Category Archives: Max Lucado

Max Lucado – The Gifts of the Cross

April 1, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Oh, the things we do to give gifts to those we love! Grownups in toy stores, dads in teen stores, wives in the tool department, and husbands in the purse department. We’re at our best in giving.

Have you ever wondered why God gives so much? We could exist on far less. He could have left the world flat and gray, we wouldn’t have known the difference. But He didn’t. He splashed orange in the sunrise and cast the sky in blue. If we give gifts to show our love, how much more would He?

In Matthew 7:11, Jesus asked, “If you sinful men know how to give good gifts to your children, won’t your Father in heaven even more certainly give good gifts to those who ask Him?”

God’s love came not wrapped in paper, but in passion. Not covered with ribbons, but sprinkled with blood. The gifts of the Cross!

From He Chose the Nails

Max Lucado – You Are His

March 31, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

God’s grace defines you! Society labels you like a can on an assembly line. Stupid. Unproductive. Slow learner. Fast talker. Quitter. But as grace infiltrates, criticism disintegrates. You know you aren’t who they say you are. You are who God says you are. Spiritually alive; heavenly positioned…“seated with him in the heavenly realms” and “one with Jesus Christ.”

Of course, not all labels are negative. Some people regard you as clever, successful. But it doesn’t compare with being “seated with him in the heavenly realms!” God creates the Christian’s resume! Grace defines who you are. The parent you can’t please is as mistaken as the doting uncle you can’t disappoint.

Listen, God wrote your story. He cast you in his drama. You hang as God’s work of art, a testimony in his gallery of grace. According to Him, you are His. Period.

From Cast of Characters

Max Lucado – A Spiritual MRI

March 28, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

We can’t live with foreign objects buried in our bodies or our souls. What would an X-ray of your interior reveal? Remorse over a poor choice? Shame about the marriage that didn’t work, the temptation you couldn’t resist? Guilt lies hidden beneath the surface, festering, irritating. Sometimes so deeply embedded you don’t know the cause.

And you can be touchy, you know. Understandable, since you have a shank of shame lodged in your soul. Would you like an extraction? Here’s what you do. Confess! Ask God to help you. Psalm 139:23-24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

Confession. You see, confessors find a freedom that deniers don’t. If we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins! He will cleanse us. Not might, could, would, or should. He WILL!

From Grace

Max Lucado – A Radical Reliance on Grace

March 27, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

One day it dawned on me. I had become the very thing I hate: a hypocrite. A pretender. Two-faced. I’d written sermons about people like me. Christians who care more about their appearance than integrity. I knew what I needed to do. I’d written sermons about that, too.

1 John 1:8-9 says, “If we say we have no sin, we are fooling ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, he will forgive our sins, because we can trust God to do what is right.”

I needed to confess. What is confession? Confession is not complaining. If I merely recite my problems and rehash my woes, I’m whining. Confession is a radical reliance on grace.

Maybe you need to do what I’ve done the last few days and confess. You just need to confess. God will hear your confession and you will find a wonder of God’s grace. You see, grace creates an honest confession and His great grace receives it!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Not Just Mercy, But Grace

March 26, 2014 broboinhawaii 1 Comment

We are poor, spiritually for sure; monetarily, perhaps. We’ve buried our dreams, desires, and aspirations. Like the mother with Lupus or the businessman in the unemployment line, we’re out of options.

Yet Christ approached us while we were yet sinners! “Will you cover us?” we asked him, and grace smiled.

He gave us grace. Not just mercy, mind you, but grace. Grace goes beyond mercy. Mercy gave the prodigal son a second chance. Grace threw him a party. Mercy prompted the Samaritan to bandage the wounds of the victim. Grace prompted him to leave his credit card as payment for the victim’s care. Mercy forgave the thief on the cross. Grace escorted him into paradise. Mercy pardons us. Grace woos and weds us.

Grace does this! Grace is God walking into your world with a sparkle in his eye and an offer that’s hard to resist.

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Grace Soaked

March 25, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Most people keep a pot of anger on low boil! But you aren’t most people. Look at your feet. They’re wet, grace-soaked. Jesus has washed your feet…he has washed the grimiest parts of your life.

To accept grace is the vow to give it. You don’t endorse the deeds of your offender when you forgive them. Jesus didn’t endorse your sins by forgiving you. The grace-defined person still sends thieves to jail and expects the ex to pay child support. Grace sees the hurt full well. But it refuses to let hurts poison the heart. Where grace is lacking, bitterness abounds. Where grace abounds, forgiveness grows.

So, let the hands of God wipe away every dirty part of your life. Then look across the room and wash someone else’s feet. Let grace begin and continue in you!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Grace Chooses to See Forgiveness

March 24, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Victoria Ruvolo doesn’t remember the 18-year-old boy leaning out the window holding, of all things, a frozen turkey. He threw it at her windshield. Crashing through the glass, it shattered Victoria’s face like a dinner plate on concrete.

