Max Lucado - 3:16: September 6, 2010

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.  If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
    1 John 1:8-9

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: September 5, 2010

Some struggle with [the] thought [that] a last-minute confessor receives the same grace as a lifetime servant.  Doesn’t seem fair.  The workers in the parable complained too.  So the landowner, and God, explained the prerogative of ownership….

Request grace with your dying breath, and God hears your prayer.  Whoever means “whenever.”  
And , one more: whoever means “wherever.”  Wherever you are, you’re not too far to come home.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: September 4, 2010

He began to question [the disciples], “What were you discussing on the way?  But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest.  Sitting down, He called the twelve and said to them, “If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.”  Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them, “Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent me.”
    Mark 9:33-37 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: September 3, 2010

I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.
    Luke 7:28

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: September 2, 2010

[God’s “whoever” policy] also features a “whenever” clause.  Whenever you hear God’s voice, he welcomes your response.  While cleaning my car, I found a restaurant gift certificate…[for] fifty dollars worth of food.  I’d received it for my birthday over a year ago and had misplaced it.  My enthusiasm was short-lived when I saw the expiration date….  I had waited too long.

But you haven’t.  [In the story of the workers in the vineyard (Matthew 20:1-16),] Jesus wove a parable of eleventh-hour grace….  Those last men were surely surprised….  No landlord issues a final-hour invitation, does he?  God does.  No one pays a day’s wage to one-hour workers, does he?  God does….

Deathbed converts and lifelong saints enter heaven by the same gate.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: September 1, 2010

Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.
    Luke 18:16-17 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 31, 2010

Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me….  Truly I say to you, the extend that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.
     Matthew 25:34-36, 40 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 30, 2010

The downturns of life can create such a sad state of affairs that we wonder if God still wants us….  [In the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31),] Lazarus [winds up needing] nothing.  The…rich man needs everything.  He loses the lap of luxury and Lazarus discovers the lap of Abraham….

You may be [a Lazarus].  Not begging for bread, but struggling to buy some.  Not sleeping on streets, but on the floor, perhaps?  In your car sometimes?  On a couch often?  Does God have a place for people in your place?...  God takes you however he finds you.  No need to clean up or climb up.  Just look up.  God’s “whoever” policy has a “however” benefit.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 29, 2010

We live…chastened, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.
            2 Corinthians 6:9-10 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 28, 2010

There is only one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and people.  He is the man Christ Jesus.  He gave his life to purchase freedom for everyone.
            1 Timothy 2:5-6 NLT

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 27, 2010

The grace of God has been revealed, bringing salvation to all people.
            Titus 2:11 NLT

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 26, 2010

Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.
            Revelation 22:17

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 25, 2010

Whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
            John 11:26

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 24, 2010

Whoever comes to me I will never drive away.
            John 6:37

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 23, 2010

Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.
            John 4:14

Max Lucado – 3: 16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 22, 2010

Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.
            Mark 3:35

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 21, 2010

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
            Matthew 10:39

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 20, 2010

Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.
            Matthew 10:32

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 19, 2010

The word sledgehammers racial fences and dynamites social classes.  It bypasses gender borders and surpasses ancient traditions.  Whoever makes it clear; God exports his grace world-wide.  For those who attempt to restrict it, Jesus has a word: Whoever.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 18, 2010

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.  It is written in the prophets, “And they shall all be taught by God.”  Therefore everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.
            John 6:44-45 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 17, 2010

Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.  So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.
            John 8:34-36 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 16, 2010

[When Cleopatra’s Needle was erected in Britain, a Scripture verse was included in the time capsule beneath it.]  Picture a rummager of some future London digging through rocks and rubble.  She finds and reads the verse.  Except for one word, she might dismiss it as an old myth.  Whoever.  Whoever unfurls 3:16 as a banner for the ages.  Whoever unrolls the welcome mat of heaven to humanity.  Whoever invites the world to God.  Jesus could have so easily narrowed the scope, changing whoever into whatever.  “Whatever Jew believes” or “Whatever woman follows me.”  But he used no qualifier.  The pronoun is wonderfully indefinite.  After all, who isn’t a whoever?

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 15, 2010

Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.
            Acts 10:43 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 14, 2010

He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.  And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.
            Acts 5:31-32 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 13, 2010

Bertram Campbell…spent three years and four months in prison for a forgery he did not commit.  When the real criminal finally confessed, the governor declared Campbell, not just pardoned, but innocent.  God does for us exactly the same.  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).


Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 12, 2010

Jesus took our disease upon himself.  Though diseased, we who accept his offer are pronounced healthy.  More than pardoned, we are declared innocent.  We enter heaven, not with healed hearts, but with his heart.  It is as if we have never sinned.  Read slowly the announcement of Paul: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 11, 2010

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.  For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
            Romans 6:5-6

Max Lucado - 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 10, 2010

Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations.
            Luke 24:46-47 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 9, 2010

Before [a Chinese woman’s] baptism, a pastor asked a question to ensure she understood the meaning of the cross.  “Did Jesus have any sin?” he inquired.  “Oh, yes,” she replied.  Troubled, he repeated the question.  “He had sin,” she answered positively.  The leader set out to correct her, but she interrupted.  “He had mine.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 9, 2010

Before [a Chinese woman’s] baptism, a pastor asked a question to ensure she understood the meaning of the cross.  “Did Jesus have any sin?” he inquired.  “Oh, yes,” she replied.  Troubled, he repeated the question.  “He had sin,” she answered positively.  The leader set out to correct her, but she interrupted.  “He had mine.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 8, 2010

He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.”
            Luke 22:19-20

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 7, 2010

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love.  If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.  I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
            John 15:9-11

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 6, 2010

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep.  I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen.  I must bring them also.  They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
            John 10:14-16

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 5, 2010

[We draw] hope from a five-letter Greek word.  Hyper means “in place of” or “on behalf of.”  New Testament writers repeatedly turned to this preposition to describe the work of Christ: “Christ died for [hyper] our sins…”  (1 Corinthians 15:3).

