the choice

by Max Lucado

IT’S QUIET. It’s early. My coffee is hot. The sky is still black. The world is still asleep. The day is coming.

In a few moments the day will arrive. It will roar down the track with the rising of the sun. The stillness of the dawn will be exchanged for the noise of the day. The calm of solitude will be replaced by the pounding pace of the human race. The refuge of the early morning will be invaded by decisions to be made and deadlines to be met.

For the next twelve hours I will be exposed to the day’s demands. It is now that I must make a choice. Because of Calvary, I’m free to choose. And so I choose.

tender word to the tired heart

by Max Lucado

Brook Besor. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of the place. Most haven’t, but more need to. The Brook Besor narrative deserves shelf space in the library of the worn-out. It speaks tender words to the tired heart.

The story emerges from the ruins of Ziklag. David and his six hundred soldiers return from the Philistine war front to find utter devastation. A raiding band of Amalekites had swept down on the village, looted it, and taken the women and children hostage. The sorrow of the men mutates into anger, not against the Amalekites, but against David. After all, hadn’t he led them into battle? Hadn’t he left the women and children unprotected? Isn’t he to blame? Then he needs to die. So they start grabbing stones.

the living room

When Your Heart Needs a Father

by Max Lucado

"Our Father who is in heaven …” With these words Jesus escorts us into the Great House of God. Shall we follow him? There is so much to see. Every room reveals his heart, every stop will soothe your soul. And no room is as essential as this one we enter first. Walk behind him as he leads us into God’s living room.

Sit in the chair that was made for you and warm your hands by the fire which never fades. Take time to look at the framed photos and find yours. Be sure to pick up the scrapbook and find the story of your life. But please, before any of that, stand at the mantle and study the painting which hangs above it.

Your Father treasures the portrait. He has hung it where all can see.

Stand before it a thousand times and each gaze is as fresh as the first. Let a million look at the canvas and each one will see himself. And each will be right.

Captured in the portrait is a tender scene of a father and a son. Behind them is a great house on a hill. Beneath their feet is a narrow path. Down from the house the father has run. Up the trail the son has trudged. The two have met, here, at the gate.

adoración sin reservas

“La verdadera adoración no tiene que ver con canciones que se cantan, tampoco con el tamaño del grupo, ni con el coro. Aunque la musica es una expresión maravillosa de la adoración, no es su esencia misma. Lo importante de la adoración es cuando nuestro corazón, alma y todo lo que se encuentra en nuestro interior adora y se une con el espiritu de Dios...De hecho, sin importar lo magnifico que sean los momentos de música, si nuestro corazón no está completamente envuelto en la adoración, serán sólo música." - Darlene Zschech, libro Adoración sin Reservas

when death becomes birth

by Max Lucado

You, as all God’s children, live one final breath from your own funeral. Which, from God’s perspective, is nothing to grieve. He responds to these grave facts with this great news: “The day you die is better than the day you are born” (Eccles. 7:1). Now there is a twist. Heaven enjoys a maternity-ward reaction to funerals. Angels watch body burials the same way grandparents monitor delivery-room doors. “He’ll be coming through any minute!” They can’t wait to see the new arrival. While we’re driving hearses and wearing black, they’re hanging pink and blue streamers and passing out cigars. We don’t grieve when babies enter the world. The hosts of heaven don’t weep when we leave it.

Oh, but many of us weep at the thought of death. Do you? Do you dread your death?

Is your fear of dying robbing your joy of living? Jesus came to “deliver those who have lived all their lives as slaves to the fear of dying” (Heb. 2:15).

take goliath down

 by Max Lucado

Goliaths still roam our world. Debt. Disaster. Dialysis. Danger. Deceit. Disease. Depression. Super-size challenges still swagger and strut, still pilfer sleep and embezzle peace and liposuction joy. But they can’t dominate you. You know how to deal with them. You face giants by facing God first.

Focus on giants—you stumble.

Focus on God—your giants tumble.

You know what David knew, and you do what David did. You pick up five stones, and you make five decisions. Ever wonder why David took five stones into battle? Why not two or twenty? Rereading his story reveals five answers. Use your five fingers to remind you of the five stones you need to face down your Goliath. Let your thumb remind you of …

1. THE STONE OF THE PAST
Goliath jogged David’s memory. Elah was a déjà vu. While everyone else quivered, David remembered. God had given him strength to wrestle a lion and strong-arm a bear. Wouldn’t he do the same with the giant? A good memory makes heroes.

el guerrero adorador

"Dado a que Dios está buscándonos, si nosotros lo perseguimos, seguramente lo encontraremos" - Pierce/Dickson. Tomado del libro El Guerrero Adorador

darkness and light

Excerpt from Whiter Than Snow: Meditations on Sin and Mercy by Paul David Tripp (Crossway).

Chapter Twelve: Darkness and Light
 
For I know my transgressions. (Psalm 51:3)

He’d lived in the darkness for so long he didn’t know that it was dark. Dark was normal, and since he’d never experienced light, dark didn’t seem dark to him. It wasn’t as though he woke up in the morning praying and longing for light. And it wasn’t that he had to work to accept the darkness. No, darkness was all he’d ever known. Sure, he fumbled around, bumped into things, and fell down a lot, but none of it bothered him. It was what every day was like for him. He didn’t really long to see. He didn’t long to see because he didn’t know that there was anything worth seeing. He really did think that he saw all there was to see—darkness. He didn’t have an accurate sense of size, shape, or color. He had little sense of beauty. He didn’t really know what things looked like because the darkness he lived in was so pervasive that the objects around him were but shadows, blobs, and blurs.