Listen to Today’s Devotion

Jesus’ self-assigned purpose statement reads: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

As you celebrate your unique design, be careful.  Don’t be so focused on what you love to do that you neglect what needs to be done. You know a 3:00 am diaper change fits in very few sweet spots, but the world needs servants. People like Jesus, who “did not come to be served, but to serve.” He selected prayer over sleep and unpredictable apostles over obedient angels. Jesus picked the people. When they feared the storm, he stilled it. When they had no wine for the wedding or food for the multitude, he made both. Let’s follow his example and put on the apron of humility, to serve one another (1 Peter 5:5).

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Who has a greater chance of helping our children live in their sweet spots than we do?  But will we? God’s Word urges us to do so. Listen closely to this reminder, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).

Don’t interpret this verse to mean, If I fill them with Scripture and Bible lessons, they may rebel but eventually they’ll return. The proverb makes no such promise. Godly parents can prepare the soil and sow the seed, but God gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3:6). Show them the path? Yes. Force them to take it? No. To train up means to awaken thirst—to develop thirst. One translation (ASB) margins this verse with the phrase according to his way. So, the greatest gift you can give your children is not your riches, but revealing to them their own.

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

At the age of two, master pianist Van Cliburn played a song on the piano while listening to teaching in the adjacent room.  His mother noticed his skill and began giving him daily piano lessons.  The little kid from Kilgore, Texas, won the First International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow. Why? In part because a parent noticed an aptitude and helped a child develop it.

What gives your child satisfaction and pleasure?  Of course, what thrills one person bothers another. The apostle Peter liked to keep the boat steady while the apostle Paul was prone to rock it. So, resist the urge to label before you study. Attend carefully to the unique childhood of your child. What story do you read in your children? Uncommon are the parents who attempt to learn—and are blessed by their children.

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Each year God gives millions of parents a gift—a brand-new baby. God pre-wired your infant. He scripted your toddler’s strengths. He set your teen on a trajectory. God gave you an eighteen-year research project. What sets this child apart?  You see, childhood tendencies forecast adult abilities. Read them. Discern them. Affirm them. Cheerlead them!

Even Jesus displayed an earthly bent.  Where did Joseph and Mary locate their lost twelve-year-old?  In the temple listening to the teachers and asking them questions.  Did this early interest play out later in life?  By all means. Even his enemies referred to him as Rabbi (Matthew 26:49).

Don’t see your child as a blank slate awaiting your pen, but as a written book awaiting your study!

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

God does uncommon things through common deeds! A friend of mine related the story of Hurricane Katrina survivors. As water rose around one man’s house, he swam out of a window with two children on his back, ending up on the rooftop of a tall building. Others joined him before being rescued. After an hour on the building, the man realized it was a church. Patting the rooftop he said to the others, “We are on holy ground.”  Another roof dweller proclaimed, “My grandfather and grandmother helped build this church.”

Do you think those grandparents ever imagined God would use their work to save their granddaughter?  What difference will your work make? God’s answer is this:  “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin”  (Zechariah 4:10).

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Do we need a reminder today of the largeness of Jesus’ story? Do terms like “sin,” “salvation,” and “redemption” stand a chance in this sophisticated day of humanism and relativism? Well, apparently they do! After all, where are the Romans who crucified Christ and the great temples of Corinth that dwarfed the infant church? Do worshipers still sacrifice to Zeus?  No, but they still sing to Jesus.

Do you wonder if your work makes a difference?  Against a towering giant, a brook pebble seems futile. But God used it to topple Goliath. In God’s hands, small seeds grow into sheltering trees.  He cures the common life by giving no common life and by offering no common gifts. Don’t discount the smallness of your deeds!

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Jesus repeatedly escaped the noise of the crowd in order to hear the voice of God! Which presupposes a decision on his part.  I need to get away…to think…to calibrate my course. With resolve, he pressed the pause button on his life.

Richard Foster hit the mark when he wrote,  “If our Adversary can keep us engaged in ‘muchness’ and ‘manyness,’ he will rest satisfied.” The devil implants taxi meters in our brains.  We hear the relentless tick, tick, tick telling us to hurry, hurry, hurry, time is money—resulting in this roaring blur called the human race.

