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Christmas Begins What Easter Celebrates. The Child In The Cradle Became The King On The Cross. And Because He Did, There Are No Marks On My Record. Just Grace. His Offer Has No Fine Print. He Didn't Tell Me, "clean Up Before You Come In." He Offered, "come In, And I'll Clean You Up." It's Not My Grip On Him That Matters But His Grip On Me. And His Grip Is Sure. So Is His Presence In My Life.

-Max Lucado

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Christmas Begins What Easter

Max Lucado

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Christmas Begins What Easter Celebrates. The Child In The Cradle Became The King On The Cross. And Because He Did, There Are No Marks On My Record. Just Grace. His Offer Has No Fine Print. He Didn't Tell Me, "clean Up Before You Come In." He Offered, "come In, And I'll Clean You Up." It's Not My Grip On Him That Matters But His Grip On Me. And His Grip Is Sure. So Is His Presence In My Life.

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Full Of Yourself

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How Grimy Did God Get When He Reached Down To Clean You Up? How Grimy Are You Willing To Get In Order To Be An 'imitator Of God'?

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The Temptation Is For Us To Share Our Own Opinions, Our Own Thoughts And To Speak From The Whole Realm Of Possibility. We Can't Do That As Pastors. We Need To Have A Strong Voice Of Conviction, And The Way We Can Do That Is Through Scripture.

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Personal Opinions

Filter Your Pain Through The Brevity Of This Life And The Unending Beauty Of The Next.

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I Wanted To Talk About How Grace In And Of Itself Changes Us. It Changes The Way We Treat Other People, The Way We View Our Lives, The Way We Treat Our Purpose And Our Eternal Identity.

God Has The Final Word On Your Life And His Word Is Grace.

There Is A Canyon Of Difference Between Doing Your Best To Glorify God And Doing Whatever It Takes To Glorify Yourself. The Quest For Excellence Is A Mark Of Maturity. The Quest For Power Is Childish.

The Ultimate Solution To Poverty Is Found In The Compassion Of God's People.

We Have A Place Where We Can Take People When They Come To Us With Questions So We're Not Just Speaking Out Of Our Own Opinion. We're Really Speaking To Them Out Of An Authoritative Place, Not Because Of What We Discovered, But Because Of What God Says.

As A Pastor, You Get Asked Questions And Receive Emails. Many Of Them I Had Answered, But Just In Conversation. So We Kind Of Re-crafted The Question And Answered It. It Turned Out To Be An Interesting Exercise. I Hope It's Encouraging For People.

May You Live In Such A Way That Your Death Is Just The Beginning Of Your Life.

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.

I Don't Know If I'll Always Be A Pastor.

I Think You Have To Be Very Careful About Any Story That Puffs You Up.

Thats Usually What I Gravitate To, I Read The Perfect Storm, Then I Read Into Thin Air .

Some People Find The Gift Of Salvation. For Others The Gifts Are Smaller: A Kind Word, A Good Deed. But All The Gifts Are From God.

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I Think The One Thing That I Cannot Do Without Each Day Is Hope. If You Put Me In A Position Where You Took All My Hope Away, I'm Not Sure I Could Make It Through The Day.

I Really Believe The Purpose Of Scripture Is To Give Us This Authoritative Handbook.

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God Rewards Those Who Seek Him. Not Those Who Seek Doctrine Of Religion Or Systems Or Creeds. Many Settle For These Lesser Passions, But The Reward Goes To Those Who Settle For Nothing Less Than Jesus Himself. And What Is The Reward? What Awaits Those Who Seek Jesus? Nothing Short Of The Heart Of Jesus.

I Co-pastor Now, So I Preach Six Months, Then Another Guy Preaches Six Months. So That's Really Why I'm Preparing For January, Because I'll Finish In June; Then I'll Be Writing And Doing Other Projects For The Rest Of The Year.

Our Task Is To Stand Tall In God's Love, Secure In Our Place, Sparkling In Kindness, Surrounded By His Goodness, Freely Giving To All Who Come Our Way. You, Me, And The Christmas Tree. Picked, Purchased, And Pruned.

How We Handle Our Tough Times Stays With Us For A Long Time.

My Thinking Is That Miracles Exist To Reveal God, But Miracles Don't Exist For God To Do Me Any Favors.

Pastoring The Flock With Words. I Love That. We Always Have A Prayer Time In The Middle Of Our Service. We Take About Eight Or Ten Minutes Before I Preach, After We've Sung, And Invite People To Come Forward For Prayer. That's A Tender Moment To Me. I Don't Preach Much In That, But I Like To Speak To The People.

I Do Believe That Leaders Have To Be Held To A Higher Standard, Especially Christian Leaders. I Put Myself In That Camp.

I Was Praying About What I Needed To Teach. I Felt It Wasn't Time To Move Out Of The Theme Of Romans, Which Is Salvation By Grace Through Faith.

What If You Woke Up This Morning And Had Only The Things You Thanked God For Yesterday?

You Don't Have Wisdom For Tomorrow's Problems. But You Will Tomorrow. You Don't Have Resources For Tomorrow's Needs. But You Will Tomorrow. You Don't Have Courage For Tomorrow's Challenges. But You Will When Tomorrow Comes.

Jesus Isn't A God Who Stayed On The Mountaintop - He's A Savior Who Came Down And Lived And Worked With The People.

Baptism Separates The Tire Kickers From The Car Buyers.

Give A Man Religion Without Reminding Him Of His Filth, And The Result Will Be Arrogance In A Three- Piece Suit.

One Of The Secrets In Life Is That We Really Lead A Better Life When We're Living For Others Than We Do When We're Living For Ourselves, And I Think That's The Way For Our Creator Intended For It To Be, Is That If We Can Live For Other People, We Really Leave This World In A Different Way.

When You Give A Gift To One Of God's Children, You Give A Gift To God.

Seek First The Kingdom Of Wealth And You'll Worry Over Every Dollar. Seek First The Kingdom Of Health And You'll Sweat Every Blemish And Bump. Seek First The Kingdom Of Popularity, And You'll Relive Every Conflict. Seek First The Kingdom Of Safety, And You'll Jump At Every Crack Of The Twig. But Seek First His Kingdom And You Will Find It. On That, We Can Depend And Never Worry.

Christ Lived The Life We Could Not Live And Took The Punishment We Could Not Take To Offer The Hope We Cannot Resist.

What The New Mate, Sports Car, Or Unexpected Check Could Never Do, Christ Says, "i Can." You'll Love How He Achieves It. He Reconnects Your Soul With God.

The Past Does Not Have To Be Your Prison. You Have A Voice In Your Destiny. You Have A Say In Your Life. You Have A Choice In The Path You Take.

Who Was Jesus? God Saves.

All My Books Come Out Of Sermons, And I'm Really A Pastor Who Writes Rather Than A Writer Who Pastors.

The English Name Jesus Traces Its Origin To The Hebrew Word Yeshua. Yeshua Is A Shortening Of Yehoshuah, Which Means "yahweh Saves."

Want To Learn To Forgive? Then Consider How You've Been Forgiven.

Heaven Is Beyond Our Imagination . . . . At Our Most Creative Moment, At Our Deepest Thought, At Our Highest Level, We Still Cannot Fathom Eternity.

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Marie Antoinette

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