The scope of Christianity today has changed vastly over the past forty years and we are watching as Christian leaders are abandoning the convictions that led them into those positions to embrace the ideals that make them more popular with the masses. Our nation, once perceived as the leader in Christianity, has suffered from this change as those who fill our pews are lacking the spiritual depth that the saints who have gone on before us once had. There are some, such as Dr. David Jeremiah and Chuck Swindoll, who continue to push people towards a deeper spirituality and they are accompanied in this fight by this issue’s spotlight, Max Lucado.

He has become one of the most recognized pastors and one of the most accomplished writers in the world of Christianity. With each sermon and each book, Max listens to the word from the Lord and calls people to deepen their spiritual lives in a closer walk with Jesus. I recently caught up with Max to discuss his new book, 3:16, and to discuss faith in our culture today.

His Life

Max Lucado was born in San Angelo, Texas in 1955. His father worked for an oil company and became a Christian when he was an adult. After his father’s conversion, Max’s life began to have the seeds of the Lord sown into it.

Q â€" Can you tell me your testimony?

“(Laughing) How long do you have? I’m originally from West Texas. My father worked with Exxon Oil Company as a field mechanic and so any place there was oil, we could potentially live. I spent most of my growing up years in West Texas. My dad became a Christian when he was an adult and he was very faithful about taking us to church in the three different cities I lived in growing up. The earliest sense of the Holy Spirit’s call on my life was at the age of ten. I was actually in a Bible class and the teacher was teaching out of the book of Romans which always amazed me that a Bible teacher tackled the book of Romans with a bunch of 10 year olds. He did a good job and I remember understanding for the first time that God had sent His Son to die for me so that I could go to heaven with Him. I didn’t understand much more than that but that was enough. So I gave my heart to Christ and was baptized soon thereafter. I think I was studying God’s Word well and trying to be a disciple but when I was about fifteen, I fell into the wrong crowd and didn’t pay attention, wasn’t vigilant, and developed a habit of drinking. I did a lot of drinking during those years and reached a point where, by the age of eighteen, I could drink a whole six-pack and not feel the impact of the beer. I think I was well on the road to alcoholism. But, with the tolerance that I had toward alcohol, I had just enough common sense to say, “This isn’t right.� I told a friend one night at a party that I think there’s got to be more to life than this. I began searching. My parents sent me to a Christian college called Abilene Christian University in west Texas. Part of the requirement there was to take Bible courses and I didn’t want to take them, I guess like the other freshmen probably didn’t, but those teachers made Christ come to life for me. The Holy Spirit never left me and I believe God still held me during those rebellious years. He began to work in me and within two years, the end of my sophomore year, I felt it. I even went out and bought myself a new Bible, sort of my declaration to the world that I was going to be a follower of Christ. What made it hard for me to come home to Christ was not that I didn’t believe in God or in Christ, I just couldn’t believe He’d forgive me. When you’ve spent three years doing what I did, it means you’ve hurt His children. I would get into fights, I would lie, I was a womanizer; I hurt people and I just could not imagine that God could forgive all that I did. Sometimes, it takes as much faith to believe God will forgive us as it does to believe that He rose from the dead. I said “ok� and it was kind of like a Peter situation, “to whom else can I go? You have the words of eternal life.� So I came back and it was the biggest decision of my life.�

The New Book and His Ministry

With the release date of another book upcoming, I wanted to know what the book was going to be about and how he came to the decision to write a book on that topic. He has impacted millions across the world and I wanted to see how he remained humble and focused on the original convictions that the Lord had placed on his heart.

Q â€" What is the new book going to be about?

“Well, the new book is called 3:16 and it’s built around the verse John 3:16. I believe the verse, John 3:16, is the most important verse in the whole Bible and if there was only one verse in the Bible, it should be John 3:16. If a person knows every verse in the Bible, they should come back and read John 3:16. It’s full of hope, full of clarity; it gives a table of contents to the Christian presentation, invites us to start with God and to look at a God who loves us. It calls us to see the measure of His love, understand the One and only Son, the only Begotten Son, ponders the dualistic reality of life, either to perish or to enjoy eternal life, hell or heaven. It’s a table of contents that invites us to look at all the key teachings of Scripture. What struck me is that even though it’s a familiar verse, this is, I think, only the second book that’s been written on this verse in about the last fifty years. If there are more, I couldn’t find them. Even though it’s a verse that people say they’re familiar with, I don’t know that it’s received the study it deserves. So, hopefully, this will stir some of that conversation.�

Q- What made you decide to write this book on this topic?

“I’m a pastor of a church in San Antonio, Texas, so all of the books come out of a series of sermons that we do at the church. I was wanting to do a series of sermons on something about the life of Christ and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could see how Jesus presents the gospel!� In John 3:16, there’s the gospel as Jesus presents it. So, it was originally a series of lessons that I gave the church and it was very well-received. Then, I thought that this would make a great book and that’s where it began.�

Q â€" What is your hope for the new book?

