Max Lucado
I was raised in the greatest of homes... just a really great dad, and I miss him so much... he was a good man, a real simple man... Very faithful, always loved my mom, always provided for the kids, and just a lot of fun.Collection: Fathers
One of the things I discover a lot in marriage counseling is the husband or wife trying to get their spiritual thirst quenched by their partner; I think that's a real common mistake that we make.Collection: Marriage
A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.Collection: Leadership
One of the greatest gifts we can give people is the hope that their death is nothing to fear - you know, not that it has no fear in it, but the promise of scripture is that God will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death.Collection: Death
There is a time for risky love. There is a time for extravagant gestures. There is a time to pour out your affections on one you love. And when the time comes - seize it, don't miss it.Collection: Relationship
If we can understand that death is not the end but is really a transition into the next life, the great part of life, that frees us up into receiving God's courage and his help.Collection: God
Well, I think the main message is there is more to your story. There is more than what happens between the crib and the grave, and that is what I am really trying to speak to, this idea that all of life is this life and that there is nothing more than what we see and experience right here on this earth.Collection: Experience
It seems to me that election season is just a Petri dish for anger and cynicism.Collection: Anger
About four days a week, I do pretty good at having a morning prayer time. But even at that, it's a rambling sort of thing. What I have learned to do better is to try to keep my mind turned toward God and ear inclined toward God throughout the day, and I think I'm doing better at that, but I've got a long way to go.Collection: Morning
God will use whatever he wants to display his glory. Heavens and stars. History and nations. People and problems.Collection: God
You change your life by changing your heart.Collection: Change
The meaning of life. The wasted years of life. The poor choices of life. God answers the mess of life with one word: 'grace.'Collection: God
God meets daily needs daily. Not weekly or annually. He will give you what you need when it is needed.Collection: God
A season of suffering is a small assignment when compared to the reward. Rather than begrudge your problem, explore it. Ponder it. And most of all, use it. Use it to the glory of God.Collection: God
Lower your expectations of earth. This isn't heaven, so don't expect it to be.
If we think that this life is all there is to life, then there is no interpretation of our problems, our pain, not even of our privileges. But everything changes when we open up to the possibility that God's story is really our story too.
Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart - poisoned as it is with pride and pain - and replacing it with his own.
There's something about compassion that causes society to say, 'We're going to take this person seriously.' Take Mother Teresa. She was confrontational on abortion, but she wasn't rejected by society.
Become a worry-slapper. Treat frets like mosquitoes. Do you procrastinate when a bloodsucking bug lights on your skin? 'I'll take care of it in a moment.' Of course you don't! You give the critter the slap it deserves. Be equally decisive with anxiety.
Be a doer, not a stewer.
I think that a church should be setting the pace for social justice.
For years I thought my assignment or the Church's assignment was to articulate the Gospel and nothing more. Now I believe that if we don't support the verbal expression of the Gospel with physical demonstration of compassion, we are not imitating Jesus.
A nation is blessed when it has godly leaders.
God is not troubled by one who is conservative or liberal, and He certainly never inclines His ear toward a donkey or an elephant.
When grace happens, we receive not a nice compliment from God but a new heart. Give your heart to Christ, and he returns the favor.
Sentences are like just caught fish. Spunky today, stinky tomorrow.
People assume when they come into a church and see a person up there speaking, 'That person must be a good person.' My challenge through the years has been believing that: 'I guess I must be a really good person.' I struggle with it. It just helps me to keep that confessional posture.
God's glory is the big news of the Bible, and my desire is that it would be all about me, but really it's all about God's glory.
You know people just assume, 'Well, all my life I'll be a worrier.' That doesn't have to be true. There's a way to drink from God's presence so much that worry begins to dissipate.
I don't believe our works save us, but I believe they follow us into heaven and bring glory to God.
We are Jesus Christ's; we belong to him. But even more, we are increasingly him. He moves in and commandeers our hands and feet, requisitions our minds and tongues. We sense his rearranging: debris into the divine, pig's ear into silk purse. He repurposes bad decisions and squalid choices. Little by little, a new image emerges.
Initially, when I first became a Christian and got into ministry, my thought was that God existed to make my life better and to take me to Heaven. Now I realize that it is not about me at all. It is all about God and that He did this to display His plan to restore the Earth to the Garden of Eden state.
The idea of a spiritual heart transplant is a vivid image to me; once you have the heart of somebody else inside you, then that heart is there. Jesus' heart is inside me, and my heart is gone. So if God were to place a stethoscope against my chest, he would hear the heart of Jesus Christ beating.
What we realize is number one, people want to know what the Bible says. In their heart, they want to know the Bible but it is just hard to understand the big picture of it. And number two, they want to know where they plug in.
The apostle Paul never seemed to exhaust the topic of grace - what makes us think we can? He just kept coming at it and coming at it from another angle. That's the thing about grace. It's like springtime. You can't put it in a single sentence definition, and you can't exhaust it.
I get one hour, really 25 minutes in a sermon on a weekend, to combat all the hours of the week that people are told you are what you have through billboards, commercials, and sitcoms, and so forth.
My book centers in on the New Testament, the goal being to help a person who wants to understand the Bible to see how what God did as revealed in the New Testament will reveal to them their own personal story.
My first encounters with faith came about the time I was a Boy Scout, at about 14 or 15. I made the logical deduction that they operate the same way; I treated my faith like earning a merit badge, and everything about Christianity was about earning merit badges.
Compassion in evangelical churches is out of balance. When I talk about it, I get a lot of glazed expressions.
Stay strong! Your test will become your test-imony, your mess will become your mess-age.Collection: Stay Strong
You have a God who hears you, the power of love behind you, the Holy Spirit within you, and all of heaven ahead of you. If you have the Shepherd, you have grace for every sin, direction for every turn, a candle for every corner and an anchor for every storm. You have everything you need.Collection: Love Is
Gratitude lifts our eyes off the things we lack so we might see the blessings we possess.Collection: Gratitude
Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the One who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.Collection: Prayer
Your goal is not to know every detail of the future. Your goal is to hold the hand of the One who does and never, ever let go.Collection: Letting Go
Be patient. God is using today's difficulties to strengthen you for tomorrow. He is equipping you. The God who makes things grow will help you bear fruit.Collection: Christian
The cross is where God forgave his children without lowering his standards.Collection: Children
Here's what you need to keep in mind. You no longer have yesterday. You do not yet have tomorrow. You have only today. This is the day the Lord has made. Live in it.Collection: Inspirational
The Bible is the story of two gardens: Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. In the first, God sought Adam. In the second, Jesus sought God. In Eden, Adam hid from God. In Gethsemane, Jesus emerged from the tomb. In Eden, Satan led Adam to a tree that led to his death. From Gethsemane, Jesus went to a tree that led to our life.Collection: Bible
The presence of fear does not mean you have no faith. Fear visits everyone. But make your fear a visitor and not a resident.Collection: Inspirational
A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.Collection: Love