Exodus 5, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: A LONELY HOUSE - June 4, 2025

In 1882 in New York City, Joseph Richardson owned a narrow strip of land, 5 feet wide and 104 feet long. Next door was a normal-sized lot owned by a man who wanted to erect an apartment building. He offered Richardson $1,000 for his plot. But Richardson built a house—blocking the view! Dubbed the “Spite House”, Richardson spent the last fourteen years of his life in the narrow residence that seemed to fit his narrow state of mind.

Revenge builds a lonely, narrow house, space enough for one person. The lives of its tenants reduced to one goal: make someone miserable. And they do—themselves. No wonder God insists we “keep a sharp eye out for weeds of bitter discontent” (Hebrews 12:15 MSG).

You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

Exodus 5

Moses and Aaron and Pharaoh

1  5 After that Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh. They said, “God, the God of Israel, says, ‘Free my people so that they can hold a festival for me in the wilderness.’ ”

2  Pharaoh said, “And who is God that I should listen to him and send Israel off? I know nothing of this so-called ‘God’ and I’m certainly not going to send Israel off.”

3  They said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness so we can worship our God lest he strike us with either disease or death.”

4–5  But the king of Egypt said, “Why on earth, Moses and Aaron, would you suggest the people be given a holiday? Back to work!” Pharaoh went on, “Look, I’ve got all these people bumming around, and now you want to reward them with time off?”

6–9  Pharaoh took immediate action. He sent down orders to the slave-drivers and their underlings: “Don’t provide straw for the people for making bricks as you have been doing. Make them get their own straw. And make them produce the same number of bricks—no reduction in their daily quotas! They’re getting lazy. They’re going around saying, ‘Give us time off so we can worship our God.’ Crack down on them. That’ll cure them of their whining, their god-fantasies.”

10–12  The slave-drivers and their underlings went out to the people with their new instructions. “Pharaoh’s orders: No more straw provided. Get your own straw wherever you can find it. And not one brick less in your daily work quota!” The people scattered all over Egypt scrabbling for straw.

13  The slave-drivers were merciless, saying, “Complete your daily quota of bricks—the same number as when you were given straw.”

14  The Israelite foremen whom the slave-drivers had appointed were beaten and badgered. “Why didn’t you finish your quota of bricks yesterday or the day before—and now again today?”

15–16  The Israelite foremen came to Pharaoh and cried out for relief: “Why are you treating your servants like this? Nobody gives us any straw and they tell us, ‘Make bricks!’ Look at us—we’re being beaten. And it’s not our fault.”

17–18  But Pharaoh said, “Lazy! That’s what you are! Lazy! That’s why you whine, ‘Let us go so we can worship God.’ Well then, go—go back to work. Nobody’s going to give you straw, and at the end of the day you better bring in your full quota of bricks.”

19  The Israelite foremen saw that they were in a bad way, having to go back and tell their workers, “Not one brick short in your daily quota.”

20–21  As they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them. The foremen said to them, “May God see what you’ve done and judge you—you’ve made us stink before Pharaoh and his servants! You’ve put a weapon in his hand that’s going to kill us!”

22–23  Moses went back to God and said, “My Master, why are you treating this people so badly? And why did you ever send me? From the moment I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, things have only gotten worse for this people. And rescue? Does this look like rescue to you?”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Wednesday, June 04, 2025

by John Blase

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Genesis 23:1-4, 17-20

Sarah lived 127 years. Sarah died in Kiriath Arba, present-day Hebron, in the land of Canaan. Abraham mourned for Sarah and wept.

3–4  Then Abraham got up from mourning his dead wife and spoke to the Hittites: “I know I’m only an outsider here among you, but sell me a burial plot so that I can bury my dead decently.”

17–20  That’s how Ephron’s field next to Mamre—the field, its cave, and all the trees within its borders—became Abraham’s property. The town council of Hittites witnessed the transaction. Abraham then proceeded to bury his wife Sarah in the cave in the field of Machpelah that is next to Mamre, present-day Hebron, in the land of Canaan. The field and its cave went from the Hittites into Abraham’s possession as a burial plot.

Today's Insights

When we meet Sarah in Genesis 11, she’s introduced as Sarai, the wife of Abram, who “was childless because she was not able to conceive” (v. 30). They lived in Ur of the Chaldeans on the Euphrates River, which archaeologists have discovered was a thriving trade city with a vast library. So, when her father-in-law, Terah, uprooted his family (including his son Nahor and wife and Terah’s grandson Lot) and headed for Canaan, it may have been difficult to leave family and the amenities of a flourishing city. From Ur, they settled in Haran, where Terah died. There God called Abram to continue to Canaan, where He’d make Abram “into a great nation” (12:2). Many mishaps, missteps, and years later, elderly Abram and Sarai (now renamed Abraham and Sarah, 17:5, 15) became the joyful parents of Isaac, the fulfillment of God’s promise (21:1-7). Sarah died at the age of 127, and Abraham “[wept] over her” (23:2). We too will face grief, but God will lovingly provide the hope and comfort we need.

’Tis a Fearful Thing

Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her. Genesis 23:2

“Tis a fearful thing / to love what death can touch.” That line begins a poem written more than a thousand years ago by the Jewish poet Judah Halevi, translated in the twentieth century. The poet clarifies what’s behind the fear: “to love . . . / And oh, to lose.”

In Genesis, an outpouring of emotion occurred when Abraham lost Sarah in death. “Abraham went to mourn for Sarah and to weep over her” (23:2). The chapter unfolds the beautiful, grief-heavy story of the loss of one of Scripture’s most memorable characters: Sarah, the faithful wife of Abraham, that old woman who'd laughed at the news she’d be a mother (18:11-12) but had cried in pain as Isaac made his way into this world.

We make much of that crisp, humanity-rich verse in John’s gospel: “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). The Messiah’s tears at the tomb of Lazarus emphasized Jesus’ loss. To love is indeed a fearful thing. The poet Halevi calls it “a thing for fools,” yet he follows by also naming it “a holy thing,” which it is, especially for those whose faith is “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3).

We love and lose everything from spouses to children to parents to friends to pets, and weeping with “painful joy” is oh so human. Yet for the believer in Jesus, our weeping only lasts for the proverbial night. As David wrote, “Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). Our Father hasn’t left us bereft of hope.

Reflect & Pray

What has affected your ability to love? Who is the last person you wept over and why?

Dear Father, please grant me the courage to love.

What does real love look like? Find out more by reading The Marks of Real Love.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Wednesday, June 04, 2025

The Never-Failing God

God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” — Hebrews 13:5

What path do my thoughts take? Do they turn to what God says or to what I fear? “God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’” If I am listening to God, I won’t simply take his comforting words and leave it at that; I’ll build upon them, adding words of my own: “So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid’” (Hebrews 13:6).

“Never will I leave you.” God has promised that he will never leave us—not for all our sin and selfishness and stubbornness. Have I truly let God say to me that he’ll never leave me? If I have, let me listen again.“Never will I forsake you.” Difficulty isn’t always what makes me think God will forsake me. Sometimes it’s the tedium of the day-to-day, of living with no great challenge to meet, no special vision to pursue, nothing wonderful or beautiful to urge me on. Can I hear God’s promise when life is uninspiring?

We have the idea that God is going to do something exceptional with us, that he’s preparing us for some extraordinary feat. But as we grow in grace, we find that he is glorifying himself through us here and now. If we hold fast to God’s promise, we will find that we have the most amazing strength, and we will learn to sing in the ordinary days and ways.

2 Chronicles 21-22; John 14

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

Wednesday, June 04, 2025

Surprisingly Competent - #10018

Every once in a while we think someone left the floodlight on in the backyard, so I look outside the window to discover the floodlight isn't on - the moonlight is! It's one of those really impressive full-moon nights. The most beautiful one that my wife and I had, was when we were on vacation in the mountains. Our cabin was nestled in this quiet valley next to a gentle little stream. Not long after dark, I noticed that the valley was ablaze with light! The full moon was rising in the eastern sky and it was casting this celestial glow over everything. It was perfectly positioned in the sky to just totally illuminate the valley we were in. But then, something made me realize what I was really looking at, and I said as we stood on the porch in admiration, "You know, that moon really isn't producing any light at all. It's just reflecting the light of the sun."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Surprisingly Competent."

Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 3:18. Paul says, "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." Now as followers of Jesus Christ we're supposed to light our world. Right? God has positioned you where you work, or live, or go to school, or where you shop, to make a difference, a Jesus-difference by your love, joy, your Jesus-treatment of people. See, you're supposed to light up what would otherwise be a much darker environment.

But we are like the moon; we have no glory of our own. This verse says we reflect Jesus' glory! He says it in another way in chapter 4, verse 7. "We have this treasure in jars of clay so that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." See, anything we do for the Lord, it's all God.

Now we should be a lot brighter, I think, than we are. There are a lot of important things He wants to do through you, but maybe you're not making nearly the difference you should be making. It's probably because of one basic spiritual misunderstanding about who is the "sun" and who is the "moon." Maybe these are things you've been asked to do for the Lord, but you're afraid to say "yes" because you feel inadequate. You want people you're around to hear about Jesus, but you haven't said anything because you're afraid you'll mess it up.

God is putting before you some ways He wants you to make a difference, but you keep shrinking back. But see, you're missing something. You're not the "sun." You don't have to produce the power, or the words, or the strength, or the light to pull it off. It's Jesus who does the work. He's only asking for you to be available. He knows you and I can't produce the light - that's His job! He just wants you to be in a position to reflect His light onto the people around you. Doesn't that take a lot of pressure off? That means you can help somebody be in heaven with you someday.

In chapter 3, verse 5 in 2 Corinthians He says, "Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent." See, you can dare to step up to responsibility that would be impossible if it depended on you. It doesn't. It depends on the Son of God!

This "reflected" glory neutralizes our feelings of inadequacy and pride. Maybe you've begun to feel a little prouder of the kind of Christian you've been, or some of the things you've done for the Lord. News flash! You haven't done them! You are just - I am just - a glowing piece of rock. It's all Jesus, reflecting His glory through you. Why are you taking any credit for it?

If the sun were to go out some full-moon night, we would immediately know where the light's been coming from all along and how little the moon has to do with it. The light of the Son of God never goes out, and He chooses to reflect in your valley, through your life, your personality, your abilities, and even your weaknesses. Isn't that amazing? You can light up your world with light that doesn't come from you, but from the very Son of God himself!

Exodus 4, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: YOU ARE GOD’S CHILD - June 3, 2025

Family pain is often the deepest pain because it was inflicted so early, and because it involves people who should’ve been trustworthy. You were too young to process the mistreatment. You didn’t know how to defend yourself. Besides, the perpetrators of your pain were so large. Your dad, mom, uncle, big brother—they towered over you, usually in size, always in rank. When they judged you falsely, you believed them. All this time you’ve been operating on faulty data.

Decades later these voices of defeat still echo in your subconscious. But they don’t have to! “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.” These are the words from Romans 12:2 (NLT). And 1 Corinthians 13:11—let him replace childish thinking with mature truth. You are not who they said you were. You are God’s child!

You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

Exodus 4

Moses objected, “They won’t trust me. They won’t listen to a word I say. They’re going to say, ‘God? Appear to him? Hardly!’ ”

2  So God said, “What’s that in your hand?”

“A staff.”

3  “Throw it on the ground.” He threw it. It became a snake; Moses jumped back—fast!

4–5  God said to Moses, “Reach out and grab it by the tail.” He reached out and grabbed it—and he was holding his staff again. “That’s so they will trust that God appeared to you, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

6  God then said, “Put your hand inside your shirt.” He slipped his hand under his shirt, then took it out. His hand had turned leprous, like snow.

7  He said, “Put your hand back under your shirt.” He did it, then took it back out—as healthy as before.

8–9  “So if they don’t trust you and aren’t convinced by the first sign, the second sign should do it. But if it doesn’t, if even after these two signs they don’t trust you and listen to your message, take some water out of the Nile and pour it out on the dry land; the Nile water that you pour out will turn to blood when it hits the ground.”

10  Moses raised another objection to God: “Master, please, I don’t talk well. I’ve never been good with words, neither before nor after you spoke to me. I stutter and stammer.”

11–12  God said, “And who do you think made the human mouth? And who makes some mute, some deaf, some sighted, some blind? Isn’t it I, God? So, get going. I’ll be right there with you—with your mouth! I’ll be right there to teach you what to say.”

13  He said, “Oh, Master, please! Send somebody else!”

14–17  God got angry with Moses: “Don’t you have a brother, Aaron the Levite? He’s good with words, I know he is. He speaks very well. In fact, at this very moment he’s on his way to meet you. When he sees you he’s going to be glad. You’ll speak to him and tell him what to say. I’ll be right there with you as you speak and with him as he speaks, teaching you step by step. He will speak to the people for you. He’ll act as your mouth, but you’ll decide what comes out of it. Now take this staff in your hand; you’ll use it to do the signs.”

18  Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said, “I need to return to my relatives who are in Egypt. I want to see if they’re still alive.”

Jethro said, “Go. And peace be with you.”

19  God said to Moses in Midian: “Go. Return to Egypt. All the men who wanted to kill you are dead.”

20  So Moses took his wife and sons and put them on a donkey for the return trip to Egypt. He had a firm grip on the staff of God.

21–23  God said to Moses, “When you get back to Egypt, be prepared: All the wonders that I will do through you, you’ll do before Pharaoh. But I will make him stubborn so that he will refuse to let the people go. Then you are to tell Pharaoh, ‘God’s Message: Israel is my son, my firstborn! I told you, “Free my son so that he can serve me.” But you refused to free him. So now I’m going to kill your son, your firstborn.’ ”

24–26  On the journey back, as they camped for the night, God met Moses and would have killed him but Zipporah took a flint knife and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ member with it. She said, “Oh! You’re a bridegroom of blood to me!” Then God let him go. She used the phrase “bridegroom of blood” because of the circumcision.

27–28  God spoke to Aaron, “Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.” He went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him. Moses told Aaron the message that God had sent him to speak and the wonders he had commanded him to do.

29–31  So Moses and Aaron proceeded to round up all the leaders of Israel. Aaron told them everything that God had told Moses and demonstrated the wonders before the people. And the people trusted and listened believingly that God was concerned with what was going on with the Israelites and knew all about their affliction. They bowed low and they worshiped.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Tuesday, June 03, 2025

by Xochitl Dixon

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Psalm 95:1-7

 Come, let’s shout praises to God,

raise the roof for the Rock who saved us!

Let’s march into his presence singing praises,

lifting the rafters with our hymns!

3–5  And why? Because God is the best,

High King over all the gods.

In one hand he holds deep caves and caverns,

in the other hand grasps the high mountains.

He made Ocean—he owns it!

His hands sculpted Earth!

6–7  So come, let us worship: bow before him,

on your knees before God, who made us!

Oh yes, he’s our God,

and we’re the people he pastures, the flock he feeds.

7–11  Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks:

Today's Insights

Psalm 95 together with Psalms 47, 93, 96-99 are known as “enthronement” or “royal psalms” because they use the image of a king to proclaim God’s absolute reign over the entire spiritual and physical realms—over all creation, history, nations, and peoples. The psalmists proclaimed God’s sovereignty and glory, greatness and power, justice and holiness: He is “the Lord Most High . . . the King of all the earth . . . seated on his holy throne” (47:2, 7-8). He’s “robed in majesty and armed with strength . . . . [His] throne was established . . . from all eternity” (93:1-2). “The Lord [Yahweh] is the great God, the great King above all gods” (95:3). “He is holy” (99:3, 5) and will come to “judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness” (96:13). He’s also “a forgiving God” (99:8). Because of who He is, we can trust Him and worship Him even in difficult times.

