Max Lucado

Pure poetry. This is how I can best summarize "God Came Near". Lucado is a master craftsman of the written word. Able to bring new insight and perspective to God's word with language that is beautiful and creative. Emotion is drawn out and deep thoughts are invoked. This is by far the best Lucado book I've read and quite possibly his signature work. If you feel God is some distant cosmic force, then please read "God Came Near" where you will see, hear, and touch God in a very personal way as show more if He is right before your very eyes. Some of my favorite chapters include: 6) Twenty Five Questions for Mary, 10) Women of Winter, 14) No Accident, and 21) Light of the Storage Closet. And, some of my favorite quotes include:

Christianity, in its purest form, is nothing more than seeing Jesus. Christian service, in its purest form, is nothing more than imitating him who we see. To see His majesty and to imitate him... that is the sum of Christianity.

The best way to deal with our past is to hitch up our pants, roll up our sleeves, and face it head on. No more buck-passing or scapegoating. No more glossing over or covering up. No more games. We need a confrontation with our Master.

When our sins catch up with us we can do one of two things: run or wrestle.

Jesus' death was not the result of a panicking, cosmological engineer. The cross wasn't a tragic surprise. Calvary was not a knee-jerk response to a world plummeting towards destruction. It wasn't a patch-job or a stop-gap measure. The death of the Son of God was anything but an unexpected peril.

No, it was part of a plan. It was a calculated choice. "It was the LORD's will to crush him." The cross was drawn into the original blueprint. It was written into the script. The moment the forbidden fruit touched the lips of Eve, the shadow of a cross appeared on the horizon. And between that moment and the moment the man with the mallet placed the spike against the wrist of God, a master plan was fulfilled.

To limit God's revelation to a cold list of do's and don'ts is as tragic as looking at a Colorado road map and saying that you'd seen the Rockies.

If there was hesitation on the part of his (Jesus) humanity, it was overcome by the compassion of his divinity.

His golden throne room had been abandoned in favor of a dirty sheep pen. show less

The author, Max Lucado, introduces this collection of pretended "spiritual" edifications for each day with a story of how he travels with his children. "I keep all the tickets in a satchel. When the time comes to board the plane or train, I stand between the attendant tand the child. As each child passes, I place a ticket in her hand. She in turn gives the ticket to the attendant. God does the same. He stands between us and our need, waiting to help us." So, the author is sort of...like God! show more Offering grace and "timely help". Heb. 4:16. While I yearn for grace on a daily basis, my horror at Lucado's presumptuous lack of standing to place himself IN the place of divine dispensation is only increased by examining his feeble attempt to enrich us, apparently on his way to his country club golf course--of which he boasts. Ah, well.

Lucado empowers us to "choose" love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. He fortifies each of these choices/goals with his little talks drawn ostensibly from quoted verses of Scripture. But there is a constant and very irritating dissonance between the two. For example, he claims "God Listens", but cites Psalm 142:1. That Psalm is not about God "listening". None of the Psalms are. It is about David begging God to smite his enemies. He wants God to protect him from the "gins of the workers of iniquity". Nothing about God hearing any of this.

Lucado cites the prophet Joel 2:13: "Come back to the Lord your God, because he is kind and shows mercy." Wow. While the quote is accurate, it is entirely out of context and highly-selective. Joel is all about blowing the Trumpet of Alarm, and how the Lord is raising up a large army to desolate everything and everyone! The Lord is annihilating us, which is simply not an example of just "Getting our Attention".

I love the author's trouble taken to collect Scripture verses. His effort to collect a body of the most important and inspirational parts, and the effort to apply them to our lives, is appreciated. But it is proof to the contrary of the content and his expressed intent.

As a book, It is revealing, utterly revealing. We see in one volume how empty and mercantile the Lucado series of 13 other books of "inspiration" are, which he flogs with this one. He cites only his own works, using this to republish.

I take it this is the best he can do and has done from the other 13 books. [Now the number is over 50 volumes floated on the surface of Faith-based monetization.] The buyers are Christian "Believers", now shorn again, as the victims of a predator: Lucado is preying. show less

This book provides an answer for the worries of daily life, and Max Lucado writes with a distinctive voice: funny in some places, serious in others, and comforting throughout. I laughed out loud in a few places, and I was delighted as his ability to take an austere topic, specifically a Bible passage, and relay it with both respect and hilarity.

My only complaint is that although the book addresses aspects of secular life that may cause fear, such as deaths, alcohol addictions, financial show more struggles, wars, illnesses, and unemployment, he fails to address fears that come from faith life. In fact, he tends to write the issue off entirely, saying that if you aren't sure that you have accepted God, then you haven't. I disagree, as I think that it's much more complicated than that. However, in pretty much all aspects of life except this one, this book can be (and is) a great source of comfort.

It takes only a few minutes to read this book, and Lucado draws on his own family history, on a Biblical parable, and on several verses of comfort from the Old and New Testaments. Well worth the read. show less

In a world full of injustice, poverty, oppression, and malaise, it is easy to become hardened, cynical, and disengaged. The believer in Christ, however, is called to something greater-- to reflect Jesus to all men, especially those who are in distress.

This is the theme of Max Lucado's newest book, Outlive Your Life: You Were Made to Make a Difference. Among my fellow members of churches of Christ, the name "Max Lucado" often evokes images of "apostate" and "change agent." Once part of the show more churches of Christ, Lucado has certainly accommodated his own views, along with those of his congregation, to be acceptable to Evangelicalism as a greater whole. This is truly lamentable considering Lucado's great skill at communicating to others.

Outlive Your Life uses the events of Acts 1-12 as a paradigm for discussing what God expects from believers today. Each chapter begins with a Scripture and ends with a Scripture and a suggested prayer. Chapters feature matters like the ordinary nature of God's servants, the need to get out of our shells, to put the greater (spiritual) good ahead of lesser (physical) ones, to work with fellow Christians, to be hospitable, to assist others in need, to stand up in the face of persecution, to do good, to be a source of strength for the dispossessed, to remain humble before God, to remove prejudices in life, to resist arrogance, to pray continually, and, based on Matthew 25, remember that when you help people in distress you help Jesus. The book ends with a discussion and action guide designed to promote further discussion and action.

Lucado is a very vivid author. He seamlessly takes you from the first century to the twenty-first century with his illustrations and examples (although I wished that he would keep the first century as the first century and the twenty-first as the twenty-first and not blend the images as he does occasionally!). He writes in a familiar and understandable way.

On the whole, the book is theologically sound and has a message that must be proclaimed. It is good to see that some elements of concern for the dispossessed and the need to practice authentic Christianity is being proclaimed by more voices within greater Christendom; the sooner Christendom sheds the sanctimonious, interested-only-in-sexual-mores "Moral Majority" image, the better. Nevertheless, there are a few challenges: Lucado's embrace of ecumenism, occasional looseness in handling the Biblical narrative, and the dizzying leapfrogging from Bible translation to Bible translation.

Yet this should not diminish from the overall excellence of Outlive Your Life. It is a necessary call in the midst of a time and place more devoted to materialism and consumerism than authentic New Testament Christianity and its emphasis on clearing prejudice, assisting the downtrodden and dispossessed, and reliance on God and not self. May many come to a better understanding of these truths!

*-- book received as part of an early review program. show less