Top 804 Quotes & Sayings by Max Lucado - Page 2

Never underestimate the power that comes when a parent pleads with God on behalf of a child.

For all its peculiarities and unevenness, the Bible has a simple story. God made man. Man rejected God. God won't give up until he wins him back. God will whisper. He will shout. He will touch and tug. He will take away our burdens; he'll even take away our blessings. If there are a thousand steps between us and him, he will take all but one. But he will leave the final one for us. The choice is ours. Please understand. His goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you His. His goal is not to get you what you want; it is to get you what you need.

The Lord is near! You're not alone. You may feel alone. You may think you're alone. But there's never a moment in which you face life without help. God is near. God repeatedly pledges his proverbial presence to his people. Don't assume God is watching from a distance. Avoid the quicksand that bears the marker "God has left you!" Don't indulge this lie. If you do, your problem will be amplified by a sense of loneliness. It's one thing to face a challenge, but to face it all alone? Isolation creates a downward cycle of fret.

God never said that the journey would be easy, but He did say that the arrival would be worthwhile.

Don't equate the presence of God with a good mood or a pleasant temperament. God is near whether you are happy or not.

The mind that is full of God is empty of anxiety. Are you troubled, restless, sleepless? Then think of God more!

God's highest desire is not to make us rich, successful or popular. His goal is to make us His

Trust God's love. His perfect love. Don't fear He will discover your past. He already has. Don't fear disappointing Him in the future. He can show you the chapter in which you will. With perfect knowledge of the past and perfect vision of the future, He loves you perfectly in spite of both.

The next time you're disappointed, don't panic. Don't give up. Just be patient and let God remind you He's still in control.

Faith is the conviction that God knows more than we do about this life and He will get us through it.

Our Savior kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, "I can clean that if you want." And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes away our sin.

A little rain can straighten a flower stem. A little love can change a life.

Be quick to pray. Stop talking to yourself. Talk to Christ.

Anxiety and fear are cousins but not twins. Fear sees a threat. Anxiety imagines one.

?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

The difference between mercy and grace? Mercy gave the prodigal son a second chance. Grace gave him a feast.

God does uncommon things through common people in common places.

God gives us people to love and things to use, not things to love and people to use.

As we meditate on Christ's life, we find strength for our own.

Meet your fears with faith.

Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life. Do you want to be happy tomorrow? Then sow seeds of happiness today -count blessings, memorize Bible verses, pray, sing hymns, spend time with encouraging people. Do you want to guarantee tomorrow's misery? Then wallow in a mental mud pit of self-pity or guilt or anxiety today assume the worst, beat yourself up, rehearse your regrets, complain to complainers.

Because of Bethlehem, I have a friend in heaven.

God is able to accomplish, provide, help, save, keep, subdue... He is able to do what you can't. He already has a plan. God's not bewildered. Go to Him.

God's love has a width, length, height, and depth, but we will never reach the end of it. Our capacity to experience God's love will be exhausted long before God's capacity to give it is strained. The picture of having Christ dwell inside us by faith presents us with compelling and comforting possibilities. What Christ does in us and through us will always be 'exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think.'

Jesus humbled himself. He went from commanding angels to sleeping in the straw. From holding stars to clutching Mary's finger. The palm that held the universe took the nail of a soldier. Why? Because that's what love does. It puts the beloved before itself.

But it is in storms that God does his finest work, for it is in storms that God has our keenest attention

Resentment is when you allow what’s eating you to eat you up. Revenge is the raging fire that consumes the arsonist. Bitterness is the trap that snares the hunter. And mercy is the choice that can set them all free.

What if you woke up this morning and had only the things you thanked God for yesterday?

The Bible teaches us that God does not cause pain, but that He uses pain and evil to advance His cause and shape His servants.

Here's what you need to keep in mind. You no longer have yesterday. You do not yet have tomorrow. You have only today. This is the day the Lord has made. Live in it.

You are valuable because you exist. Not because of what you do or what you have done - but simply because you are.

Focus on giants - you stumble. Focus on God - Giants tumble.

People are watching the way we act, more than they are listening to what we say.

Christ lived the life we could not live and took the punishment we could not take to offer the hope we cannot resist.

When you recognize God as Creator, you will admire Him. When you recognize His wisdom, you will learn from Him. When you discover His strength, you will rely on Him. But only when He saves you will you worship Him.

No distance is too far.

When you're full of yourself, God can't fill you. But when you empty yourself, God has a useful vessel.

Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.

The key is this: Meet today's problems with today's strength. Don't start tackling tomorrow's problems until tomorrow. You do not have tomorrow's strength yet. You simply have enough for today.

There is a difference between grace and mercy. Mercy is the decision of God not to punish us. But grace is the decision of God to save and bless us.

If there are a thousand steps between us and God, He will take all but one. He will leave the final one for us. The choice is ours.

God is always near us. Always for us. Always in us.

You may go days without thinking of God, but there's never a moment when He's not thinking of you.

We exist to exhibit God, to display his glory. We serve as canvases for his brush stroke, papers for his pen, soil for his seeds, glimpses of his image.

God loves you simply because He has chosen to do so. He loves you when you don't feel lovely. He loves you when no one else loves you. Others may abandon you, divorce you, and ignore you, but God will love you always. No matter what!

Don't be defined by your failures, be refined by them.

God can't fill you when you are already full of yourself.

Engage with the Bible. Meditate on it day and night. Think and rethink about God's Word. Let it be your guide. Make it your go-to book for questions. Let it be the ultimate authority in your life.

We're important, but not essential; valuable, but not indispensable. We have a part in the play, but we are not the main act. A song to sing, but we are not the featured voice. God is.

Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realising you were the prisoner!

If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it.

Find joy in the ordinary.

Prayer is the window that God has placed in the walls of our world. Leave it shut and the world is a cold, dark house. But throw back the curtains and see His light. Open the window and hear His voice. Open the window of prayer and invoke the presence of God in your world.

God answers the mess of life with one word: Grace.

Love like there's no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.

Nails didn't hold God to a cross. Love did.

Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life.

God never promises to remove us from our struggles. He does promise, however, to change the way we look at them.

If you knew that only a few would care that you came, would you still come? If you knew that those you loved would laugh in your face, would you still care? If you knew that the tongues you made would mock you, the mouths you made would spit at you, the hands you made would crucify you, would you still make them? Christ did.

No one can pray and worry at the same time. When we worry, we aren't praying. When we pray, we aren't worrying.