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