Unbroken Faith

He is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. Psalm 95:7

When Dianne Dokko Kim and her husband learned that their son's diagnosis was autism, she struggled with the very real possibility that her cognitively disabled son might outlive her. She cried out to God: What will he do without me to care for him? God surrounded her with a support system of other adults raising children with disabilities. He empowered Dianne to trust Him with her often-unexplainable guilt, feelings of inadequacy, and fear. Eventually, in her book Unbroken Faith, Dianne offered hope for “spiritual recovery” to other adults raising children with disabilities. As her son enters adulthood, Dianne’s faith remains intact. She trusts that God will always care for her and her son.

Uncertainties in life can harden our hearts toward God. We may be tempted to place our faith in other things or people, including ourselves. We can, however, depend on “the Rock of our salvation” (Psalm 95:1)—a phrase that points to the certainty of God’s character. “In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land” (vv. 4-5).

We can live with unbroken faith, worshiping our “Lord our Maker” (v. 6). We can trust Him to be with us and those we love because we’re “the flock under his care” (v. 7).

Reflect & Pray

How has God shown that He cares for you and your loved ones when you’ve felt helpless? How does knowing the certainty of His character help you trust Him as a promise keeper?

Great God, thank You for promising to care for me.

Watch this video to learn how we can count on God's promises.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Tuesday, June 03, 2025

The Secret Of The Lord

The Lord confides in those who fear him. — Psalm 25:14

What is the sign of true friends? That they tell you secret sorrows? No, that they tell you secret joys. Many people will confide to you their secret sorrows, but the ultimate sign of intimacy is confiding secret joys. Have we ever let God tell us his joys? Or are we so busy telling God our secrets that we leave no room for him to talk to us?

At the beginning of our Christian life, our prayers are full of requests. Then we discover that what God wants is to bring us, through prayer, into a personal relationship with him so that he can reveal his will. Jesus Christ’s idea of prayer is, “Your will be done” (Matthew 26:42). Are we so committed to this way of praying that we catch the intimate secrets of God? God may bring us great big blessings, but it is the small, secret things that make us love him, because they show his amazing intimacy with us. They show that he knows every detail of our lives.

“He will instruct them in the ways they should choose” (Psalm 25:12). At the start of our life of faith, we want to be conscious of God guiding us. But as we go on, we no longer need to ask what his will is; the thought of choosing anything else no longer occurs to us. If we are saved and sanctified, God instructs us in every choice we make, guiding our common sense and alerting us when we are in danger of choosing something he doesn’t want. When God checks us in this way, we must obey. Never reason it out and say, “I wonder why I shouldn’t.” Whenever there is doubt, don’t.

2 Chronicles 19-20; John 13:21-38

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

We are not to preach the doing of good things; good deeds are not to be preached, they are to be performed.

So Send I You

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Tuesday, June 03, 2025

WHEN IT'S DARK ALL THE TIME - #10017

The lady in the airplane seat next to me was from Norway. And I knew she had experienced something I needed to know about - winter months with very long nights and summer months with very long days. With our Native American team planning some major summer outreach among Native young people in Alaska at that point, I was especially interested in what our days would be like up there. My neighbor from Norway made the answer very clear - they'd be endless! She said that even after all the years living there, she could never sleep much in those northern days where there is virtually no dark. I thought, "O-o-o, it should be a lot of fun getting our team to sleep at night, when there is no night." But then I was curious to know about those December days when we have only about nine hours or so of daylight. She told me about a time when it was, in her words, "almost always dark" where she lives. It's hard for me to imagine weeks where you basically never see the light of the sun. It's not hard for me to imagine the way my Norwegian neighbor said many people feel during that time - really depressed.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "When It's Dark All the Time."

A long, depressing darkness. You don't have to live in the North Country to know what darkness like that feels like. I mean you can feel it in your heart. It may have been winter inside your soul for a long time - maybe concealed from others. You've got this smile, this really busy life, but it's still dark inside most of the time.

Maybe it's the guilt of past mistakes you've made that has brought on the long winter. Or just this nagging sense of worthlessness that goes way back, or a chronic despair over the pain of your past or maybe the meaninglessness of the present, or it could be the darkness might be summed up in one increasingly, desperate word - loneliness. But whatever the cause, this heaviness inside, this relentless darkness has been there long enough.

The end of a long, long night can begin with a hope-filled promise made by Jesus Christ - who has never made a promise He did not keep. It's our word for today from the Word of God in John 8:12, "Jesus said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'" Jesus promises that if you belong to Him, if you stay close to Him, He will lead you out of the darkness that no one else has been able to dispel. And that's the beginning of the end of your long, dark winter in your soul.

But only Jesus can replace your darkness with what He called "the light of life." Why? Because our problem really isn't the darkness. Near the North Pole in winter, the problem is that the sun doesn't shine there. Our problem isn't ultimately the darkness of our loneliness or our despair. It's the absence of the Light! We were created to live in the light of a love-relationship with our Creator, which we have lost by running our lives our way instead of His way. In God's words, "Your sins have separated you from your God." (Isaiah 59:2)

That separation could only be healed by the death penalty for your sin being erased. And that's what was going on when Jesus Christ was bleeding and dying on a cross. He was voluntarily paying for your sin, which is the ultimate cause of the darkness in your soul. And the forgiveness, the peace, and the light that He died to give you becomes yours when you tell Him you're trusting Him to be your Savior from your sin.

If you do that, Jesus will shed His light on every dark stretch you ever walk, including the darkest stretch of all, when one day you walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Why don't you open your heart to Jesus today right where you are? It's been dark long enough. Tell Him, "Jesus, I'm yours."

If you really want to know that you've begun this relationship, that's why our website is there. Check it out today! It's ANewStory.com.

This wonderful promise of God will be all about you. It says, "God has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves" (Colossians 1:13).

Matthew 24:1-28, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: LET GOD DO HIS WORK - June 2, 2025

God gives us more by going deeper than we ask. He wants not only your whole heart; he wants your heart whole. Why? Well hurt people, hurt people. Think about it. Why do you fly off the handle? Why do you avoid conflict? Why do you seek to please everyone? Might your tendencies have something to do with an unhealed hurt in your heart?

God wants to help you for your sake. Your family history has some sad chapters, but your history doesn’t have to be your future. The generational garbage can stop here and now. You don’t have to give your kids what your ancestors gave you. Talk to God about the scandals and scoundrels. Invite him to relive the betrayal with you. The process may take a long time—it may take a lifetime. Difficult for certain, but let God do his work.

You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

Matthew 24:1-28

Routine History

1–2  24 Jesus then left the Temple. As he walked away, his disciples pointed out how very impressive the Temple architecture was. Jesus said, “You’re not impressed by all this sheer size, are you? The truth of the matter is that there’s not a stone in that building that is not going to end up in a pile of rubble.”

3  Later as he was sitting on Mount Olives, his disciples approached and asked him, “Tell us, when are these things going to happen? What will be the sign of your coming, that the time’s up?”

4–8  Jesus said, “Watch out for doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities, claiming, ‘I am Christ, the Messiah.’ They will deceive a lot of people. When reports come in of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history; this is no sign of the end. Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Famines and earthquakes will occur in various places. This is nothing compared to what is coming.

9–10  “They are going to throw you to the wolves and kill you, everyone hating you because you carry my name. And then, going from bad to worse, it will be dog-eat-dog, everyone at each other’s throat, everyone hating each other.

11–12  “In the confusion, lying preachers will come forward and deceive a lot of people. For many others, the overwhelming spread of evil will do them in—nothing left of their love but a mound of ashes.

13–14  “Staying with it—that’s what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry, and you’ll be saved. All during this time, the good news—the Message of the kingdom—will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come.

The Monster of Desecration

15–20  “But be ready to run for it when you see the monster of desecration set up in the Temple sanctuary. The prophet Daniel described this. If you’ve read Daniel, you’ll know what I’m talking about. If you’re living in Judea at the time, run for the hills; if you’re working in the yard, don’t return to the house to get anything; if you’re out in the field, don’t go back and get your coat. Pregnant and nursing mothers will have it especially hard. Hope and pray this won’t happen during the winter or on a Sabbath.