Follow Jesus into the desert.  Accept your Master’s invitation to  “Come aside by yourself to a desert place and rest a while” (Mark 6:31).

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

It took a purposeful pause to pull me out of a spiritual desert! Standing in our new church building before a beaming congregation, I was thinking, I should be thrilled.  Instead I was hollow and mechanical.  A friend noticed and convinced me to do what I’m urging you to do—that is, clarify my sweet spot. Renewal began when I paused on purpose.

Do you sense a disconnect between your design and daily duties?  God may want you to leave but you’re staying.  How can you know unless you mute the crowd and meet with Jesus in a deserted place?  He says, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Jesus “often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed” (Luke 5:16). Why don’t you press the ‘pause button’ so you can contemplate the work of God.

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Look over your shoulder.  The crowd is one step back. They don’t consult your strengths or know your story. Still, they seem to know more about your life than you do.  They’ll lead your life if you allow them.

Jesus didn’t. “When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he told his followers to go to the other side of the lake” (Matthew 8:18). After a day of teaching, “Jesus left the crowd and went into the house” (Matthew 13:36). Christ repeatedly escaped the noise of the crowd in order to hear the voice of God.  He resisted the undertow of people by anchoring to the rock of his purpose—employing his uniqueness to make a big deal out of God.  Jesus said no to good things so he could say yes to the right thing—his unique call!  And He calls on you and me to do likewise.

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Many people dread their work.  If you’re one of them, try changing your attitude toward your work! God’s eyes fall on the work of our hands. One stay-at-home-mom keeps this sign over her sink:  “Divine tasks performed here, daily.”  Indeed, work can be worship.

Peter wrote, “You are a chosen people.  You are a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession.  This is so you can show others the goodness of God.” (1 Peter 2:9). So, let every detail in your life—your words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus. (Colossians 3:17). You don’t drive to an office, you drive to a sanctuary. You don’t attend a school, you attend a temple.  You may not wear a clerical collar, but you could, because your work is God’s pulpit!

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

What if everyone worked with Ephesians 6:7 in mind? “Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.”  Suppose no one worked to satisfy self or please the bottom line but everyone worked to please God.  Many occupations would instantly cease– drug trafficking, thievery, prostitution, nightclub and casino management.

Certain behaviors would cease as well. If I’m repairing a car for God, I’m not going to overcharge his children. Imagine if everyone worked for the audience of One. Every nurse, thoughtful. Every officer, careful. Every teacher, hopeful. Every lawyer, skillful. Impossible? Well, not entirely. All we need is someone to start a worldwide revolution. Might as well be us!

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

When Michelangelo was in his early thirties, the pope invited him to paint a dozen figures on the ceiling of a Vatican chapel. Painting wasn’t Michelangelo’s first passion and he almost refused the project, thinking it was an insignificant one. But he accepted, and as he painted his enthusiasm mounted. Four years, four-hundred figures, and nine scenes later, Michelangelo had changed more than the chapel; he’d changed the direction of art and the style of European painting.

What turned Michelangelo’s work of obligation into an act of inspiration? An observer asked why he focused such attention on the corners of the chapel. “No one will ever see them,” he suggested. Michelangelo’s reply? “God will.” The artist must have known the scripture, “Work with enthusiasm, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people” (Ephesians 6:7).

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

When you are full of yourself, God cannot fill you. But when you empty yourself, God has a useful vessel!

Paul, the Bible’s most prolific author, referred to himself as “the least of the apostles” (1 Corinthians 15:9). King David wrote no psalm celebrating his victory over Goliath, but he did write a public poem of penitence confessing his sin with Bathsheba. And then there’s Joseph, the quiet father of Jesus. Rather than make a name for himself, he made a home for Christ. And he was given the privilege of naming the son, “and he called his name Jesus” (Matthew 1:25). Queue up the millions who’ve spoken the name of Jesus, and look at the person selected to stand at the front of the line, Joseph. It seems right, don’t you think? Joseph gave up his name, so Jesus let Joseph say his. Do you think Joseph ever regretted his choice?

