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August 23, 2026

Daily Devotional

Almost persuaded: King Agrippa!

In Acts 26 the Apostle Paul stood in chains before King Herod Agrippa II, Governor Festus, and Bernice.

Given permission to speak, Paul recounted his life as a Pharisee, his furious persecution of believers, and the blinding light on the Damascus road. The risen Jesus commissioned him to open eyes, turn people from darkness to light and from Satan’s power to God, so they might receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those set apart by faith.

Paul then turned the spotlight on Agrippa himself. “King Agrippa, do you believe the Prophets? But I know you do—” (Acts 26:27, TLB). Agrippa interrupted: “With trivial proofs like these, you expect me to become a Christian?” (v. 28, TLB).

Paul answered with a pastor’s heart: “Would to God that whether my arguments are trivial or strong, both you and everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am, except for these chains” (v. 29, TLB).

The King James rendering—“Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian”—has echoed through sermons and the hymn “Almost Persuaded.”

Agrippa knew the Scriptures. He could not deny the prophets or the public facts about Jesus. For a moment the evidence pressed him to the edge of faith. Yet he stepped back. Position, pride, an immoral companion, and the cost of following a crucified Messiah held him. “Almost” is not conversion. Almost forgiven is still guilty. Almost in the light is still in darkness. Almost saved is eternally lost!

Paul’s desire was not that Agrippa become “almost” like him, but FULLY like him—free in Christ, though still wearing Roman chains.

The same choice confronts every hearer today. The prophets pointed to a suffering, risen Messiah who brings light to Jew and Gentile alike.

The facts were not done in a corner. The invitation is the same: Repent, turn from darkness, receive forgiveness through faith in Jesus.

Do not delay for a more convenient season.

Agrippa left the hall unconverted and, as far as history records, never crossed the line.

Almost persuaded is the saddest verdict a soul can receive. Be altogether persuaded. Trust the One who rose from the dead, and become, by God’s grace, what Paul was that day—except the chains!

Bob Lewis

Vietnam Vet

Blog: OurDailyBread10.com

Amen!

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If you have questions, please call the 24-Hour BGEA Prayer Line at:

(855) 255-PRAY.

CONTINUE:

Let us Praise Him Daily!

A good way to learn to Praise God is to memorize the first 6 Verses of Psalms 148:

1 Praise the Lord, O heavens! Praise Him from the skies!

²Praise Him, all His angels, all the armies of heaven.

³Praise Him, sun and moon and all you twinkling stars.

⁴Praise Him, skies above. Praise Him, vapors high above the clouds.

⁵Let everything He has made give praise to Him. For He issued His command, and they came into being;

^{6 H}e established them forever and forever. His orders will never be revoked.

PLEASE read the last 6 Chapters of Psalms: 145-150 so that you will learn how to Praise God like David did!

If you don’t want to get your Bible, Here they all are, just click on each Chapter and I will read them to you:

PSALMS 145 PSALMS 146 PSALMS 147 PSALMS148 PSALMS 149 PSALMS 150

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JESUS IS:

THE HEAD OF THE CHURCH,

THE LEADER,

THE ORIGINATOR,

THE LORD & MASTER,

THE SUPREME LEADER,

OUR HOPE,

1ST BORN FROM THE DEAD WITH AN IMMORTAL BODY TO NEVER DIE AGAIN,

THE 1ST FRUITS OF THE RESURRECTION,

HE IS OUR FESTIVAL OF HOPE,

OUR PARDON,

GIVEN 1ST PLACE IN EVERYTHING,

HAS BEEN EXALTED AS SUPREME OVER EVERYTHING,

IS ENOUGH,

THE FULLNESS OF GOD DWELLS IN US THROUGH JESUS,

JESUS HAS BROUGHT US INTO HARMONY WITH GOD,

HE HAS BROKERED A PEACE TREATY BETWEEN GOD & MAN,

YOU WERE BORN ON THE WRONG SIDE, BUT BY ACCEPTING JESUS

YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT SIDE NOW,

YOU ARE BEYOND REPROACH,

JESUS WAS THE SOLUTION BEFORE YOU HAD A SIN PROBLEM,

NEVER GET OVER WHAT JESUS HAS DONE FOR YOU!