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 4, 2010

He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.  Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
            1 Peter 1:20-21

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 3, 2010

You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.
            2 Corinthians 8:9 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 2, 2010

It was the random rhythms that concerned the cardiologist….  He did his best to assure me…”When it comes to cardiac concerns, you’ve got the best kind.”  Forgive my anemic enthusiasm.  But isn’t that like telling the about-to-leap paratrooper: “Your parachute has a defect, but it’s not the worst type”?

I prefer the treatment of another heart doctor.  He saw my condition and made this eye-popping offer: “Let’s exchange hearts.  Mine is sturdy; yours is frail.  Mine is pure, yours diseased.  Take mine and enjoy its vigor.  Give me yours.  I’ll endure its irregularity.”  Where do you find such a physician?  You can reach him at this number – 3:16.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: August 1, 2010

When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God.  God brought you alive – right along with Christ!
            Colossians 2:13 The Message

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 31, 2010

He began to teach them, saying: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.  Blessed are those who hunger an thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.
            Matthew 5:2-9

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 30, 2010

With wood glue, poles, and newspapers, [my dad and I] fashioned [a kite,] a sky-dancing masterpiece….  We launched our creation on the back of a March wind.  But after some minutes, my kite caught a downdraft and plunged.  I tightened the string, raced in reverse, and did all I could to maintain elevation.  But it was too late.  She Hindenburged earthward.  Envision a red-haired, heartsick twelve-year-old standing over his collapsed kite….  Envision a square-bodied man…[in] coveralls placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder….  [Dad] surveyed the heap of sticks and paper and assured, “It’s OK, we can fix this.”  I believed him.  Why not?  He spoke with authority.

So does Christ.  To all whose lives feel like a crashed kite, he says: “We can fix this.  Let me teach you.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 29, 2010

To Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 28, 2010

I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
            John 10:10 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 27, 2010

Jesus doesn’t boast in knowledge; he shares it.  He doesn’t gloat; he gives.  He doesn’t revel; he reveals.  He reveals to us the secrets of eternity.  And he shares them, not just with the top brass or purebred, but with the hungry and needy.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 26, 2010

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.
            Isaiah 61:1 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 25, 2010

Why do you call me, “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I say?  I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice.  He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock.  When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.  But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.  The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.
            Luke 6:46-49

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 24, 2010

When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law
            Matthew 7:28-29

Jesus knows the dimensions of God’s throne room, the fragrance of its incense, the favorite songs of the unceasing choir.  He has a unique, one-of-a-kind, unrivaled knowledge of God and wants to share his knowledge with you.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 23, 2010

Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.  In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.  If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am , there you may be also.
            John 14:1-3 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 22, 2010

You’re a fifth grader studying astronomy.  The day you read about the first mission to the moon, you and your classmates pepper the teacher with space-travel questions.  “What does moon dust feel like?”  “Can you swallow when there’s no gravity?”  “What about going to the bathroom?”  The teacher does the best she can but prefaces most replies with, “I would guess…”  or “I think…”  or “Perhaps…”  How could she know?  She’s never been there.  But the next day she brings a guest who has.  Neil Armstrong enters the room.  Yes, the “one small step for  man, one giant leap for mankind” Neil Armstrong.  “Now ask your questions,” the teacher invites.  And Astronaut Armstrong answers each with certainty.  He knows the moon; he’s walked on it.  No speculation or hesitation – he speaks with conviction.

So did Jesus.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 21, 2010

This is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
            John 6:40 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 20, 2010

All things have been committed to me by my Father.  No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
            Matthew 11:27

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 19, 2010

Jesus claims to be, not a top theologian, an accomplished theologian, or even the Supreme theologian, but rather the Only Theologian.  “No one really knows the Father except the Son.”  He does not say, “no one really knows the Father like the Son,” or “in the fashion of the Son.”  But rather, “No one really knows the Father except the Son.”  Heaven’s door has one key and Jesus holds it.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 18, 2010

All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.  For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.  This is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.
            John 6:37-39 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 17, 2010

Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.  For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.
            John 5:19-20 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 16, 2010

When Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions”
(John 14:2 NKJV), count on it.  He knows.  He has walked them.

When he says, “You are worth more than many sparrows”
(Matthew 10:31 ), trust him.  Jesus knows. 
He knows the value of every creature.

When Christ declares, “Your Father knows the things
you have need of” (Matthew 6:8), believe it.  After all,
“He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2 NKJV).

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 15, 2010

All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to who the Son wills to reveal Him.
            Luke 10:22 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 14, 2010

Jesus enjoys an intimacy with God, a mutuality the Father shares with no one else.  Married couples know something of this.  They finish each other’s sentences, anticipate each other’s actions.  Some even begin to look like their mates (a possibility that deeply troubles my wife).  Denalyn and I have been married more than twenty-five years.  We no longer converse; we communicate in code….  She knows what I’ll say before I say it.  Consequently, she can speak on my behalf with highest credibility….  How much more does Jesus qualify as God’s [proxy]!  Jesus, “who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day” (John 1:18 The Message).

