about ten years earlier, he’d been falsely accused of disturbing the social peace of the city. Even though he’d been illegally beaten and unjustly imprisoned (Acts 16:20-24), he was a picture of calmness and peace, “praying and singing hymns to God” (v. 25). In Philippians 4, Paul says not to “worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. . . . Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” (vv. 6, 8 nlt). As we focus our thoughts on what God’s done, we can worship Him even in the midst of trials.

Guarding Thoughts in Christ

Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure . . . think about such things. Philippians 4:8

Lap after lap, Katie Ledecky was in a familiar spot during the 1500-meter freestyle race at the 2024 Paris Olympics. For some fifteen minutes, she was far ahead of the rest of the swimmers and alone with her thoughts. What was Ledecky thinking about during the long race? In an interview conducted immediately following her gold-medal-winning performance in which she set a new Olympic record, Ledecky said she was thinking about her training partners and saying their names in her head.

Distance swimmers aren’t the only ones who need to focus their minds on the right things. We as believers in Jesus also need to guard our thoughts throughout our faith journey.

The apostle Paul encouraged the Philippian church to “rejoice in the Lord,” not be “anxious about anything, but pray about everything (Philippians 4:4, 6). The result? “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (v. 7). Jesus, the Prince of Peace, helps put our worries and troubles in perspective.

Paul also encouraged believers: “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (v. 8).

As we go about our day, let’s be aware of our thoughts. When we see God’s hand in our life, we can count our blessings and worship Him.

Reflect & Pray

What have you been thinking about lately? How can you honor God with your thoughts?

Dear God, may my thoughts be pleasing to You.

Learn how to grow in faith by reading The Confidence to Grow.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Friday, September 12, 2025

Spiritual Confusion

“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. — Matthew 20:22

Sometimes in our life with God, there is spiritual confusion. At such times, it’s no use saying there shouldn’t be confusion. Confusion isn’t a question of right and wrong. It’s a question of God taking you down a path you don’t understand. The only way you’ll get at what God wants is to keep going through the confusion until you reach clarity.

The hiding of his friendship. “Suppose you have a friend . . .” (Luke 11:5). Jesus tells the story of a man who seemed not to care for his friend. Sometimes, Jesus says, that is how your heavenly Father will appear. In your confusion, you will think he’s an unkind friend, but he is not. Don’t give up. Remember, Jesus is the one who said, “Everyone who asks receives” (Matthew 7:8).

The shadow on his fatherhood. “Which of you fathers . . .” (Luke 11:11). Jesus says there are times when your Father will appear like an unloving father, but he is not. If a shadow covers the face of your Father just now, rest in confidence that he will ultimately reveal his purposes and will justify himself in everything he has permitted. Often even love itself has to wait in pain and tears for the blessing of fuller communion.

The strangeness of his faithfulness. “In a certain town there was a judge . . .” (Luke 18:2). At times, Jesus says, your Father will look like an unjust judge, but he is not. Stand firm in the belief that what Jesus says is true, and remember that God has bigger issues at stake than the particular things you ask. The time is coming, Jesus says, when we shall see perfectly clearly. Then the veil will be lifted, the shadows will disappear, the confusion will go, and we will begin to understand the friendship, the fatherhood, and the faithfulness of God with regard to our own lives.

Proverbs 13-15; 2 Corinthians 5

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus. We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed. 

Our Brilliant Heritage, 946 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Friday, September 12, 2025

THE UNSEEN SECRET OF SPIRITUAL CHAMPIONS - #10090

It was one of those really special 90-degree days, when it is very humid and I was just finishing about eight miles on my bike. I was feeling all fit, and then I passed Tom running all ten and a half miles around that lake. Well, I realized that Tom did that every day. Nobody knew; nobody noticed actually.

But I knew that he'd be in the headlines back home, and he'd be in the headlines a lot. Because he was one of the county's champion track stars. And I yelled to him from my bike, "No time off for vacation?" And he reminded me that running is a 12-month sport.

Champions aren't made on the day of the race with the crowd applauding. It turns out they're made on like 1,000 unsung mornings.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Unseen Secret of Spiritual Champions."

I've never understood people who get involved in a sport or an activity or in anything and just settle for like being mediocre. If you're going to get into something, well, aim to be all you can be. Right? If that's true in sports, it's really true when it comes to serving the King - the Lord Jesus Christ.

Maybe you've looked at spiritual champions you know, or some leader, or somebody you admire as a spiritual person and you said, "Boy, I'd like to be used by God that way. I wish I could teach, or preach, or minister musically, or lead like that. I'd like to make a difference. I'd like to influence people for Christ like that person does." And you see them in a public setting at the pulpit, or you watch them on television or you hear them on radio. You read their book, maybe hear them in concert. But the ministry you see in a spiritual champion is because of something you don't see. Just like that championship runner, chugging out those miles on those back roads. Nobody noticed, nobody seeing him, but that's where the champion is built.

Okay, Isaiah 50:4, our word for today from the Word of God says this: "The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue to know the word that sustains the weary." Now, how does he keep coming up with the words that people need? It says that "God wakens me morning by morning; wakens my ear to listen like one being taught." Okay, the great prophet of God says here, "morning after morning" there is a meeting with his Lord that nobody sees.

And while others are resting, the champion is in God's Word, he's on his knees, not going on spiritual binges occasionally to get some great spiritual insight. No, no, no, no. He does it day after day, week after week, month after month. And finally there's all these years of accumulated time with God, and how He's touched you, and how He's changed you, and how He's moved you. So, when he speaks, he speaks with a "God-instructed tongue" because he shows up for class every morning. See, there's no glory there. There's no crowds applauding. It's just Christ's personal presence, and you're there with Him.

Anything I have ever said for the Lord that has ever touched anyone has been because He touched me in private first where no one could see, no one else could hear. He wants to do that for you. He wants to do that for all His kids. Do you want to be used greatly by your Lord? Well, before you try to do a great work for Him, why don't you let Him do a great work in you? And you wake up each morning and let Him teach you before you leave.

I saw that in a young track star; a picture of any of us who would like to be God's champion, a winner who's being built on 1,000 unsung mornings.

Leviticus 23, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE BIBLE WORKS - September 11, 2025

Can we genuinely believe that the Bible is the word of God? The unique and ultimate standard? Many people don’t. Others of us, however, do so for good reasons. Here are my three:

Jesus believed it. When the devil came to tempt him, Jesus quoted Scripture. When Jesus rose from the dead, he taught from Scripture. He set his own stamp of approval upon Scripture. What else is needed?

Fulfilled prophecies confirm it. In his life Christ fulfilled 332 distinct prophecies from the Old Testament. The mathematical probability of these prophecies being fulfilled by one man is one in 840 untrigintillion. That’s 840 followed by 96 zeroes.

Changed lives affirm it. No other book has impacted people like the Bible.

Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life

Leviticus 23

The Feasts

1–2  23 God spoke to Moses: “Tell the People of Israel, These are my appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of God which you are to decree as sacred assemblies.

3  “Work six days. The seventh day is a Sabbath, a day of total and complete rest, a sacred assembly. Don’t do any work. Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to God.

4  “These are the appointed feasts of God, the sacred assemblies which you are to announce at the times set for them:

5  “God’s Passover, beginning at sundown on the fourteenth day of the first month.

6–8  “God’s Feast of Unraised Bread, on the fifteenth day of this same month. You are to eat unraised bread for seven days. Hold a sacred assembly on the first day; don’t do any regular work. Offer Fire-Gifts to God for seven days. On the seventh day hold a sacred assembly; don’t do any regular work.”

9–14  God spoke to Moses: “Tell the People of Israel, When you arrive at the land that I am giving you and reap its harvest, bring to the priest a sheaf of the first grain that you harvest. He will wave the sheaf before God for acceptance on your behalf; on the morning after Sabbath, the priest will wave it. On the same day that you wave the sheaf, offer a year-old male lamb without defect for a Whole-Burnt-Offering to God and with it the Grain-Offering of four quarts of fine flour mixed with oil—a Fire-Gift to God, a pleasing fragrance—and also a Drink-Offering of a quart of wine. Don’t eat any bread or roasted or fresh grain until you have presented this offering to your God. This is a perpetual decree for all your generations to come, wherever you live.

