Top 804 Quotes & Sayings by Max Lucado

God's glory is the big news of the Bible, and my desire is that it would be all about me, but really it's all about God's glory.

Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart - poisoned as it is with pride and pain - and replacing it with his own.

One of the greatest gifts we can give people is the hope that their death is nothing to fear - you know, not that it has no fear in it, but the promise of scripture is that God will lead us through the valley of the shadow of death.

I don't believe our works save us, but I believe they follow us into heaven and bring glory to God.

The idea of a spiritual heart transplant is a vivid image to me; once you have the heart of somebody else inside you, then that heart is there. Jesus' heart is inside me, and my heart is gone. So if God were to place a stethoscope against my chest, he would hear the heart of Jesus Christ beating.

We are Jesus Christ's; we belong to him. But even more, we are increasingly him. He moves in and commandeers our hands and feet, requisitions our minds and tongues. We sense his rearranging: debris into the divine, pig's ear into silk purse. He repurposes bad decisions and squalid choices. Little by little, a new image emerges.

I get one hour, really 25 minutes in a sermon on a weekend, to combat all the hours of the week that people are told you are what you have through billboards, commercials, and sitcoms, and so forth.

A season of suffering is a small assignment when compared to the reward. Rather than begrudge your problem, explore it. Ponder it. And most of all, use it. Use it to the glory of God.

There's something about compassion that causes society to say, 'We're going to take this person seriously.' Take Mother Teresa. She was confrontational on abortion, but she wasn't rejected by society.

My first encounters with faith came about the time I was a Boy Scout, at about 14 or 15. I made the logical deduction that they operate the same way; I treated my faith like earning a merit badge, and everything about Christianity was about earning merit badges.

A nation is blessed when it has godly leaders.

God is not troubled by one who is conservative or liberal, and He certainly never inclines His ear toward a donkey or an elephant.

There is a time for risky love. There is a time for extravagant gestures. There is a time to pour out your affections on one you love. And when the time comes - seize it, don't miss it.

You change your life by changing your heart.

Be a doer, not a stewer.

Become a worry-slapper. Treat frets like mosquitoes. Do you procrastinate when a bloodsucking bug lights on your skin? 'I'll take care of it in a moment.' Of course you don't! You give the critter the slap it deserves. Be equally decisive with anxiety.

My book centers in on the New Testament, the goal being to help a person who wants to understand the Bible to see how what God did as revealed in the New Testament will reveal to them their own personal story.

I think that a church should be setting the pace for social justice.

God meets daily needs daily. Not weekly or annually. He will give you what you need when it is needed.

God will use whatever he wants to display his glory. Heavens and stars. History and nations. People and problems.

If we think that this life is all there is to life, then there is no interpretation of our problems, our pain, not even of our privileges. But everything changes when we open up to the possibility that God's story is really our story too.

The meaning of life. The wasted years of life. The poor choices of life. God answers the mess of life with one word: 'grace.'

Compassion in evangelical churches is out of balance. When I talk about it, I get a lot of glazed expressions.

About four days a week, I do pretty good at having a morning prayer time. But even at that, it's a rambling sort of thing. What I have learned to do better is to try to keep my mind turned toward God and ear inclined toward God throughout the day, and I think I'm doing better at that, but I've got a long way to go.

I was raised in the greatest of homes... just a really great dad, and I miss him so much... he was a good man, a real simple man... Very faithful, always loved my mom, always provided for the kids, and just a lot of fun.

If we can understand that death is not the end but is really a transition into the next life, the great part of life, that frees us up into receiving God's courage and his help.

Sentences are like just caught fish. Spunky today, stinky tomorrow.

People assume when they come into a church and see a person up there speaking, 'That person must be a good person.' My challenge through the years has been believing that: 'I guess I must be a really good person.' I struggle with it. It just helps me to keep that confessional posture.

