More Than Bread

Send me a Text Message! Do I have an urgent hunger for God's Words? First can I define my terms? Here's the deal, if it's not important, it can't be urgent. The dictionary defines urgency as "something of importance requiring swift action. Urgency is an earnest and  persistent response to a pressing situation." In other words, urgency is a subset of what's import...

Send me a Text Message! Listen, there are voices in this world, voices that some of you have listened to all your life. Some of them were bad voices, mean, always critical, made you feel like you had nothing to offer the world. You can't be fixed, never succeed and can't be forgiven. Some of you on the other hand, you've had some great voices speaking into your life through the year...

Send me a Text Message! In Exodus 33, God tells Moses He is saying "yes" to Moses' prayer. Why? "Because you have found favor with me and you are my friend." Every time I read those  words, it brings tears to my eyes. In part because I'm reminded how often I seek his favor over his friendship. In part because of the memories that flood my mind. Times when I've go...

Send me a Text Message! What if I told you that there is a potential breakthrough available to you that would give you a 100 fold return on your life? I know "life" is a broad all encompassing word, but that's really what we are looking for -- the kind of life that goes broad and deep -- and far and wide. The kind of life that impacts every arena of my life, my relationships, my voc...

Send me a Text Message! Psalm 51 is all about sin. Well not just sin. It's all about sin and the overflowing, relentlessly overwhelming love of God.  Here's the deal, no one sins out of duty. We sin when we believe that God cannot satisfy my heart. There was a time in David's life where God was the all-satisfying pursuit of his heart. This writer of psalms. This warrior-poet-King wi...

Send me a Text Message! As we close this study of Nehemiah, I want to circle back to the simple, stubborn conviction that has been underneath everything: "If we’re not dead, He’s not done." Your story is unfinished. Our story, in our churches and neighborhoods, is unfinished. God uses holy discontent to get our attention and at this moment, He is inviting us into a season of returning, m...

Send me a Text Message! As we continue our review of Nehemiah, you'll hear me say, "Surrendering once is not enough. Repentance is a daily discipline." In other words, if you aren't finding time to shut down the busy and turn off the noise so that you can hear the still small voice of the Spirit of God, you're gonna drift back to the normal of sin. If you aren't joini...

Send me a Text Message! Nehemiah starts with a leader who is willing to own the brokenness, not only his brokenness, but even his people's brokenness. This gives him a burden of repentance that leads him to prayer. Listen, we desperately need people who will own the brokenness of our communities in such a way that it give us a burden of repentance. We need to bear the burden of repentance for...

Send me a Text Message! Nehemiah 13 is one of my all-time worst chapters in the Bible. I knew it was  coming. It's not like I haven't studied or preached through Nehemiah before. Maybe deep down inside I was hoping God would change the ending before we got here. But here we are. It's not so much what chapter 13 contains that makes it my all-time worst chapter in the Bible. There are...

Send me a Text Message! This Psalm is not part of our series, but it's a great description of a life refreshed. This last weekend was CWOW weekend, which is a Sunday that we practice being the church rather than going to church. But this Psalm came to mind... Psalm 133 is focused in unity, relationships. A few years ago, the surgeon general of the United States said that the greatest epidemic...

Send me a Text Message! Nehemiah 12 is about a celebration and dedication. That word dedication means to set apart, to consecrate, to totally give over.  As the people were dedicating the  walls of Jerusalem, they were basically saying, "God everything inside of these walls belongs to you.  You are the builder of this city.  You are God of this city.  Not just the temple, the whole city.  The...

Send me a Text Message! Two things are taking place in Nehemiah 12, celebration and dedication. In this episode we'll focus on celebration. We celebrate what is important to us. What we celebrate tells the story of our passion.  So what do you celebrate? You know what I was thinking about this week? I was thinking that every celebration contains a story.  We celebrate stories, God-stories, pl...