15–21  “Count seven full weeks from the morning after the Sabbath when you brought the sheaf as a Wave-Offering, fifty days until the morning of the seventh Sabbath. Then present a new Grain-Offering to God. Bring from wherever you are living two loaves of bread made from four quarts of fine flour and baked with yeast as a Wave-Offering of the first ripe grain to God. In addition to the bread, offer seven yearling male lambs without defect, plus one bull and two rams. They will be a Whole-Burnt-Offering to God together with their Grain-Offerings and Drink-Offerings—offered as Fire-Gifts, a pleasing fragrance to God. Offer one male goat for an Absolution-Offering and two yearling lambs for a Peace-Offering. The priest will wave the two lambs before God as a Wave-Offering, together with the bread of the first ripe grain. They are sacred offerings to God for the priest. Proclaim the day as a sacred assembly. Don’t do any ordinary work. It is a perpetual decree wherever you live down through your generations.

22  “When you reap the harvest of your land, don’t reap the corners of your field or gather the gleanings. Leave them for the poor and the foreigners. I am God, your God.”

23–25  God said to Moses: “Tell the People of Israel, On the first day of the seventh month, set aside a day of rest, a sacred assembly—mark it with loud blasts on the ram’s horn. Don’t do any ordinary work. Offer a Fire-Gift to God.”

26–32  God said to Moses: “The tenth day of the seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly, fast, and offer a Fire-Gift to God. Don’t work on that day because it is a day of atonement to make atonement for you before your God. Anyone who doesn’t fast on that day must be cut off from his people. I will destroy from among his people anyone who works on that day. Don’t do any work that day—none. This is a perpetual decree for all the generations to come, wherever you happen to be living. It is a Sabbath of complete and total rest, a fast day. Observe your Sabbath from the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening.”

33–36  God said to Moses: “Tell the People of Israel, God’s Feast of Booths begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month. It lasts seven days. The first day is a sacred assembly; don’t do any ordinary work. Offer Fire-Gifts to God for seven days. On the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and offer a gift to God. It is a solemn convocation. Don’t do any ordinary work.

37–38  “These are the appointed feasts of God which you will decree as sacred assemblies for presenting Fire-Gifts to God: the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, sacrifices, and Drink-Offerings assigned to each day. These are in addition to offerings for God’s Sabbaths and also in addition to other gifts connected with whatever you have vowed and all the Freewill-Offerings you give to God.

39–43  “So, summing up: On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have brought your crops in from your fields, celebrate the Feast of God for seven days. The first day is a complete rest and the eighth day is a complete rest. On the first day, pick the best fruit from the best trees; take fronds of palm trees and branches of leafy trees and from willows by the brook and celebrate in the presence of your God for seven days—yes, for seven full days celebrate it as a festival to God. Every year from now on, celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in booths for seven days—every son and daughter of Israel is to move into booths so that your descendants will know that I made the People of Israel live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt. I am God, your God.”

44  Moses posted the calendar for the annual appointed feasts of God which Israel was to celebrate.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Thursday, September 11, 2025

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Lamentations 1:20-22

“O God, look at the trouble I’m in! My stomach in knots,

my heart wrecked by a life of rebellion.

Massacres in the streets, starvation in the houses.

21  “Oh, listen to my groans. No one listens, no one cares.

When my enemies heard of the trouble you gave me, they cheered.

Bring on Judgment Day! Let them get what I got!

22  “Take a good look at their evil ways and give it to them!

Give them what you gave me for my sins.

Groaning in pain, body and soul, I’ve had all I can take.”

Today's Insights

When we think of lament in the Bible, Jeremiah—known as the weeping prophet—comes to mind (see Jeremiah 9:1). However, he’s not the sole exemplar of lament in the Scriptures. Other examples are Job, David, and Jesus.

In Lamentations 1:20-22, the prophet Jeremiah expresses the rawness and weightiness of lament even in the choice of his words. It’s the consequence of something so powerful or heartbreaking—where something of value has been lost—that it prompts uncommon expression. Jeremiah exclaims, “See, Lord, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed” (v. 20). The situation was such that it generated “groaning” (v. 21). Lament is the appropriate language of those who have personally come to grips with their pain and the conditions that caused it. As we grapple with pain, God invites us to express our honest, prayerful, and worshipful lament to Him.

Visit GO.ODB.org/091125 to learn how lament can help us praise God in the midst of loss.

Lamenting to God

See, Lord, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed. Lamentations 1:20

I viewed the opening displays of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in New York City with curiosity but kept my emotions in check. That changed when we entered the inner exhibit, which the curators have wisely closed off from children and those wanting to shield themselves from the more heartrending images. As I encountered story after story of heartbreak and loss, waves of lament rose within me.

When we witness or remember such destruction and pain, we can join the cries of those who have voiced their distress to God. This includes the words of anguish found in Lamentations, which many scholars believe the prophet Jeremiah wrote after the destruction of Jerusalem. In the tightly formed structure of this poem, he releases his sorrow and grief over the pain of God’s people: “See, Lord, how distressed I am! I am in torment within, and in my heart I am disturbed” (Lamentations 1:20). And yet he looks to God as the ultimate judge, knowing that only He can deal with the sins and destruction: “Let all their wickedness come before you” (v. 22).

This kind of honest crying out to God can help us to grapple with painful atrocities such as what happened on September 11, 2001, or other current-day evil deeds. We look to God for help, hope, comfort, and justice.

Reflect & Pray

When you witness wickedness, how do you keep your heart tender before God? How might He lead you to pray for those who are hurting today?

God of truth and love, I know that Your heart breaks over the pain in the world. Please envelop me in Your grace and mercy and heal my wounds.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Thursday, September 11, 2025

Ministering as Opportunity Surrounds Us

Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. — John 13:14

Ministering as opportunity surrounds us doesn’t mean choosing our surroundings; it means ministering wherever God places us. The characteristics we manifest now, in our immediate surroundings, show God what we’ll be like in other surroundings.

It takes all of God’s power in me to do commonplace things in the way God would do them. When Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, he was performing work of the most menial and commonplace kind, yet the way he performed it made it holy. Can I use a towel in the way Jesus used a towel? Towels and dishes and all the other ordinary stuff of life reveal what I’m made of more quickly than anything else. It takes God Almighty in me to do my chores in the way they ought to be done.

“I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:15). Watch the kind of people God brings around you. You will be humiliated to discover that this is his way of revealing to you the kind of person you’ve been to him. He is telling you to treat the people in your life as he has treated you. “Oh,” you say, “I’ll treat people as I should when I’m out ministering in the world.” That would be like trying to produce the munitions of war in the trenches; you’d be killed while you were doing it.

We have to go the second mile with God. Some of us get worn out in the first ten yards, because God compels us to go where we cannot see the way. “I’ll wait to obey until I get nearer the big crisis,” we say. We have to obey now. If we don’t practice walking steadily in the little things, we will do nothing in the crisis.

Proverbs 10-12; 2 Corinthians 4

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

We must keep ourselves in touch, not with theories, but with people, and never get out of touch with human beings, if we are going to use the word of God skilfully amongst them. 

Workmen of God, 1341 L

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Thursday, September 11, 2025

SAFE IN AN UNSAFE WORLD - #10089

After watching the World Trade Center as part of my skyline for many years, it hit really hard that awful September 11th to see those towers come crashing down and thousands of lives with them. The day after the first attack on the Trade Center, which was back in 1993, I was greeted by a TV crew as I got off a flight from Newark. Of all things, they asked me as a New Yorker how I felt after that first bombing. And I could only think of one word, "vulnerable." That was my answer.

