Max Lucado Daily: GOD’S HOLD IS SURE - November 2, 2026
Many Christians think they’re saved, hope they’re saved, but still they doubt, wondering, “Am I really saved?” Our behavior gives us reason to wonder. We’re strong one day, weak the next. Devoted one hour, flagging the next. Believing, then unbelieving.
Conventional wisdom draws a line through the middle of these fluctuations. Perform above this line, and enjoy God’s acceptance. But dip below it, and expect a pink slip from heaven. Salvation, then, becomes a matter of timing. You just hope you’ll die on an upswing.
Jesus’ language couldn’t be stronger: “And I give them eternal life, and they shall never lose it or perish throughout the ages…and no one is able to snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28 AMPC). God doesn’t let go, and he won’t let go of you.
God Is with You Every Day
1 Kings 8
Bringing all this to a climax, King Solomon called in the leaders of Israel, all the heads of the tribes and the family patriarchs, to bring up the Chest of the Covenant of God from Zion, the City of David. And they came, all Israel before King Solomon in the month of Ethanim, the seventh month, for the great autumn festival.
3–5With all Israel’s leaders present, the priests took up the Chest of God and carried up the Chest and the Tent of Meeting and all the holy vessels that went with the Tent. King Solomon and the entire congregation of Israel were there at the Chest worshiping and sacrificing huge numbers of sheep and cattle—so many that no one could keep track.
6–9Then the priests brought the Chest of the Covenant of God to its place in the Inner Sanctuary, the Holy of Holies, under the wings of the cherubim. The outspread wings of the cherubim stretched over the Chest and its poles. The poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the entrance to the Inner Sanctuary, but were not noticeable farther out. They’re still there today. There was nothing in the Chest but the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Horeb where God made a covenant with Israel after bringing them up from Egypt.
The Temple Finished, Dedicated, Filled
10–11When the priests left the Holy Place, a cloud filled The Temple of God. The priests couldn’t carry out their priestly duties because of the cloud—the glory of God filled The Temple of God!
12–13Then Solomon spoke:
God has told us that he lives in the dark
where no one can see him;
I’ve built this splendid Temple, O God,
to mark your invisible presence forever.
14The king then turned to face the congregation and blessed them:
15–16“Blessed be God, the God of Israel, who spoke personally to my father David. Now he has kept the promise he made when he said, ‘From the day I brought my people Israel from Egypt, I haven’t set apart one city among the tribes of Israel to build a Temple to fix my Name there. But I did choose David to rule my people Israel.’
17–19“My father David had it in his heart to build a Temple honoring the Name of God, the God of Israel. But God told him ‘It was good that you wanted to build a Temple in my honor—most commendable! But you are not the one to do it—your son will build it to honor my Name.’
20–21“God has done what he said he would do: I have succeeded David my father and ruled over Israel just as God promised; and now I’ve built a Temple to honor God, the God of Israel, and I’ve secured a place for the Chest that holds the covenant of God, the covenant that he made with our ancestors when he brought them up from the land of Egypt.”
22–25Before the entire congregation of Israel, Solomon took a position before the Altar, spread his hands out before heaven, and prayed,
O God, God of Israel, there is no God like you in the skies above or on the earth below who unswervingly keeps covenant with his servants and relentlessly loves them as they sincerely live in obedience to your way. You kept your word to David my father, your personal word. You did exactly what you promised—every detail. The proof is before us today!
Keep it up, God, O God of Israel! Continue to keep the promises you made to David my father when you said, “You’ll always have a descendant to represent my rule on Israel’s throne, on the condition that your sons are as careful to live obediently in my presence as you have.”
26O God of Israel, let this all happen;
confirm and establish it!
27–32Can it be that God will actually move into our neighborhood? Why, the cosmos itself isn’t large enough to give you breathing room, let alone this Temple I’ve built. Even so, I’m bold to ask: Pay attention to these my prayers, both intercessory and personal, O God, my God. Listen to my prayers, energetic and devout, that I’m setting before you right now. Keep your eyes open to this Temple night and day, this place of which you said, “My Name will be honored there,” and listen to the prayers that I pray at this place.