John 13:14-15 says, “Since I, the Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. Do as I have done to you.”

Victoria Ruvolo did that. Months later, she stood face to face with her offender in court. No longer cocky, he was trembling, tearful, and apologetic. Six months behind bars, five years’ probation. Everyone in the courtroom objected. He sobbed, and she spoke, “I forgive you. I want your life to be the best it can be.” The reduced sentence was her idea. “God gave me a second chance at life, and I passed it on,” she said! Grace chooses to see God’s forgiveness!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – So Many Hurts

March 21, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

If hurts were hairs—we’d all look like grizzlies! So many hurts. When teachers ignore your work, their neglect hurts. When your girlfriend drops you, when your husband abandons you, when the company fires you, it hurts. Rejection always hurts.

People bring pain. Sometimes deliberately. Sometimes randomly. So where do you turn? Hitman.com? Jim Beam and friends? Pity Party Catering Service? Retaliation has its appeal, but Jesus has a better idea! Grace is not blind. It sees the hurt full well. But Grace chooses to see God’s forgiveness even more. Hebrews 12:15 urges us, “See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

Where grace is lacking, bitterness abounds. Where grace abounds, forgiveness grows. Forgiveness may not happen all at once. But it can happen with you.

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Enough of This Frenzy

March 20, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Attempts at “self-salvation” guarantee nothing but exhaustion. We scamper and scurry, trying to please God, collecting merit badges and brownie points, scowling at anyone who questions our accomplishments. The result? The weariest people on earth. We so fear failure that we create the image of perfection. Call us the church of hound-dog faces and slumped shoulders. Stop it! Once and for all, enough of this frenzy!

Hebrews 13:9 says, “Your hearts should be strengthened by God’s grace, not by obeying rules.” In Matthew 11:28 Jesus promises, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

There is no fine print. A second shoe isn’t going to drop. God’s promise has no hidden language. Let grace happen. You have His unending affection. Stretch yourself out in the hammock of grace. You can rest now!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Let Grace Happen

March 19, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

I became a Christian about the same time I became a Boy Scout and I made the assumption that God grades like the Boy Scout’s do…on a merit system. Good scouts move up. Good people go to heaven.

So, I worked toward the day when God, amid falling confetti and dancing cherubim, would drape my badge-laden sash across my chest and welcome me into his eternal kingdom where I would humbly display my badges for eternity.

But some thorny questions surfaced. How many badges does He require? How good is good?

Ephesians 2:8 says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.”

Unearned. A gift. Our merits merit nothing. Let grace happen. Of all the things you must earn in life, God’s unending affection is not one of them. You have it!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Make it Personal

March 18, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Christ took away your sins. He endured not just the nails of the Romans, the mockery of the crowd, and the spear of the soldier, but he endured the anger of God! God didn’t overlook your sins, lest he endorse them. He didn’t punish you lest he destroy you. He instead found a way to punish the sin and preserve the sinner. Jesus took your punishment, and God gave you credit for Jesus’ perfection.

As long as the cross is God’s gift to the world, it will touch you but it will not change you. Precious as it is to proclaim, “Christ died for the world,” even sweeter it is to whisper, “Christ died for me!” For my sins he died. He took my place on the cross. He felt my shame and spoke my name. Thank God for the day Jesus took your place, for the day that grace happened to you!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Grace Happened

March 17, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

We are incarcerated by our past. We have been found guilty! Our executioner’s footsteps echo against the stone walls. We sit on the floor of the dusty cell, awaiting our final moment. We don’t look up as he opens the door. We know what he’s going to say. “Time to pay for your sins.” But we hear something else! “You’re free to go. They took Jesus instead of you!”

The door swings open, the guard barks, “Get out!” And we find ourselves shackles gone, crimes pardoned, wondering, what just happened? Grace just happened! Christ took away your sins.

Romans 3 says that God, in his gracious kindness, declares us not guilty. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us.

What happened? Grace happened!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – An Advocate

March 14, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Not all guilt is bad. God uses appropriate doses of guilt to awaken us to sin! God’s guilt brings enough regret to change us! Satan’s guilt, on the other hand, brings enough regret to enslave us. Don’t let Satan lock his shackles on you!

Colossians 3:3 reminds us, “your life is hidden with Christ in God.” When God looks at you, he sees Jesus first. In the Chinese language the word for “righteousness” is a combination of two characters, the figure of a lamb and a person. The lamb is on top, covering the person. Whenever God looks down at you, this is what he sees: The perfect Lamb of God covering you.

So, do you trust your Advocate, Jesus, or do you trust your Accuser—Satan? Give no heed to Satan’s voice! You have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous! (I John 2:1).