Well, since the events of that September 11th, and the years since then, and all of the terrorism that has spread Iike a cancer. I think a lot of us are feeling more and more vulnerable all the time. It happens on the street, in churches, in malls, wherever! We're uncertain about what a new kind of war might mean, where the danger might pop up next, and what's going to happen economically. And some of us are trying to help our children understand this crazy world that we don't even understand. We all feel vulnerable. It's as if some of our own sense of personal security and safety started to come crashing down with those towers and it's been crashing ever since.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Safe in an Unsafe World."

Even without the constantly disturbing events in the news, we all know the feeling of having things that we counted on suddenly come crashing down - a person we love, our job, the collapse of a marriage, a bad report from the doctor. In times like these, we're hungry for something we can anchor to, for something to sustain us when the bad news is more than we can bear, for something that will make us feel really safe.

When our President, years ago, addressed the nation after that September 11th, he alluded to the one source of comfort and hope in moments like that. He quoted from that treasured 23rd Psalm in the Bible - actually, Psalm 23:4, our word for today from the Word of God. "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me."

The Bible holds out to you and me a security that can keep you safe in life's deepest valleys - even the valley of the shadow of death. That security is a relationship. It's a person. "You are with me, Lord" the psalmist said. All our lives we've been looking for one "unloseable" love. And there really is one. It's the love of the One who made you, the One you will meet on the other side of your last heartbeat, the One whose love caused Him to literally lay down His life for you.

In our vulnerable moments, our moments that are more than you can handle alone, those moments when you've gone seeking God, maybe you've realized that there's something that is separating you from Him. The Bible says that feeling is right. The Bible says, "Your sins have separated you from your God" (Isaiah 59:2). But Jesus came to remove that wall between you and God - the only way it could be removed - by Jesus dying to pay the death penalty for you and for me, hijacking a life that God was supposed to run and we took it instead.

Either you have this life-saving relationship with Jesus or you don't. It all depends on whether there's been a time when you grabbed the outstretched hand of Jesus like a person trapped in the wreckage would grab the hand of his rescuer. If you are ready for the kind of security, the safety that only Jesus Christ can offer, if you're ready to begin this anchor relationship with the man who died for you, would you tell Him that right now right where you are? "Jesus, you died for me. My life is yours from this day on."

I want you to know for sure that you have that anchor, that security from this day on. So I'd invite you to go where some information is that will really help that happen. It's our website, please check it out today - ANewStory.com. I'd love for you to visit there as soon as you can today.

My prayer is that you'll be able to go to sleep tonight knowing you are in the safest place in the universe - the arms of Jesus Christ - and that you'll be able to say, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil - for You are with me."

Mark 10:1-31, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: BLOCK THIS SENDER - September 10, 2025

Satan’s strategy is simple: poison your thinking with stinking doubts, deceit, and discouragement. If he can master your mind, he will master your life. The more minds he can control, the more portions of society he can influence. Tell him to get lost.

Do with your thoughts what I do with emails.  Until a couple of years ago, I didn’t know I could block emails. Consequently, I couldn’t clean out my inbox. Then I was told about the ‘Block This Sender’ command. I spent the better part of an afternoon erecting Do Not Enter signs to turn away nuisances. It took time, but I emptied my inbox of unneeded and unsolicited emails.

You can do the same! You can “take every thought captive and make it obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 GNT).

Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life

Mark 10:1-31

Divorce

1–2  10 From there he went to the area of Judea across the Jordan. A crowd of people, as was so often the case, went along, and he, as he so often did, taught them. Pharisees came up, intending to give him a hard time. They asked, “Is it legal for a man to divorce his wife?”

3  Jesus said, “What did Moses command?”

4  They answered, “Moses gave permission to fill out a certificate of dismissal and divorce her.”

5–9  Jesus said, “Moses wrote this command only as a concession to your hardhearted ways. In the original creation, God made male and female to be together. Because of this, a man leaves father and mother, and in marriage he becomes one flesh with a woman—no longer two individuals, but forming a new unity. Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart.”

10–12  When they were back home, the disciples brought it up again. Jesus gave it to them straight: “A man who divorces his wife so he can marry someone else commits adultery against her. And a woman who divorces her husband so she can marry someone else commits adultery.”

13–16  The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.

To Enter God’s Kingdom

17  As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?”

18–19  Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and mother.”

20  He said, “Teacher, I have—from my youth—kept them all!”

21  Jesus looked him hard in the eye—and loved him! He said, “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.”

22  The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.

23–25  Looking at his disciples, Jesus said, “Do you have any idea how difficult it is for people who ‘have it all’ to enter God’s kingdom?” The disciples couldn’t believe what they were hearing, but Jesus kept on: “You can’t imagine how difficult. I’d say it’s easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for the rich to get into God’s kingdom.”

26  That set the disciples back on their heels. “Then who has any chance at all?” they asked.

27  Jesus was blunt: “No chance at all if you think you can pull it off by yourself. Every chance in the world if you let God do it.”

28  Peter tried another angle: “We left everything and followed you.”

29–31  Jesus said, “Mark my words, no one who sacrifices house, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, land—whatever—because of me and the Message will lose out. They’ll get it all back, but multiplied many times in homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and land—but also in troubles. And then the bonus of eternal life! This is once again the Great Reversal: Many who are first will end up last, and the last first.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

2 Chronicles 20:2-4, 6-12, 15

Jehoshaphat received this intelligence report: “A huge force is on its way from beyond the Dead Sea to fight you. There’s no time to waste—they’re already at Hazazon Tamar, the oasis of En Gedi.”

3–4  Shaken, Jehoshaphat prayed. He went to God for help and ordered a nationwide fast. The country of Judah united in seeking God’s help—they came from all the cities of Judah to pray to God.

and said, “O God, God of our ancestors, are you not God in heaven above and ruler of all kingdoms below? You hold all power and might in your fist—no one stands a chance against you! And didn’t you make the natives of this land leave as you brought your people Israel in, turning it over permanently to your people Israel, the descendants of Abraham your friend? They have lived here and built a holy house of worship to honor you, saying, ‘When the worst happens—whether war or flood or disease or famine—and we take our place before this Temple (we know you are personally present in this place!) and pray out our pain and trouble, we know that you will listen and give victory.’

10–12  “And now it’s happened: men from Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir have shown up. You didn’t let Israel touch them when we got here at first—we detoured around them and didn’t lay a hand on them. And now they’ve come to kick us out of the country you gave us. O dear God, won’t you take care of them? We’re helpless before this vandal horde ready to attack us. We don’t know what to do; we’re looking to you.”

Today's Insights

The temple in Jerusalem is where the Israelites sought God in prayer during national crises (2 Chronicles 6:18-40). When Israel was threatened by a large enemy military coalition, Jehoshaphat assembled the nation at the temple and prayed for God’s help (20:1-12; see 6:34-35). Responding to the people’s faith, God assured them of victory: “Do not be afraid or discouraged . . . . For the battle is not yours, but God’s. . . . Stand firm and see the deliverance the Lord will give you” (20:15, 17). Prayer is where powerless people offer petitions to an almighty God.

Powerless but Not Prayerless

We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. 2 Chronicles 20:12

Anita Bailey’s heart was warmed when she got this social media message about her son Jalen: “I was a greeter today at [church] and a young man with a child in his arms came up to me and put his arms around me. . . . I stared for a second, then I recognized him and said, ‘Jalen!' We embraced and chatted briefly. What a fine young man!” The greeter knew Jalen in his rebellious days when Anita and her husband, Ed, had felt powerless to save their son from the consequences of his unwise choices, which had resulted in twelve years in prison for him.

Though the Baileys felt powerless, they were not prayerless. And neither was King Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20. When harassed by a menacing coalition of enemy forces, he called a prayer meeting (vv. 1-4). “Our God, will you not judge them?” he prayed. “For we have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (v. 12).

Have you ever felt powerless or clueless in the face of circumstances that were out of your control? Why not call a prayer meeting—either alone or with others? That’s what Jesus did in the face of His coming crucifixion (Luke 22:39-44). Prayer space is the sacred place where the petitions of powerless people are offered to our almighty God in the name of Jesus.

