More Than Bread

Send me a Text Message! The last two episodes focused on James 4 have been challenge heavy. This one is encouragement heavy. Here is the simply message from God, that I think God wants you to hear. "I miss you." Do you believe God misses you? I think we have this idea that God is love so God has to love us. But I'm not sure he likes me. Miss me? Nah, with so many people in the world...

Send me a Text Message! When I think of the state of the church of America, actually let me personalize it, when I think of the state of my own heart. Here is the thought that comes to mind.  "It's worse than we think and it could be better than we can imagine." Some of you may not be ready to hear me say this, because it requires a softness of heart, an inclination of our souls to...

Send me a Text Message! Sometimes I look around me at the beauty of creation, family and friends around me, good things happening in people lives, and answers to prayer. In moments like that, do you know what's hard to believe? It's really hard to believe that we are living in a war zone. Every night before I go to bed, I google the war-news about Myanmar and the Ukraine. I don't ha...

Send me a Text Message! In Luke 8, Jesus tells a story that in many ways sums up James 3. He shares a parable about seeds and soils and a 100 fold return in the harvest. But really it's all about words, and hearts, and a great return on investment in the lives of peole. It's about having the kind of heart that overflows with life on the people around us.  So I can't help but ask the...

Send me a Text Message! What if I told you, that I am a stock guru? And if you will invest $100 using my method you will gain $10,000 by year end, a 100 fold increase.  What would you say? The promise of a 100 fold return on investment seems almost too good to be true.  But if it's true -- it's good.  Isn't it? Apply that to any area of your life, education, exercise, a 100x return...

Send me a Text Message! It's something we desperately need today, a wisdom that comes from above. We are living in a time when much of our culture is living by a wisdom that comes from below, filled with a me-first selfish-ambition. But a wisdom that comes from above is peace-loving and willing to yield. It's graciously humble and generously compassionate. It's a wisdom that is from...

Send me a Text Message! If I declare to you, "We need a radical heart-revolution!" what would you think I mean? I have a sneaky suspicion that James would say that it's all about humility. We need a radical heart-revolution that takes us out of the center of the world, even out of the center of our own world. One of the key characteristics of God's way--is described by James as...

Send me a Text Message! When I was a kid, my mom would often challenge me with this phrase, "Garbage in, garbage out." GIGO. It was her way of saying, you can't control your tongue, but you can control what's at the source. Sooner or later what's at the source, what's in your heart and mind is going to come out of your mouth.  And how do we clean up the source? We let...

Send me a Text Message! There is power in words. We know it because we’ve been on the receiving side of words that encouraged and words that destroyed. There are times when you've been so impacted by words, that in your heart of hearts you know what Solomon meant when he wrote in Proverbs 15:4, "The tongue the brings healing is a tree of life, but a lie  crushes the spirit." Words c...

Send me a Text Message! We are back to the book of James. In this episode we will review James 1-2 a bit, and then in the next episode we dive into chapter 3. You know in reality the book of James is all about wisdom, practical wisdom, not just philosophical wisdom, but how to live life right. Wisdom that works.  James says a lot about prayer, but he also says a lot about the Word. No spiritual pr...

Send me a Text Message! This is my last Psalm Pause. I know, if you read the notes, I said that about the last one, but catch-up from vacation is...well...full. The next episode gets us back to the book of James and a life of prayer.  I've been taking a bit of a break after 100 downloads and during my vacation. I've been reposting some Psalms that specifically hit some themes from our cu...

Send me a Text Message! I've been taking a bit of a break as a reward for 100k downloads and as a pause during my vacation. But during this week+ break, I'm reposting some Psalms that I've chosen, specifically to hit some themes of our current series, "A Life of Prayer." The themes include scripture, prayer, trusting God, and thriving. This is the last Psalms Pause...next...