Send me a Text Message! In Nehemiah 11, the walls are rebuilt, the people are getting rebuilt, but the city is empty and God has  redemptive purpose for this city, in fact for every city. And He has a redemptive purpose for your life. So here's what I believe. I believe that God determines the times and the exact places where we should live. If you live here, you are not a guest.  Where you l...

Send me a Text Message! I closed the last episode of this series, with the words, "Our hearts follow our treasures. If we aren't surrendering our treasures to God, then we're robbing God of our hearts." Do you understand God doesn't need our money. He wants our hearts. And if we chase God with all our hearts, He promises to open up the floodgates of heaven and pour out an...

Send me a Text Message! This message was given on Father's Day as part of our summer Psalms series. And here is the heart of the message. Before we ever talk about the kind of fathers we need to be, we need to talk about the Father we long for. I really believe that in every heart, there is a father we long for. I know we come with mixed emotions on Father’s Day. But before we talk about the...

Send me a Text Message! Malachi was a contemporary of Nehemiah and we are going to detour to some of Malachi's words in this episode. As the people make their commitment to return to God, Malachi's words seem so appropriate. Malachi tells God's people how to return to God, why they are missing God. Malachi spoke to a generation of  Israelites who, like many of us today, were chasing...

Send me a Text Message! I believe that a sin-soaked heart is life's greatest problem. It keeps us from life and leads us to addiction. It ravages marriages, breaks families, and hardens hearts.  It drains joy and reaps discouragement. It causes us to care about so much that matters so little. A sin-soaked heart is life's greatest problem.  But even more importantly, or at least more pers...

Send me a Text Message! Let's be honest, we don't like the concept of sin. Sin involves moral absolutes and judgement. Sin has consequences. We prefer the word mistake. A mistake is an error in action, calculation, opinion, or judgment caused by poor reasoning. I'm not bad. I just didn't have all the information. I wasn't thinking clearly. Didn't know any better. I tr...

Send me a Text Message! You wouldn't necessarily expect to find it oozing out of the Old Testament, but Nehemiah 9 gives us a fresh look at the heart of God. Listen, there has never been a moment in your life where God's love for you has dipped below the red-line. It never fails. Unfailing love. There is no one else in your life who will not fail you. But his love never fails.  You are r...

Send me a Text Message! One of the ways that my stream of Christianity likes to describe our faith is with the words, "A personal relationship with God." It's not about religion, it's about relationship, a personal relationship with God. But what in the world does it mean to have a personal relationship with God? In Psalm 46:10, it starts with these words, "Be still and kn...

Send me a Text Message! In the last episode, I encouraged us to ask God for more. But here's the reality, too often we are satisfied to settle for something less than all God has for us. Why are we satisfied to settle for less? Are we satisfied to settle for less purity in our hearts? Are we satisfied to settle for less people following Jesus? Are we satisfied with the state of our relationsh...

Send me a Text Message! Someone asked me years ago, "What do you picture when you keep talking about and praying for an awakening, for a revival. The question surprised me, not that it was asked but because I didn't have a quick answer. But as I've thought about it, while it is as varied as the creative work of God. If I could give it just one word, it would be the word, MORE. I jus...

Send me a Text Message! This episode is all about joy. You will hear me say that I think we have seriously underestimated two things. We have seriously underestimated our need for joy and we have seriously underestimated God's capacity for joy. Listen, God has no desire to wake us up to our sin, our failure; He has no desire to wake us up to our dark thoughts or our undone good; He has no des...

Send me a Text Message! Listen, I understand for some of us, parts of the Bible are hard to believe. You wonder if it's true. Some of it's even harder to understand and we run into all sorts of different interpretations of all the rules and the theology. Rules and theology which some people fight about so much, you wonder if they are even on the same team. I understand.  God doesn't...

Send me a Text Message! Is there any Psalm more loved than the one that starts with these words, "The Lord is my shepherd and I will lack nothing." But here's the deal...I can't say those words without embracing these words, "And I'm a sheep." Now of course you are more than a sheep. You are a child of God filled with the Spirit of God. You are God's beautif...