Reflect & Pray

What’s keeping you from bringing your challenges to God in prayer? How can you partner with others in prayer for mutual support?

Almighty God of resurrection power, please help me in my powerlessness today as I fix my eyes on Jesus.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

Worshipping as the Occasion Arises

I saw you while you were still under the fig tree. — John 1:48

We imagine that we’ll rise to the occasion when a big crisis comes along. But a big crisis only reveals what we’re made of; it doesn’t put anything new into us. Are you telling yourself that you’ll do what’s necessary if God gives the call? You won’t—not unless you’re already rising to the occasion. You have to be the real thing with God before the big event, in the workshop of your private life with him.

Every day, God is giving you small, seemingly insignificant things to do, things which may go entirely unnoticed by the world. If you don’t believe God has engineered these things and therefore you aren’t using them as opportunities for worship, you’ll be revealed as unfit when the crisis comes. Crises always reveal character.

A private worshipping relationship with God is the great essential of spiritual fitness. The time will come when you have to step out from “under the fig tree”—out from your sheltered, private place—and go forth into the glare and the crowd. If you haven’t been worshipping in private, as the occasion arises, you’ll find you have no value to God in the outside world. But if you have been worshipping in private, you will be ready when God sends you out, because in the unseen life—the life no one saw but God—you’ve become perfectly fit. When the strain arrives, God will know he can rely on you.

Do you think you have no time for worshipping or praying or reading the Bible? Do you say to yourself, “I can’t be expected to live a worshipful life in the circumstances I’m in right now; my opportunity hasn’t come yet. When it does, of course I’ll be ready”? You won’t be. If you haven’t been worshipping where you are right now, as the occasion arises, then in the crisis you’ll be useless to yourself and an enormous hindrance to those around you. The workshop of the disciple’s life is the hidden, personal time spent worshipping God.

Proverbs 8-9; 2 Corinthians 3

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

For the past three hundred years men have been pointing out how similar Jesus Christ’s teachings are to other good teachings. We have to remember that Christianity, if it is not a supernatural miracle, is a sham. 

The Highest Good, 548 L

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Wednesday, September 10, 2025

WHILE THE WINDOW'S OPEN - #10088

I was sitting on our front porch, and I saw our son-in-law suddenly running full speed across the front yard, headed for the back yard with his camera in his hand. With my incredible detective mind, I surmised that he had seen something that would make a great photo; something that apparently wasn't going to be there for long. Actually, he had seen our horse running across the pasture with her mane flowing and beautifully illuminated by the setting sun. Well, having a wife who's taken some pretty amazing photos over the years, I understood this. I guess you'd call it the "seize the moment" thing. Photographers know about this, and you'd better not get in their way.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "While the Window's Open."

Photographer-types understand a life-principle that a lot of us miss - that there are moments, there are opportunities that have to be seized - or they're missed forever. And it isn't just photographs. It's precious life moments where a window of opportunity opens for a brief time, maybe just a moment, and either we stop and we take that opportunity or sometimes we lose it for good.

Thus, God's counsel in Ephesians 5, beginning in verse 15, which is our word for today from the Word of God. He says, "Be very careful, then, how you live-not as unwise but as wise..." Okay, so what does wise living look like? "...making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is."

Apparently, knowing and doing God's will in your life often depends on seeing the opportunity He has opened up for you and seizing that opportunity. Many of life's regrets are about opportunities we missed because we let them slip by. Like the aging businessman who says, "If only I'd spent more time with my family." As many times as I've heard that lament, I have never heard anybody say, "My only regret is I wish I'd spent more time with my business." Nope, never heard it.

When your child is ready to talk, you'd better drop everything and listen. The window won't be open for long. When your child is ready to be affectionate, you've got nothing more important to do than respond. When your son or daughter has time to be with you, you'd better have time to be with them.

The same applies to your mate, your parents, others that you love. Many a tear at a funeral is over opportunities we did not take when this one that we loved was still touchable, still thankable, still forgivable, still huggable. And how many chances do we have a day to simply compliment someone, encourage someone, stop and listen to someone. Those are God-moments - opportunities to be a channel of God's love into a person's life.

Most importantly, how many times do we pass up a God-given opportunity to talk about our relationship with Jesus Christ, when the eternity of that person may depend on them hearing about our Jesus? Spirit-filled living involves making yourself available each new day to seize the opportunities that God gives you in that day. If you're the kind of person that's all rigid, programmed and inflexible, you'll probably miss or ignore the many times the Holy Spirit is saying, "This is it! This is your chance. The window's open. Do it now. Seize the moment!"

Like a photographer running to capture his picture before the moment passes, we need to capture the God-moments that He is weaving into each new day. Those scenes are just too good to miss!

Leviticus 22, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: TAKE EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE - September 9, 2025

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (GNT) reads, “The weapons we use in our fight are not the world’s weapons but God’s powerful weapons, which we use to destroy strongholds. We destroy false arguments; we pull down every proud obstacle that is raised against the knowledge of God; we take every thought captive and make it obey Christ.”

The image is that of a warrior, a soldier, a fighter. Our enemy is the unsolicited, unhealthy, and unwelcome idea. Rather than indulge such thoughts, we take a wrecking ball to them. We “take every thought captive and make it obey Christ.” We poke a spear against the spine of toxic thoughts, march them outside, and toss them on their derrieres. Discipleship, at its core, is Christlike thinking.

Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life

Leviticus 22

God spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron and his sons to treat the holy offerings that the Israelites consecrate to me with reverence so they won’t desecrate my holy name. I am God.

3  “Tell them, From now on, if any of your descendants approaches in a state of ritual uncleanness the holy offerings that the Israelites consecrate to God, he will be cut off from my presence. I am God.

4–8  “Each and every one of Aaron’s descendants who has an infectious skin disease or a discharge may not eat any of the holy offerings until he is clean. Also, if he touches anything defiled by a corpse, or has an emission of semen, or is contaminated by touching a crawling creature, or touches a person who is contaminated for whatever reason—a person who touches any such thing will be ritually unclean until evening and may not eat any of the holy offerings unless he has washed well with water. After the sun goes down he is clean and may go ahead and eat the holy offerings; they are his food. But he must not contaminate himself by eating anything found dead or torn by wild animals. I am God.

9  “The priests must observe my instructions lest they become guilty and die by treating the offerings with irreverence. I am God who makes them holy.

10–13  “No layperson may eat anything set apart as holy. Nor may a priest’s guest or his hired hand eat anything holy. But if a priest buys a slave, the slave may eat of it; also the slaves born in his house may eat his food. If a priest’s daughter marries a layperson, she may no longer eat from the holy contributions. But if the priest’s daughter is widowed or divorced and without children and returns to her father’s household as before, she may eat of her father’s food. But no layperson may eat of it.

14  “If anyone eats from a holy offering accidentally, he must give back the holy offering to the priest and add twenty percent to it.

15–16  “The priests must not treat with irreverence the holy offerings of the Israelites that they contribute to God lest they desecrate themselves and make themselves guilty when they eat the holy offerings. I am God who makes them holy.”

17–25  God spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron and his sons and all the People of Israel, Each and every one of you, whether native born or foreigner, who presents a Whole-Burnt-Offering to God to fulfill a vow or as a Freewill-Offering, must make sure that it is a male without defect from cattle, sheep, or goats for it to be acceptable. Don’t try slipping in some creature that has a defect—it won’t be accepted. Whenever anyone brings an offering from cattle or sheep as a Peace-Offering to God to fulfill a vow or as a Freewill-Offering, it has to be perfect, without defect, to be acceptable. Don’t try giving God an animal that is blind, crippled, mutilated, an animal with running sores, a rash, or mange. Don’t place any of these on the Altar as a gift to God. You may, though, offer an ox or sheep that is deformed or stunted as a Freewill-Offering, but it is not acceptable in fulfilling a vow. Don’t offer to God an animal with bruised, crushed, torn, or cut-off testicles. Don’t do this in your own land but don’t accept them from foreigners and present them as food for your God either. Because of deformities and defects they will not be acceptable.”

