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