Listen from your home in heaven
and when you hear, forgive.
When someone hurts a neighbor and promises to make things right, and then comes and repeats the promise before your Altar in this Temple, listen from heaven and act accordingly: Judge your servants, making the offender pay for his offense and setting the offended free of any charges.
33–34When your people Israel are beaten by an enemy because they’ve sinned against you, but then turn to you and acknowledge your rule in prayers desperate and devout in this Temple,
Listen from your home in heaven,
forgive the sin of your people Israel,
return them to the land you gave their ancestors.
35–36When the skies shrivel up and there is no rain because your people have sinned against you, but then they pray at this place, acknowledging your rule and quitting their sins because you have scourged them,
Listen from your home in heaven,
forgive the sins of your servants, your people Israel.
Then start over with them: Train them to live right and well; send rain on the land you gave your people as an inheritance.
37–40When disasters strike, famine or catastrophe, crop failure or disease, locust or beetle, or when an enemy attacks their defenses—calamity of any sort—any prayer that’s prayed from anyone at all among your people Israel, hearts penetrated by the disaster, hands and arms thrown out to this Temple for help,
Listen from your home in heaven.
Forgive and go to work on us. Give what each deserves, for you know each life from the inside (you’re the only one with such “inside knowledge”!) so that they’ll live before you in lifelong reverent and believing obedience on this land you gave our ancestors.
41–43And don’t forget the foreigner who is not a member of your people Israel but has come from a far country because of your reputation. People are going to be attracted here by your great reputation, your wonder-working power, who come to pray at this Temple.
Listen from your home in heaven.
Honor the prayers of the foreigner so that people all over the world will know who you are and what you’re like and will live in reverent obedience before you, just as your own people Israel do; so they’ll know that you personally make this Temple that I’ve built what it is.
44–51When your people go to war against their enemies at the time and place you send them and they pray to God toward the city you chose and this Temple I’ve built to honor your Name,
Listen from heaven to what they pray and ask for,
and do what’s right for them.
When they sin against you—and they certainly will; there’s no one without sin!—and in anger you turn them over to the enemy and they are taken captive to the enemy’s land, whether far or near, but repent in the country of their captivity and pray with changed hearts in their exile, “We’ve sinned; we’ve done wrong; we’ve been most wicked,” and turn back to you heart and soul in the land of the enemy who conquered them, and pray to you toward their homeland, the land you gave their ancestors, toward the city you chose, and this Temple I have built to the honor of your Name,
Listen from your home in heaven
to their prayers desperate and devout
and do what is best for them.
Forgive your people who have sinned against you; forgive their gross rebellions and move their captors to treat them with compassion. They are, after all, your people and your precious inheritance whom you rescued from the heart of that iron-smelting furnace, Egypt!
52–53O be alert and attentive to the needy prayers of me, your servant, and your dear people Israel; listen every time they cry out to you! You hand-picked them from all the peoples on earth to be your very own people, as you announced through your servant Moses when you, O God, in your masterful rule, delivered our ancestors from Egypt.
54–55Having finished praying to God—all these bold and passionate prayers—Solomon stood up before God’s Altar where he had been kneeling all this time, his arms stretched upward to heaven. Standing, he blessed the whole congregation of Israel, blessing them at the top of his lungs:
56–58“Blessed be God, who has given peace to his people Israel just as he said he’d do. Not one of all those good and wonderful words that he spoke through Moses has misfired. May God, our very own God, continue to be with us just as he was with our ancestors—may he never give up and walk out on us. May he keep us centered and devoted to him, following the life path he has cleared, watching the signposts, walking at the pace and rhythms he laid down for our ancestors.
59–61“And let these words that I’ve prayed in the presence of God be always right there before him, day and night, so that he’ll do what is right for me, to guarantee justice for his people Israel day after day after day. Then all the people on earth will know God is the true God; there is no other God. And you, your lives must be totally obedient to God, our personal God, following the life path he has cleared, alert and attentive to everything he has made plain this day.”