26–30  God spoke to Moses: “When a calf or lamb or goat is born, it is to stay with its mother for seven days. After the eighth day, it is acceptable as an offering, a gift to God. Don’t slaughter both a cow or ewe and its young on the same day. When you sacrifice a Thanksgiving-Offering to God, do it right so it will be acceptable. Eat it on the same day; don’t leave any leftovers until morning. I am God.

31  “Do what I tell you; live what I tell you. I am God.

32–33  “Don’t desecrate my holy name. I insist on being treated with holy reverence among the People of Israel. I am God who makes you holy and brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am God.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Tuesday, September 09, 2025

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

2 Timothy 1:6-12

And the special gift of ministry you received when I laid hands on you and prayed—keep that ablaze! God doesn’t want us to be shy with his gifts, but bold and loving and sensible.

8–10  So don’t be embarrassed to speak up for our Master or for me, his prisoner. Take your share of suffering for the Message along with the rest of us. We can only keep on going, after all, by the power of God, who first saved us and then called us to this holy work. We had nothing to do with it. It was all his idea, a gift prepared for us in Jesus long before we knew anything about it. But we know it now. Since the appearance of our Savior, nothing could be plainer: death defeated, life vindicated in a steady blaze of light, all through the work of Jesus.

11–12  This is the Message I’ve been set apart to proclaim as preacher, emissary, and teacher. It’s also the cause of all this trouble I’m in. But I have no regrets. I couldn’t be more sure of my ground—the One I’ve trusted in can take care of what he’s trusted me to do right to the end.

Today's Insights

In 2 Timothy 1:6-14, Paul’s advice to Timothy was in no way arrogant, nor was it given flippantly. He wrote out of his own deep suffering. In fact, he was imprisoned at that moment and understood that he’d soon be executed. “The time for my departure is near,” he wrote (2 Timothy 4:6). And yet the apostle was forward-looking. Just as Jesus gave instructions to His disciples the night before His crucifixion, so too Paul focused on developing the faith and ministry of his younger protégé Timothy, who would carry on the work. “Fan into flame the gift of God,” he urged him (1:6). “Join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God” (v. 8). Paul didn’t fear death because he anticipated “the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (v. 10). We can also stand strong when our faith is tested.

Unashamed for Jesus

Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord. 2 Timothy 1:8

Before he was martyred for his steadfast faith in Jesus, an African minister whose name has not been preserved penned “A Martyr’s Prayer.” This profound message from another era has become known as “The Fellowship of the Unashamed.”

This pastor’s words present a challenge to all believers in Jesus—a challenge that echoes the words of the apostle Paul, who wrote in his letter to his young friend Timothy: “Do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord” (2 Timothy 1:8) because the Holy Spirit gives us “power, love and self-discipline” (v. 7).

Here, in part, is what that faithful African pastor wrote: “I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed. The decision has been made. I am a disciple of [Jesus] and I won’t back up, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed. My present makes sense. My future is secure. . . . I live by faith, lean on His presence, walk by patience, lift by prayer, and labor by the Holy Spirit’s power.”

Both Timothy and that pastor faced difficulties we may never experience, but their words challenge us to stand strong when our faith is tested. We can remain unashamed because God “is able to guard what [we] have entrusted to him” (v. 12)—our lives and our future.

Reflect & Pray

What gives you courage to be unashamed for Christ? How can you follow the examples of others who were unashamed of the gospel?

Dear God, You promised that the Holy Spirit gives us power. Please help me to stand up for You and be unashamed in all kinds of situations.

Dive deeper into the wisdom shared in 1 and 2 Timothy.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, September 09, 2025

Determinedly Discipline Other Things

We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience. — 2 Corinthians 10:5–6

These verses point to the strenuous nature of Christian discipleship. Paul writes that he takes every thought captive, knowing that “every act of disobedience” to Christ will be punished. So much Christian activity today has never been disciplined in the way Paul describes; it has simply sprung into being on impulse. In our Lord’s life, every project was disciplined according to the will of his Father. There was not a single impulsive movement of the Son’s own will apart from his Father’s: “Whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19).

Think how different we are from the example set by Jesus. We start projects because we’ve had a vivid religious experience and felt the thrill of inspiration, not because we’re living in obedience to God’s will. We’d rather take impulsive action than be imprisoned and disciplined to obey Christ, because we overvalue practical work. Meanwhile, disciples who aren’t caught up in busywork and who do bring every project into captivity for the Lord are criticized and told they’re not sincere about God or souls.

True sincerity is found in obeying God, not in obeying the inclination to serve him; obeying an inclination is born of an undisciplined human nature. It’s inconceivable yet true that many Christians are motivated to work for God by their own human nature, a nature which has never been spiritualized by determined discipline.

We are prone to forgetting that, as Christians, we must be committed to Jesus Christ not only for salvation but for his point of view. We must commit ourselves to Jesus Christ’s view of God, of the world, of sin, and of the devil. When we do, we will understand that we have a responsibility to renew our minds, so that they may be transformed and brought into complete captivity for him.

Proverbs 6-7; 2 Corinthians 2

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Christianity is not consistency to conscience or to convictions; Christianity is being true to Jesus Christ. 

Biblical Ethics, 111 L

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Tuesday, September 09, 2025

I ONCE WAS LOST... - #10087

Our daughter is all grown up now, but she'll never forget that very scary moment when she was four years old. My wife was shopping in a supermarket with our son riding in the grocery cart and our daughter walking with her - well, actually running ahead of her. Karen had warned her to stay in the same aisle she was in, but we're talking a firstborn here - so she had to run ahead to other aisles to explore, of course. Until suddenly she noticed how high those shelves were and how long those aisles were, and the fact that she didn't see anything familiar. And suddenly she felt that awful feeling that she still describes today as "scary" - she was lost. Not too long ago, she told me how it felt. As a grown woman, she said, "Suddenly my security wasn't there." Thankfully, her mother came looking for her. Our daughter got lost, but someone who loved her found her.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "I Once Was Lost...."

Lost isn't just a feeling that little kids know. No, a lot of us who are all grown up know it all too well. The dictionary says that "lost" means "bewildered as to direction; missed the way." You ever felt that way? Now, maybe? It could be that, like our daughter said, suddenly your security isn't there. There's been a breakup, a divorce, changes at work or in your family, a painful loss, a financial setback, some major change.

Interestingly enough, our Creator describes us as lost. We're bewildered about the meaning, the direction of our life because we've, Well, like the dictionary says, "missed the way." You and I have missed what we were made for - a life run by God - and we've wandered off into a life run by us. Like our daughter separated from her mom, you suddenly realize the person you need most isn't there - the God who made you.

You're away from your Father, your Heavenly Father. And, again, like a lost child, there's no way you can find your way back to Him. Your only hope is that He's come looking for you and that's what Jesus is all about. He's God come looking for you. In our word for today from the Word of God - Luke 19:10 - Jesus says, "The Son of Man (that's Him) came to seek and to save what was lost." Jesus literally gave His life to bring you home; He absorbed your death penalty for all your sin when He died on the cross.

And now He's coming seeking you to save you - right now through this visit He may be doing that. It's really Jesus, who knows your need, coming where you are, through this program, to bring you home. Here's a letter that I received from a man who experienced that. He tells about commuting to work one winter morning.

He says, "This hour and one half ride is really getting to be a drag - too much time to think. Thinking about one divorce and a second marriage, never enough money, can't afford a new car and this one may not even make it home." Then again, what if he doesn't make it home? Is this what life is about? Drive-work-sleep, then drink myself into oblivion to numb the monotony? He is painfully aware of a growing emptiness - something's missing - actually everything is missing!

He tells how he started surfing the radio and he landed on this program and he says, "You directed me to the One who would give my life meaning. Without that, it was quite possible I would not be here now." See, Jesus found this man through a radio. And this man finally found everything he'd been missing.

For someone listening right now, that's what Jesus wants to do for you this very day, this very hour.

