Jesus Takes Away Our Sins

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by Max Lucado

 

Denalyn and I had enjoyed a nice dinner at a local restaurant. As we received our bill, a church member spotted us and came over.  After we chatted a few moments, he took our bill.  “I’ll take this,” he said. Guess what?  I let him do what he wanted to do.  I let him take it away.

Someday we will stand before God.  All of us will be present. All of us will have to give an account for our lives. Every thought, every deed, every action.  Were it not for the grace of Christ, I would find this to be a very terrifying thought.

Yet, according to Scripture, Jesus came to “take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29 Phillips). On that day, I will point to Christ.  When my list of sins is produced, I will gesture toward him and say, “He took it.” Let him take yours.

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

Grace Set Me Free

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by Max Lucado

 

I can bear witness to the power of God’s grace! I could take you to the church, to the section of seats in the church. I might even be able to find the very seat in which I was sitting when this grace found me.

I was a twenty-year-old college sophomore, living with a concrete block of guilt that had made a mess of my life. But then I heard a preacher describe the divine grace that is greater than sin.  At the end of the message he asked if anyone would like to come forward and receive this grace.  Iron chains couldn’t have held me back.  Truth be told, chains had held me back.  But mercy snapped the guilt chains and set me free.

I know this truth firsthand:  Guilt frenzies the soul; grace calms it! The benefit of being a great sinner is dependence upon a great grace!

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

Problem of Unresolved Guilt

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by Max Lucado

 

What kind of person does unresolved guilt create? An anxious one, forever hiding, running, denying, pretending. As one man admitted: “I was always living a lie for fear someone might see me for who I really was and think less of me.  I hid behind my super spirituality but this lie was exhausting and anxiety producing.”

Unresolved guilt will turn you into a miserable, weary, angry, fretful mess.  In a psalm David wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, the king said, “When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long.  Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.  My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat” (Psalm 32:3-4 NLT).

As Paul told Titus, “God’s grace is the fertile soul out of which courage sprouts!  God’s readiness to give and forgive is now public. Salvation’s available for everyone!” (Titus 2:11, 15 MSG).

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

Grace Restores Your Soul

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by Max Lucado

 

Guilt sucks the life out of our souls. Grace restores it.

No one had more reason to feel the burden of guilt than did the apostle Paul. He had orchestrated the deaths of Christians, an ancient version of a terrorist. Yet, Paul gave his guilt to Jesus. Period. He surrendered it to Jesus. As a result he could write, “I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us” (Philippians 3:13-14 TLB).

What would the apostle say to the guilt-ridden? Simply this: Rejoice in the Lord’s mercy. Trust in his ability to forgive. Cast yourself upon the grace of Christ and Christ alone!

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

What Sustains Your Belief

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by Max Lucado

 

Many years ago I spent a week visiting the interior of Brazil with a longtime missionary pilot. Wilbur and Orville had a sturdier aircraft! I could not get comfortable. I kept thinking the plane was going to crash in the jungle, and I’d be gobbled up by piranhas. I kept shifting around, looking down, and gripping my seat—as if that would help. Finally, the pilot had enough of my squirming. He looked over at me and shouted over the airplane noise, “We won’t face anything that I can’t handle. You might as well trust me to fly the plane.”

Is God saying the same to you? Examine the truths which sustain your belief in God. Make sure one of them is etched with the words, “My God is sovereign!” Then, be anxious for nothing.

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

Trust Brings Peace

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by Max Lucado

 

Our minds cannot be full of God and at the same time full of fear!  Don’t get lost in your troubles. Lift up your eyes! “He will keep in perfect peace all those who trust in him, whose thoughts turn often to the Lord!  (Isa. 26:3 TLB)

Are you troubled, restless, sleepless?  Then rejoice in the Lord’s Sovereignty.  I dare you. I double-dog dare you—to expose your worries to an hour of worship. Your concerns will melt like ice on an August sidewalk!

Jeremiah draws a direct connection between faith and peace. He says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is in the Lord.  For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought.  (Jeremiah 17:7-8 NKJV)

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

Praise the Sovereign Lord

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by Max Lucado

 

The next time you fear the future, rejoice in the Lord’s sovereignty. Rejoice in what he has accomplished. Rejoice that he is able to do what you cannot do. Fill your mind with thoughts of God.

“He is the Creator, who is blessed forever” (Romans 1:25).

“He is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

“His years will never end” (Psalm 102:27).

He is king, supreme ruler, absolute monarch, and overlord of all history. An arch of his eyebrow and a million angels will pivot and salute! Every throne is a footstool to his. Every crown is papier-mache next to his. He consults no advisers. He needs no congress. He reports to no one. He is in charge.

Sovereignty gives the saint the inside track to peace. Others see the problems of the world and wring their hands. We see the problems of the world and bend our knees.

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

Rejoice, God is Able

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by Max Lucado

 

What will happen if your job disappears? Or your health diminishes? Or the economy takes a nosedive? Does God have a message for his people when calamity strikes?

He certainly had a word for Isaiah. The prophet wrote, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up…above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory’” (Isaiah 6:1-3).

God calmed the fears of Isaiah, not by removing the problem, but by revealing his divine power and presence. Rejoice that God is able to do what you cannot do! Your anxiety decreases as your understanding of your heavenly father increases.

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

The Presence of a Sovereign Lord

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by Max Lucado

 

Control freaks are easily frustrated. We can’t take control, because control is not ours to take. The Bible has a better idea. Rather than seeking control, relinquish it. Peace is within reach, not for lack of problems, but because of the presence of a sovereign Lord.

Rather than rehearse the chaos of the world, rejoice in the Lord’s sovereignty, as the Apostle Paul did. From prison he wrote, “The things which have happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to the rest, that my chains are in Christ” (Philippians 1:12-13).

In the innermost of his being, Paul was a man who believed in the steady hand of a good God, protected and preserved by God’s love. He lived beneath the shadow of God’s wings. Do you?

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World

 

Entrust the World to God

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by Max Lucado

 

If anyone had a reason to be anxious it was the apostle Paul. Envision an old man as he gazes out the window of a Roman prison. Half-blind, squinting just to read. Awaiting trial before the Roman emperor. His future is as gloomy as his jail cell.

Yet to read his words, you’d think he’d just arrived at a Jamaican beach hotel. His letter to the Philippians bears not a word of fear or complaint. Not one! Instead, he lifts his thanks to God and calls on his readers to do the same. “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4)

Paul’s challenge is a decision deeply rooted in the confidence that God exists, that he is in control, and that he is good. Rejoice in the Lord always. You can’t run the world, but you can entrust it to God.

Read more Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World