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Would you forfeit your reputation to see Jesus born into your world? Let’s say you’re someone who enjoys the role of a “Christmas Christian.”  You sing the carols, attend the services—but once the season passes, you jettison your faith and re-shelve your Bible.  But this past Christmas, the immensity of it hit you:  Heaven hung her highest hope and King on a cross for me.  Radical thoughts have since surfaced—like joining a Bible study, going on a mission trip.  Your family and friends think you’re crazy.  They want the Christmas Christian back.  You can protect your reputation or protect His.  You have a choice.

Christ abandoned his.  No one in Nazareth saluted him as the Son of God.  Jesus “gave up his place with God and made himself nothing” (Philippians 2:7). God hunts for those who will do the same—through whom he can deliver Christ into the world!

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

God grants us an uncommon life to the degree that we surrender our common one.  Jesus said, “If you try to keep your life for yourself, you will lose it.  But if you give up your life for me, you will find true life” (Matthew 16:25).

Imagine that you are a photographer for an ad agency and your boss assigns you your biggest photo shoot ever—an adult magazine.  Say yes and polish your reputation; yet you’ll use your God-given gifts to tarnish Christ’s reputation. What do you choose?  You have a choice!

Jesus did too.  He “made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men…he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). Christ abandoned his reputation, and God hunts for those who will do likewise.

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

“God’s family is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15). The term family far and away outpaces any other biblical term to describe the church. “Brothers” or “brothers and sisters” appears a whopping 148 times between the book of Acts and the book of Revelation.

In the church we use our gifts to love each other, honor one another, and carry each other’s burdens. Do you need encouragement, prayers, or a hospitable home? God entrusts the church to purvey these treasures. Consider the church God’s treatment center for the common life. Don’t miss the place to find your place and heal your hurts. Oh, the immensity, the beauty, and the surprises of family life. In God’s church, may you find them all.

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

All the billions of Christ followers over the last two-thousand years have this in common:  “A spiritual gift is given to each of us” (1 Corinthians 12:7). God’s body has no nobodies. No exceptions…no exclusions. Our gifts make an eternal difference only in concert with the church. Apart from the body of Christ, we are like clipped fingernails or shaved whiskers and cut hair. Who needs them? He grants gifts so we can “prepare God’s holy people” (Ephesians 4:11-12).

Paul reached into a medical dictionary for this term. Doctors used it to describe the setting of a broken bone. Broken people come to churches. Not with broken bones, but broken hearts, broken homes, broken dreams, and broken lives. And if the church operates as the church, they find healing.  All members help to heal brokenness, “to make the body of Christ stronger!”

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

For some people it’s God, yes; but Church, no. They like the benefits but resist commitment. The music, the message, the clean conscience—they accept the church perks.  So they visit her; they use the church. But commit to the church? Can’t do that. We’ve got to keep options open. Don’t want to miss out on any opportunities.

To miss the church is to miss God’s sanctioned tool for God promotion. The church is a key place to do what you do the best to the glory of God. Scripture says, “We are His workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10). The word used here means poetry. We are his poetry… his creative best. Alone we are meaningless symbols on a page. But collectively, we inspire! “All of us together are Christ’s body, and each one of you is a separate and necessary part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27). And “each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body” (Romans 12:5).

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Paul gives us this relationship rule for the church: “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love” (Romans 12:10). You didn’t pick me. I didn’t pick you. You may not like me and I may not like you.  But since God picked us both, we are family.

C.S. Lewis said, “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.’” If similar experiences create friendships, shouldn’t the church overflow with friendships? With whom do you have more in common than fellow believers?  Amazed by the same manger, stirred by the same Bible, saved by the same cross, destined for the same home.  The church. More than family, we are friends. More than friends, we are family. God’s family of friends.

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home

Listen to Today’s Devotion

Gary and Steve had acted like brothers for twenty-five years. In 1998, when a caseworker called Gary asking some personal questions, she discovered both Gary and Steve were adopted. Later she phoned Steve with the news. “You have a brother– it’s your friend, Gary!”  Turns out they were more than buddies, they were brothers. Not just friends, but family. How do you imagine these two men felt? God wants you to find out. He offers you a family of friends—his church.

“His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.  And this gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:5). When you transfer your trust into Christ, he not only pardons you, he places you in his forever family of friends.

Read more Cure for the Common Life

For more inspirational messages please visit Max Lucado.

Home