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 13, 2010

We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, this endless knowing and understanding – all this came through Jesus, the Messiah.  No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse.  This one-of-a kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day.
            John 1:17-18 The Message

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: July 12, 2010

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
            Matthew 11:28-30


Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 11, 2010

He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son.  The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored.  We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.
            Romans 8:29 The Message


Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 10, 2010

“‘My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord.  ‘And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine’” (Isaiah 55:8 NLT).  The root meaning of the word translated thoughts is “weavings”.  It’s as if God says, “My weavings are far beyond anything you could imagine.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 9, 2010

In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed.  In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling.
            Exodus 15:13

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 8, 2010

[Christ] is to history what a weaver is to a tapestry.  I once watched a weaver work at a downtown San Antonio market.  She selected threads from her bag and arranged them first on the frame, then on the shuttle.  She next worked the shuttle back and forth through the threads, intertwining colors, overlapping textures.  In a matter of moments a design appeared.  Christ, in like manner, weaves his story.  Every person is a thread, every moment a color, every era a pass of the shuttle.  Jesus steadily interweaves the embroidery of humankind.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 7, 2010

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.  And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.
            Hebrews 1:1-3 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 6, 2010

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.  In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.  The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
            John 1:1-5 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 5, 2010

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, "Show us the Father"?  Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?  The words I say to you are not just my own.  Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
            John 14:9-10

Max Lucado - 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 4, 2010

Though God is the father of all humanity, Jesus alone is the monogenetic son of God, because only Christ has God’s genes or genetic make-up.  The familiar translation “only begotten Son” (John 3:16 NKJV, NASB) conveys this truth.  When parents beget or conceive a child, they transfer their DNA to the newborn.  Jesus shares God’s DNA.  Jesus isn’t begotten in the sense that he began but in the sense that he and God have the same essence, eternal life span, unending wisdom, and tireless energy.  Every quality we attribute to God, we can attribute to Jesus.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 3, 2010

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
            1 John 4:9

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 2, 2010

No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side has made him known.
            John 1:18

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 July 1, 2010

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
            John 1:14

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 30, 2010

The Greek word for “one and only” is monogenes, an adjective compounded of monos (“only”) and genes (“species, race, family, offspring, kind”).  When used in the Bible, “one and only” almost always describes a parent-child relationship.  Luke employs it to identify the widow’s son; “the only son of his mother” (Luke 7:12).  The writer of Hebrews states: “Abraham…was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac” (11:17 NLT).  John enlists the phrase five times, in each case highlighting the unparalleled relationship between Jesus and God.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 29, 2010

Everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
            Matthew 7:8 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 28, 2010

Everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
            Matthew 10:32 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 27, 2010

Others [put you down].  God claims you.  Let the definitive voice of the universe say, “You’re still a part of my plan.”

 Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 26, 2010

Take in with all the Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love.  Reach out and experience the breadth!  Test its length!  Plumb its depths!  Rise to the heights!  Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
            Ephesians 3:18-19 The Message


Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 25, 2010

Mark it down: God loves you with an unearthly love.  You can’t win it by being winsome.  You can’t lose it by being a loser.  But you can be blind enough to resist it.  Don’t.  For heaven’s sake, don’t.  For your sake, don’t.
Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 24, 2010

This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
            John 15:12 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 23, 2010

I bow my knees before the Father…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
            Ephesians 3:14, 16-19 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 22, 2010

[God] speaks through the immensity of the Russian plain and the density of the Amazon rain forest.  Through a physician’s touch in Africa, a bowl of rice in India.  Through a Japanese bow or a South American abraco.  He’s even been known to touch people through paragraphs like the one you are reading.  If he is touching you, let him.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 21, 2010

My dog Salty…sleeps next to me…as I write.  He’s a cranky cuss, but I like him….  He didn’t have much to start with, now the seasons have taken his energy, teeth, hearing, and all but eighteen-inches worth of eyesight….  He’s nervous and edgy, quick to growl, and slow to trust.  As I reach out to pet him, he yanks back.  Still, I pet the old coot….

We are a lot like Salty….  For all our chest pumping and braggadocio, we are an anxious folk; can’t see a step into the future, can’t hear the one who owns us.  No wonder we try to gum the hand that feeds us.  But God reaches and touches.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 20, 2010

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
            Galatians 5:22-23 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 19, 2010

It is absolutely clear that God has called you to a free life.  Just make sure that you don’t use this freedom as an excuse to do whatever you want to do and destroy your freedom.  Rather, use your freedom to serve one another in love; that’s how freedom grows.  For everything we know about God’s Word is summed up in a single sentence: Love others as you love yourself.  That’s an act of true freedom.
            Galatians 5:13-14 The Message

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 18, 2010

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents.  Mostly what God does is love you.  Keep company with him and learn a life of love.  Observe how Christ loved us.  His love was not cautious but extravagant.  He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us.  Love like that.
            Ephesians 5:1-2 The Message

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 17, 2010

Rejoice, be made complete, be comforted, be like-minded, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.
            2 Corinthians 13:11 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 16, 2010

Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.
            John 15:13 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 15, 2010

Love explains why he came.

Love explains how he endured.

His hometown kicked him out.  A so-called friend turned him in.  Hucksters called God a hypocrite.  Sinners called God guilty.  Do termites mock an eagle, tapeworms decry the beauty of a swan?  How did Jesus endure such derision?  “For God so loved….”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 14, 2010

I, the Lord Your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
            Exodus 20:5-6 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 13, 2010

The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery….  Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments.
            Deuteronomy 7:7-9 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 12, 2010

Peek through the Nazareth workshop window.  See the lanky lad sweeping the sawdust from the floor?  He once blew stardust into the night sky.  Why swap the heavens for a carpentry shop?  One answer: love.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 11, 2010

Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith…be strong.  Let all that you do be done in love.
            1 Corinthians 16:13-14 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 10, 2010

He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
            2 Corinthians 5:15 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 9, 2010

Look at the round belly of the pregnant peasant girl in Bethlehem.  God’s in there; the same God who can balance the universe on the tip of his finger floats in Mary’s womb.  Why?  Love.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 8, 2010

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
            1 Corinthians 13:4-7 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 7, 2010

Our finest love is a preschool watercolor to God’s Rembrandt, a vacant-lot dandelion next to his garden rose.  His love stands sequoia strong, our best attempts bend like weeping willows.

