Max Lucado Daily Devotional

Max Lucado

It doesn’t matter if it’s a good day, a hard day, or somewhere in-between—we need the hope God offers every day. Max shares words of hope and help through simple, one-minute daily devotionals to encourage you to take one step closer to Jesus.

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Yesterday · length unknown
Dare to Think the Unthinkable
Listen to Today's Devotion Dare we think the unthinkable? That God will hear our prayers, that he will listen when we speak? If you were to pray a faith-empowered prayer, what would you say? Then say it! Let faith fuel your prayers. And let prayers put starch in your faith. Will God give you what you request? Yes, he will. He may do so in a different form than you ask for or a different time frame than you prefer, but “it is [Jesus] who is the ‘Yes’ to all of God’s promises” (2 Corinthians 1:20 GNT). Let’s renew our commitment to unreasonable, unquenchable, unthinkable prayer. Let’s ask God to resurrect hope that has perished and dreams that are buried. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
Thursday · length unknown
Hit Your Knees
Listen to Today's Devotion When the child of Elijah’s friend died, the prophet prayed for the boy. “And God listened to Elijah’s prayer…Elijah picked the boy up, carried him downstairs from the loft, and gave him to his mother. ‘Here’s your son,’ said Elijah, ‘alive!’” 1 Kings 17:22-23 MSG). The power of praying it through. Elijah believed in it. Jesus taught it. He told his followers “that it was necessary for them to pray consistently and never quit” (Luke 18:1 MSG). Take the dead and dying portions of your life—the vigor that has faded, the faith that has dwindled—and lay them before the Lord. And next to them place our society, which seems sicker day by day. The theologian Samuel Taylor Coleridge called prayer “the greatest achievement of the Christian’s warfare upon earth.” If you want to take a stand against the enemy, hit your knees. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
Wednesday · length unknown
Prayer Changes
Listen to Today's Devotion Elijah wasn’t equipped with unique-to-him abilities. He wasn’t embedded with superpowers. James says, “Elijah was a human being just like us. He prayed that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years!” (James 5:17 NCV). Elijah became Elijah by praying that way. Let a man spend a night fasting and praying at the bedside of his sick child, and that father will not be the same man. Let a young mother pour out her complaint to God over the death of her young child, and that young mother will be forever changed. Let a church challenge God to purge sin and send revival, and there is no way that church will be the same. Prayer changes the heart of the one who prays. And prayer touches the heart of the One who hears it. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
Tuesday · length unknown
Wrestle in Prayer
Listen to Today's Devotion When the son of his friend died, “Elijah stretched himself out on the child three times, and cried out to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord my God, I pray, let this child’s soul come back to him’” (1 Kings 17:21 NKJV). Elijah had no precedent upon which to base this prayer. Up to this point in Scripture, no person had been brought back to life. He did this because he believed in a living God. There are occasions in which we rest in prayer. There are other occasions in which we wrestle in prayer. Elijah wrestled. Elijah did first what mattered most: he prayed…passionately, dramatically, thunderously. Let’s do likewise. Let’s heed the command of Scripture: “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God…” (Hebrews 4:16 NLT). Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
Monday · length unknown
The Strategy for the Tragedy
Listen to Today's Devotion “Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse and finally stopped breathing…Elijah lay on top of the boy three times. He prayed to the Lord, ‘Lord my God, let this boy live again!'” (1 Kings 17:17, 21). The Lord answered Elijah’s prayer, the boy began breathing again, and was alive. What if Elijah holding the dead boy is a picture of you and me in the midst of a sick society? Did you know that nine out of ten young people in Great Britain believe that life has no meaning? What happens when ninety percent of a generation find no reason to live? Anxiety, anger, depression, despair, suicide. We, like Elijah, have been handed a corpse. Elijah shows us what to do. Prayer was his strategy for the tragedy. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 21 · length unknown
Pray It Through
Listen to Today's Devotion No verse in the Bible promises the absence of struggle. Quite the contrary. Scripture is stained with tears, problems, injustices, immorality, and wars. Tough times come with life. But troubling times don’t have to take the life out of your life. God gives us this invitation: “Pray it through.” It is what troubles you, fatigues you, shames you. It won’t have the last word. God will. Prayer slaps handcuffs on the culprit. Prayer marches the problem into the presence of God, the One who can solve it. The prophet Elijah is remembered as an example of radical prayer. He is living proof that “when a believing person prays, great things happen” (James 5:16 NCV). Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 20 · length unknown
Faithful Obedience