Would you open up to this man who gave His life for you? You can trust Him with the rest of your days. Would you say, "Jesus, You died for me. You love me. You're alive! You walked out of Your grave. Come into my life. I'm yours." Our website will tell you how to be sure you've begun that relationship. You can go to ANewStory.com.

Jesus loves you too much to lose you. He went all the way to a cross to prove it and right now He's come where you are to bring you home. Don't miss Him, my friend.

Leviticus 21, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: PRACTICE PICKY THINKING - September 8, 2025

The space between your ears occupies about six inches. It buzzes with nonstop activity—processing data, issuing commands, making selections, and determining the course of your life. It exists to filter facts and make decisions, and it was designed and built by God. One rule matters above all others: truth. Good decisions depend upon reliable information.

Where did we get the idea that every thought needs to be thought? We don’t do this with food. Just because you see chocolate doesn’t mean you have to eat chocolate. Common sense dictates that we practice discretionary eating. Thoughts do not deserve free rein, either. They do not warrant unlimited access. Just because you have a thought, you don’t have to think it. Practice picky thinking.

Tame Your Thoughts: Three Tools to Renew Your Mind and Transform Your Life

Leviticus 21

Holy Priests

1–4  21 God spoke to Moses: “Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron. Tell them, A priest must not ritually contaminate himself by touching the dead, except for close relatives: mother, father, son, daughter, brother, or an unmarried sister who is dependent on him since she has no husband; for these he may make himself ritually unclean, but he must not contaminate himself with the dead who are only related to him by marriage and thus profane himself.

5–6  “Priests must not shave their heads or trim their beards or gash their bodies. They must be holy to their God and must not profane the name of their God. Because their job is to present the gifts of God, the food of their God, they are to be holy.

7–8  “Because a priest is holy to his God he must not marry a woman who has been a harlot or a cult prostitute or a divorced woman. Make sure he is holy because he serves the food of your God. Treat him as holy because I, God, who make you holy, am holy.

9  “If a priest’s daughter defiles herself in prostitution, she disgraces her father. She must be burned at the stake.

10–12  “The high priest, the one among his brothers who has received the anointing oil poured on his head and been ordained to wear the priestly vestments, must not let his hair go wild and tangled nor wear ragged and torn clothes. He must not enter a room where there is a dead body. He must not ritually contaminate himself, even for his father or mother; and he must neither abandon nor desecrate the Sanctuary of his God because of the dedication of the anointing oil which is upon him. I am God.

13–15  “He is to marry a young virgin, not a widow, not a divorcee, not a cult prostitute—he is only to marry a virgin from his own people. He must not defile his descendants among his people because I am God who makes him holy.”

16–23  God spoke to Moses: “Tell Aaron, None of your descendants, in any generation to come, who has a defect of any kind may present as an offering the food of his God. That means anyone who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed, crippled in foot or hand, hunchbacked or dwarfed, who has anything wrong with his eyes, who has running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to offer gifts to God; he has a defect and so must not offer the food of his God. He may eat the food of his God, both the most holy and the holy, but because of his defect he must not go near the curtain or approach the Altar. It would desecrate my Sanctuary. I am God who makes them holy.”

24  Moses delivered this message to Aaron, his sons, and to all the People of Israel.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Monday, September 08, 2025

by Karen Pimpo

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

John 14:1-7

 “Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”

5  Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”

6–7  Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”

Today's Insights

In John 13-17, we encounter a scene best viewed with reverence and awe. These chapters contain Christ’s final instructions to His disciples before His arrest and crucifixion. Immediately after Judas had departed to betray Christ, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him” (13:31). The reality of His violent death for us was the pivot point of Christ’s entire mission. At first, the disciples couldn’t accept this. The crucifixion brought the rawest truth they would absorb. Yet His death was essential to providing restoration to our heavenly Father. Jesus promised, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” His words “I will come back and take you to be with me” (14:2-3) convey the culmination of that raw truth—eternal joy with our Father.

Embracing Christ’s Truth

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” John 14:6

When my friend Connor takes pictures on his old film camera, he doesn’t bother to find attractive lighting or airbrush blemishes or crop out anything unsightly. His photos are startlingly raw. They stand out in my social media feed next to heavily edited photos of gorgeous people and places. Though unconventional, his work is beautiful because it communicates truth about how things really are.

We all long for what’s real, but sometimes the truth isn’t attractive to us. Close to the time of His death, Jesus declared, “I am . . . the truth” (John 14:6). His disciples were wondering how they could get to the Father’s house that Jesus spoke so longingly about (vv. 2-3). They failed to see that Jesus standing in front of them was the answer. They struggled to understand that He would bring victory through His own sacrifice.

Isaiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would have no beauty or majesty, “nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). Much of what Jesus said was so challenging and unexpected that it turned religious people against Him (John 11:45-48). Yet He gave an open invitation to know the truth and find real life. “If you really know me,” said Jesus, “you will know my Father as well” (John 14:7). In the midst of an airbrushed and unrealistic world, we can embrace that beautiful, raw truth today!

Reflect & Pray

When and why have you sought superficial beauty instead of truth? How can you embrace Jesus’ words more and more?

Dear Jesus, I choose to follow You as the source of all truth.

Watch this video to see how Jesus is the way!

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Monday, September 08, 2025

Determinedly Demolish Some Things

Demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God. —  2 Corinthians 10:5

Deliverance from sin isn’t deliverance from human nature. There are certain things in human nature, such as prejudice, which the Christian has to destroy by neglect; we have to flat-out refuse to give these things air. Other things we have to hand over to God, then stand still and witness the power of his salvation.

But there are also things which have to be destroyed by violence—by drawing on the divine strength imparted to us by God’s Spirit. Any theory or idea that raises itself up against the knowledge of God has to be determinedly demolished, not through fleshly effort or compromise but by drawing on his power. “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4).

Only when God has altered our disposition and we have entered into the experience of sanctification can this fight begin. Our fight isn’t against sin. We can never fight against sin; sin is Jesus Christ’s domain, and he deals with it through redemption. The war we must fight is the war of turning our natural life into a spiritual life. This is never easily done, nor does God intend it to be easily done. It’s done only through a series of moral choices. God doesn’t make us holy in the sense of instantly giving us a good character. He makes us holy in the sense of imparting innocence. It’s up to us to turn that innocence into holy character by a series of moral choices.

These choices are continually in conflict with the entrenched habits of our natural lives—the pretensions and arguments that raise themselves up against the knowledge of God. We can refuse to make the moral choice, knowing that if we do, we’ll be of no account in his kingdom. Or we can determinedly demolish every pretension, and let Jesus bring us to glory.

Proverbs 3-5; 2 Corinthians 1

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

There is no allowance whatever in the New Testament for the man who says he is saved by grace but who does not produce the graceful goods. Jesus Christ by His Redemption can make our actual life in keeping with our religious profession.

Studies in the Sermon on the Mount

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Monday, September 08, 2025

THE ALARM INSIDE YOU - #10086

The attack on the USS Stark was really a double tragedy. It happened during the Iraq War, and an Iraqi pilot fired a missile into the side of our missile frigate, the USS Stark. And 37 American sailors died in an awful inferno that followed. Actually, one of the reasons for the tragedy wasn't even so much the missile. It appears now that someone had turned off a vital alarm; one that actually could have alerted the crew in time to respond. Well, there's the double tragedy. The American sailors died, yes. But none of them had to. An attack was underway and the alarm was off. Well, wait a minute! Let's be careful, because you and I might be making that same mistake.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Alarm Inside You."

At the moment you committed your life to Christ, God actually activated inside of you this flawless, internal guidance system. He's called the Holy Spirit. The guidance system is described in John 16:8, which says this: "When He comes, He will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." So the Holy Spirit is this alarm system that lets us know when we're crossing or when we're about to cross God's boundaries.

