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