NOW:

THE PURPOSE OF THE CHURCH:

TO TEACH US TO LEAD OTHERS TO CHRIST!

AMEN!

(You might want to copy those down and memorize them!)

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DAILY BIBLE READING:

>1. Chapter for the DAY in Proverbs;

>2. PLUS: 1 NEW Chapter from the Old Testament AND

>3. PLUS: 1 NEW Chapter from the New Testament Daily:

Chapter 23 in Proverbs for today: (AUGUST 23 (MT) (ESV)

23 When you sit down to eat with a ruler,
    observe carefully what^[a] is before you,
²and put a knife to your throat
    if you are given to appetite.
³Do not desire his delicacies,
    for they are deceptive food.
⁴Do not toil to acquire wealth;
    be discerning enough to desist.
⁵When your eyes light on it, it is gone,
    for suddenly it sprouts wings,
    flying like an eagle toward heaven.
⁶Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy;^[b]
    do not desire his delicacies,
⁷for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.^[c]
    “Eat and drink!” he says to you,
    but his heart is not with you.
⁸You will vomit up the morsels that you have eaten,
    and waste your pleasant words.
⁹Do not speak in the hearing of a fool,
    for he will despise the good sense of your words.
¹⁰Do not move an ancient landmark
    or enter the fields of the fatherless,
¹¹for their Redeemer is strong;
    he will plead their cause against you.
¹²Apply your heart to instruction
    and your ear to words of knowledge.
¹³Do not withhold discipline from a child;
    if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.
¹⁴If you strike him with the rod,
    you will save his soul from Sheol.
¹⁵My son, if your heart is wise,
    my heart too will be glad.
¹⁶My inmost being^[d] will exult
    when your lips speak what is right.
¹⁷Let not your heart envy sinners,
    but continue in the fear of the Lord all the day.
¹⁸Surely there is a future,
    and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁹Hear, my son, and be wise,
    and direct your heart in the way.
²⁰Be not among drunkards^[e]
    or among gluttonous eaters of meat,
²¹for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
    and slumber will clothe them with rags.

²²Listen to your father who gave you life,
    and do not despise your mother when she is old.
²³Buy truth, and do not sell it;
    buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.
²⁴The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice;
    he who fathers a wise son will be glad in him.
²⁵Let your father and mother be glad;
    let her who bore you rejoice.

²⁶My son, give me your heart,
    and let your eyes observe^[f] my ways.
²⁷For a prostitute is a deep pit;
    an adulteress^[g] is a narrow well.
²⁸She lies in wait like a robber
    and increases the traitors among mankind.

²⁹Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
    Who has strife? Who has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
    Who has redness of eyes?
³⁰Those who tarry long over wine;
    those who go to try mixed wine.
³¹Do not look at wine when it is red,
    when it sparkles in the cup
    and goes down smoothly.
³²In the end it bites like a serpent
    and stings like an adder.
³³Your eyes will see strange things,
    and your heart utter perverse things.
³⁴You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
    like one who lies on the top of a mast.^[h]
³⁵“They struck me,” you will say,^[i] “but I was not hurt;
    they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake?
    I must have another drink.”

Footnotes

Proverbs 23:1 Or who

Proverbs 23:6 Hebrew whose eye is evil

Proverbs 23:7 Or for as he calculates in his soul, so is he

Proverbs 23:16 Hebrew My kidneys

Proverbs 23:20 Hebrew those who drink too much wine

Proverbs 23:26 Or delight in

Proverbs 23:27 Hebrew a foreign woman

Proverbs 23:34 Or of the rigging

Proverbs 23:35 Hebrew lacks you will say

CHAPTER 23 JEREMIAH for today: (AUGUST 23 (LN) (ESV)

23 “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. ²Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: “You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. ³Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. ⁴I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord.

⁵“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ⁶In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

⁷“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ ⁸but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he^[a] had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.”