21–22  “This is going to be trouble on a scale beyond what the world has ever seen, or will see again. If these days of trouble were left to run their course, nobody would make it. But on account of God’s chosen people, the trouble will be cut short.

The Arrival of the Son of Man

23–25  “If anyone tries to flag you down, calling out, ‘Here’s the Messiah!’ or points, ‘There he is!’ don’t fall for it. Fake Messiahs and lying preachers are going to pop up everywhere. Their impressive credentials and dazzling performances will pull the wool over the eyes of even those who ought to know better. But I’ve given you fair warning.

26–28  “So if they say, ‘Run to the country and see him arrive!’ or, ‘Quick, get downtown, see him come!’ don’t give them the time of day. The Arrival of the Son of Man isn’t something you go to see. He comes like swift lightning to you! Whenever you see crowds gathering, think of carrion vultures circling, moving in, hovering over a rotting carcass. You can be quite sure that it’s not the living Son of Man pulling in those crowds.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Monday, June 02, 2025

by Monica La Rose

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

1 Corinthians 9:19-27

Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!

24–25  You’ve all been to the stadium and seen the athletes race. Everyone runs; one wins. Run to win. All good athletes train hard. They do it for a gold medal that tarnishes and fades. You’re after one that’s gold eternally.

26–27  I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No sloppy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.

Today's Insights

The athletic imagery of running a race used in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 is also seen in Hebrews 12:1-2. The Greek word trecho, translated “run,” is used in both passages. We’re to “run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24) and “run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1). The “great cloud of witnesses” (v. 1) included the “sometimes winning, sometimes losing” Old Testament believers. Though perfection will continue to elude us, as we “[fix] our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith” (v. 2), we can grow in faith and endurance.

Winning by Losing

Run in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24

“Not winning is in fact more powerful than winning,” Professor Monica Wadhwa argues. Her research reveals that people tend to be most energized and motivated not when they win but when they almost win. Falling just short of one’s ambitions tends to give people the motivation to keep growing and striving. Easy victories, on the other hand, tend to cripple energy and motivation.

Wadhwa’s perspective gives fresh insight into Paul’s analogy used in two passages that compare following Christ to running a race: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 and Philippians 3:12-14. In both instances, Paul emphasizes that believers ought to give their pursuit of Christ and the gospel their all, “straining toward what is ahead” (Philippians 3:13) and running “in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24).

The paradoxical truth is that what we’re striving for—faithfully sharing the gospel (v. 23) and knowing Christ (Philippians 3:8)—aren’t things we can ever say we’ve achieved. We’ll always fall short. We’ll never be able to say we’ve “already arrived” (v. 12).

But that’s okay—because it’s the experience of drawing ever closer to Christ that matters. It’s only His strength that empowers and motivates us to pour our whole hearts into pursuing Him—the one who will one day carry us to victory.

Reflect & Pray

How have you experienced growth through falling short? How can falling short encourage you to rely on Christ?

Dear God, thank You that I don’t need to fear falling short, but that You use these moments to continually draw me closer to You.

For further study, read Why Is Confession So Hard?

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Monday, June 02, 2025

What Are You Haunted By?

Who, then, are those who fear the Lord? — Psalm 25:12

What are you haunted by? “Nothing,” you will say. But we are all haunted by something. Usually we are haunted by ourselves or, if we are Christians, by our spiritual experience. The psalmist says we must be haunted by God—that it is God alone we must fear.

To be haunted by the Lord is to make him the ruling consciousness of our lives. A child’s consciousness is so mother-haunted that although children are not always consciously thinking of their mother, they instinctively seek their mother whenever a crisis arises. In the same way, we are to live and move and have our being in God. The whole of our life, inside and out, is to be absolutely dominated by his presence.

If we are haunted by God, nothing else can get in—no worries, no distractions, no troubles. We see now why our Lord so emphasized the sin of worrying (Matthew 6:25–34). How dare we be so unbelieving when God is all around?

“His soul shall dwell at ease” (Psalm 25:13 KJV). In tribulation, misunderstanding, and slander—in the midst of all these things—if our life is hidden with Christ in God, he will keep us in peace. We rob ourselves of the marvelous revelation of this abiding companionship. “God is our refuge and strength” (Psalm 46:1). Nothing can get through this shelter.

2 Chronicles 17-18; John 13:1-20

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

It is perilously possible to make our conceptions of God like molten lead poured into a specially designed mould, and when it is cold and hard we fling it at the heads of the religious people who don’t agree with us.

Disciples Indeed, 388 R

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Monday, June 02, 2025

Love Through a Telephoto Lens - #10016

We were shooting some video footage of a group of teenagers and they were kind of surprised when they saw the result on a TV screen. We were seated in a little cluster on the floor discussing various youth issues, and what surprised them was the fact that when they saw it on the screen they realized we had focused close-up on each individual as they were commenting. Of course, they went, "Oh, no! Look at me!" See, they thought it was going to be this big group shot. We didn't want the viewers to be distracted by anyone else, so most of the time we would zoom our lens in a real tight close-up, so you would only see one person. The telephoto effect actually makes a big difference.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Love Through a Telephoto Lens."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from Proverbs 5:15, and it's talking about married love. It speaks about it in symbolic terms and then gets pretty direct. "Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well. Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares? Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth."

And then God expresses here as the Inventor of sex that He is, some of the joy that He intended married couples to have, "A loving doe," it says, "a graceful deermay her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love."

This is really a passage about focused love. It's about a man who has eyes for only one woman and doesn't let his springs overflow anywhere else, who really has decided there's only one place for his love. As a result he enjoys a fulfilling and exciting relationship with her. Now, whether you're a husband or a wife, this secret of happiness is still the same. Marital and sexual fulfillment is the byproduct of focused love. Lasered love.

Notice here it says, "Let your ability to express love be yours alone" in so many words. And then in the King James Version, I like the way it says, "Rejoice with the wife of your youth. Let her satisfy you always." In other words there's a choice here. Let her/let him be enough. I choose to focus my telephoto lens on one person; there's no one else in my picture. As soon as you widen your focus, the discontentment, the dissatisfaction begins. Maybe you've been allowing other fantasies into your heart; maybe some of those sites you visited have fueled that kind of mental unfaithfulness.

Where should your heart be? Focusing all your fantasies on your husband or your wife. Those sexually-oriented pictures, the ads, the videos, the movies, the websites - they let other women and other men into a place that should be reserved for just one person. That's the way The Creator made it.

Maybe you joke about having a wandering eye. That's no joke! It dilutes your focus on that one man and that one woman. The soap opera love affairs, the flirtations with that other person, all those mental wanderings erode the excitement of focused love. Don't betray your lifetime partner in your fantasies. You'll both lose.

Decide to let her or let him be enough. Ask for Christ's strength to narrow your focus and you'll see just a close-up on one person. The best of married love is for those who choose love through that telephoto lens. 

Exodus 3, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: The State of Your Heart

The State of Your Heart

“The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart.” Luke 6:45, NIV

When you are offered a morsel of gossip marinated in slander, do you turn it down or pass it on? That depends on the state of your heart . . .

The state of your heart dictates whether you harbor a grudge or give grace, seek self-pity or seek Christ, drink human misery or taste God’s mercy.

Exodus 3

Moses was shepherding the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. He led the flock to the west end of the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, Horeb. The angel of God appeared to him in flames of fire blazing out of the middle of a bush. He looked. The bush was blazing away but it didn’t burn up.

3  Moses said, “What’s going on here? I can’t believe this! Amazing! Why doesn’t the bush burn up?”

4  God saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

He said, “Yes? I’m right here!”

5  God said, “Don’t come any closer. Remove your sandals from your feet. You’re standing on holy ground.”

6  Then he said, “I am the God of your father: The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.”

Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.

7–8  God said, “I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.

9–10  “The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I’ve seen for myself how cruelly they’re being treated by the Egyptians. It’s time for you to go back: I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt.”

