More Than Bread

Send me a Text Message! Generosity is not about what God wants from us, it's about what God wants for us. He wants to pour out uncontainable blessings upon us. And there is no greater blessing than His presence. When the presence of God is inescapable, the blessings of God are unrelenting.  And it all starts by giving Him my heart!

Send me a Text Message! Just take a moment and imagine walking with Jesus out to the middle of nowhere, wherever you live. For me it's central PA, maybe climbing Mt. Nittany, walking to the middle of your town, or campus, or workplace and He begins to paint a picture. He begins to dream a dream with you of what could be, or maybe even of what will be. And then He says, I want you to join me....

Send me a Text Message! Here's where it starts. Overflowing life starts with Jesus offer to anyone. He said, "Anyone who is thirsty can come." That's Jesus' offer, anyone. And don't miss who  is hearing his words. In John 7 the crowd is filled with doubters and deniers, rule following religious leaders who want to kill him. It’s filled with the confused and uncertain,...

Send me a Text Message! So we are doing a macro series on four spiritual practices that put us in a life that is characterized by God's gracious hand being upon us. We've looked at the spiritual practice of scripture, the practice of sabbath keeping and this mini-series is on generosity. I'm calling it Overflow. Because in the Kingdom of God, that’s really what generosity is all abo...

Send me a Text Message! Psalm 121 is one of the first of a small group (14) of psalms called the "Psalms of Ascent." They were songs for pilgrims on a journey to the holy place, the presence of God. It's a re-do. I first recorded it about 3 years ago during my top 40 Psalms series. But it's a great Psalm to bridge our series on practicing the sabbath and our upcoming series on...

Send me a Text Message! One more moment to press pause and think about this one day a week that is meant to be a taste of heaven on earth. And I’m going to go at it in a little bit different way. I want to share a story of a moment in the life of Jesus. It doesn’t mention the sabbath at all, but it really reinforces why the sabbath is important. The story is of a man we only know as "the rich...

Send me a Text Message! The good life does not start with activity. It starts with rest. We don't rest from our work, we rest into our work. The order is significant. We've turned the concept of the Sabbath into a day off, a much needed rest from our busyness, but the Sabbath was not meant to be a passive resting; it was always an active turning from work to God.  Basically, God has said...

Send me a Text Message! We are strivers. Rather than finding our identity in who we are, we find it in what  we do. At one time work was just a way that we got our family ahead, but now it's the way in which we find our value, determine our worth. We're a society that determines value by achievement. This is even shaping the way we parent. Our kids have to go to the best schools, be trai...

Send me a Text Message! Over the course of these episodes and even more the course of the years, I have had multiple people ask me, so what should I do on the Sabbath? How is it  different from any other day? What's the purpose? At some point the thought came to me, "The Sabbath was meant to be a little taste of heaven. The Sabbath is one day a week meant to give us a little taste of hea...

Send me a Text Message! What if I only had one day, one day to live, one day to give, or just one day to do whatever my heart desired to do? What would you do with one day to do whatever you wanted to do? The average lifespan in the United States is 29,200 days (give or take). My mother-in-law recently celebrated her 32,872nd day. My mom and dad are both over 30,000 days old. In a few weeks, I wil...

Send me a Text Message! What would you think if I told you that I believe "play" is in the very heart of Father God. I love how the prophet Isaiah describes this play-full God in Isaiah 29:13-14: "The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by me...

Send me a Text Message! We are going to talk about the spiritual practice of play. U knew this was coming, but still you’re tempted to ask, "Did he say play or pray?" Play? Why would we talk about play on the sabbath? Play is not really a spiritual practice is it? Good question! That a Christian should be a great worker, a blessing to every boss is easily defensible. That a follower of J...

Send me a Text Message! God made "stop-day" (the sabbath) a rule, because  He loves delight. He loves to delight us. I think I could even say, He loves to have fun.  Sabbath is God saying, hey what I have made for you is so cool, I'm gonna insist that you enjoy it."  Remember how we described sabbath in the last episode?  Basically God has said, "Once a week I will carve o...