62–63The king and all Israel with him then worshiped, offering sacrifices to God. Solomon offered Peace-Offerings, sacrificing to God 22,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep. This is how the king and all Israel dedicated The Temple of God.
64That same day, the king set apart the central area of the Courtyard in front of God’s Temple for sacred use and there sacrificed the Whole-Burnt-Offerings, Grain-Offerings, and fat from the Peace-Offerings—the bronze Altar was too small to handle all these offerings.
65–66This is how Solomon kept the great autumn feast, and all Israel with him, people there all the way from the far northeast (the Entrance to Hamath) to the far southwest (the Brook of Egypt)—a huge congregation. They started out celebrating for seven days—and then did it another seven days! Two solid weeks of celebration! Then he dismissed them. They blessed the king and went home, exuberant with heartfelt gratitude for all the good God had done for his servant David…
Our Daily Bread reading and devotion
Monday, November 02, 2026
by Leslie Koh
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
1 Samuel 8:4-9
Fed up, all the elders of Israel got together and confronted Samuel at Ramah. They presented their case: “Look, you’re an old man, and your sons aren’t following in your footsteps. Here’s what we want you to do: Appoint a king to rule us, just like everybody else.”
6When Samuel heard their demand—“Give us a king to rule us!”—he was crushed. How awful! Samuel prayed to God.
7–9God answered Samuel, “Go ahead and do what they’re asking. They are not rejecting you. They’ve rejected me as their King. From the day I brought them out of Egypt until this very day they’ve been behaving like this, leaving me for other gods. And now they’re doing it to you. So let them have their own way. But warn them of what they’re in for. Tell them the way kings operate, just what they’re likely to get from a king.”
Today's Insights
Key to understanding today’s Scripture (1 Samuel 8:4-9) is another passage that contains God’s instructions to Israel during their flight from Egypt. He told them, “The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth” (Deuteronomy 7:6). He also said, “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you . . . and you say, ‘Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,’ be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses” (17:14-15). Despite their privileged status as His chosen people, He knew His people would yearn to be like the nations surrounding them. When Samuel prayed, God told him, “They have rejected me as their king” (1 Samuel 8:7). Yet they remained His people, and God did indeed choose their human king (9:16). We can remember today that God’s wisdom is available in every decision we make.
For further study, read: Making Decisions God's Way
God Our King
It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 1 Samuel 8:7
After being jobless for a year, Ethan finally got a good offer—but his wife stopped him from accepting it. “Is this good for you?” she asked. “It’s a night shift, so you’ll struggle to attend church on Sunday mornings, like with your previous job.” After praying and mulling over it, Ethan decided to turn down the offer. While there was nothing wrong with it, he knew it wouldn’t be good for him. Months later, he got another job—a day shift—that allowed him to attend church regularly.
Not all decisions that seem logical are God-honoring or wise. For example, it seemed natural for the Israelites to ask for a king. The prophet Samuel’s sons weren’t fit to lead (1 Samuel 8:3), and other nations seemed to be doing well with a king (vv. 5, 20). But God warned them about trusting solely in people; only He was their true king who could protect and provide for them perfectly (vv. 7, 11-18). Still, the Israelites insisted (v. 19), leading God to tell Samuel, “It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (v. 7). Later, the Israelites would suffer under the rule of a string of evil kings.
Human wisdom can lead us to rely on ourselves rather than God. His ways may be counterintuitive, but they’re truly wise and lead to good. May we learn to trust Him and accept His rule in our lives, for He alone is our loving King.
Reflect & Pray
What decisions are you facing now? How can you seek God’s guidance and wisdom in making them?
Dear God, please teach me to trust in Your ways and follow them so I can obey and please You in all I do.