11  Moses answered God, “But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

12  “I’ll be with you,” God said. “And this will be the proof that I am the one who sent you: When you have brought my people out of Egypt, you will worship God right here at this very mountain.”

13  Then Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the People of Israel and I tell them, ‘The God of your fathers sent me to you’; and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ What do I tell them?”

14  God said to Moses, “I-AM-WHO-I-AM. Tell the People of Israel, ‘I-AM sent me to you.’ ”

15  God continued with Moses: “This is what you’re to say to the Israelites: ‘God, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob sent me to you.’ This has always been my name, and this is how I always will be known.

16–17  “Now be on your way. Gather the leaders of Israel. Tell them, ‘God, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, appeared to me, saying, “I’ve looked into what’s being done to you in Egypt, and I’ve determined to get you out of the affliction of Egypt and take you to the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, a land brimming over with milk and honey.” ’

18  “Believe me, they will listen to you. Then you and the leaders of Israel will go to the king of Egypt and say to him: ‘God, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness where we will worship God—our God.’

19–22  “I know that the king of Egypt won’t let you go unless forced to, so I’ll intervene and hit Egypt where it hurts—oh, my miracles will send them reeling!—after which they’ll be glad to send you off. I’ll see to it that this people get a hearty send-off by the Egyptians—when you leave, you won’t leave empty-handed! Each woman will ask her neighbor and any guests in her house for objects of silver and gold, for jewelry and extra clothes; you’ll put them on your sons and daughters. Oh, you’ll clean the Egyptians out!”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Sunday, June 01, 2025

by James Banks

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

2 Kings 20:12-19

 Shortly after this, Merodach-Baladan, the son of Baladan king of Babylon, having heard that the king was sick, sent a get-well card and a gift to Hezekiah. Hezekiah was pleased and showed the messengers around the place—silver, gold, spices, aromatic oils, his stockpile of weapons—a guided tour of all his prized possessions. There wasn’t a thing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah didn’t show them.

14  And then Isaiah the prophet showed up: “And just what were these men doing here? Where did they come from and why?”

Hezekiah said, “They came from far away—from Babylon.”

15  “And what did they see in your palace?”

“Everything,” said Hezekiah. “There isn’t anything I didn’t show them—I gave them the grand tour.”

16–18  Then Isaiah spoke to Hezekiah, “Listen to what God has to say about this: The day is coming when everything you own and everything your ancestors have passed down to you, right down to the last cup and saucer, will be cleaned out of here—plundered and packed off to Babylon. God’s word! Worse yet, your sons, the progeny of sons you’ve begotten, will end up as eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

19  Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “If God says it, it must be good.” But he was thinking to himself, “It won’t happen during my lifetime—I’ll enjoy peace and security as long as I live.”

Today's Insights

The Babylonian king sent envoys to Hezekiah seeking to forge an alliance with Judah against Assyria. In a foolish bid to impress them, Hezekiah showed them the wealth of his kingdom. God was testing Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:31). He had previously acted powerfully on Hezekiah’s behalf, but Hezekiah trusted in himself and the military alliance instead of God (see 2 Kings 19:35-36; 20:4-11; 2 Chronicles 32:25). Although Hezekiah repented (v. 26), he brought God’s judgment upon Judah. Later, Jerusalem would be destroyed and the people exiled to Babylon (2 Kings 20:16-19; Isaiah 39). Unlike Hezekiah, God provides the perfect example of loving others.

Our Thoughtful God

Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime? 2 Kings

“Do you want to see my scar?” My friend Bill had been paralyzed from the chest down after falling off a ladder years ago, and now he was in the hospital for a severe infection acquired during a surgery. As we discussed his new challenge, he lifted his blanket to show me the long incision made to treat his infection. “Does it hurt?” I asked. “I can’t feel it at all,” he said.

As soon as he said it, I felt convicted. During all the years I’d known him as a friend, I’d been unaware that his injury prevented both his mobility and ability to feel. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t had more empathy for him and his injury to better understand what he faced daily.

My lack of thoughtfulness about my friend reminds me of something King Hezekiah of Judah did. When the prophet Isaiah told him that everything in his palace would one day “be carried off to Babylon,” and his own descendants “taken away” (2 Kings 20:17-18), Hezekiah was pleased. “For he thought, ‘Will there not be peace and security in my lifetime?’ ” (v. 19). Even though he was a good king, Hezekiah was focused more on himself than on what others would face.

How different God is. “This is love,” John wrote, “not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son” to save us (1 John 4:10). God cares so deeply for us that He suffered for us, so that we might live in His love forever.

Reflect & Pray

What does God’s thoughtfulness mean to you? How might you think of others today?

Thank You for thinking of me, dear God. Please let Your love flow through me to others.

Click here to find out more about how Jesus suffered for us.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Sunday, June 01, 2025

The Staggering Question

Son of man, can these bones live? — Ezekiel 37:3

Can that sinner be turned into a saint? Can that twisted life be put right? There is only one answer: “Sovereign Lord, you alone know” (Ezekiel 37:3).

Some of us think we know exactly what another soul needs. We come trampling in, armed with religious common sense, and say, “Oh, yes. With a little more Bible reading and devotion and prayer, I see how it can be done.” If we think this way, we are mistaking panic for inspiration. It’s much easier to do something than to trust in God. That is why so few of us work with God, while so many of us run around doing tasks he never asked us to do, saying we’re working for him. We would rather busy ourselves with work for God than believe in him.

If I believe in God, I know that he will do what I can’t. I despair of his ability to help others when I fail to see how he has helped me. Once I realize what God’s power has accomplished in my own life, I will stop despairing of others. But if I’ve never had any spiritual work done, I will panic. I panic to the exact degree that I lack personal spiritual experience.

“My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them” (Ezekiel 37:12). When God wants to show you what human nature is apart from his presence, he has to show it to you inside yourself. If the Holy Spirit has given you this vision—the vision of what you are apart from the grace of God—you know that the worst criminal is only half as bad in practice as you are in possibility. “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Romans 7:18). God’s Spirit continually reveals what human nature is apart from his grace.

2 Chronicles 15-16; John 12:27-50

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray.

So Send I You, 1325 L

Exodus 2, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: We’ve Figured it Out

Ironic isn’t it?  The more we know, the less we believe! Strange, don’t you think?

We understand how storms are created. We map solar systems and transplant hearts.  We measure the depths of the ocean and send signals to distant planets.  We’re learning how it all works!  And for some, the loss of mystery has led to the loss of majesty!  The more we know, the less we believe.

But knowledge of the workings should not negate wonder. It should stir wonder!  Who has more reason to worship than the astronomer who has seen the stars? Why then should we worship less?  We’re more impressed with our discovery of the light switch than with the one who invented electricity. And rather than worship the Creator, we worship the creation!

No wonder there is no wonder!  We think we have figured it all out!

From Grace for the Moment

Exodus 2

Moses

1–3  2 A man from the family of Levi married a Levite woman. The woman became pregnant and had a son. She saw there was something special about him and hid him. She hid him for three months. When she couldn’t hide him any longer she got a little basket-boat made of papyrus, waterproofed it with tar and pitch, and placed the child in it. Then she set it afloat in the reeds at the edge of the Nile.

4–6  The baby’s older sister found herself a vantage point a little way off and watched to see what would happen to him. Pharaoh’s daughter came down to the Nile to bathe; her maidens strolled on the bank. She saw the basket-boat floating in the reeds and sent her maid to get it. She opened it and saw the child—a baby crying! Her heart went out to him. She said, “This must be one of the Hebrew babies.”

7  Then his sister was before her: “Do you want me to go and get a nursing mother from the Hebrews so she can nurse the baby for you?”

8  Pharaoh’s daughter said, “Yes. Go.” The girl went and called the child’s mother.

9  Pharaoh’s daughter told her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me. I’ll pay you.” The woman took the child and nursed him.

10  After the child was weaned, she presented him to Pharaoh’s daughter who adopted him as her son. She named him Moses (Pulled-Out), saying, “I pulled him out of the water.”