Send me a Text Message! When it comes to keeping the sabbath, basically God has said, "Once a week I'm gonna to carve out a day for you. I'm gonna remove it from the curse; call it holy so that Satan can't mess with it and I'm going to fill it with blessings. Primarily the blessing of me. And I'm good. I'm so good. You won't regret this day. It'll be li...

Send me a Text Message! Far too often, I come to God to get something from God. But what the gifts of the giver, keep me from embracing the greatest gift? See there is nothing greater than Christ. Christ is the treasure of Christianity. Listen, I don't know why you go to church, why you listen to this podcast, but if it's not ultimately because you want more of Christ, then chances are g...

Send me a Text Message! The sabbath is a way of saying, "God it's not just a matter of time, if I had all the  time in the world, I still wouldn't be able to finish. I need help. I'm limited." I think one reason we don't sabbath well is because we haven't accepted our limitations. We need to develop a theology of limitations. The sabbath call in Psalm 46 is &quot...

Send me a Text Message! We are starting the second mini-series of spiritual practices that bring God's gracious hand upon us. For the next 8-10 episodes we're going talk about keeping the Sabbath. The Sabbath is God's stop-day. And let's be honest, it's so hard. And if you ask why is it so hard to slow down? Isn't the most common answer, well 24/7 living and 24/7 work...

Send me a Text Message! Remain. Mostly what I want to talk about, in this last episode of the series, is that word "remain." In Biblical Greek, it’s the word meno .  It means to take a stand against difficult circumstances. But it was also used to refer to relationships, close personal relationships.  So maybe the sense of the word meno in John 15 is "to stick close even when it&apo...

Send me a Text Message! In John 15 there is a serious call to love God's Words, to make them an always-there part of our hearts. Jesus uses the word, "remain." Remain in me. Let my words remain in you. Remain in my life. Remain. What we will find in this episode is that there is a connection that goes beyond metaphor into the land of mystical, a connection between Jesus, who is call...

Send me a Text Message! Well this isn't the message I preached last Sunday on the Psalms, but it is the Psalm I would have preached on if I wasn't on vacation. :)  Psalm 77 is a powerful Psalm on gratitude in the midst of hard times. Few spiritual practices are as easy to understand, and require so little "practice" as gratitude, but honestly it is so powerful, so helpful, so r...

Send me a Text Message! What did Jesus say to Martha when she came complaining about Mary? "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled over so many things, but only one thing is needed, one thing is necessary." Or perhaps in Martha's only one thing was lacking. With all her worry and hurry she was still lacking something. In essence Jesus was saying, "Mary has chosen what you...

Send me a Text Message! Sometimes we are tempted to think that words are just words. Right? We live in a world with a lot of words. Sometimes it feels like word overload. But is there really such a thing as "just words?" Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Remember that schoolyard ditty? We said it to try to convince ourselves that words couldn't hurt...

Send me a Text Message! In a number of his books, C.S. Lewis compares the Christian life to a dance with God.  He calls it the Great Dance, and says, "Each one of us has to enter that pattern, and take our place in the dance.  There is no other way to the happiness for which we were made." See when it comes to the life of faith, there is a great difference between dancing by the book and...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode I'm going to ask the question, "Why don't I hunger for God's Words?" Maybe it's because we aren't sure we really believe in the Bible. When someone says that to me, I'm thinking really? Which part do you not believe?  Is it the poetry in the Psalms, or the wisdom of Proverbs? Maybe it was the way Jesus interacted with...

Send me a Text Message! For those of you who are newer to "More Than Bread" for sometime now I often take a break from the "5 episodes a week" life and simply upload my sermon from the last Sunday (or something similar) on Mondays. Lately at Calvary we've been going through the Psalms with the theme of finding "A Life Refreshed." This episode takes a look at Psal...