Max Lucado 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 6, 2010

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
            1 Corinthians 13:1-3 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 5, 2010

Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
            Romans 8:38-39 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 4, 2010

“Pop”…was struggling with metastatic liver and lung cancer….  Then he learned that his only son, Dan, was going to be a father.  When Pop heard the news, he…resolved, “I’m gonna make that.”…  Some days it was all he could do to mumble, “Bad day” to those who phoned.  But when his granddaughter was born, he insisted on going to the hospital….  Pop’s arms were too weak, so Dan had to hold the baby for him.  But Pop did what he came to do.  He leaned over, kissed her, and said, “Sheila Mary, Grandpa loves you very much.”  Within seconds, Pop dozed off….  Within days he was dead.  What is this love that endures decades, passes on sleep, and resists death to give one kiss?  Call it agape love, a love that bears a semblance of God’s.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 3, 2010

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor (Leviticus 19:18) and hate your enemy.”  But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
            Matthew 5:43-45 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 2, 2010

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?”  “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”  Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”  Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”  He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”  The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”  Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?”  He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”  Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”
            John 21:15-17

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 June 1, 2010

I saw a shard of…love [like God’s for us] between an elderly man and woman who have been married for fifty years.  The last decade has been marred by her dementia.  The husband did the best he could to care for his wife at home, but she grew sicker, he older.  So he admitted her to full-time care.  One day he asked me to visit her, so I did.  Her room was spotless, thanks to his diligence.  She, horizontal on the bed, was bathed and dressed, though going nowhere.  “I arrive at 6:15 a.m.,” he beamed.  “You’d think I was on the payroll.  I feed her, bathe her, and stay with her.  I will until one of us dies.”  Agape love.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 31, 2010

He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
            Micah 6:8
Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 30, 2010

Remember, O Lord, your great mercy and love,
for they are from of old.
Remember not the sins of my youth
and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
for you are good, O Lord.
            Psalm 25:6-7

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 29, 2010

“I, God, love the Israelite people, even as they flirt and party with every god that takes their fancy” (Hosea 3:1 The Message).  This is the love described in John 3:16.  Hasaq is replaced with the Greek term agape, but the meaning is equally powerful.  “God so [agapao] the world…”

Agape love.  Less an affection, more a decision; less a feeling, more an action.  As one linguist describes, “[Agape love is] an exercise of Divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself.”  Stated more simply: junkyard wrecks and showroom models share equal space in God’s garage.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 28, 2010

In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He lifted them and carried them all the days of old.
            Isaiah 63:9 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 27, 2010

Consider…the stubborn love of Hosea for Gomer.  Contrary to the name, Gomer was female, an irascible woman married to a remarkable Hosea.  She had the fidelity code of a prairie jack rabbit, flirting and hopping from one lover to another.  She ruined her life and shattered Hosea’s heart.  Destitute, she was placed for sale in a slave market.  Guess who stepped forward to buy her?  Hosea, who’d never removed his wedding band.  The way he treated her you’d have thought she’d never loved another man.  God uses this story, indeed orchestrated this drama, to illustrate his steadfast love for his fickle people
.
Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 26, 2010

O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting.
            1 Chronicles 16:34 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 25, 2010

God will not let you go.  He has handcuffed himself to you in love.  And he owns the only key.  You need not win his love.  You already have it.  And, since you can’t win it, you can’t lose it.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 24, 2010

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness,
And for His wonders to the sons of men!
For He has satisfied the thirsty soul,
And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good.
            Psalm 107:8-9 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 23, 2010

George Matheson…was only a teenager when doctors told him he was going blind.  Not to be denied, he pursued his studies, [graduating from the University of Glasgow and]…sightless [by the time he completed seminary].  His fiancée returned his engagement ring.  Matheson never married.  He adapted to his sightless world but never recovered from his broken heart.  He became a powerful and poetic pastor, led a full and inspiring life.  Yet occasionally the pain of his unrequited affection flared up….  His sister’s wedding…ceremony brought back memories of the love he had lost.  In response, he turned to the unending love of God for comfort and penned these words…: “O love that will not let me go, I rest my weary soul in thee; I give thee back the life I owe, that in thine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 22, 2010

I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
            John 14:16-17 NASB
Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 21, 2010

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”
            Lamentations 3:22-24

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 20, 2010

God chained himself to Israel.  Because the Jews were lovable?  No.  “God wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important – the fact is, there was almost nothing to you.  He did it out of sheer love, keeping the promise he made to your ancestors” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8 The Message).  God loves Israel and the rest of us (inadequate ones) because he chooses to.  “This is the love that won’t let go of the object of love.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 19, 2010

The Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”  In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
            1 Corinthians 11:23-26 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16 May 18, 2010

May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever.
            Hebrews 13:20-21

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 17, 2010

“The Lord chose your ancestors as the objects of his love” (Deuteronomy 10:15 NLT).  This passage warms our hearts.  But it shook the Hebrews’ world.  They heard this: “The Lord binds [hasaq] himself to his people.”  Hasaq speaks of a tethered love, a love attached to something or someone.  I’m picturing a mom connected by a child harness to her rambunctious five-year-old as the two of them walk through the market.  (I once thought the leashes were cruel; then I became a dad.)  The strap serves two functions, yanking and claiming.  You yank your kid out of trouble, and in doing so proclaim, “Yes, he is as wild as a banshee.  But he’s mine.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 16, 2010

I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant.  I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever.  My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.
    Ezekiel 37:26-27