11–12  Time passed. Moses grew up. One day he went and saw his brothers, saw all that hard labor. Then he saw an Egyptian hit a Hebrew—one of his relatives! He looked this way and then that; when he realized there was no one in sight, he killed the Egyptian and buried him in the sand.

13  The next day he went out there again. Two Hebrew men were fighting. He spoke to the man who started it: “Why are you hitting your neighbor?”

14  The man shot back: “Who do you think you are, telling us what to do? Are you going to kill me the way you killed that Egyptian?”

Then Moses panicked: “Word’s gotten out—people know about this.”

15  Pharaoh heard about it and tried to kill Moses, but Moses got away to the land of Midian. He sat down by a well.

16–17  The priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came and drew water, filling the troughs and watering their father’s sheep. When some shepherds came and chased the girls off, Moses came to their rescue and helped them water their sheep.

18  When they got home to their father, Reuel, he said, “That didn’t take long. Why are you back so soon?”

19  “An Egyptian,” they said, “rescued us from a bunch of shepherds. Why, he even drew water for us and watered the sheep.”

20  He said, “So where is he? Why did you leave him behind? Invite him so he can have something to eat with us.”

21–22  Moses agreed to settle down there with the man, who then gave his daughter Zipporah (Bird) to him for his wife. She had a son, and Moses named him Gershom (Sojourner), saying, “I’m a sojourner in a foreign country.”

23  Many years later the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned under their slavery and cried out. Their cries for relief from their hard labor ascended to God:

24  God listened to their groanings.

God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.

25  God saw what was going on with Israel.

God understood.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Saturday, May 31, 2025

by Karen Huang

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Isaiah 55:6-11

Seek God while he’s here to be found,

pray to him while he’s close at hand.

Let the wicked abandon their way of life

and the evil their way of thinking.

Let them come back to God, who is merciful,

come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.

8–11  “I don’t think the way you think.

The way you work isn’t the way I work.”

God’s Decree.

“For as the sky soars high above earth,

so the way I work surpasses the way you work,

and the way I think is beyond the way you think.

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies

and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,

Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,

producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,

So will the words that come out of my mouth

not come back empty-handed.

They’ll do the work I sent them to do,

they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

Today's Insights

Isaiah 55:8-9 affirms God’s supremacy and incomparability. More than a thousand years before Isaiah prophesied, Job’s friend challenged the ancient patriarch: “Can you solve the mysteries of God? Can you discover everything about the Almighty? Such knowledge is higher than the heavens—and who are you? . . . What do you know?” (Job 11:7-8 nlt). An unanswered question asked by God’s people is this: “Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). God Himself challenged His people: “To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?” (Isaiah 40:25; see v. 18; 46:5). Because God is unlike any other being, our finite minds can never fully understand Him. Yet, this incomparable and incomprehensible God invites us to “come to [Him and] listen, that you may live” (55:3) and “call on him while he is near” (v. 6).

God Knows Best

My ways [are] higher than your ways. Isaiah 55:9

Anxious about a health issue my teenage niece had, I was relieved when I heard of a promising natural remedy. My sister, however, felt it might cause side effects, based on her daughter’s medical history. I wanted to argue but refrained. No matter how concerned I was about my niece, I had to defer to her mom’s authority.

Later, a doctor told us, “That natural remedy would’ve caused a strong allergic reaction.” When it comes to my niece’s welfare, her mom truly knows what’s best for her—in ways that I don’t.   

I remember this incident when I’m anxious about other loved ones, asking God to help them the way I think they should be helped. I remember that God, who loves them and knows them far better than I do, knows best.

In Isaiah 55:9, God says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.” The Hebrew word here for ways (derek) refers to the moral actions and behavior of God contrasted with that of wicked people. God’s wisdom and righteous ways are far above ours. What happens in a loved one’s life may not be what we want, but we can trust Him to work in their lives as He sees best.

Let’s keep entrusting those we love to God by presenting “[our] requests to God” (Philippians 4:6). He alone is perfect in love, mercy, wisdom, and sovereignty (Isaiah 55:3, 7-11).

Reflect & Pray

What concerns do you have for a loved one? How can you surrender your understanding of the situation to God’s wisdom?

Dear God, I entrust my loved ones into Your care. You alone know what’s best for them.

God's love can bring us through life's hardest moments. Find out more by reading Cherish.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Saturday, May 31, 2025

God First

Jesus would not entrust himself to them, . . . for he knew what was in each person.— John 2:24-25

Put trust in God first. “Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people” (John 2:24). Our Lord trusted no one except God, yet he was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about anyone. He simply trusted entirely in what God’s grace could do. If we put our trust in people before God, if we insist on people being something they never can be—absolutely right—we’ll become bitter and end up despairing of everyone. This is why we must never trust in anything but the grace of God.

Put God’s needs first. “Here I am, I have come to do your will” (Hebrews 10:9). Many of us are obedient to whatever we perceive to be a need. We say to ourselves, “The unsaved are dying without God. They need the Lord; they need me to come and preach the gospel.” Jesus was never obedient to a need; he was obedient to the will of his Father. Before we rush off into work for God, we have to make sure that we are honoring God’s will for our own lives. God wants us to be rightly related to him. Once we are, he will open the way for us to meet needs elsewhere.

Put God’s trust first. “And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me” (Matthew 18:5). God entrusts himself to us as an infant. He asks us to turn our personal life into a “Bethlehem,” a place where he may safely dwell, so that we may be slowly transfigured by his life inside us. God’s ultimate purpose for us is that his Son will be manifested in our mortal bodies. Are we honoring the trust he’s placed in us?

2 Chronicles 13-14; John 12:1-26

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

To live a life alone with God does not mean that we live it apart from everyone else. The connection between godly men and women and those associated with them is continually revealed in the Bible, e.g., 1 Timothy 4:10. 

Not Knowing Whither, 867 L

Exodus 1, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE PROCESS OF FORGIVENESS - May 30, 2025

Ephesians 4:26-27 (ESV) says, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity.” The word “opportunity” in this verse means territory or ground. In other words, anger gives ground to the devil. Bitterness invites him to occupy a space in your heart, to rent a room. Believe me, he’ll move in and stink up the place. Gossip, slander, temper—anytime you see these, Satan has claimed a bunk.

Don’t even give him the time of day. Tell him to pack his bags and hit the road. Begin the process of forgiveness. Keep no list of wrongs. Pray for your antagonists rather than plot against them. Outrageous as it may seem, Jesus died for them too. If he thinks they’re worth forgiving, they are.

Now does that make forgiveness easy? No. Quick? Seldom. Forgive your enemies? You can try—forgive them. You will get through this!

You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

Exodus 1

These are the names of the Israelites who went to Egypt with Jacob, each bringing his family members:

Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah,

Issachar, Zebulun, and Ben-jamin,

Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher.

Seventy persons in all generated by Jacob’s seed. Joseph was already in Egypt.

6–7  Then Joseph died, and all his brothers—that whole generation. But the children of Israel kept on reproducing. They were very prolific—a population explosion in their own right—and the land was filled with them.

“A New King … Who Didn’t Know Joseph”

8–10  A new king came to power in Egypt who didn’t know Joseph. He spoke to his people in alarm, “There are way too many of these Israelites for us to handle. We’ve got to do something: Let’s devise a plan to contain them, lest if there’s a war they should join our enemies, or just walk off and leave us.”

11–14  So they organized them into work-gangs and put them to hard labor under gang-foremen. They built the storage cities Pithom and Rameses for Pharaoh. But the harder the Egyptians worked them the more children the Israelites had—children everywhere! The Egyptians got so they couldn’t stand the Israelites and treated them worse than ever, crushing them with slave labor. They made them miserable with hard labor—making bricks and mortar and back-breaking work in the fields. They piled on the work, crushing them under the cruel workload.

15–16  The king of Egypt had a talk with the two Hebrew midwives; one was named Shiphrah and the other Puah. He said, “When you deliver the Hebrew women, look at the sex of the baby. If it’s a boy, kill him; if it’s a girl, let her live.”