For years I thought my assignment or the Church's assignment was to articulate the Gospel and nothing more. Now I believe that if we don't support the verbal expression of the Gospel with physical demonstration of compassion, we are not imitating Jesus.

One of the things I discover a lot in marriage counseling is the husband or wife trying to get their spiritual thirst quenched by their partner; I think that's a real common mistake that we make.

When grace happens, we receive not a nice compliment from God but a new heart. Give your heart to Christ, and he returns the favor.

It seems to me that election season is just a Petri dish for anger and cynicism.

You know people just assume, 'Well, all my life I'll be a worrier.' That doesn't have to be true. There's a way to drink from God's presence so much that worry begins to dissipate.

Initially, when I first became a Christian and got into ministry, my thought was that God existed to make my life better and to take me to Heaven. Now I realize that it is not about me at all. It is all about God and that He did this to display His plan to restore the Earth to the Garden of Eden state.

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

Lower your expectations of earth. This isn't heaven, so don't expect it to be.

The apostle Paul never seemed to exhaust the topic of grace - what makes us think we can? He just kept coming at it and coming at it from another angle. That's the thing about grace. It's like springtime. You can't put it in a single sentence definition, and you can't exhaust it.

Well, I think the main message is there is more to your story. There is more than what happens between the crib and the grave, and that is what I am really trying to speak to, this idea that all of life is this life and that there is nothing more than what we see and experience right here on this earth.

What we realize is number one, people want to know what the Bible says. In their heart, they want to know the Bible but it is just hard to understand the big picture of it. And number two, they want to know where they plug in.

The Bible is the story of two gardens: Eden and Gethsemane. In the first, Adam took a fall. In the second, Jesus took a stand. In the first, God sought Adam. In the second, Jesus sought God. In Eden, Adam hid from God. In Gethsemane, Jesus emerged from the tomb. In Eden, Satan led Adam to a tree that led to his death. From Gethsemane, Jesus went to a tree that led to our life.

You weren't an accident. You weren't mass produced. You aren't an assembly-line product. You were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on the earth by the Master Craftsman.

Your goal is not to know every detail of the future. Your goal is to hold the hand of the One who does and never, ever let go.

A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.

God has enough grace to solve every dilemma you face, wipe every tear you cry, and answer every question you ask.

No one can do everything, but everyone can do something

God is able to place stars in their sockets & suspend sky like a curtain; surely He is mighty enough to light your path.

Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the One who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference.

Courage does not panic; it prays. Courage does not bemoan; it believes. Courage does not languish; it listens

Be patient. God is using today's difficulties to strengthen you for tomorrow. He is equipping you. The God who makes things grow will help you bear fruit.

God sends his angels to protect us and his Word as a star to guide us. Then he surrounds us with his grace. We become his depot, the distribution point of God's gifts.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day. If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek his grace. And then, when this day is done, I will place my head on my pillow and rest.

The presence of fear does not mean you have no faith. Fear visits everyone. But make your fear a visitor and not a resident.

Worry is irrelevant. It alters nothing. When was the last time you solved a problem by worrying about it?

You have a God who hears you, the power of love behind you, the Holy Spirit within you, and all of heaven ahead of you. If you have the Shepherd, you have grace for every sin, direction for every turn, a candle for every corner and an anchor for every storm. You have everything you need.

Gratitude lifts our eyes off the things we lack so we might see the blessings we possess.

God is God. He knows what he is doing. When you can’t trace his hand, trust his heart.

When all of earth turns against you, all of heaven turns toward you.

Stay strong! Your test will become your test-imony, your mess will become your mess-age.

When you are in the final days of your life, what will you want? Will you hug that college degree in the walnut frame? Will you ask to be carried to the garage so you can sit in your car? Will you find comfort in rereading your financial statement? Of course not. What will matter then will be people. If relationships will matter most then, shouldn't they matter most now?

If your God is mighty enough to ignite the sun, could it be that He is mighty enough to light your path?