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 15, 2010

“For God so loved the world…”  Love.  We’ve all but worn the word out.  This morning I used  love to describe my feelings toward my wife and toward peanut butter.  Far from identical emotions.  I’ve never proposed to a jar of peanut butter (though I have let one sit on my lap during a television show.)  Overuse has defused the word, leaving it with the punch of a butterfly wing.  Biblical options still retain their starch.  Scripture employs an artillery of terms for love, each one calibrated to reach a different target.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 14, 2010

O Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay, and You our potter; and all we are the work of your hand.
    Isaiah 64:8 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 13, 2010

God sent forth His Son…that we might receive the adoption as sons.  Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.
    Galatians 4:4-7 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 12, 2010

The world which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will announce My words to you.”  Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.  But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.  Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?”  declares the Lord.  “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand.”
    Jeremiah 18:1-6 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 11, 2010

When my daughters were small, they liked to play with Play-Doh.  They formed figures out of the soft clay.  If they forgot to place the lid on the can, the substance hardened.  When it did, they brought it to me.  My hands were bigger.  My fingers stronger.  I could mold the stony stuff into putty.

Is your heart hard?  Take it to your Father.  You’re only a prayer away from tenderness.  You live in a hard world, but you don’t have to live with a hard heart.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 10, 2010

The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.
    Genesis 9:16 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 9, 2010

I will mention the lovingkindness of the Lord and the praises of the Lord, according to all that the Lord has bestowed on us…according to His mercies, according to the multitude of His lovingkindnesses.
    Isaiah 63:7 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 8, 2010

Short memories harden the heart.  Make careful note of God’s blessings.  Declare with David: “[I will] daily add praise to praise.  I’ll write the book on your righteousness, talk up your salvation the livelong day, never run out of good things to write or say” (Psalm 71:14-15 The Message).  Catalog God’s goodnesses.  Meditate on them.  He has fed you, led you, and earned your trust.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 7, 2010

May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance.
    2 Thessalonians 3:5

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 6, 2010

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.  Again I will build you and you will be rebuilt…and go forth to the dances of the merrymakers.
    Jeremiah 31:3-4 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 5, 2010

A cow stuck her nose into a paint can and couldn’t shake it off.  Can-nosed cows can’t breathe well, and they can’t drink or eat at all…[and she was] in danger….  But when the cow saw the rescuers coming, she set out for pasture….  They chased that cow for three days…[before] the cornered and de-canned [her]!

See any can-nosed people lately?...  People who can’t take a deep breath?  All because they stuck their noses where they shouldn’t and, when God came to help, they ran away.  When billions of us imitate the cows, chaos erupts….  We scamper, starve, and struggle.  Can-nosed craziness….  This is the world God sees.  Yet, this is the world God loves.  “For God so loved the world”….  He loves.  He pursues.  He persists.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 4, 2010

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
Wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
            Psalm 51:1-2

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 3, 2010

Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.  And have mercy on some, who are doubting.
            Jude 1:21-22 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 2, 2010

When God called Moses to a summit meeting, the people panicked like henless chicks….  The scurvy of fear infected everyone in the camp.  They crafted a metal cow and talked to it….  More than three thousand years removed, we understand God’s frustration.  Turn to a statue for help?  How stupid.  Face your fears by facing a cow?  Udderly foolish!  We opt for more sophisticated therapies: belly-stretching food binges or budget-busting shopping sprees.  We bow before a whiskey bottle or lose ourselves in an eighty-hour work week.  Progress?  Hardly.  We still face fears without facing God….  Rather than turn to God, we turn from him, hardening our hearts.  The result.  Cow-worshiping folly.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: May 1, 2010

I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.
He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.
He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
            Psalm 40:1-3 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 30, 2010

For you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings.  And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.
            Malachi 4:2

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 29, 2010

If God can make a billion galaxies, can’t he make good out of our bad and sense out of our faltering lives?  Of course he can.  He is God.  He not only flies the plane, but he knows the passengers and has a special place for those who are sick and ready to get home.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 28, 2010

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord…is the Rock eternal.
            Isaiah 26:4

Max Lucado

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 27, 2010

After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.
            1 Peter 5:10 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 26, 2010

Since [God] has no needs, you cannot tire him.
Since he is without age, you cannot lose him.
Since he has no sin, you cannot corrupt him.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 25, 2010

Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance?  You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.
    Micah 7:18

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 24, 2010

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all His benefits:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Who redeems your life from destruction,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,
Who satisfies your mouth with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
    Psalm 103:2-5 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 23, 2010

[After Bill wrecked his father’s truck and the precious new machine it carried, he expected to hear,] “Stupid, punk kid driving too fast, not paying attention, ruined the family by taking away our livelihood.”  But that’s not what he said.  He looked right at [Bill], “Oh, Bill, I am so sorry.”  And he walked over, put his arms around [Bill], and said, “Son, this is going to be okay.”

God is whispering the same to you.  Those are his arms you feel.  Trust him.  That is his voice you hear.  Believe him.  Allow the only decision maker in the universe to comfort you.  Life at times appears to fall into pieces, seems irreparable.  But it’s going to be ok.  How can you know?  Because God so loved the world.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 22, 2010

I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
he heard my cry for mercy.
Because he turned his ear to me,
I will call on him as long as I live….
The Lord is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion….
Be at rest once more, O my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you.
    Psalm 116:1-2, 5, 7

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 21, 2010

If  God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies.  Who is he that condemns?  Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
    Romans 8:31-35

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 20, 2010

“For God so loved the world.”  Try that mantra on for size.  The one who holds the aces holds your heart.  The one who formed you pulls for you.  Untrumpable power stoked by unstoppable love.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 19, 2010

Therefore know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments.
    Deuteronomy 7:9 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 18, 2010