17–18  But the midwives had far too much respect for God and didn’t do what the king of Egypt ordered; they let the boy babies live. The king of Egypt called in the midwives. “Why didn’t you obey my orders? You’ve let those babies live!”

19  The midwives answered Pharaoh, “The Hebrew women aren’t like the Egyptian women; they’re vigorous. Before the midwife can get there, they’ve already had the baby.”

20–21  God was pleased with the midwives. The people continued to increase in number—a very strong people. And because the midwives honored God, God gave them families of their own.

22  So Pharaoh issued a general order to all his people: “Every boy that is born, drown him in the Nile. But let the girls live.”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Friday, May 30, 2025

by Sheridan Voysey

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Psalm 69:6-15

 Don’t let those who look to you in hope

Be discouraged by what happens to me,

Dear Lord! God of the armies!

Don’t let those out looking for you

Come to a dead end by following me—

Please, dear God of Israel!

7  Because of you I look like an idiot,

I walk around ashamed to show my face.

8  My brothers shun me like a bum off the street;

My family treats me like an unwanted guest.

9  I love you more than I can say.

Because I’m madly in love with you,

They blame me for everything they dislike about you.

10  When I poured myself out in prayer and fasting,

All it got me was more contempt.

11  When I put on a sad face,

They treated me like a clown.

12  Now drunks and gluttons

Make up drinking songs about me.

13  And me? I pray.

God, it’s time for a break!

God, answer in love!

Answer with your sure salvation!

14  Rescue me from the swamp,

Don’t let me go under for good,

Pull me out of the clutch of the enemy;

This whirlpool is sucking me down.

15  Don’t let the swamp be my grave, the Black Hole

Swallow me, its jaws clenched around me.

Today's Insights

Psalm 69’s vivid description of a “servant” (v. 17) of God enduring unjust suffering parallels Isaiah’s description of a suffering servant (Isaiah 52:13-53:12). Although the psalmist refers to personal “guilt” (Psalm 69:5), this could be an indirect way of confessing general innocence—that is, God knows everything the psalmist is guilty of and knows none of it could justify such treatment. 

In the New Testament, Psalm 69 is frequently quoted in reference to Jesus. He was hated without cause (Psalm 69:4; John 15:25), consumed by zeal for God’s house (Psalm 69:9; John 2:17), carried insults intended for God (Psalm 69:9; Romans 15:3), and given vinegar to drink as He neared death (Psalm 69:21; Matthew 27:34, 48; Mark 15:36; Luke 23:36; John 19:29). Jesus knew “the depths” as no one else could, and He helps us as we face them.

In the Depths

Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up. Psalm 69:15

San Fruttuoso Abbey is nestled in a cove off Italy’s northwest coast. Accessible only by boat or foot, it’s a secluded gem. But even more treasure hides in its bay. As divers venture into the sea and descend fifty feet down, the figure of a man starts coming into view. This is Christ of the Abyss, the world’s first underwater statue, placed in 1954. The bronze figure depicts Jesus in the depths, His hands raised to heaven.

The depths. Maybe you’ve experienced them. “I sink in the miry depths,” Psalm 69 says, “I am worn out calling for help” (vv. 2-3). Mocked by his foes and estranged from his family (vv. 4, 7-12), the psalmist found no comfort in others (v. 20) and feared his misery would “swallow” him up (v. 15). Whether it’s sin or sadness that takes us there, the depths are life’s moments of dark despair.

Thankfully this isn’t the last word on the depths. For while they’re cold and lonely, there is one who can be found in them (139:8). And He will rescue us from their chilly waters. “I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths” (30:1).

As that sculpture reminds us, when we’re sinking under the world’s weight, we’re not alone. Jesus by the Spirit is there in the depths, His hands raised high—ready to meet us and lift us out in time.

Reflect & Pray

How have you experienced “the depths” in the past? How might Psalm 69:15 be pivotal in getting through them?

Dear Jesus, thank You for meeting me in the depths. Please lift me out with Your love, grace, and power.

Gain more wisdom from the book of Pslams.

RELATED CONTENT

ARTICLE

The Price of Peace: Jesus’s and David’s Responses to Injustice - Psalm 69

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Friday, May 30, 2025

“Yes, But . . . !”

I will follow you, Lord; but . . .— Luke 9:61

Suppose God tells you to do something that doesn’t square with your common sense. What are you going to do? Hang back? If this is your inclination, watch out. If you develop the habit of avoidance in your physical life, the habit will rule you until you break it. The same is true in your spiritual life. Again and again you will come to what Jesus Christ wants from you, and again and again you will turn back. “But suppose I obey God in this matter,” you say. “What about my concerns? I can only obey God if his command follows common sense. Don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”

Jesus Christ demands that we display the same reckless, daring attitude in spiritual life that the boldest among us display in natural life. If you’re going to do anything worthwhile, sometimes you have to risk everything and leap. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you leap into what he says, risking everything common sense has taught you. The instant you do, you’ll find that his command makes perfect spiritual sense.

Measured by the standard of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem insane. But if you measure them by the standard of faith, you will find that they are the words of God. Trust entirely in God, and when he brings you to the precipice of a challenge . . . leap. We act like pagans in a crisis: only one in a crowd is daring enough to risk everything on the character of God.

2 Chronicles 10-12; John 11:30-57

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

The life of Abraham is an illustration of two things: of unreserved surrender to God, and of God’s complete possession of a child of His for His own highest end.

Not Knowing Whither

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Friday, May 30, 2025

THE LESSONS THAT SHAPE YOUR CHILD'S LIFE - #10015

Our son's first word was the name he called me, "Da!" I know it's supposed to be "da da," but it was good enough for me. Now, our grandson's first word was "mama," which he liked so much that he just kept it rolling, "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma." Sort of the opposite of "da!" The first words children learn reflect what's going on around them. If they see Mama all the time, you can expect them to say her name early on. Sometimes, those first words aren't happy words. Our friends were dedicated missionaries in a war-torn part of the Middle East for years. Not long after their daughter was born, their area became a place where frequent bombardments and violence erupted all around them. Some of her first words told the story: "bomb," "gun."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Lessons That Shape Your Child's Life."

Children learn what they live, for better or worse. For all our words as parents, it's ultimately what our children live that makes them into the people they become. And God doesn't give a human being any greater trust, any greater responsibility than the shaping of a little person that He made in His image.

God, who asks us to call Him our Heavenly Father, has left us parents and grandparents some great help in the book He wrote. The Bible passes along some valuable instructions given to a generation of parents who were trying to raise their children in a culture that had no use for the values they were teaching their children. And in a setting where their children were being given what their parents had to work for. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?

His instructions to parents are recorded in Deuteronomy 11, beginning with verse 13, and it's our word for today from the Word of God. He begins by saying, "Love the Lord your God and...serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul." Parents need to give their children more than a religion. They need to show them a personal love relationship with the God who made them and a life that makes God the sun in your universe and everything else the planets that revolve around that sun.

Then God says: "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds...teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home, when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses...so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land." In short, live your life in such a way your kids keep bumping into God wherever they turn; a real God that they see in real life situations.

It isn't enough for your child to hear the truth. He or she needs to see what the truth looks like in your life. You teach them faith by how you handle the storms and the stresses that hit your family. You teach them loving their neighbor by seeing your compassion for hurting people. They learn about forgiveness by you forgiving them and asking them to forgive you. They learn that lying is wrong from a parent who always tells the truth. They learn about managing anger when they see you always make things right before your day ends. They learn to love God's Word when they see you meeting with God with His book in your lap.

The truth is, children grow up thinking God is like whatever their parents are like, and that's scary. Especially if you know you have a dark side that all too often is what your kids see; a dark side that continually causes you to hurt most the people you love most. Honestly, your child is your mirror. And if you don't like what you see in that mirror, it's time for you to know the Savior of mommies and daddies. That's Jesus, who died for our sins so they could be forgiven, who rose from His grave with the power to help us change what we could never change about ourselves. Our children show us a truth we may have been able to run from before. We need a Savior. We need Jesus.