“My hope would be that a person could walk away with these four phrases: God loves, God gave, we believe, we live. I hope they will be able to understand the gospel so clearly that they themselves can react or respond to it, and if they say yes to the gospel, they could then explain the gospel to someone who asks them. Those phrases…you could write them on a napkin or write them on a business card and leave it with someone.�

Q â€" Being called on of the most influential pastors and writers in the world today, as the media has labeled you, what type of pressure does that put on you?

“You just have to be careful about too often or you might start believing them,� he says with a laugh. “It’s a kind thing for somebody to say. It’s our privilege just to serve the church. The church is the bride of Christ and if I trusted my bride to someone because I was going out of town, I’d hope he would take good care of her until I got back. God has given us His bride and we’re a part of His bride and I want to serve the bride in the best way that I can. My particular contribution is through message. Where I feel like I really hit my stride is when I’m communicating a message. That’s just my job and I try my best not to mess it up. I’m real thankful to have it.�

I asked him about mentors and influences on his career, both in the pastoral field and in the literary field. He said that the man who was the pastor at the church he attended in college was very influential to him as a pastor. He said that James Dobson, because “he communicates so clearly�, and Chuck Swindoll, “because he is both a pastor and a writer�, were his influences as a writer.

Normally, people who have two vocations feel more passionately about one than the other, however Max seems to share the same enthusiasm about his career as a pastor as he does with his career as a writer. It is the excitement of telling a truth that God has revealed to him that energizes Max’s life in the pulpit and on the pages of each book that he has written; the desire to lead others to no one but Jesus.

His Advice

Getting the chance to speak with someone who you have always revered as one of the best, in your opinion, you want to see if he/she has any advice that could help you to move further into what God would have you to do with your life. You always want a piece of the knowledge, as well as the experience, that they have and you seek to see things from their trained perspective.

Q â€" Max, what do you see as the biggest challenge facing the church today?

“I think it’s staying on target. Our tendency as churches is to get away from the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ and the proclamation of it, and we get focused on political issues and controversies or doctrinal controversies. Church has become known for its’ stance on or for particular social questions or they’ve become known because they believe in a certain translation of the Bible. We can get off on your second tier questions right quickly. The church is entrusted with two gifts; one is prayer and the second is the gospel. No other organization on earth is called to prayer. Everyone prays but we’re called to pray. No one else has been given the gospel. So we have got to be people of prayer and people who preach the gospel. If we fail in the other areas, let us fail, but don’t let us fail in those two.�

Q - What gives you the most hope about the church today?

“I think young leaders, young writers, young pastors, and young musicians. My daughter tours with Revolve. It’s a ministry to teenage girls and there are probably about 8,000 girls in those arenas at these events. There’s a spiritual interest and a hunger and I’m encouraged by that. I think the guys in their 30’s and 40’s are really understanding what it’s like to live in a post-Christian culture. I think it’s just the leaders, these young men and women that are very exciting to me.�

Q â€" What is the biggest problem facing Christian men today?

“I believe it’s moral purity. I’m sitting in a hotel room right now in Seattle, Washington, and when I check in, the first thing I do is call the operator and say, “Can you turn off the adult films in my room?� I realize that I am one push of the button away from pornography. No one else would know it and no one would see it. God would, the witnesses would, and the angels would. I think this issue of moral purity is so pervasive because it is all over our society. We are a sex-obsessed culture and it is so difficult for men to resist the temptation. It destroys their credibility with their family, it contaminates their relationship with God, and they are guilt ridden.�

Q â€" How can Christian men be better role models today?

“As we become men of prayer, as we learn to rely on prayer as a source of strength, what that does is cause us to listen to God. If we can see prayer as a daily lifestyle and not just an occasional event, that would be the one thing that we could do to help us as men become better role models.�

Q â€" What is your favorite Bible passage?

“It would be John 3:16 because it simplifies faith. Anything we can do to simplify is good. God loves, God gave, we believe, we live; there it is. God loves, God gave, we believe, we live; I can remember that. I’m not too bright; make it simple for me and it sticks with me!�

Q â€" What would your advice be for young pastors?

“Pray and preach Jesus. Don’t let anything diminish your prayer life and just make sure you preach Jesus. You can get off on other topics but just make sure you come back and preach Jesus.�

Q â€" What is your advice for young writers?

“Rewrite. The most important part of writing is rewriting. My books go through forty or forty-five drafts before they’re published. Most books could stand another draft or two. So, the key to good writing is going back and reading it again.�

The Lord has used Max to touch the lives of millions around the world for the past couple of decades. He has written on Max’s heart and has used those words to script the message that Max conveys to his congregation and to the audience he speaks to through his books. He is passionate about using his life as a testimony for God and what we can learn from the example of Max Lucado is that there is more to be written, more sermons to be preached, more songs to be sung, and it is up to us to listen to God as He writes them through us. Seeking more of Christ in our lives will always lead to a greater impact on the world around us. The evidence lies in the life of Max Lucado.

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