More Than Bread

Send me a Text Message! That's the story of my life. We usually say that when something bad happens. But what if Jesus is the story of your life? What if resurrection is the story of your life?  What's the story of your life?  Paul writes in 2 Timothy 2:8, "Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David.  This is my gospel." What's Paul  saying?  He&apos...

Send me a Text Message! Here's what I think. I think that you don't know the whole story of your life.  Sometimes we look at chapters in our lives and we begin to think that’s my whole story.  Did you ever hear someone say, "That’s the story of my life?" Did you ever say it? It usually pops out after a failure or when circumstances are less than we had hoped.  We say it in the...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode, I want to talk about the rule of the first step. Sometimes God seeks to test and grow our faith all at the same time. It's called the rule of the first step. You find it all over the place in the Bible. I am sufficient for you, we hear God whisper.  I will be with you.  I will give you my power.  I will show you my glory.  I will cause others to be ama...

Send me a Text Message!  In Joshua 3, God leads the people of God to an uncrossable river? Most of the year this river was easily crossable, but He brought them to the river during harvest, which was a time when the river was impossible. Why did He do that? Well let me give the easy answer. He brought them to that river at that time, because He was getting ready to do a miracle.  I don't know...

Send me a Text Message! You have been chosen by Christ, the most amazing man to ever inhabit heaven and earth. He chose you for this mission. He picked you up and exchanged your existence for his life. And now you are part of the Kingdom that will never end. And it's more than just being on a team, you have been adopted into the family of the creator of the universe. Nothing taking place in t...

Send me a Text Message! Courage is simply what we do when we love someone or something more than we love ourselves. When we love someone or something more than we love ourselves we do courageous stuff! And courage is closely related to undaunted faith, right?  In this episode, I'm going to teach you a few Hebrew words, words like tiqvah and ezer. And in the end, I'll ask you if you are a...

Send me a Text Message! Among the people of northern Natal in South Africa, the most common greeting, like hello in English, is the expression: Sawu Bona. It literally means,  I see you. You are seen. If I don't see you, far more importantly, God does. In fact, as I read this chapter, I kept sensing that God simply wanted me to tell you, he sees you. You are seen. Isn't that one of the r...

Send me a Text Message! Hey what voices are getting your ears right now? Or what influencers are getting your scrolling eyes right now? There are voices out there that some of you have listened to all your life. Some of them were bad voices; made you feel like you had nothing to offer the world, no one will ever love you and you can't be fixed. Some of you on the other hand, have had some gre...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode, we are going to talk about the most common command in the Bible and the most common promise. The two of them go together, (God's most common command and God's most common promise) to give birth to an undaunted faith. If you are interested in knowing what either one is...give a listen!

Send me a Text Message! Can I tell you what I believe, what I've experienced... there's a desire, a deep desire in each of us, it goes deeper than our hearts, it's woven into the very fabric of our souls. We were born with it, created for it. On this side of heaven, it's never fully satisfied and it will never die. In fact, our identity, our purpose for living is wrapped up in...

Send me a Text Message! When Joshua and Caleb came back from the land of promise with 10 others, having spied out the land, one thing they all agreed upon was that there giants in the land. But where they differed was that 10 thought the giants were too much for them, but two thought God with them was greater than the giants in the land. It made me start thinking about the giants in my life. What...

Send me a Text Message! In Hebrews chapter 11, the author is describing a faith, hall of fame and he writes these words in verse 6: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because   anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek Him." I know there are many reasons why people don't come to God and I know that there are thos...

Send me a Text Message! Isaiah 64:1-8 is a corporate prayer. It's a corporate lament for the presence of God from a people who were missing God.  They want more God. But that corporate lament ends with hope, when Isaiah prays, "And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter.  We all are formed by your hand." Do you hear the shift?  Isaiah goes from aski...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode we are making our way to the Old Testament book of Joshua for a series on faith, a faith that is undaunted! And as we make our way to Joshua, we are going to ponder the call to wait but the call to wait is in a prayer that is addressed to the God who amazes us. And that's the prayer of Isaiah 64:4...we need to make it our prayer: "God would you ama...

Send me a Text Message! This is episode #4, of my current teaching series at Calvary. We are going through the book of Colossians. In this episode, I'll ask some questions. Like, "Who do you say that Jesus is?" and "Who does your life say that Jesus is?" and "Am I all-in for Jesus?" And then based on your answer to those questions, the next question would simply...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode we are looking at a prayer from Paul in the book of Philippians. I’ve called it a finishing prayer. It’s a prayer to finish life well. In Bobby Clinton’s research on leaders, he found that about 1/3 of Christian leaders finish well. He defined finishing well as having a sense of purpose and calling accomplished, ending up more in love with Jesus at the end t...

Send me a Text Message! Be honest, there is at least a bit of our heart that sees the title, "I surrender..." and thinks, maybe I'll just pass this prayer by...get back into it tomorrow. I have t admit, it's not easy calling this one of my favorite prayers. But it has led to some of my favorite answers. Matthew 26 contains a prayer of surrender made by Jesus before he went to t...

Send me a Text Message! The name Jabez in Hebrew, literally means "pain" or even worse, "bringer of pain." Can you imagine being given that name? Every time someone called his name, it was a reminder of pain. A reminder that his life was a disappointment or a hardship to someone else. Some of you know what that's like, maybe it's not in your name, but it was what you...

Send me a Text Message! This prayer is not only a favorite prayer, one of my core prayers, it's prayed by my biblical mentor, Moses. "God I want to be your friend." What would happen, how would your life change, if you prayed that prayer and God answered it? 

Send me a Text Message! This five episode series will give me a bit of a break before we start the next MTB series on the Old Testament book of Joshua. We'll go chapter by chapter, story by story to see what "undaunted faith" looks like! But for now, we are looking at some of my favorite prayers in scripture.  It's actually a reposting from a longer series that I did a few year...

Send me a Text Message! No teaching of Jesus was any more outlandish and theologically incorrect (in Jesus day) than the teaching that God is our Father. In Luke 11, when Jesus was asked by his disciples to teach them to pray, He gave them a model, an outline of sorts, but even more importantly he gave them a new truth about God. God is your Father and that's why prayer matters!

Send me a Text Message! One last look at this mountain top encounter that leads to deep valley impact. So the crowd watches in awe and then we have that church fight and then Jesus heals a young boy brought by his father. His father brought him to Jesus.  Why do people come?  Because they have a need. Who are the looking for? Jesus. Why are they looking for Jesus?  Because nothing else worked. He...

Send me a Text Message! You have a purpose, a calling, a mission. God created you for a purpose and we see it here in this story of a mountain top experience that has a limited duration and ends with Jesus leading the way back into the valley.  Why?  Because we live out our purpose in the valley. Remember: On the Mountain-Top we get marked.  In the valley we leave a mark. I often say that our miss...

Send me a Text Message! It wasn't necessarily my plan. I don't plan ahead that well. But this episode and the last one on Colossians, really go hand in hand. So let me ask you, "Have you lost your wonder of Jesus? Has He just become ho-hum, just Jesus?" If so, I hope that the last episode and this one reawaken your heart to the wonder of Jesus and I hope that you begin or conti...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode I'm asking a question that I sensed Jesus asking me as I pondered Paul's words in Colossians 1. The question was, "Dan, have you lost the wonder?" How about you? Have you lost your wonder of Jesus? Maybe you grew up with Jesus. Do you know what I mean? We've gone to church since we were little. Sunday School, Christmas programs, conf...