More Than Bread

Send me a Text Message! What does it take to finish well? Or let me make that even more specific, what does it take for a follower of Jesus, a Jesus-apprentice to finish well? Because I think in order to finish well, we need to have some sense of who is determining the finish line, our course. Who is writing our story? For Paul that goes all the way back to his experience on the Damascus road? It...

Send me a Text Message! The time comes when we all need a word of encouragement. And isn't that what church is all about. Paul says that the church is God's fields and we are partners in the Harvest, that the church is God's building and we are partners in it's construction...none of us stand alone. And one of the best things we can do together...is to encourage one another! In...

Send me a Text Message! Somewhere along the journey every heart ablaze for God, begins with a growing heart-conviction that God actually wants to be with us.  This is his great promise.  I will be with you.  I want to be with you.  But somewhere along the way, we gain this idea that God is love so God has to love us. He has to love us because he's God.  But we aren't so sure He likes us....

Send me a Text Message! The Word of God is vital to spiritual life, but it's not enough.  It's necessary but not sufficient.  There's more. When we go through bone-drying, hope draining times, we  need more than knowledge about God.  We desperately need the Spirit, the breath of God. In Ezekiel 37, God says I'll put my breath into you. The word for breath is the Hebrew word, Ru...

Send me a Text Message! Acts 18 is full of names, the names of people whom Paul built into...and who were on his team. Paul says that the church is God's fields and we are partners in the Harvest, that the church is God's building and we are partners in it's construction. None of us stand alone.  If you are here today, it is because someone planted a seed, someone watered your heart...

Send me a Text Message! I think every person in the world, wants a father who loves us, who will pursue us no matter what, right? Don't we?  Our hearts long for a father who will never give up hope that somehow, somewhere his son or daugther will re-connect, come home.  A father who is persistent and unrelenting in his love, always reaching out, regardless of where his kid is at, regardless o...

Send me a Text Message! I believe God has planted in the very dna of our souls, a desire to matter; a desire to live a life that makes a difference... to find a mission worth dying for and even better worth living for. So let me ask you right now, you can answer in the quiet of your own heart, "What and/or who are you really living for? What is your mission in life? If I could put it in simpl...

Send me a Text Message! Are you urgently hungry from something more than bread for your stomach? Here is what I think, while many things could seem urgent, what actually becomes consistently urgent is whatever we think will brings us life and is missing. In other words, urgency is defined by hunger. Urgency happens when we lack something which we believe will bring us life.   I could talk all day...

Send me a Text Message! Once upon a time we were called, "the people who turned the world upside down." In this episode I want to challenge us to pray, "Lord would you do it again?" We want to live in an upside down world because what we have come to experience as right-side-up is all wrong. And it all begins with a decision...it's a yes or no decision; an all-in or nothin...

Send me a Text Message! I've always thought this story of Paul and Silas was a bit strange. This woman has been following them  for days, telling people that they are God's men.  They are legit; here to save you. But then one day, Paul gets annoyed and delivers her from demonic bondage and economic slavery and as a result they get beaten severely and thrown in jail; where we find them pr...

Send me a Text Message! Every time we come to the funeral of someone who loved Jesus...it should make us long just a bit more for home. Because no matter how great or how hard your life is at this moment, the best is yet to come. And I think that’s how the people on Jesus-team in the early church; I think that’s how they lived their lives. They lived like life was all about Jesus and dying brought...

Send me a Text Message! In Acts 16, we get introduced to two people Lydia and Timothy, both followers of Jesus. We know more about Timothy than we do Lydia, but it's still good to hear their stories. Their story is part of God's story and so is yours. Before we leave this episode we'll focus on bit more on Timothy's part in the story of God and how Paul mentored him. And we wil...

Send me a Text Message! At the end of Acts 15, we are introduced to John Mark. We know him best as the writer of the gospel of Mark. But I think it's safe to say, that without Barnabas we probably would have missed Mark. But instead of missing Mark, we gained an amazing gospel with a vital perspective on Jesus and His team. Barnabas was able to look past Mark's failure and see his future...