My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Monday, November 02, 2026
Authority and Independence
If you love me, keep my commands. —John 14:15
Our Lord never insists on obedience. He tells us emphatically what we should do, but he never forces us to do it. Our reason for obeying him must be a oneness of spirit, not fear or coercion. When our Lord talked about discipleship, he prefaced it with an option, an “if ”: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24 kjv). And, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26). In these verses, our Lord isn’t talking of eternal positions but of being of value to him here, in this order of things; that is why he sounds so stern. Never interpret these words apart from the one who spoke them.
“If you love me, keep my commands.” Our Lord doesn’t give us rules; he simply makes his standards clear. If my relationship to him is one of love, I’ll do what he says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone else—myself—in competition with him. I have to give up my right to myself to become one with Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ won’t help me obey him; I have to obey him of my own free will. When I do obey, I fulfill my spiritual destiny. My personal life may be crowded with small, petty problems, things which seem entirely random and meaningless. But if I obey Jesus Christ in the midst of them, they become pinholes through which I see the face of God.
When I stand face-to-face with God, I discover that through my obedience, thousands were blessed. When God’s redemption comes to the point of obedience in a human soul, it always creates; his redemption pushes through me to other lives, because behind the act of obedience is the reality of the almighty God.
Jeremiah 27-29; Titus 3
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
God created man to be master of the life in the earth and sea and sky, and the reason he is not is because he took the law into his own hands, and became master of himself, but of nothing else.
The Shadow of an Agony, 1163 L
A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Monday, November 02, 2026
Nuisance or Need - #10386
Scripture: Luke 18:35
You know a lot of life’s disrupting sounds you can learn to ignore: sirens screaming, telephones ringing, TV blasting, trains rumbling by. It is almost impossible to ignore a baby crying. If there’s a baby in your house and he starts crying, what should you do?
You could just go, “Oh what a nuisance!” No, You could close the door and pretend it isn’t there. You could turn up the music real loud, cover it up. Or you could yell back at him like he’s yelling at you. Obviously, if you do any of those, you are showing your inexperience. That’s not going to do anything. He’s just going to keep crying.
See, behind the cry is a need, and the crying isn’t going to stop until he gets his tummy filled, or the relief that only a burp can give, or until you get him out of his mess shall we say. Of course, we don’t stop crying just because we grow up; we just find grownup ways to cry. Maybe there’s someone crying around you right now. I wonder how you’re responding.
I’m Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Nuisance or Need.”
Our word for today from the Word of God? It’s in Luke 18. I’m going to begin reading at verse 35. “As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the road begging.” Now, we’re told in other gospels that his name was Bartimaeus. “When he heard the crowd going by he asked what was happening. They told him Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. He called out, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.’ Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet. But he shouted all the more, ‘Son of David have mercy on me!’ Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to Him, and he came near and Jesus asked him, ‘What do you want Me to do for you?’ ‘Oh, Lord, I want to see’ he replied. Jesus said to him, ‘Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus praising God.” Love it.
Now, it’s interesting the two different ways people looked at Bartimaeus in this story. When the people of Jericho saw Bartimaeus, they saw a nuisance. “Will you stop crying? Stop making so much noise! You’re an embarrassment.” When Jesus saw Bartimaeus, He saw a need.
Now, in your life there are probably some obnoxious people. Can you think of one or two? Some mean people; maybe folks who demand a lot of your time and attention. Maybe there’s a complainer around you. You know, in all of our lives, there are people who are for one reason or another folks you’d just like to close the door on maybe. And you will unless you see them through the eyes of Jesus, and there you’ll see the need.
Like a mother who looks past a baby’s annoying cry to find out where it hurts. People are nuisances because they have needs; needs that no one has stopped to meet. I wonder, if like Jesus, you would stop for them? Maybe they need a listener; they need someone who sees the good in them…someone who notices them; someone who affirms that they matter. Maybe they need someone to reach inside and find out what’s really making them bleed; someone who will include them in the group.
See, that crying person, they’re a wounded person. And you can be part of God’s healing in that person’s life. We’re here to do what Jesus would do if He were there in person, and that means when others see a nuisance, you will see a need and you’ll do something about it.