Listen to Today's Devotion We’d prefer to fill a storehouse with a lifetime’s worth of courage, cash, and convictions. Yet God wants us to trust him day by day. Elijah’s word to the widow is God’s word to us: “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry” (1 Kings 17:14 NIV). Elijah spoke to her with faith; she responded in faith. She turned and obeyed. In order to swim upstream in a downstream culture, we, like the widow, have to make a choice. Will we obey God? When you are weary, God is your strength. Lonely, God is your friend. Weak, God is your provider. Fortitude follows faithful obedience. Do what the widow did. Go to the kitchen, empty the jar of oil and flour, trust. The God who filled it today will fill it again tomorrow. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 19 · length unknown
Sufficiency in All Things
Listen to Today's Devotion Soon after I began following Jesus, I sensed a desire to write Christian books. I cobbled together a manuscript and mailed it to fifteen publishers. Fourteen rejected it. I was beginning to think I should take the hint when one said, “Yes.” Before I knew it, my writing ministry was airborne. It’s been over forty years and nearly fifty books. I seem to have more book ideas than I have time to write them. I am a testimony to God’s provision. Trust him. If he calls you, he will equip you. He will give you what you need when you need it. “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8 NKJV). Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 18 · length unknown
It’s Not Just You
Listen to Today's Devotion “There was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord” (1 Kings 17:15-16 NIV). Each day Elijah, the widow, and her son gathered around a table and had a miracle for a meal. Heaven’s delivery system continued as long as the trio needed it. Jesus spoke of God’s faithful generosity. “But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you…?” (Matthew 6:30 ESV). You aren’t one scoop away from empty. It’s not just you and your depleted energy. It’s not just you and your concerns. You don’t face the assignment alone. If it’s God’s will, it’s God’s bill. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 17 · length unknown
Spiritual Remembrance
Listen to Today's Devotion Zarephath was a Gentile city occupied by Baal worshippers. The chief of the city had a daughter named Jezebel, Elijah’s archenemy. Elijah arrives with nothing. His purse and tummy are empty. Elijah spots a woman. Emaciated. Destitute. I envision Elijah stepping in her direction, and beneath his beard a smile is taking shape as he reviews God’s blessings. Protection in the court of Ahab, provision in the paucity of Kerith, and a shield of safety during the trek to Zarephath. In your case would the God who gave you grace last week not give you grace again? Unbreakable courage requires good recall. Spiritual amnesia makes spiritual wimps. Spiritual remembrance makes spiritual giants. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 14 · length unknown
Your Test Is Part of Your Call
Listen to Today's Devotion God sees the needs of tomorrow and, accordingly, creates the training of today. He did so with Agnes. As a young girl she was on fire for her faith. She left her home, her family, and country and became a missionary. She gave God everything, and God gave her a test: loneliness. She felt as if God had left her. On and off for fifty years, she battled a secret pain. Only late in life did she come to see her suffering as a way to understand the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all the people who feel unwanted. It was only then that Agnes—Mother Teresa—saw her test as part of her call. Your test is a part of your call as well. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 13 · length unknown
The Enemy of the Saint
Listen to Today's Devotion The prophet Elijah was headline news in the nation. He was also a sitting duck for a big head. So, in a preemptive measure, God led him to a creek where Elijah would be utterly dependent upon a brook for water and some birds for food. The enemy of the saint is pride. We must fight it like the foe it is. Take note of your “hat size.” Are you getting a big head? Then volunteer for menial tasks—wash dishes, sweep floors. You are loved but not indispensable. You are God’s child but not God’s golden child. You have a place in God’s plan, but you are not essential to God’s plan. The smaller we are, the more room there is for God. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 12 · length unknown
Absorb Spiritual Power
Listen to Today's Devotion A person with no input from God has the vibrancy of Shafter Lake. It languishes a few miles west of my West Texas hometown. Envision a brackish mud puddle the size of a football field. Unlike true lakes, Shafter has no pure source. No river fills to flows through it. Gas, oil, and saltwater puddle and fume. Not a pleasant sight. The lake without an entrance or exit stinks. So does the life with no divine source. Hence the invitation of Jesus. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Rivers of living water will brim and spill out of the depths of anyone who believes in me this way” (John 7:37-38 MSG). Like a plant absorbs light from the sun, the believer absorbs spiritual power from the divine. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 11 · length unknown
Savor the Stillness
