INSPIRING MAX LUCADO QUOTES

Max Lucado (born January 11, 1955) is a best-selling author and writer and preacher at Oak Hills Church (formerly the Oak Hills Church of Christ) in San Antonio, Texas. Lucado has written more than 50 books with 65 million copies in print, including three recipients of the Charles "Kip" Jordon Gold Medallion Christian Book of the Year (Just Like Jesus, In the Grip of Grace, and When God Whispers Your Name), and has appeared regularly on several bestseller lists. After serving as the pulpit minister for 20 years, Lucado announced in early 2007 that he was stepping down due to health concerns related to atrial fibrillation. Lucado has since assumed the ministry role of writing and preaching at Oak Hills. He co-pastors the church with one of Willow Creek's former teaching pastors, Randy Frazee.

Lucado was named "America's Pastor" by Christianity Today magazine and in 2005 was named by Reader's Digest as "The Best Preacher in America." He has been featured on The Fox News Channel, NBC Nightly News, Larry King Live, LLBN, and USA Today. His books are regularly on the New York Times Best Seller List.

Here’s a collection of some of the finest quotes attributed to this great writer and preacher:

Is it possible for an unbaptized believer to be saved? Yes, definitely. Should every believer be baptized? Yes, definitely.

Baptism is bowing before the Father and letting him do his work.

Baptism is the initial step of a faithful heart.

Tragically, some people believe they are going to heaven when they die just because a few drops of water were sprinkled over their heads a few weeks after their birth. They have no personal faith, have never made a personal decision, and are banking on a hollow ceremony to save them. How absurd.

You can endure change by pondering His permanence.

For you who wonder if you've played too long to change, take courage from Jacob's legacy. No man is too bad for God. To transform a riverboat gambler into a man of faith would be no easy task. But for God, it was all in a night's work.

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.

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 may be transferred, enlisted, commissioned, reassigned, or hospitalized - but brand this on your heart - you can never go where God is not.

To call yourself a child of God is one thing. To be called a child of God by those who watch your life is another thing altogether.

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

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

God is faithful even when his children are not.

Meet your fears with faith.

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

Mark it down. You will never go where God is not.

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.

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.

Immerse yourself in the curriculum of grace.

The Land of Promise is for those who simply remain to the end.

Jesus gives us hope because He keeps us company, has a vision and knows the way we should go.

Find joy in the ordinary.

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.

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

If today were your last, would you do what you're doing? Or would you love more, give more, forgive more? Then do so! Forgive and give as if it were your last opportunity. Love like there's no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.

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.

God created marriage. No government subcommittee envisioned it. No social organization developed it. Marriage was conceived and born in the mind of God.

God's mercies are new every morning. Receive them.

Our Saviour 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 our sin.

I am a spiritual being... After this body is dead, my spirit will soar. I refuse to let what will rot rule the eternal. I choose self-control. I will be drunk only by joy. I will be impassioned only by my faith. I will be influenced only by God. I will be taught only by Christ.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these I commit my day.

Two types of voices command your attention today. Negative ones fill your mind with doubt, bitterness, and fear. Positive ones purvey hope and strength. Which one will you choose to heed?

God's solution is a prayer away!

No one can pray and worry at the same time.

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.

What causes us to think of prayer as the last option rather than the first? I can think of two reasons: feelings of independence and feelings of insignificance.

After a hard day scrambling to find your way around in the world, it's assuring to come home to a place you know. God can be equally familiar to you. With time you can learn where to go for nourishment, where to hide for protection , where to turn for guidance. Just as your earthly house is a place of refuge, so God's house is a place of peace.

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.

Give a man religion without reminding him of his filth, and the result will be arrogance in a three-piece suit.

God loves us too much to indulge our every whim.

Want to snatch a day from the manacles of boredom? Do overgenerous deeds, acts beyond reimbursement. Kindness without compensation. Do a deed for which you cannot be repaid.

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

The next time you find yourself alone in a dark alley facing the undeniables of life, don't cover them with a blanket, or ignore them with a nervous grin. Don't turn up the TV and pretend they aren't there. Instead, stand still, whisper his name, and listen. He is nearer than you think.

If I succeed, I will give thanks. If I fail, I will seek His grace

The purpose of the Bible is simply to proclaim God's plan to save His children. It asserts that man is lost and needs to be saved. And it communicates the message that Jesus is the God in the flesh sent to save His children.

The Bible is God's Word given in man's language.

The purpose of the Bible? Salvation. God's highest passion is to get His children home. His book, the Bible, describes His plan of salvation. The purpose of the Bible is to proclaim god's plan and passion to save His children.

Though the Bible was written over sixteen centuries by at least forty authors, it has one central theme--salvation through faith in Christ.

Just when the truth about life sinks in, his truth starts to surface. He takes us by the hand and dares us not to sweep the facts under the rug but to confront them with him at our side.

God never approves sexual union outside of marriage.

There are many unacceptable reasons for war. Imperialism. Financial gain. Religion. Family feuds. Racial arrogance. There are many unacceptable motives for war. But there is one time when war is condoned and used by God: wickedness.

To ask God to prohibit war, then, is to ask him to prohibit the consequence of human behavior. Something he has never been wont to do. As long as there is sin there will be war.