Grace, mercy and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, in truth and love.
    2 John 1:3 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 17, 2010

Compared to God, I have the life span of a fruit fly.  And sinless?  I can’t maintain a holy thought for my two-minute morning commute.  Is God’s greatness good news?  Not without the next four words of John 3:16: “ For God so loved the world.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 16, 2010

O Lord, who may abide in Your tent?
Who may dwell on Your holy hill?
He who walks with integrity, and works righteousness,
And speaks truth in his heart.
    Psalm 15:1-2 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 15, 2010

I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me.  I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.  I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.
    Isaiah 46:9-10

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 14, 2010

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.”  For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.
    James 1:13-14

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 13, 2010

One who is perfect in knowledge is with you.
    Job 36:4 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 12, 2010

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.  Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.
    James 1:17-18 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 11, 2010

God is holy.  Every decision, exact.  Each word, appropriate.  Never out-of-bounds or out of place.  Not even tempted to make a mistake.  “God is impervious to evil” (James 1:13 The Message).

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 10, 2010

Give unto the Lord the glory due to His name;
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness….
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
The voice of the Lord is full of majesty….
The Lord sits as King forever.
The Lord will give strength to His people;
The Lord will bless His people with peace.
    Psalm 29:2, 4, 10-11 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 9, 2010

Most staggering of all, [God] has never messed up.  Not once.  The prophet Isaiah described his glimpse of God.  He saw six-winged angels.  Though sinless, they covered themselves in God’s presence.  Two wings covered eyes, two wings covered feet, and two carried the angels airborne.  They volleyed one phrase back and forth: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3 NKJV).

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 8, 2010

There is none like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your help, and through the skies in His majesty.  The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.
    Deuteronomy 33:26-27 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 7, 2010

Your word, O Lord, is eternal;
it stands firm in the heavens.
Your faithfulness continues through all generations;
you established the earth, and it endures.
Your laws endure to this day
for all things serve you.
    Psalm 119:89-91

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 6, 2010

He is “the eternal God” (Romans 16:26).  He invented time and owns the patent.  “The day is yours, and yours also the night” (Psalm 74:16 NKJV).  He was something before anything else was.  When the first angel lifted the first wing, God had already always been.


Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 5, 2010

Out of the north he comes in golden splendor; God comes in awesome majesty.  The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.
    Job 37: 22-23

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 4, 2010

The Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome….  He is your praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes.
    Deuteronomy 10: 17, 21

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 3, 2010

Let every speck of sand, from the Sahara to South Beach, represent a billion years of God’s existence.  With some super vacuum, suck and then blow all the particles into a mountain, and count how many you have.  Multiply your total by a billion and listen as God reminds: “They don’t represent a fraction of my existence.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 2, 2010

Your way, O God, is holy;
What god is great like our God?
You are the God who works wonders;
You have made known Your strength among the peoples.
You have by Your power redeemed Your people.
    Psalm 77: 13-15 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: April 1, 2010

How great is God – beyond our understanding!  The number of his years is past  finding out.  He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind.  Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion?  See how he scatters his lightning about him, bathing the depths of the sea.  This is the way he governs the nations and provides food in abundance.  He fills his hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark.  His thunder announces the coming storm; even the cattle make known its approach.
    Job 26: 26-33

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 31, 2010

God never began and will never cease. He exists endlessly, always.  “The number of His years is unsearchable”
      (Job 36:26 NASB).

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 30, 2010

Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. 
Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever You had formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
    Psalm 90: 1-2 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 29, 2010

Life is to God what wetness is to water and air is to wind.  He is not just alive but life itself.  God is, without help.  Hence, he always is.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 28, 2010

The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
            Job 33:4 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 27, 2010

You and I start our days needy.  Indeed, basic needs prompt us to climb out of bed.  Not God.  Uncreated and self-sustaining, he depends on nothing and no one.  Never takes a nap or a breath.  Needs no food, counsel, or physician.  The Father has life in himself” (John 5:26).

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 26, 2010

“To whom will you compare me?  Or who is my equal?” says the Holy One.  Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these?  He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.  Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.
            Isaiah 40: 25-26

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 25, 2010

Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;
Nor are there any works like Your works.
All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name.
For You are great, and do wondrous things;
You alone are God.
            Psalm 86:8-19 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 24, 2010

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.
            Acts 17:24-25

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 23, 2010

He shall give His angels charge over you,
To keep you in all your ways.
In their hands they shall bear you up,
Lest you dash your foot against a stone.
            Psalm 91:11-12 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 22, 2010

To whom, then, will you compare God?  What image will you compare him to?...  Do you not know?  Have you not heard?  Has it not been told you from the beginning?  Have you not understood since the earth was founded?  He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.  He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
            Isaiah 40:18, 21-22

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 21, 2010

Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works
Which you have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.
            Psalm 40:5 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 20, 2010

Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
On You I wait all the day.
            Psalm 25:5 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 19, 2010

When outsiders who have never heard of God’s law follow it more or less by instinct, they confirm its truth by their obedience.  They show that God’s law is not something alien, imposed on us from without, but woven into the very fabric of our creation.  There is something deep within them that echoes God’s yes and no, right and wrong.
            Romans 2:14-15 The Message

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 18, 2010

Common virtues connect us. Every culture has frowned upon selfishness and celebrated courage, punished dishonesty and rewarded nobility.  Even cannibals display rudimentary justice, refusing to eat their children.  A universal standard exists. Just as a code writer connects computers with common software bundles, a common code connects people.  We may violate or ignore the code, but we can’t deny it.  Even people who have never heard God’s name sense his law within them.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 17, 2010

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.
            Matthew 22:37-40

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 16, 2010

Let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.  We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.  Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
            1 John 3:18-22 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 15, 2010

Look within you.  Look at your sense of right and wrong, your code of ethics.  Somehow even as a child you knew it was wrong to hurt people and right to help them.  Who told you?  Who says?  What is this magnetic pole that pulls the needles on the compass of your conscience, if not God?