Send me a Text Message! I'm taking a bit of a break as a reward for 100k downloads and as a pause during my vacation. But during this week+ break, I'm reposting some Psalms that I've chosen, specifically to hit some themes of our current series, "A Life of Prayer." The themes include scripture, prayer, trusting God, and thriving.  If you are anything like me, reading the b...

Send me a Text Message! I'm taking a bit of a break as a reward for 100k downloads and as a pause during my vacation. But during this week+ break, I'm reposting some Psalms that I've chosen, specifically to hit some themes of our current series, "A Life of Prayer." The themes include scripture, prayer, trusting God, and thriving.  So we are looking again at Psalm 37; too m...

Send me a Text Message! I'm taking a bit of a break as a reward for 100k downloads and as a pause during my vacation. But during this week+ break, I'm reposting some Psalms that I've chosen, specifically to hit some themes of our current series, "A Life of Prayer." The themes include scripture, prayer, trusting God, and thriving.  Psalm contains one of my favorite verses....

Send me a Text Message! I'm taking a bit of a break as a reward for 100k downloads and as a pause during my vacation. But during this week+ break, I'm reposting some Psalms that I've chosen, specifically to hit some themes of our current series, "A Life of Prayer." The themes include scripture, prayer, trusting God, and thriving.  One thing I love about the writers of the...

Send me a Text Message! I'm taking a bit of a break as a reward for 100k downloads and as a pause during my vacation. But during this week+ break, I'm reposting some Psalms that I've chosen, specifically to hit some themes of our current series, "A Life of Prayer." The themes include scripture, prayer, trusting God, and thriving.  In Psalm 1 word that I cannot escape in Ps...

Send me a Text Message! Over and over again in the last part of James 2, we hear something like, "faith without works is dead." Faith that does not lead to action is useless. Faith is as faith does and if it doesn't, it probably isn't. I think what James is trying to say is that we can trust God, the real question is "Can He trust us." The question that we so frequent...

Send me a Text Message! "Love your neighbor like you love yourself." Paul, James and Jesus all echo that challenge, that way of life. "Let the way that you love yourself set the standard for the way that you love your neighbor." In other words, ask yourself, What if my neighbor was me? How would I treat me? If I could wrap my neighbor in my skin and he was me, how much wld I lo...

Send me a Text Message! Did you know that there's a royal law in the Bible? James calls it the royal law of love. Love your neighbor as you love yourself; the royal law. The Bible makes it incredibly clear that nothing matters more than relationships--nothing--first with God and second with people. In fact that very royal love, "Love your neighbor as yourself" is so stuck in the hea...

Send me a Text Message! I can't get away from James' words, "God has chosen the poor to be rich in faith." It reminds me of Jesus' words in the Beatitudes, "Blessed are the poor in Spirit." Blessed are the broken, the desperate. Blessed are those standing without pretense before God, stripped of all self-sufficiency, self-security, and self-righteousness. That&ap...

Send me a Text Message! Remember elementary school and choosing teams? Does this still happen today? What a nerve wracking deal. This week the NBA draft has been occuring. Teams spend millions of dollars to get the right person. And if you are chosen, what does that mean? It means you matter; you have value; want you on our team. You don't have to be in the NBA or elementary school.  Life&apo...

Send me a Text Message! I love the way James hooks me with his statements. I don't know if he has such a way with words or if it's just the Spirit of God planting the seed in my soul. But from "Consider it pure joy with troubles come your way" to "Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger" to "God has chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith&quo...

Send me a Text Message! In the last episode I said that James is really describing a life of trust in his letter to those who are scattered. A life of trust listens to, learns from and leans into the word of God, and a life trust not only breathes in those words, but also breathes out in prayer. So where is God asking you to respond, to trust him today? Over the course of the centuries you can hea...

Send me a Text Message! My goal through this podcast and my prayer for all of us is that we would be drawn to the Words of God, that we would develop a hunger to hang out with Jesus and listen to the whisper of His spirit through our hearts and out our ears.  My goal is that we would go to this book (the Bible) again and again in search of gold.  That our incentive would be the precious treasure o...