DAILY BREAD READING (Published Daily by Our Daily Bread Ministries)
MAY 30, 2026
READ: Ephesians 4 (Focus vs. 25-32)
MEMORY VERSE
“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Ephesians 4:32
BACKGROUND
I used to work with a woman named Madge, who was an amazing cook. “You should taste my pea and ham soup!” she said one day. After replying that I really didn’t like peas, Madge smiled and said, “You will after you try my soup.” The next day she handed me a container of her soup, made especially for me.
“Did you try my soup?” Madge asked me a couple of days later. “I will—soon!” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask me again. But she did—the next day, and the next. “Don’t leave it too long or it’ll spoil,” she added on the fourth day.
A week later, Madge’s uneaten soup had spoiled, and I threw it away. I felt dread as she approached me. “You did try my soup, didn’t you?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. “It was . . . delicious.”
In Ephesians 4, Paul calls us to deal with speech-related sins like angry words (v. 26), unwholesome talk (v. 29), and slander (v. 31). But before these comes a more basic call to “speak truthfully to your neighbor” (v. 25).
I had looked at Madge and told her a lie. I knew what I needed to do.
I walked into Madge’s office, confessed my lie, and sheepishly asked for her forgiveness. Madge walked to me and gave me a hug. “Of course I forgive you,” she said. “How could I not, when I know how much God’s forgiven me?”
Sheridan Voysey
INSIGHT
Paul sets up these instructions in Ephesians 4:25-32 by reminding his readers what life was like without Christ:
“You must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts” (vv. 17-18).
Then he implicitly acknowledges how every believer in Jesus once lived that way: “You must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body” (v. 25).
As we shed our old way of living, exchanging it for the new life in Christ, we’ll find it natural—even fulfilling—to “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (v. 32).
Tim Gustafson
APPLICATION
How many sinful words or actions has God forgiven you for? How can that reminder help you forgive someone today, with the Holy Spirit’s strength?
PR’s (Pastor Richard) RE-EMPHASIS (From Today’s Post)
“As we shed our old way of living, exchanging it for the new life in Christ, we’ll find it natural—even fulfilling—to “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (v. 32).
PR’s TAKE
“He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.” Martin Luther King Jr.
“The simple truth is we all make mistakes and we all need forgiveness.” Bishop Desmond Tutu
PRAYER
“Forgiving God, please enable me to forgive others.”
TODAY’S HYMN/WORSHIP/PRAISE/GOSPEL SONG
“FORGIVEN” Joyful Noise
Father God so full of grace
Our sins mount to the skies
Yet Your love has made a way
To cast them out of sight!
May the grace that cancels our sin
Teach forgiven hearts to forgive
Forgiven
Help us to forgive
Forgiven
Help us to forgive
Let Your mercy flood our hearts
So that we forgive as we are forgiven
“Lord forgive!” our Saviour’s cry
Upon the cross of shame
O such free and boundless love
Has borne our sins away!
Crimson sins washed whiter than snow
O what mercy we have been shown
Forgiven
Help us to forgive
Forgiven
Help us to forgive
Let Your mercy flood our hearts
So that we forgive as we are forgiven
Crimson sins washed whiter than snow
O what mercy we have been shown
May the grace that cancels our sin
Teach forgiven hearts to forgive
Crimson sins washed whiter than snow
O what mercy we have been shown
May the grace that cancels our sin
Teach forgiven hearts to forgive
Forgiven
Help us to forgive
Forgiven
Help us to forgive
Let Your mercy flood our hearts
So that we forgive as we are forgiven