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Satan’s Condemnation

March 13, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Satan’s condemnation brings no repentance or resolve, just regret! Satan has come to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). To steal your peace, kill your dreams, and destroy your future. Satan has deputized people to peddle his poison. Friends dredge up your past. Preachers proclaim all guilt and no grace. And parents, oh, your parents. “Why can’t you grow up?” they say. “When are you going to make me proud?” they say. But your accusers will not have the last word! Jesus has acted on your behalf. Jesus Christ has risen to your defense.

Hebrews 10:22 urges “. . .let us come near to God with a sincere heart and a sure faith, because we have been made free from a guilty conscience.”

Not just for our past mistakes but also for our future ones. Behold the fruit of grace: saved by God, raised by God, seated with God! Gifted, equipped, and commissioned!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Voices in our Head

March 12, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Voices of ‘failure’ in our world. Voices of ‘not good enough’ in our head. Who is this morality patrolman who issues a citation at every stumble? Does he ever shut up? No. Because Satan never shuts up!

Revelation 12:9-10 says, “For the Accuser has been thrown down to earth, the one who accused our brothers and sisters before God day and night.”

Satan is relentless, tireless. The Accuser makes a career out of accusing. But he will not have the last word. Jesus has acted on our behalf. He stooped…low enough to be spat upon, nailed, and speared. Low…low enough to be buried. And then he stood…he stood up!

Romans 8:34 promises that Christ is in the presence of God at this very moment standing up for us. We have a clean record. It’s by his grace!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – A Second Chance

March 11, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

She was only five years old when you took the photo. Cheeks freckled by the summer sun, hair in pigtails. That was twenty years ago. Three marriages ago. A million flight miles and e-mails ago. Today she walks down the aisle on the arm of another father. You left your family bobbing in the wake of your high-speed career. Now that you have what you wanted, you don’t want it at all. Oh, to have a second chance.

1 John 4:15 says, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.”

He re-purposes bad decisions and squalid choices. Saved by grace is to be saved by Him. He placed a term limit on sin and danced a victory jig in a graveyard. God can do something with the mess of your life. Grace is what you need!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Christ in You

March 10, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

When grace happens, Christ enters. Christ in you, the hope of glory! For many years, I missed this truth. I believed all the other prepositions: Christ for me, with me, ahead of me. But I never imagined that Christ was in me.

I can’t blame my deficiency on Scripture. Paul refers to the indwelling Christ 216 times. John mentions his presence 26 times. No other religion or philosophy makes such a claim. No other movement implies the living presence of its founder in his followers.

Muhammad does not indwell Muslims. Buddha does not inhabit Buddhists. Influence? Instruct? Yes. But occupy? No!

The mystery of Christianity is summarized in Colossians 1:27, “Christ is in you!” The Christian is a person in whom Christ is happening! Little by little a new image emerges! All because of God’s Grace!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – God as Heart Surgeon

March 7, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Grace is God as heart surgeon! Grace is God cracking open your chest, removing your heart, poisoned as it is with pride and pain, and replacing it with his own.

God’s dream isn’t just to get you into heaven, but to get heaven into you. Grace lives because Jesus does, works because he works, and matters because he matters. To be saved by grace is to be saved by Jesus—not by an idea, doctrine, creed, or church membership, but by Jesus himself, who will sweep into heaven anyone who so much as gives him the nod. Grace won’t be stage-managed. I have no tips on how to get grace. Truth is, we don’t get grace. But it can sure get us.

If you wonder whether God can do something with the mess of your life, then grace is what you need! Make certain it happens to you!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – God’s Best Idea

March 6, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Your dad makes you come to church, but he can’t make you listen. At least that’s what you’ve always muttered to yourself. But this morning you listen because he speaks of a God who loves prodigals, and you feel like the worst sort of one. You can’t keep the pregnancy a secret much longer. Soon your parents will know. The preacher will know. He says God already knows. You wonder what God thinks!

Grace is God’s best idea. Rather than tell us to change, he creates the change. Do we clean up so he can accept us? No, he accepts us and begins cleaning us up. What a difference this makes.

Can’t forgive your past? Christ can, and he is on the move, aggressively budging you from graceless to grace-shaped living. Forgiven people forgiving people. Deep sighs of relief.

Grace is everything Jesus!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – A Spiritual Heart Transplant

March 5, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

Grace! The bank gives us a grace period. The seedy politician falls from grace. Musicians speak of a grace note. We use the word for hospitals, baby girls, kings and pre-meal prayers. We talk as though we know what grace means.

You turn the page of your Bible and look at the words. You might as well be gazing at a cemetery. Lifeless, stony. Nothing moves you. But you don’t dare close the book, no sirree. You dare not miss a deed for fear that God will erase your name.

God’s grace has a drenching about it. Grace comes after you. It re-wires you. From insecure to God secure. From regret riddled to better-because-of-it. From afraid to die to ready to fly.

As Paul said in Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

You might call it a spiritual heart transplant!

From GRACE

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