MAX ON LIFE

21. My dad was a very impatient man. He could make life downright miserable for everyone around him. I think I'm becoming more and more like him, as I'm often impatient with others. I don't want to be like that. What can I do?

You've heard the saying "A watched pot never boils." Well, it does boil, whether you watch it or not. It just doesn't seem to boil fast enough if you're watching. The saying should go like this: "A watched pot makes you boiling mad while you wait for it to boil."

Impatience wants boiling water now! You curse the manufacturer of the pan, bang your fist against those oven bureaucrats, angrily defy the flame and attack the properties of water! But the only thing you can do is turn up the flame. More flame equals faster boil. Burn, baby, burn!

Patience is a slow boil. It doesn't turn up the flame. It waits for the burner to heat the pan, which heats the water to 212 degrees. This takes some time, and you accept that. You can't change the law of heat transference. So you sit back and allow it to happen.

Both situations want the same thing: boiling water. One is willing to wait. The other will use any means necessary to get it done now, including spontaneous combustion.

Impatience is selfishness with time. We don't like to waste it. People get in our way and slow things down, so we burn them with impatience!

The Greek word for patience means "taking a long time to boil." Patience recognizes that we share time with others - it's not just our time. Patience knows other factors are at work in this world and we need to adjust to their time schedules too. Some things can be sped up (with encouragement, not flames of retribution). Some things can't.

The best way to turn down the flame is with love.

"Love is patient" (1 Cor 13:4).

Love forgives laziness. Love understands people's weaknesses. Love wants the best for everyone. Love is a relationship, not a means to an end.

Love is a fruit hanging from the tree of Galatians 5:22. It's the first fruit and some say the most important. The seeds of love produce the harvest of all the other fruits: joy, peace, patience....

If you have the Holy Spirit, then you have the potential of making patience a part of your life. Thankfully, God is patient while you find that patience.

By: Max Lucado

MAX ON LIFE

20. Life is filled with more changes right now than I can handle. I just graduated from high school, I'm moving away to attend college, my boyfriend has left me, and my parents are getting a divorce! I feel as if I'm sinking beneath a sea of change.

Nobody likes change..... except babies. They cry for a change.

The rest of us like small degrees of change but never dramatic, earth-rocking shifts of patterns and routines.

With change comes fear, insecurity, sorrow, and stress. What's the best solution? Hide and hope it all goes away? Never works. Change finds you.

Your cry of sinking beneath a sea of change reminds me of Peter. He and his pals were sailing on calm waters when all of a sudden a storm hit. The winds changed. The waves rose. Not the kind of change a fisherman desires.

"During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. 'It's a ghost', they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: 'Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid'. 'Lord, if it's you,' Peter replied, 'tell me to come to you on the water" (Matt 14:25-28).

When he saw Jesus walking on water, Peter decided to get a little change of scenery; to abandon the ship, and to step out in faith on the water.

The change worked.

" 'Come', he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus." (v 29)

It is possible to walk right over the storms of change. Peter proved it! Unfortunately, one other thing changed. Peter's faith.

"But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, 'Lord, save me!' Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. 'You of little faith', he said, 'why did you doubt?' " (vv 30-31)

Can't really blame Peter for the momentary lapse of security. The wind and waves were scary.

If only Peter had relied on Jesus' strength.... Don't be afraid.

If only Peter had trusted Jesus' command.... Come.

If only Peter had stayed faithful.... Why doubt?

One thing to remember: As Peter sank, he cried out, "Lord, save me!" He knew where to find help.

And Jesus reached out his hand to catch Peter.

That's another thing that never changes. Jesus is always there to pull us to safety.

By: Max Lucado

MAX ON LIFE

19. I honestly don't think God could use me. I believe he forgave me and saved me, but I don't have anything to offer him.

Don't let Satan convince you of this. He will try. He will tell you that God has an IQ requirement or an entry fee. That he employs only specialists and experts, governments and high-powered personalities. When Satan whispers such lies, dismiss him with this truth: God stampeded the first-century society with sway-backs, not thoroughbreds. Before Jesus came along, the disciples were loading trucks, coaching soccer, and selling Slurpee drinks at the convenience store. Their collars were blue, and their hands were calloused. and there is no evidence that Jesus chose them because they were smarter or nicer than the guy next door. The one thing they had going for them was a willingness to take a step when Jesus said, "Follow me" (Mark 1:16-20).

Are you more dinghy than cruise ship? More stand-in than movie star? More plumber than executive? More blue jeans than blue blood? Congratulations. God changes the world with folks like you.

By: Max Lucado

MAX ON LIFE

18. I find no rest in religion. People talk about church and spirituality as if they are an oasis. In my life, church has been a desert.

You may be confusing Christianity with legalism. Legalism is joyless because legalism is endless. There is always another class to attend, person to teach, mouth to feed. Inmates incarcerated in self-salvation find work but never joy. How could they? They never know when they are finished. Legalism leaches joy.

Grace, however, dispenses peace. The Christian trusts a finished work. I like this quote:

"Gone are the exertions of law-keeping, gone the disciplines and asceticisms of legalism, gone the anxiety that having done everything we might not have done enough. We reach the goal not by the stairs but the lift.... God pledges his promised righteousness to those who will stop trying to save themselves."

