More Than Bread

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! All through the New Testament is an often overlooked spiritual discipline meant shape our prayers. It's the discipline of gratitude, thanksgiving to God. "Don’t be anxious, don’t worry about anything," Paul writes in Philippians 4. But in everything hard situation put these two things together, prayer and thanksgiving and God’s peace will guard your heart.  L...

Send me a Text Message! This one is a bit different. A combination of a report on joining with 10 other congregations and two campus ministries for 36 hours of non-stop prayer and worship and another look at my favorite prayer in all of scripture. Enjoy!

Send me a Text Message! Sometimes people make a distinction between praying big prayers and praying small prayers. But do you realize that according to Paul in Ephesians 3:14-21,    every prayer we will ever pray is smaller than His power to accomplish it. They are all small prayers because He can do far beyond the greatest good we can imagine. Sometimes our problem is that not that we don't...

Send me a Text Message! Ephesians 1:15-23 is a prayer for power, resurrection power that is available for us. Can I tell you why this is so important?  It's so important because what we need we can't get on our own. Who we need to become we can't become on our own. We can't know God better...on our own.  We need help. We can't find the hope we need in the midst of times th...

Send me a Text Message! In Ephesians 1:15-23, Paul prays a prayer for his friends and in the midst of this prayer are the words, the request, "God give them the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that they can know you better." Later he will ask God to open the eyes of their heart. His prayer brings to mind the simple question, "How well do I know God?" If there was one and onl...

Send me a Text Message! The prayer for this episode is found in Romans 15:13. It’s a very simple but powerful prayer that Paul prays for his friends. Here it is: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." God of hope fill us with joy and peace so we overflow with hope. Is that you right no...

Send me a Text Message! In Acts 4, the church prays for courage and boldness in the face of threats and persecution. I've seen this in other places, Myanmar, Iran. Courage and compassion in the midst of hardship and persecution. And so often the partnering activity in those times are bold prayers. I'm not sure what happens to our bold prayers. Sometimes life's disappointments beat t...

Send me a Text Message! John 17 contains a dream on Christ's heart. His dream is to unleash upon the world a people who love more, and love deeper, and love longer than anyone else in the world. And so it's not surprising that in John 17, the great dream on Christ's heart becomes the great prayer on Christ's lips. This is the longest recorded prayer of  Christ in the Bible. The...

Send me a Text Message! I call this story in Luke 5, the fellowship of the mat. Four guys bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus. But here's the point that grips me, Jesus told the four friends that their faith is what brought their friend in need, a miracle. This is really the heart of this episode. My faith matters for others. Your faith matters for others. The faith you express when you bri...

Send me a Text Message! In Mark 9, a man come looking for Jesus. This man came with a need; a parent who found the child of his heart beaten up and locked up by some force beyond his control. He had tried everything else, but nothing worked. Then he heard about Jesus. And even though he's a sensible man, he's a needy man and Jesus is his last hope. You do realize that's often when w...

Send me a Text Message! Mark 5 contains a prayer for healing. A woman who had experienced chronic brokenness that left her spiritually, relationally, and emtionally isolated. She heard about Jesus, so she came. A somewhat common beginning to prayer. She heard about Jesus; she came to Jesus and she touched the hem of his robe. That was her prayer. She didn't come boldly. This was not a spiritu...

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. Matthew 26 contains a prayer of surrender made by Jesus before he went to the cross. "Not my will, but your will be done." That was his prayer. But I love what the writer of Hebrews would...

Send me a Text Message! Matthew 15 contains the prayer of an outsider. She doesn't have an inside track to Jesus. She's an outsider and as far as Jesus' disciples are concerned she's an  outcast. She knows it so when she comes to Jesus, she comes with the traditional words of a beggar. "Lord, have mercy on me." And she gets ignored and in some respects pushed back. Sh...

Send me a Text Message! If I could sum up in a single phrase what I want to leave you this episode; what I long for us to walk away certain of today, it's this: "God is a Father who loves you like only a father can love you." That's the most compelling point of what we know as "The Lord's Prayer." Jesus was born into a religious culture based on stories and image...

Send me a Text Message! Malachi 3:10-12 is not a prayer, but it shapes a prayer that I've been praying for a few decades. "God open the floodgates of heaven and pour our your uncontainable blessings on your people!" But the prayer comes with a challenge from God. It wasn't a pray-more challenge, it was a generosity challenge. God basically said, "I dare you. I dare you to...

Send me a Text Message! This episode is all about Jonah's prayer from the belly of a fish at the bottom of the sea. We could talk a bit about whether or not it was a whale or a big fish, or is it even a true story, I mean the science of a guy being swallowed by a whale is a little bit undeveloped, right? But if that’s what you are thinking you are missing the point. The point is not that it’s...

Send me a Text Message! Daniel (of Lion's Den fame) was an amazing man, but if we were to sit down with Daniel, he wouldn't have any time for our hero worship. He would simply say, "I'm sorry, but you missed the point. I tried to make it clear over and over again, but let me try again; God is the Hero of my story. God is the one who preserves young men from impurity and old men...

Send me a Text Message! Ezekiel’s vision and prayer conversation in Ezekiel 37 is about as close as the Old Testament gets to Easter. How do we pray for more life?  Perhaps it begins by understanding that resurrection is the work of a force outside of ourselves. I think we could all agree that in death I am helpless, out of control and unable to change my circumstances. I cannot resurrect myself....

Send me a Text Message! Isaiah 64 begins as a lament. It is a fight with God for more of God. But the lament becomes travailing prayer, as a sense of expectancy is added. We are covered in sin, wanting to do our own thing in our own time for our own glory, so God turns his back on us; gives us over to our sin. But when we lament; when we cry for his presence, something shifts. And yet, O Lord, you...

Send me a Text Message! Did you ever feel like you were all alone?  Like nobody sees you or cares about  you.  Nobody wants to know you.  Nobody is paying attention to you. Psalm 139 is a psalm that resounds with this truth, "God is paying attention to you." God knows when we sit and when we stand. His eyes were on you yesterday when you sat down to take a break, and He knows your schedu...

Send me a Text Message! Psalm 77 is the heart cry of a person who is waiting for bad stuff to stop and good stuff to start. The first half of the Psalm is a lament, a cry to God to show up and show off. The psalmist is stuck in deep trouble. But there is a turning point. It doesn't come when the current circumstances change, that's what many of us are waiting for...insead it came when th...

Send me a Text Message! There was a time in David’s life where he had lost everything that we would say was necessary for the good life. He was living in caves on the run from a King who wanted to kill him. Lost his family. Lost his home.  Lost his reputation. Lost his freedom. And it was during those days that he'd create this song of worship, this prayer. A Psalm of David written while he w...

Send me a Text Message! We have a heart problem. Revive our hearts O God! We let things into our hearts that we would never let pass our mouths. We let stuff into our eyes that would make us blush if we were there in person. In Psalm 51, David longs for a renewed purity of heart, so that he can reconnect with God, because when sin rules, life is without God. When I read Psalm 51, and look at the w...

Send me a Text Message! In Luke 10, Jesus sends his disciples out on a mission. It's really a battle, in a way he is actually sending them into battle, a spiritual battle. When they come back he tells them, "Good job. While you were gone I saw Satan fall like lightening from the sky." But here's the deal, here’s the crazy battle plan. When Jesus sent them out, he said, "No...