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 14, 2010

Of old You laid the foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You will endure;
Yes, they will all grow old like a garment;
Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed.
But You are the same,
And Your years will have no end.
            Psalm 102:25-27 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 13, 2010

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.
Their voice
goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
            Psalm 19:1-4

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 12, 2010

Our universe is God’s preeminent missionary.  “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1).  A house implies a builder, a painting suggests a painter.  Don’t stars suggest a star maker?  Doesn’t creation imply a creator?  “The heavens declare his righteousness” (Psalm 97:6 NKJV).  Look above you.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 11, 2010

Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.
            Romans 1:20

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 10, 2010

Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all you stars of light!
Praise Him, you heavens of heavens,
And you waters above the heavens!
Let them praise the name of the Lord,
For He commanded and they were created.
            Psalm 148:3-5 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 9, 2010

Jesus assumes what Scripture declares.  God is.  For proof, venture away from the city lights on a clear night and look up at the sky.  That fuzzy band of white light is our galaxy, the Milky Way.  One hundred billion stars.  Our galaxy is one of billions of others!  Who can conceive of such a universe, let alone infinite numbers of universes?

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 8, 2010

Not one of the good promises which the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed; all came to pass.
            Joshua 21:45 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 7, 2010

Those who know Your name will put their trust in you, For You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
            Psalm 9:10 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 6, 2010

[When the pilot booted my sick wife and me off our flight home,] I wanted to plead my case, but the man in charge was unavailable for comment.  He had a 747 to fly…and no time for us.  Can you relate?  You may feel similar sentiments about the pilot of the universe.  God: the too-busy-for-you commander-in-chief, the faceless skipper who passes down nonnegotiable decisions.  His universe hums like a Rolls-Royce, but sick passengers never appear on his radar screen.  Even worse, you may suspect a vacant captain’s seat.  How do we know a hand secures the controls?...  Christ weighs in decidedly on this discussion. He escorts passengers to the cockpit, enters 3:16 in the keypad, and unlocks the door on God.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 5, 2010

Remember the word to Your servant,
Upon which You have caused me to hope.
This is my comfort in my affliction,
For your word has given me life.
            Psalm 119:49-50 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 4, 2010

We do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.  For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
            2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 3, 2010

When [Martin Luther] was dying, severe headaches left him bedfast and pain struck.  He was offered a medication to relieve the discomfort.  He declined and explained, “My best prescription for head and heart is that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

The best prescription for head and heart.  Who couldn’t benefit from a dose?

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 2, 2010

My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will never be shaken.
            Psalm 62:1-2

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 1, 2010 Bonus

Life will be brighter than noonday, and darkness will become like morning.  You will be secure, because there is hope; you will look about you and take your rest in safety.
            Job 11:17-18

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: March 1, 2010

Bible translators in the new Hebrides Islands struggled to find an appropriate verb for believe…[a] concept…essential to Scripture.  One Bible translator, John G. Patron, accidentally came upon a solution while hunting….  [They] bagged a large deer and carried it on a pole along a steep mountain path to Patron’s home.  [There] both men dropped the load and plopped into the porch chairs….  The native exclaimed in the language of his people, “My, it is good to stretch yourself out here and rest.”   Paton immediately…recorded the phrase.  As a result, his final translation of John 3:16 could be worded: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever stretches himself out on Him and rests shall not perish but have everlasting life.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 28, 2010

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people.  He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David.
            Luke 1:68-69 

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 27, 2010

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever.
            Galatians 1:3-5 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 26, 2010

[Jesus] pounds Do Not Enter signs on every square inch of Satan’s gate and tells those hell-bent on entering to do so over his dead body.  Even so, some souls insist.  In the end, some perish and some live.  And what determines the difference?  Not works or talents, pedigree or possessions.  Nicodemus had these in hoards.  The difference is determined by our belief.  “Whoever  believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 25, 2010

Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.  I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
            Isaiah 45:22-23 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 24, 2010

God our Savior…desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
            1 Timothy 2:3-4 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 23, 2010

John Newton, who set faith to music in “Amazing Grace,” loved this barrier-breaking pronoun [whoever].  He said, “If I read ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that when John Newton believed he should have everlasting life,’ I should say, perhaps, there is some other John Newton; but ‘whosoever’ means this John Newton and that John Newton, and everybody else, whatever his name may be.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 22, 2010

When the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.  He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
            Titus 3:4-7

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 21, 2010

Many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.
            John 20:30-31 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 20, 2010

[God] loves the world so much he gave his: declarations? rules? dicta? edicts?  No.  The heart-stilling, mind-bending, deal-making-or-breaking claim of John 3:16 is this: God gave his son…his only son.  No abstract ideas but a flesh-wrapped divinity. Scripture equates Jesus with God.  God, then, gave himself.  Why?  So that “whoever believes in him shall not perish.”

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 19, 2010

In your unfailing love you will lead the people you have redeemed.  In your strength you will guide them to your holy dwelling.
            Exodus 15:13

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 18, 2010

God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
            Ephesians 2:4-7 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 17, 2010

“God so loved the world....”  We’d expect an anger-fueled God.  One who punishes the world, re-cycles the world, forsakes the world…but loved the world?  The world?  This world?