Then in 1 Thessalonians 5:19 we find our word for today from the Word of God. It simply says, "Do not quench the Spirit." Man, this is a blazing warning! It says, "Don't turn off God's alarm!" It could be that knowing what only God knows about you, He is sounding one more alarm in your life through our visit today. This could be an alarm. That's a sobering thought. The Holy Spirit in you has been warning you about the compromises you've been making long before you tuned in today; about those things He's been trying to pull you away from; or that sin that you've been trying to rationalize or justify. He's been making you feel uncomfortable about some of those wrong choices. He knows where they're going to take you. He sees the destruction that's headed right for you, and you don't. He's sounding the alarm.

Please listen to God the Holy Spirit! The alarm has been going off as you've been telling less than the truth, or as you've been saying hurtful things in anger and frustration. That alarm's been going off as you've been flirting with that sexual sin, or maybe even as you've committed it; or as you've talked about what you never should have talked about, or you've been watching what you never should have watched, or listening to what you never should have listened to.

It could be that you have felt that alarm in the middle of criticizing somebody - backstabbing - and the Holy Spirit is saying inside of you, "Don't do this." He has sounded the alarm, and honestly, you have felt this spiritual heartburn that is trying to pull you the other way. It's a frightening thing that you can actually quench the Holy Spirit and become immune to His warnings. You say, "Oh, that's good! Yeah, I'd actually like to be immune to it." No, it's deadly! When you turn off the warning system of the Holy Spirit; when you quench the Spirit, it will lead you to spiritual death and destruction. Because you will end up going farther than you ever thought you'd go, staying longer than you'd ever thought you'd stay, and paying much more than you ever thought you'd pay.

If the missile of sin's destruction is headed your way, I guarantee you, the Holy Spirit's alarm is going off in you now. Turn off the alarm and the price will be too high to pay. Respond to the alarm, and you will be able to get out while you can.

Mark 9:30-50, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

MaxLucado.com: 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!

Let’s make certain it happens to you!

Ezekiel 36:26b- “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

From GRACE

Mark 9:30-50

  Leaving there, they went through Galilee. He didn’t want anyone to know their whereabouts, for he wanted to teach his disciples. He told them, “The Son of Man is about to be betrayed to some people who want nothing to do with God. They will murder him. Three days after his murder, he will rise, alive.” They didn’t know what he was talking about, but were afraid to ask him about it.

So You Want First Place?

33  They came to Capernaum. When he was safe at home, he asked them, “What were you discussing on the road?”

34  The silence was deafening—they had been arguing with one another over who among them was greatest.

35  He sat down and summoned the Twelve. “So you want first place? Then take the last place. Be the servant of all.”

36–37  He put a child in the middle of the room. Then, cradling the little one in his arms, he said, “Whoever embraces one of these children as I do embraces me, and far more than me—God who sent me.”

38  John spoke up, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to expel demons and we stopped him because he wasn’t in our group.”

39–41  Jesus wasn’t pleased. “Don’t stop him. No one can use my name to do something good and powerful, and in the next breath cut me down. If he’s not an enemy, he’s an ally. Why, anyone by just giving you a cup of water in my name is on our side. Count on it that God will notice.

42  “On the other hand, if you give one of these simple, childlike believers a hard time, bullying or taking advantage of their simple trust, you’ll soon wish you hadn’t. You’d be better off dropped in the middle of the lake with a millstone around your neck.

43–48  “If your hand or your foot gets in God’s way, chop it off and throw it away. You’re better off maimed or lame and alive than the proud owner of two hands and two feet, godless in a furnace of eternal fire. And if your eye distracts you from God, pull it out and throw it away. You’re better off one-eyed and alive than exercising your twenty-twenty vision from inside the fire of hell.

49–50  “Everyone’s going through a refining fire sooner or later, but you’ll be well-preserved, protected from the eternal flames. Be preservatives yourselves. Preserve the peace.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Sunday, September 07, 2025

by James Banks

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Mark 10:13-16

The people brought children to Jesus, hoping he might touch them. The disciples shooed them off. But Jesus was irate and let them know it: “Don’t push these children away. Don’t ever get between them and me. These children are at the very center of life in the kingdom. Mark this: Unless you accept God’s kingdom in the simplicity of a child, you’ll never get in.” Then, gathering the children up in his arms, he laid his hands of blessing on them.

Today's Insights

In Mark 10:13-16, Jesus seized the moment to teach a very crucial lesson about how things function in the sphere of heavenly rule and order. “Let the little children come to me,” He said, “and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” (v. 14). Christ’s illustration and teaching are consistent with the principle stated in the first beatitude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Bible teacher Kent Hughes offers these words: “What Jesus has in mind here is an objective state that every child who has ever lived, regardless of race, culture, or background, has experienced—helpless dependence. . . . Children of the kingdom enter it helpless, ones for whom everything must be done.” Those who are impoverished in spirit are those who are needy and know it. When we acknowledge our dependence on God, we come to Him with open hands and heart.

Dependence on God

The kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Mark 10:14

“Oh, you look so serious!” I said to my ten-week-old granddaughter Leilani. She was studying my face with a knitted brow as I talked to her. “I’d be serious too,” I continued, “looking at this world. But you know what? Mama loves you, Daddy loves you, and Baba and Papa [our nicknames as grandparents] love you too. But best of all, Jesus loves you! And that means everything!”

Then it happened. Like a cloud letting the sun through, the furrow left her brow and her little face lit up with a smile that melted my heart. Like most grandparents, I’d like to believe she understood me, though that may be a stretch. But perhaps she caught some of the joy behind my words. The simple, innocent joy that shone on her face brought to mind Jesus’ words that we must “receive the kingdom of God like a little child” (Mark 10:15).

Jesus said those words as “people were bringing little children” to Him so He might “place his hands on them” and bless them (vv. 13, 16). But “the disciples rebuked them,” thinking Jesus too busy or important. That troubled Him (vv. 14-15).

Children are naturally humble and dependent. To receive God’s kindness to us in Christ, we too must turn from pride and admit our need for Him in everything. As we do, He exchanges this world’s hopelessness with the promise of life with God forever. And that should make us smile.

Reflect & Pray

In what ways do you need God? How can you declare your dependence on Him today?

Abba Father, please help me to humbly live in Your kindness today and also share it with others.

Learn more about having a personal relationship with God.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Sunday, September 07, 2025

Springs of Irrepressible Life

The water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. — John 4:14

In John 4:14, our Lord doesn’t speak of a trickle of water but of a mighty spring, swelling its banks. Be filled with this water, and the sweetness of a vital relationship to Jesus will flow out of you as lavishly as it is imparted. If you find that your life isn’t flowing out as it should, search for the reason. It’s certain you are to blame, because you have not kept right with the source. Does Jesus say that when you keep right with him, you will be personally blessed? No. He says that out of you will flow rivers of living water—irrepressible life.

Jesus wants us to be channels through which he can flow. He wants to use us to bring his rivers of living water in blessing to everyone we meet. Some of us are like the Dead Sea—always taking in and never giving out. If we stay rightly related to our Lord, then as surely as we receive from him, he will pour out through us. When he is not pouring out, it means something is wrong in our relationship with him.

Has something come between you and Jesus Christ? Has something hindered your belief in him? If not, then Jesus says out of you will flow rivers of living water. These waters are neither an experience nor a blessing passed on; they are a continually flowing river. Guard well your belief in Jesus Christ and your relationship to him, and there will be no dryness and no deadness, only a steady flow for other lives.

Do you find it extravagant to say that mighty rivers will flow out of you—an individual believer of no particular significance? Have you looked for the rivers in your life and failed to see them? In the history of God’s work, it has nearly always started from those who, though they were obscure, unknown, and ignored, were steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.

Proverbs 1-2; 1 Corinthians 16

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

It is impossible to read too much, but always keep before you why you read. Remember that “the need to receive, recognize, and rely on the Holy Spirit” is before all else.

Approved Unto God, 11 L

Leviticus 20, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily:  We Don’t Like to Wait

We don’t like to wait.  We’re the giddy-up generation. We frown at the person who takes eleven items to the ten-item express checkout. We drum our fingers while the microwave heats our coffee. “Come on, come on.”  We really don’t like to wait!