Listen to Today's Devotion Do you feel isolated from family and friends? Perhaps your isolation is less geographical and more ideological. Do you feel alone in your opinions and concerns? When we follow the crowd, we feel safe. When we swim against the tide, we need strength. Turn to God as your best friend. Find what it means to walk in the Spirit, to lean on and lean into him as your comforter. Meditate on Scripture. Read inspirational books. Enjoy times of worship. Lay claim to a quiet spot where you can hear God’s voice. Speak less when you are in his presence. “Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10 NKJV). Learn to savor the stillness. Trust God’s stops as well as God’s steps. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 10 · length unknown
Step Out of the Traffic
Listen to Today's Devotion God sent Elijah into the rocky, raw, and lonely land of the Kerith Ravine. He had no temple for worship, no faith fraternity for strength. It would be years before he enjoyed fellowship with faithful Jews. Preparation by separation. Purposeful silence and solitude are basic courses in Unbreakable Courage 101. Jesus found his Kerith in the obscure days of Nazareth and the quiet days in the wilderness. In order to gather strength for the cross, he sought time alone in the Garden of Gethsemane. If Jesus needed Kerith-like solitude, how much more do we? God’s invitation is compelling. From Psalm 46:10 (MSG): “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me…” When did you last “step out of the traffic” to be alone with your Father? Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 7 · length unknown
Divine Boot Camp
Listen to Today's Devotion God told Elijah to “hide in the Kerith Ravine…I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there” (1 Kings 17:2-4 NIV). Why would God do this? To protect Elijah from Ahab and Jezebel for one thing. The crown had posted an APB. Search parties were dispatched. What better place for Elijah to hide than in the rugged landscape of his homeland? And God sent Elijah to Kerith to prepare him for the future. Remember, the world had gone crazy. Abhorrent behavior—child sacrifice, worship of idols, temple prostitution—had been normalized. God needed a steadfast prophet to stand against such a tide. To prepare Elijah for his assignment, God led him into the wilderness. It was there the prophet learned to radically trust God. Call it divine boot camp. Be patient. God is working on you. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 6 · length unknown
Spiritual Muscle
Listen to Today's Devotion Spiritual muscle is developed not by sitting but by acting. Not by listening but by doing. “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like” (James 1:22-24 NLT). You turn away, pause, and wonder, Did I comb my hair? Such a question would betray one truth, and that is lack of attention. James indicts us for doing the same. We go to church. We hear a message, enjoy a few songs, but are we changed? Do we worry less and pray more? Are we less concerned about our will and more concerned about God’s? Let’s not be lookers. Let’s be doers. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 5 · length unknown
Strength to Ride the Storm
Listen to Today's Devotion Do you feel it is you against the world? Not so, my friend. Outnumbered by foes and outdone by fear? Please reconsider. Surrounded by adversity? Perhaps. Yet, you are also encircled by divinity. With God’s help you can ride these raging rapids with unbreakable courage. Immovable. Determined. Square-jawed and resolved. Like the prophet Elijah who “…went and did according to the word of the Lord…” (1 Kings 17:5 NKJV). Elijah affirms a positive answer to these questions: Can a person maintain faith in a world that has little? When a culture belittles belief, can a believer beget strength? Yes! With God’s help, we will discover strength to ride this storm, an unbreakable courage and steadfast faith. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 4 · length unknown
Enter…Elijah
Listen to Today's Devotion Ancient Israel had the scruffy hills of Gilead, and somewhere in this rugged land Elijah came to believe in a mighty Yahweh who refused to share his glory with others. He confronted Ahab and Jezebel with a surgical strike. Baal was regarded as the god of fertility, yet Baal’s veil was about to be yanked back. Jehovah has declared a drought. Does Elijah have some encouragement for our generation? Absolutely! The story of Elijah offers us hope. Elijah shows us that one person following a living God is greater than hundreds of people praying to a lifeless one. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.
August 3 · length unknown
Ahab and Jezebel
Listen to Today's Devotion “Ahab was king over Israel for twenty-two years. Ahab son of Omri did even more open evil before God than anyone yet—a new champion in evil!” (1 Kings 16:29-30 MSG). There’s a reason parents don’t name their kids Ahab or Jezebel. Ahab not only neglected the faith of his fathers, but he also embraced the false gods of his enemies. Yet this evil king did more—he married Jezebel. She was vile, she endorsed a religion that promoted temple prostitution and child sacrifice, she and her husband systematically killed the Lord’s prophets. The Ten Commandments were treated as ten suggestions, and the temple of worship was a relic of history. God, however, will not sit idly while his covenants are trashed. He will not stay silent while his will is mocked. But he will act. Read more Unbreakable Courage For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

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