Heartbreakers, hope-snatchers and dream dousers prowl this orb.  Dictators rage.  Abusers inflict.  Reverends think they deserve the title.  But God loves.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 16, 2010

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.
    Psalm 23:5-6

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 15, 2010

The Lord your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.
    Zephaniah 3:17 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 14, 2010

The words are to Scripture what the Mississippi River is to America – an entryway into the heartland.  Believe or dismiss them, embrace or reject them, any serious consideration of Christ must include them.  Would a British historian dismiss the Magna Carta?  Egyptologists overlook the Rosetta Stone?  Could you ponder the words of Christ and never immerse yourself into John 3:16?

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 13, 2010

My God is my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation.  He is my stronghold, my refuge and my savior.
    2 Samuel 22:3

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 12, 2010

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
    Psalm 23:4 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 11, 2010

The heart of the human problem is the heart of the human.  And God’s treatment is prescribed in John 3:16.  He loves.  He gave.  We believe.  We live.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 10, 2010

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
     Psalm 23:1-3 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 9, 2010

He has brought me to his banquet hall, and his banner over me is love.
    Song of Songs 2:4 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 8, 2010

[John 3:16.]  A twenty-six-word parade of hope: beginning with God, ending with life, and urging us to do the same.  Brief enough to write on a napkin or memorize in a moment, yet solid enough to weather two thousand years of storms and questions.  If you know nothing of the Bible, start here.  If you know everything in the Bible, return here.  We all need the reminder.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 7, 2010

We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.
    Psalm 33:20-22

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 6, 2010

Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
    Romans 5:5 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 5, 2010

Jesus answers [Nicodemus’s surprise] by leading him to the Hope diamond of the Bible.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 4, 2010

The Lord has redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of one stronger than he.  Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, streaming to the goodness of the Lord – for wheat and new wine and oil, for the young of the flock and the herd; their souls shall be like a well-watered garden, and they shall sorrow no more at all.
    Jeremiah 31:11-12 NKJV

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 3, 2010

O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.
    Isaiah 25:1

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 2, 2010

The original creator recreates his creation.  This is the act that Jesus describes [when he says “born again.”]  Born:  God exerts the effort.  Again: God restores the beauty.  We don’t try again.  We need, not the muscle of self, but a miracle of God.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: February 1, 2010

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.
    1 Corinthians 2:12 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 31, 2010

So, friends, we can now – without hesitation – walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.”  Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of his sacrifice, acting as our priest before God.  The “curtain” into God’s presence is his body.  So let’s do it – full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out.  Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going.  He always keeps his word.
    Hebrews 10:19-23 The Message

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 30, 2010

[“…born again” (John 3:3).]  Check the strategically selected word again.  The Greek language offers two choices for again: 1) palin, which means a repetition of an act; to redo what was done earlier, [and] 2) anothen, which also depicts a repeated action, but requires the original source to repeat it.  It means “from above, from a higher place, things which come from heaven or God.”  In other words, the one who did the work the first time does it again.  This is the word Jesus chose.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 29, 2010

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.
    2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 28, 2010

Let the name of God be blessed forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to Him.  It is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding.  It is He who reveals the profound and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.
    Daniel 2:20-22 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 27, 2010

The mother pays the price of birth.  She doesn’t enlist the child’s assistance or solicit his or her advice.  Why would she?  The baby can’t even take a breath without umbilical help, much less navigate a path into new life.  Nor, Jesus is saying, can we.  Spiritual re-birthing requires a capable parent, not an able infant.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 26, 2010

Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
    Psalm 51:10-12

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 25, 2010

As those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other...just as the Lord forgave you....  Beyond these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts...and be thankful.
     Colossians 3:12-15 NASB

Max Lucado - 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 24, 2010

[Nicodemus] speaks self-fix.  But Jesus speaks – indeed, introduces – a different language.   Not works born of men and women, but a work done by God.  Born again.  Birth, by definition, is a passive act.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 23, 2010

Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death.  But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.
            Romans 6:23 The Message

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 22, 2010

By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.
            Ephesians 2:8 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 21, 2010

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5 NKJV).  About this time a gust of wind blows a few leaves through the still-open door.  Jesus picks one off the floor and holds it up.  God’s power works like that wind, Jesus explains.  Newborn hearts are born of heaven.  You can’t wish, earn, or create one.  New birth?  Inconceivable.  God handles the task, start to finish.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 20, 2010

When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there’s no getting around it.  But when the baby is born, there is joy in the birth.  This new life in the world wipes out memory of the pain.  The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but  the coming joy is also similar.  When I see you again, you’ll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you.
            John 16:21-22 The Message

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 19, 2010

Nicodemus hesitates on behalf of us all.  Born again?  “How can a man be born when he is old?” (John 3:4 NKJV).  You must be kidding.  Put life in reverse?  Rewind the tape?  Start all over?  We can’t be born again.

Oh, but wouldn’t we like to?  A do-over.  A try-again.  A reload.  Broken hearts and missed chances bob in our wake.  A mulligan would be nice.  Who wouldn’t cherish a second shot?  But who can pull it off?

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 18, 2010

As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God.
            John 1:12-13 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 17, 2010

Thus says God the Lord, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it… “I will appoint You as  a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.”
            Isaiah 42:5-7 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 16, 2010

Behold the Continental Divide of Scripture, the international date line of faith.  Nicodemus stands on one side, Jesus on the other, and Christ pulls no punches about their differences.

Nicodemus inhabits a land of good efforts, sincere gestures, and hard work.  Give God your best, his philosophy says, and God does the rest.  Jesus’ response?  Your best won’t do.  Your works don’t work.  Your finest efforts don’t mean squat.  Unless you are born again, you can’t even see what God is up to.

Max Lucado – 3:16

Max Lucado - 3:16: January 15, 2010

Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
For the word of the Lord is upright,
And all His work is done in faithfulness.
He loves righteousness and justice;
The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.
            Psalm 33:3-5 NASB

Max Lucado – 3:16