This might be the day to make this Savior your Savior. I'd love to help you with that, that's why our website is there. Go to ANewStory.com.

You can't begin to imagine how different your home could be - how different you could be - if Jesus lives there, in you.

Matthew 23:23-39, Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: A REDEMPTIVE PATTERN - May 29, 2025

It’s the repeated pattern in Scripture: Evil. God. Good.

Evil came to Job. Tempted him, tested him. Job struggled, but God countered. He spoke truth, declared sovereignty. Job, in the end, chose God. Satan’s prime target became came God’s star witness, and good resulted. Evil came to David; he committed adultery. Evil came to Daniel; he was dragged to a foreign land. To Nehemiah; the walls of Jerusalem were destroyed. But God countered. Because he did, David wrote songs of grace, Daniel ruled in a foreign land, and Nehemiah rebuilt Jerusalem with Babylonian money. Good happened.

And Jesus. The Bethlehem innkeeper told Jesus’ parents to try their luck in the barn. That was bad. God entered the world in the humblest place on earth. That was good. With Jesus bad became good like night becomes day—regularly, reliably, refreshingly. And redemptively.

You'll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Turbulent Times

Matthew 23:23-39

  “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?

25–26  “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls so they sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greed and gluttony. Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.

27–28  “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.

29–32  “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You build granite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints. And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands. You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers, and daily add to the death count.

33–34  “Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It’s on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse.

35–36  “You can’t squirm out of this: Every drop of righteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood of that good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah’s son, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head. All this, I’m telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.

37–39  “Jerusalem! Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought you God’s news! How often I’ve ached to embrace your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me. And now you’re so desolate, nothing but a ghost town. What is there left to say? Only this: I’m out of here soon. The next time you see me you’ll say, ‘Oh, God has blessed him! He’s come, bringing God’s rule!’ ”

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Thursday, May 29, 2025

by Lisa M. Samra

TODAY'S SCRIPTURE

Acts 1:1-9

To the Ends of the World

1–5  1 Dear Theophilus, in the first volume of this book I wrote on everything that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he said good-bye to the apostles, the ones he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God. As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but “must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon.”

6  When they were together for the last time they asked, “Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?”

7–8  He told them, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.”

9–11  These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud.

Today's Insights

The book of Luke ends with Jesus’ ascension into heaven (Luke 24:50-53). The book of Acts, also written by Luke, begins with him reminding his reader, Theophilus, of that earlier account by referring to “my former book” (Acts 1:1). Luke then affirms the truth of Christ’s resurrection: “After his suffering, [Jesus] presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive” (v. 3). Luke concludes his introduction by assuring us of Christ’s return: “This same Jesus . . . will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (v. 11). The reality of Jesus’ triumph over death and His promised return are foundational to our faith—faith that allows us to live out His power in our lives.

God’s Great Power

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses . . . to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8

Our city fell almost dark after a massive ice storm took down miles of power lines, leaving many of our friends without electricity to heat their homes in the dead of a frigid winter. Families longed to see repair trucks in their neighborhoods working to restore power. Later, I learned that a church parking lot served as a temporary command center for the vehicles being sent out to assist those in need.  

Hearing about the repair trucks brought to mind Jesus’ command to His disciples in the book of Acts. For forty days after His resurrection, Christ appeared to His disciples to encourage and teach them about the kingdom of God (Acts 1:3). Before Jesus’ return to heaven, He gave them one last promise: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you” (v. 8).

Christ promised that God’s incomparably great power would be available to the disciples through His Spirit. But the purpose of having power wasn’t to keep it to themselves. Instead, the disciples let God empower them in the mission of telling others how to experience once more the connection to God’s power and love that was broken by sin.

As we go out into our communities, we have the same power and calling. Empowered by God’s Spirit, we can care for those who are suffering and share how they too can have access to God’s power.

Reflect & Pray

How have you experienced the power of God’s Spirit to help you? How might you share that message with others? 

Dear God, thank You for the gift of Your power and love.

Check out this simple prayer you can use to connect with the Holy Spirit.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers

Thursday, May 29, 2025

Undisturbed Relationship

In that day you will ask in my name. . . . The Father himself loves you because you have loved me.— John 16:26-27

“You will ask in my name.” By “name,” Jesus means “nature.” He isn’t saying, “You will use my name as a magic word to get what you want from the Father.” He’s saying, “You will be so intimate with me that you will be one with me.”

“In that day . . .” The day Jesus is speaking of isn’t a day in the future; it’s here and now. It’s a day of undisturbed relationship between God and his child. Just as Jesus stood blameless in the presence of his Father, so by the baptism of the Spirit are we lifted into relationship with him: “. . . that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us” (John 17:21).

“The Father himself loves you.” The union is complete and absolute. Our Lord doesn’t mean that your external life will be free of complexity and confusion, but that just as he knew the Father’s heart and mind, you too will know it. By the baptism of the Holy Spirit, he will lift you into the heavenly places, where he can reveal God’s counsels to you.

“My Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” (16:23). Jesus is saying that God will recognize our prayers. What a challenge! By the power of the resurrection and the ascension, by the sent-down Holy Spirit, we can be lifted into such a relationship with the Father that we are at one with his sovereign will, just as Jesus was. In this wonderful position, we can pray to God in his name—in his nature—which is gifted to us by the Holy Spirit, and whatever we ask will be given.

2 Chronicles 7-9; John 11:1-29

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

We are not fundamentally free; external circumstances are not in our hands, they are in God’s hands, the one thing in which we are free is in our personal relationship to God. We are not responsible for the circumstances we are in, but we are responsible for the way we allow those circumstances to affect us; we can either allow them to get on top of us, or we can allow them to transform us into what God wants us to be. 

Conformed to His Image, 354 L

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Thursday, May 29, 2025

Personally Bankrupt, Spiritually Rich - #10014

Funny things happen when church youth groups go on summer missions trips. Suddenly these comfortable American kids are facing a totally unfamiliar situation, maybe for the first time in their lives!

There's money they don't quite understand. There's a language that's different from theirs. Surroundings that are really different from their comfy little room back home. Unusual places to sleep, food they're not used to eating.

And suddenly, teenagers who seldom have quiet time in the Bible, are up early every morning for devotions. Amazing! In fact if you look, there's a teenager with a Bible on every rock. It's not quite like that back home is it? What is happening? And kids who find prayer back home kind of boring? Well, now they want prayer meetings. Some who have never prayed aloud before, suddenly find the words. What's going on here? Maybe the same thing that's happening where you are.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Personally Bankrupt, Spiritually Rich."

Now, our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 1, and I'm beginning to read at verse 8. Paul is struggling. He says, "We are under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure." Maybe that's something you can relate to. He goes on to say, "so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts, we felt the sentence of death. But this happened so that..."

Okay, pause for a moment. He's finding the reason for this heavy pressure, getting to the end of his rope, this despairing even of life, why has God allowed this to happen; what's the reason? He says, "It happened so that we might not rely on ourselves but on God." And then he adds, "...who raises the dead." Wow!

Paul says, "I'm bankrupt, man! I have no resources left. Why? How did I get to this point? I had run out of me to depend on. I totally abandoned me and the situation to God." What happened? The next verse says, "He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us."

I told you about the mission trip scenario. Kids are stripped of everything they usually can depend on, and so they're forced to grab Jesus as if their lives depended on Him. Well, it isn't that you suddenly started needing the Lord when you're bankrupt. You just don't realize it until you're bankrupt. Then something very intimate happens in your love relationship with Jesus. You experience His unlimited power at the point of your total powerlessness. In a sense, you don't really know the Lord until you really need the Lord.

Our safe, predictable, well resourced Christianity insulates us from really living by faith.

And then God allows the bottom to drop out, just so He can hold you up. And you find out what He can do when there's none of you and it's all God. And then you can learn that He's enough. He fills up your empty bankrupt account and in a paradox that only God could reveal to us.

Are you ready for it? Here it is: in your bankruptcy you can finally be rich.