Look around you. Do you realize where we sit?  This planet is God’s waiting room. The young couple? Waiting to get pregnant. The guy with the briefcase?  Waiting for work. Waiting on God to give or to help.  Waiting on God to come. The land of waiting. And you? Are you in God’s waiting room?

You may be infertile or inactive, in limbo, in between jobs or in search of a house, spouse, health, or help. Here’s what you need to know. While you wait, God works! God never twiddles His thumbs. He never stops. Just because you’re idle, don’t assume God is. Trust Him.  In the right time, you’ll get through this.

From You’ll Get Through This

Leviticus 20

God spoke to Moses: “Tell the Israelites, Each and every Israelite and foreigner in Israel who gives his child to the god Molech must be put to death. The community must kill him by stoning. I will resolutely reject that man and cut him off from his people. By giving his child to the god Molech he has polluted my Sanctuary and desecrated my holy name. If the people of the land look the other way as if nothing had happened when that man gives his child to the god Molech and fail to kill him, I will resolutely reject that man and his family, and him and all who join him in prostituting themselves in the rituals of the god Molech I will cut off from their people.

6  “I will resolutely reject persons who dabble in the occult or traffic with mediums, prostituting themselves in their practices. I will cut them off from their people.

7–8  “Set yourselves apart for a holy life. Live a holy life, because I am God, your God. Do what I tell you; live the way I tell you. I am the God who makes you holy.

9  “Any and every person who curses his father or mother must be put to death. By cursing his father or mother he is responsible for his own death.

10  “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—the wife, say, of his neighbor—both the man and the woman, the adulterer and adulteress, must be put to death.

11  “If a man has sex with his father’s wife, he has violated his father. Both the man and woman must be put to death; they are responsible for their own deaths.

12  “If a man has sex with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is perverse. And they are responsible for their own deaths.

13  “If a man has sex with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is abhorrent. They must be put to death; they are responsible for their own deaths.

14  “If a man marries both a woman and her mother, that’s wicked. All three of them must be burned at the stake, purging the wickedness from the community.

15  “If a man has sex with an animal, he must be put to death and you must kill the animal.

16  “If a woman has sex with an animal, you must kill both the woman and the animal. They must be put to death. And they are responsible for their deaths.

17  “If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or mother, and they have sex, that’s a disgrace. They must be publicly cut off from their people. He has violated his sister and will be held responsible.

18  “If a man sleeps with a woman during her period and has sex with her, he has uncovered her ‘fountain’ and she has revealed her ‘fountain’—both of them must be cut off from their people.

19  “Don’t have sex with your aunt on either your mother’s or father’s side. That violates a close relative. Both of you are held responsible.

20  “If a man has sex with his aunt, he has dishonored his uncle. They will be held responsible and die childless.

21  “If a man marries his brother’s wife, it’s a defilement. He has shamed his brother. They will be childless.

22–23  “Do what I tell you, all my decrees and laws; live by them so that the land where I’m bringing you won’t vomit you out. You simply must not live like the nations I’m driving out before you. They did all these things and I hated every minute of it.

24–26  “I’ve told you, remember, that you will possess their land that I’m giving to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am God, your God, who has distinguished you from the nations. So live like it: Distinguish between ritually clean and unclean animals and birds. Don’t pollute yourselves with any animal or bird or crawling thing which I have marked out as unclean for you. Live holy lives before me because I, God, am holy. I have distinguished you from the nations to be my very own.

27  “A man or woman who is a medium or sorcerer among you must be put to death. You must kill them by stoning. They’re responsible for their own deaths.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Saturday, September 06, 2025

by Leslie Koh

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Psalm 109:6-9, 26-29

Send the Evil One to accuse my accusing judge;

dispatch Satan to prosecute him.

When he’s judged, let the verdict be “Guilty,”

and when he prays, let his prayer turn to sin.

Give him a short life,

and give his job to somebody else.

Make orphans of his children,

dress his wife in widow’s weeds;

26–29  Help me, oh help me, God, my God,

save me through your wonderful love;

Then they’ll know that your hand is in this,

that you, God, have been at work.

Let them curse all they want;

you do the blessing.

Let them be jeered by the crowd when they stand up,

followed by cheers for me, your servant.

Dress my accusers in clothes dirty with shame,

discarded and humiliating old ragbag clothes.

Today's Insights

Psalm 109 is what’s known as an imprecatory psalm, where the author heaps curses, calamities, and destruction on the wicked, calling on God to judge them (see also Psalms 5, 35, 59, 69, 129, 137, 140). David had suffered unjustly in the hands of his enemies (109:1-5). In his imprecations or curses (vv. 6-20), he wasn’t seeking personal vengeance. Instead, he asked God to act on his behalf. He prayed for God’s justice and righteousness to prevail over evil and for Him to intervene and save him (vv. 26-31). David confidently proclaimed God’s justice in another psalm: “Those who know your name trust in you . . . . The Lord is known for his justice” (9:10, 16 nlt). Our world is characterized by trials, injustice, and wickedness. The Psalms can help us express our praises, laments, petitions, and cries to God for help and trust Him to bring justice in His time.

A Sense of God’s Justice

May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers, to those who speak evil of me. Psalm 109:20

The news was horrific. A live-in foreign domestic helper had been so ill-treated by the family she worked for that she died. The employers were eventually jailed, but I felt it wasn’t enough. They should have suffered the same horrors they put that poor girl through, I thought, and then put to death. Then I wondered if my anger had crossed the line. Was I wrong to think such things?

Reading Psalm 109 gave me an insight into our natural sense of justice. David, for one, wrestled with anger toward those who wronged the poor and needy. “May his days be few . . . . May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow,” he charged (vv. 8-9).

But King David didn’t take revenge on these men—even though he had the power to. Instead, he turned to God as the true source of justice and deliverance. “May this be the Lord’s payment to my accusers, to those who speak evil of me,” he said. “Save me according to your unfailing love” (vv. 20, 26).

I believe God made us with an inherent sense of justice, for it reflects His own character. And we can express our feelings honestly. But ultimately we’re to leave judgment and punishment to Him—trusting Him to bring justice in His time and way. The apostle Paul states things clearly: “Do not take revenge . . . but leave room for God’s wrath” (Romans 12:19).

Reflect & Pray

What news or events disturb you? How can you pray for those in need and for victims of injustice?

Dear God, You are the all-seeing, righteous God. May Your justice prevail so that all may come to fear and worship You.

Read more about Hunting for Resurrection Hope.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Saturday, September 06, 2025

Diffusiveness of Life

Rivers of living water . . . — John 7:38

A river touches places of which its source knows nothing. Jesus says that if we have received his fullness, it doesn’t matter how small the visible measure of our lives may be; out of us will flow rivers that will bless the farthest reaches of the earth. We have nothing to do with the outflow; it is the mighty work of God. God rarely allows a soul to see how great a blessing it is.

A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers. It goes steadily along in its course, then comes to an obstacle and, for a while, is blocked. But it soon makes a pathway around. Or a river may drop out of sight for miles, then emerge again, broader and grander than ever. So it is with the Spirit of God.

Has an obstacle come into your life? Do you see God using others while you seem to be of no use? Keep paying attention to the source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all. Never focus on the obstacle or difficulty; the river is completely indifferent to anything in its path and will flow steadily through you when you remember to keep your sights on the source. Never allow anything to come between you and Jesus Christ. Nothing—no emotion, no experience—must keep you from the one great source.

Think of the healing and far-flung rivers nourishing themselves in our souls! God has been awakening our minds to amazing truths, and each truth he awakens points to the wider power of the river he will flow through us. If you believe in Jesus, you will find that God has nourished in you mighty torrents of blessings for others.

Psalms 148-150; 1 Corinthians 15:29-58

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

We all have the trick of saying—If only I were not where I am!—If only I had not got the kind of people I have to live with! If our faith or our religion does not help us in the conditions we are in, we have either a further struggle to go through, or we had better abandon that faith and religion. 

The Shadow of an Agony, 1178 L