Tag Archives: Max Lucado

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

Max Lucado – God Answers the Mess of Life

March 4, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

You stare into the darkness. The ceiling fan whirls above you. Your husband slumbers next to you. In minutes the alarm will sound, and the demands of the day will shoot you like a clown out of a cannon into a three-ring circus of meetings, bosses, and baseball practices.

And for the millionth time you’ll make breakfast, schedules, and payroll… but for the life of you, you can’t make sense of this thing called life. Its beginnings and endings. Cradles and cancers and cemeteries and questions.

The meaning of life! The poor choices of life. God answers the mess of life with one word: grace! Do we really understand it?

Ezekiel 36:26 says, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you!”

Grace calls us to change and then gives us the power to pull it off!

From GRACE

Max Lucado – Grace Comes After You

March 3, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

God’s grace! It has a wildness about it. A white-water, rip-tide, turn-you-upside-downess about it. Grace comes after you!

Some years ago I underwent a heart procedure. I asked the surgeon,

“You’re burning the interior of my heart, right?”

“Correct.”

“You intend to kill the misbehaving cells, yes?”

“That’s my plan.”

“As long as you’re in there, could you take your little blowtorch to some of my greed, selfishness, superiority, and guilt?”

He smiled, “Sorry, that’s out of my pay grade!”

But it’s not out of God’s! We’d be wrong to think this change happens overnight. We’d be equally wrong to assume change never happens at all. It may come in fits and spurts—but it comes!

Titus 2:11 says, “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared.”

You just never know when grace will seep in. Could you use some?

From GRACE

Max Lucado – God in a Real World

February 28, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

God calls us in a real world. He doesn’t communicate by performing tricks. He’s not a genie, a magician, a good luck charm, or the man upstairs. He is the Creator of the universe who is right here in the thick of our day-to-day world.

And God speaks in our world. We just have to learn to hear him. Listen for him amidst the ordinary. Do you need affirmation of his care? Let the daily sunrise proclaim his loyalty. Could you use an example of his power? Spend an evening reading how your body works. Are you wondering if his Word is reliable? Make a list of the fulfilled prophecies in the Bible and promises in your life.

Don’t they say only two things in life are certain: death and taxes? Knowing God, he may speak through something as common as the second to give you the answer for the first!

From And the Angels Were Silent

Max Lucado – Life is Not Fair

February 27, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

May I gently but firmly remind you of something you know but may have forgotten? Life is not fair. That’s not pessimism, it’s a fact. It’s not a complaint, it’s just the way things are. I don’t like it. Neither do you. Ever since the kid down the block got a bike and we didn’t, we’ve been saying the same thing, “That’s not fair!”

At some point someone needs to say to us, “Who ever told you life was going to be fair?” God didn’t. In James 1:2, he didn’t say, “If you have many kinds of troubles,” he said, “When you have many kinds of troubles.” Troubles are part of the package.

Jesus said, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. My kingdom is from another place (John 18:36).”

When all of earth turns against you, all of heaven turns toward you. To keep your balance in this crooked world, think of home!

From And the Angels Were Silent

Max Lucado – The Last Supper

February 26, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

For some, the service of communion is a sleepy hour in which wafers are eaten, juice is taken and the soul never stirs. It wasn’t intended to be as such.

In Matthew’s account of the Last Supper, one incredible truth surfaces. Jesus is the person behind it all. He selected the place, designated the time, and set the meal in order. And at the Supper, Jesus is not the served, but the servant. It is Jesus who put on the garb of a servant and washed the disciples’ feet. Jesus is not portrayed as the one who reclines and receives, but as the one who stands and gives.

He still does. The Lord’s Supper is a gift to you. The Lord’s Supper is a holy invitation. A sacred sacrament bidding you to leave the chores of life and enter his splendor. He meets you at the table.

From And the Angels Were Silent

Max Lucado – Simplify Your Faith

February 25, 2014 broboinhawaii Leave a comment

How do you simplify your faith? How do you get rid of the clutter? How do you discover a joy worth waking up to? Simple. Get rid of the middleman. There are some who suggest the only way to God is through them. There’s the great teacher who has the final word on Bible teaching. There’s the father who must bless your acts. There’s the spiritual master who’ll tell you what God wants you to do.

Jesus’ message for complicated religion is to remove these middlemen. He’s not saying you don’t need teachers, elders, or counselors. He is saying, however, that we are all brothers and sisters with equal access to the Father. Seek God for yourself. No elaborate channels of command or levels of access.

You have a Bible? You can study. You have a heart? You can pray. You have a mind? You can think!

From And the Angels Were Silent

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