Lying Prophets

⁹Concerning the prophets:

My heart is broken within me;
    all my bones shake;
I am like a drunken man,
    like a man overcome by wine,
because of the Lord
    and because of his holy words.
¹⁰For the land is full of adulterers;
    because of the curse the land mourns,
    and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up.
Their course is evil,
    and their might is not right.
¹¹“Both prophet and priest are ungodly;
    even in my house I have found their evil,
declares the Lord.
¹²Therefore their way shall be to them
    like slippery paths in the darkness,
    into which they shall be driven and fall,
for I will bring disaster upon them
    in the year of their punishment,
declares the Lord.
¹³In the prophets of Samaria
    I saw an unsavory thing:
they prophesied by Baal
    and led my people Israel astray.
¹⁴But in the prophets of Jerusalem
    I have seen a horrible thing:
they commit adultery and walk in lies;
    they strengthen the hands of evildoers,
    so that no one turns from his evil;
all of them have become like Sodom to me,
    and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”
¹⁵Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets:
“Behold, I will feed them with bitter food
    and give them poisoned water to drink,
for from the prophets of Jerusalem
    ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

¹⁶Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. ¹⁷They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’”

¹⁸For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord
    to see and to hear his word,
    or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
¹⁹Behold, the storm of the Lord!
    Wrath has gone forth,
a whirling tempest;
    it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
²⁰The anger of the Lord will not turn back
    until he has executed and accomplished
    the intents of his heart.
In the latter days you will understand it clearly.

²¹“I did not send the prophets,
    yet they ran;
I did not speak to them,
    yet they prophesied.
²²But if they had stood in my council,
    then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from their evil way,
    and from the evil of their deeds.

²³“Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far away? ²⁴Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord. ²⁵I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ ²⁶How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, ²⁷who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal? ²⁸Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord. ²⁹Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? ³⁰Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from one another. ³¹Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare, ‘declares the Lord.’ ³²Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the Lord.

³³“When one of this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you, ‘What is the burden of the Lord?’ you shall say to them, ‘You are the burden,^[b] and I will cast you off, declares the Lord.’ ³⁴And as for the prophet, priest, or one of the people who says, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ I will punish that man and his household. ³⁵Thus shall you say, every one to his neighbor and every one to his brother, ‘What has the Lord answered?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ ³⁶But ‘the burden of the Lord’ you shall mention no more, for the burden is every man’s own word, and you pervert the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God. ³⁷Thus you shall say to the prophet, ‘What has the Lord answered you?’ or ‘What has the Lord spoken?’ ³⁸But if you say, ‘The burden of the Lord,’ thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have said these words, “The burden of the Lord,” when I sent to you, saying, “You shall not say, ‘The burden of the Lord,’” ³⁹therefore, behold, I will surely lift you up^[c] and cast you away from my presence, you and the city that I gave to you and your fathers. ⁴⁰And I will bring upon you everlasting reproach and perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.’”

Footnotes

Jeremiah 23:8 Septuagint; Hebrew I
Jeremiah 23:33 Septuagint, Vulgate; Hebrew What burden?
Jeremiah 23:39 Or surely forget you

Revelation 17

for today: (AUGUST 23 (NN) ESV)

17 Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, ²with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” ³And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. ⁴The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. ⁵And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” ⁶And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.^[a]

When I saw her, I marveled greatly. ⁷But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. ⁸The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit^[b] and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. ⁹This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; ¹⁰they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while. ¹¹As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction. ¹²And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. ¹³These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast. ¹⁴They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”

¹⁵And the angel^[c] said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. ¹⁶And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, ¹⁷for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. ¹⁸And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”

Footnotes

Revelation 17:6 Greek the witnesses to Jesus
Revelation 17:8 Greek the abyss
Revelation 17:15 Greek he

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Please Remember:

“CHRIST DIED FOR OUR SINS

AND ROSE FROM THE DEAD!”

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The Steps to Salvation:

> Repent: Repentance means that you are turning away from sin to turn to Christ. It does NOT mean that you will be perfect.

> Believe/Receive: Salvation is through Faith in Jesus and by the Grace of God. Believing means putting your Faith in Jesus and receiving forgiveness of sin.

>Walk in the Newness of Life: Jesus died so that we might live. We walk in the Newness of Life being Born Again by His Blood.

Additionally, if you feel you need someone to Pray for you,

please call the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association,

24 Hours/Day, at: 1+855 255 PRAY (This is the same as: 1+855 255 7729).

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GOD THE FATHER IS THE SOVEREIGN KING
AND CREATOR OF THE ENTIRE
UNIVERSE AND BEYOND!

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