Grace offers rest. Legalism never does.

By: Max Lucado

MAX ON LIFE

17. My uncle lived like the devil and made life miserable for my parents, who are godly, humble people. My dad tells me that my uncle got saved just a few hours before he died. Can such an awful person be saved on his deathbed after doing so many terrible things?

Jesus told a parable about workers in a vineyard (Matt 20). Some got hired at the crack of dawn. Others around midmorning. Still others around noon, late afternoon, and then at sunset. All of them received a day's salary.

The early-birds-who-got-the-worm were not happy with this. They wanted the boss to either pay the latecomers less or pay the early risers more. Not all workers deserve to get the same wage, do they? The landowner replied:

"Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?" (Mat 20:13-15)

When we accept salvation from Jesus Christ, we all accept the same deal - eternal life with the Savior of our soul.

So if someone accepts Christ at ten years old or at the age of eighty-five, lying on his deathbed...... what's the difference?

God has the right to give the full amount of salvation to whomever he wants. Are we envious of his generosity? No! His generosity gave us salvation in the first place. We love his generosity. Don't ever change that, God!

The thief on the cross is the best practical example of that generosity.

"In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him." (Matt 27:44)

Both robbers mocked Jesus, hurling insults at him.

Yet as death approached, Luke 23 records a shift. While one thief still cursed, the other defended Christ. What happened? In just a few short hours, the second thief went from angry atheist to repentant sinner. Wasn't Jesus offended, those curse words still ringing in his ears?

"Then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.' Jesus answered him, 'I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise'." (vv 42-43)

Jesus forgave him in the final moments.

The time of forgiveness does not matter. Anytime is the best time to receive Christ and the reward of a lifetime.

By: Max Lucado

MAX ON LIFE

16. If God knew in advance that, after Jesus left heaven for a time, Jesus would be reunited with him and that Jesus' death would save humanity, it doesn't really seem like a sacrifice to me. What did God give up?

I've considered this question, not just since your inquiry but for much of my life. Exactly what did God give up when he gave his Son to the world?

I've decided I cannot know. Why? Because I have never been to heaven. When God gave us his Son, his Son gave up heaven. Try to imagine that sacrifice. What if you were to leave your home and become homeless or leave the human race and become a mosquito or a wasp? Would that be comparable to God's becoming human? Jesus, whose address in heaven was Everywhere, limited himself to a human body in a map-dot town on the fringe of the Roman Empire.

Of course, as you said, he did this "for a time". Maybe that is part of the sacrifice. God is timeless, unbound by clocks or calendars. And for a time he entered time.

But as I said, I've never lived in heaven, and I've never been eternal, so I can't understand what he gave up.

Nor have I been sinless, so I can't imagine what it was like to become sin. This is the heart of the Christian gospel. That he who had no sin took on sin (2 Cor 5:21). That Christ on the cross became a sinner in the eyes of heaven. That he experienced the pain and punishment due to every rapist, thief, mass murderer, and despot.

He paid the price for sin by becoming a sinner. Since I've always been a sinner , I can't appreciate this sacrifice.

And I've never given my child for evil people. I might give myself or a bit of myself to help evil people. But sacrifice one of my daughters? No way. Even if I knew I would see her again, I wouldn't do it. But God did.

It seems to me that God gave more that we could ever ask.

By: Max Lucado

MAX ON LIFE

15. I know the Bible says I'm forgiven. But my conscience says I'm not.

Jesus loves us too much to leave us in doubt about his grace. His "perfect love expels all fear" (1 John 4:18). If God loved with an imperfect love, we would have high cause to worry. Imperfect love keeps a list of sins and consults it often. God keeps no list of our wrongs. His love casts out fear because he casts out our sin!

Tether your heart to this promise, and tighten the knot. "If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things" (1 John 3:20). When you feel unforgiven, evict the feelings. Emotions don't get a vote. Go back to Scripture. God's Word holds rank over self-criticism and self-doubt.

As Paul told Titus, "God's readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation's available for everyone! ..... Tell them all this. Build up their courage" (Titus 2:11, 15). Do you know God's grace? Then you can love boldly, live robustly. You can swing from trapeze to trapeze; his safety net will break your fall.

Nothing fosters courage like a clear grasp of grace.

And nothing fosters fear like an ignorance of mercy. May I speak candidly? If you haven't accepted God's forgiveness, you are doomed to live in fear. Nothing can deliver you from the gnawing realization that you have disregarded our Maker and disobeyed his instruction. No pill, pep talk, psychiatrist, or possession can set the sinner's heart at ease. You may deaden the fear, but you can't remove it. Only God's grace can.

Have you accepted the forgiveness of Christ? If not, do so. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9). Your prayer can be as simple as this: Dear Father, I need forgiveness. I admit that I have turned away from you. Please forgive me. I place my soul in your hands and my trust in your grace. Through Jesus I pray, amen.

Having received God's forgiveness, live forgiven!

By: Max Lucado