Send me a Text Message! This episode is about what identifies us as followers of Jesus. What are the non-negotiables? Some of us grew up in a culture that emphasized what some call boundary marker religion. There were certain things that you did and did not do that were very important. Those things marked you as being in the group or not in the group. In my group, when I was a kid, you did not dan...

Send me a Text Message! In Acts 14 is a statement that I love to hate and wish I could ignore. "We must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God." Through many hardships and much suffering,  we enter the Kingdom of God. You have got to love that right? We get lots of joy and lots of persecution and then don’t care too deeply about what others think of you. We get the Word of God...

Send me a Text Message! It's hard to miss, the book of Acts gives us front-row seats to the incredible joy that saturated the early church, even in the face of hardship, suffering and persecution. This joy wasn’t just a here-and-gone moment of emotion but rather a steadfast perspective and fullness of delight that came from the joy-giving power of the gospel and the filling of the Spirit. So...

Send me a Text Message! The early church faced unrelenting attacks, deep persecution, tragic losses, and from a human perspective unbeatable opponents. Yet, no matter what happened, they would not only bounce back, but in the hardest of chapters, they would overcome. The Word of God spread, followers of Jesus multiplied, communities were turned upside down, and the disciples were filled with joy....

Send me a Text Message! Christ is the treasure above all treasures. He is worth everything you have. We go all-in for Jesus, because what we gain is of  infinitely greater value than what we give. The only logical response to Jesus is the all-in response. But I'll never forget, a time I was listening to a description of the parable of the treasure...and I sensed Jesus saying to me, "This...

Send me a Text Message! When I read Acts 13, I'm reminded that whenever we go on the mission of God, we step into a spiritual battle. There is darkness in this battle. It may be the darkness that comes in the bitterness of anger, the darkness that comes from depression, the darkness that descends upon a relationship when we just can't seem to find a way to forgive. It's the darkness...

Send me a Text Message! In Acts 12, after all the difficulty, all the persecution, and all the battle that was thrown at the early church, in the end the WORD of God flourished and continued to spread. Why? Well at least in part because of prayer. That was our focus in the last episode. We said you could chart the growth of the early church by their prayer meetings. In this episode we’re going to...

Send me a Text Message! You can chart the growth of the early church by it's prayer meetings. Something bad would happen, but they they prayed. It looked like they were down and out, but then their prayers went up and in. I bet 80% of us say we believe in prayer. We believe it's important, so why don't we pray? Of course, almost everyone sends up a brief prayer from time to time, bu...

Send me a Text Message! Memorial Day is a day to remember those who gave their lives defending our freedom. So how do we honor their sacrifice? I wonder if the best way to honor their sacrifice is found in Matthew 5 and Isaiah 58 both of which contain a call to shine. You are the light of the world, so shine! You are the light of the world, so shine. Bring light to the darkness, shine! You may fee...

Send me a Text Message! Acts 12:1-5 is a good reminder that when we become part of the mission of Jesus, we enter into a spiritual battle. Don't be discouraged when we face defeat and darkness in our spiritual lives...it's a battle. When relationships tank...don't be caught off guard, it's the enemy's strategy to divide and conquer. The gospel is a real-life, epic story an...

Send me a Text Message! There is a surprising amount of research on this. Gender  has no impact on happiness.  Weather has no impact on happiness. You have just as much potential for happiness under the cloudy skies of State College as you do in the sun of San Diego! Research suggests that happiness has its source in things like, volunteering, giving blood, serving others, helping your neighbors,...

Send me a Text Message! You can use a hand for many things; fight, discipline, shake hands, or hug. You can hold someone up. You can bless them. But nothing will empower us and change us and help us turn the world upside down like having the gracious hand of God upon us. The gracious hand of God is nitro fuel for our tank. It's the hand that takes the wheel when we can't see the way and...