More Than Bread

Send me a Text Message! Today we go back to our Calvary series...ONE CHRISTMAS. And it dovetails well with our regular series, "Come Lord Jesus." Because it's all about having one Christmas that Jesus will never forget. AND it's all about joy.  You are pursued. You are invited. There are still empty seats around His table and around His table, the joy overflows! He's invit...

Send me a Text Message! This will be my 31st Christmas at Calvary. 31 years of reading and preaching from the same old stories of Christmas, but to be honest, they never get old. What we celebrate at Christmas is so wondrously holy. The heaven’s opened up and poured the uncontainable blessings and unmistakable presence of Immanuel God with us. Every year that I think I know it all, I’m reintroduce...

Send me a Text Message! The Christmas stories from the Bible are central to celebrating Christmas, not just because we need to know the story, we do. But even more so because John says in his Christmas story, that Jesus is the Word of God. In other words, it's not just about a book. It's about a person. It's not just about knowing the truth it's about loving the one who is true...

Send me a Text Message! The cosmic Christmas was a military strike to the forces of evil. But those forces still operate, which is why, when it comes to the hard stuff that the church of Smyrna was going through Jesus peels back the curtain, in essence to tell them that as bad as things are, they are worse than you think. But he goes on to say, that they are also better than you can imagine! Suffe...

Send me a Text Message! "Do not be afraid." That's the challenge giving to the church at Smyrna, and it was also a pretty common greeting that first Christmas. In Luke 1 – It was the angels greeting first to Zechariah in the temple and then to Mary when the angel brought this message of a baby and a virgin birth. "Don’t be afraid." In Joseph’s dream in Matthew 1, Joseph wa...

Send me a Text Message! The Church of Ephesus was an amazing church! By every standard that we judge churches by today, it was the cream of the crop. But Jesus said something's missing. I have this against you; you have neglected, abandoned, drifted away  from, become indifferent to your first love. Passion for the person of Jesus had been diverted into passion for the projects of Jesus. Acti...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode I'll ask you this question, "Do you believe God misses you?" I think we have this idea that God is love so God has to love us...because he's God.  But we aren't so sure He likes us; not so sure He misses us, when we are gone. But there is something about love that always desires to be with.  The Bible is not merely a moral instructio...

Send me a Text Message! My teaching series at Calvary is called, "One Christmas." It's all about getting Christmas right, if we only had one Christmas left before we meet the hero of Christmas face to face, how would we shape this Christmas? If Christmas is the love story of God, how do we respond? How can we practically and tangibly love Jesus this Christmas? That's what this...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode we take a break from Revelation, but still connecting to our Christmas prayer, "Come Lord Jesus." Jesus is the something more of Christmas. He is our Christmas treasure. He is the more our hearts long for. When it comes to the continuing story of Christmas...Jesus is written all over the pages of the book. It's so easy to focus on all the othe...

Send me a Text Message! I think a primary Christmas message of the book of Revelation is that Jesus is no longer a baby in a manger. In fact, Jesus is King of all the kings and presidents, every prime minister, tribal war chief or military tyrant globally. When Jesus appeared to his disciples post-resurrection, in triumph he proclaimed, "All authority and power has been given to me." And...

Send me a Text Message! Christmas is nothing more than a shopping spree, if there isn't something more to come. Right? We celebrate the first waiting in hopes of a second coming? And in our world of chaos, confusion, and conflict, we need to be reminded that God’s not done. Come Lord Jesus! The story didn't end with a baby in a manger. It didn't even end with an empty tomb. God is s...

Send me a Text Message! When I ponder Christmas, and this story that Jesus told in Matthew 25, well let me turn it a bit and say this first of all. If you find yourself in need, if you find yourself in "least of these" kind of way, Jesus is so close. This story is a Christmas word of hope to every person listening who feels helpless, hopeless or homeless.  Jesus said, whenever you serve...

Send me a Text Message! Lee Stroebel shares a Christmas story that ends with this summary.  And at that moment, something inside of me wanted desperately to know this Jesus because, in a sense, I saw him in Perfecta and her granddaughters.  They had peace despite poverty, while I had anxiety despite plenty; they knew the joy of generosity, while I only knew the loneliness of ambition; they looked...

Send me a Text Message! Christmas is an invitation to thirsty people to come and drink. But it’s also an invitation to people who have found the living water to become life-givers. Both invitations are open to everyone, with only condition; you have to be thirsty. Are you thirsty for life? If so, where are you going to get full? Where are you going to satisfy your soul thirst? My prayer for this C...

Send me a Text Message! We are beginning an advent series with this episode. At advent we celebrate the waiting that led to his birth. But Christmas is nothing more than a shopping spree, if there isn't something more to come. Right? We celebrate the first waiting in  hopes of a 2nd coming? And in our world of chaos, confusion, and conflict, we need to be reminded that God’s not done. The sto...

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. He has found himself in a season of deep trouble, days when God seems absent at best, times when he cries out to God but finds no comfort for his soul. But even in this deep trouble, he finds a way to practice gratitude.  How about you, have you find a way, even in deep troub...

Send me a Text Message! As we enter the holiday season, I just want to focus for a moment on the word, bless. Psalm 67 uses that word alot. "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us." "God our God blesses us. May God bless us still."  I'm sure that they aren't the only ones who use the phrase, but a family that used to attend Calvary, the N...

Send me a Text Message! "Seek first the Kingdom of God." That's our final challenge for this series. We don't use the word Kingdom very much today, but in Jesus' day they used it all the time.  They understood a little bit better than we do, what a Kingdom was all about.  See in a biblical sense, everyone has a kingdom.  Your kingdom is whatever you  control. Your Kingdom...

Send me a Text Message! In this episode we going to focus on a promise and a challenge from Jesus. The promise is "Where your treasures lead, your heart will follow." The challenge is "so put your treasures in heaven, because your heart is made for heaven." Where your treasures lead your heart will follow. So where are you storing your treasures? Where is your heart? In the gra...

Send me a Text Message! Sometimes we make prayer so complicated! And yes, there are depths to prayer that I may never fully explore or understand, because there are depths to God that will ever be mysterious to me. But at the same time, there is meant to be a simplicity and an ease to prayer that is the ease of a son or daughter coming to their Father, their Papa God.  Stop trying to earn it.  You...

Send me a Text Message! I believe that the most important part of Jesus teaching on prayer in Matthew 6:5-15 is the Father part. When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray he said, "Ok, when you pray...say Father."  Much of the Lord's prayer was not all that different from the standard Jewish liturgical prayers of the day; one big difference, "When you pray, call...

Send me a Text Message! I think our greatest problem is a Sin-Soaked Heart. It keeps us from thriving, leads to addiction, ravages marriages and breaks families, it hardens hearts & creates anxiety filled minds, it drains joy and reaps discouragement..it causes us to hate or even worse ignore our neighbors. We sacrifice our kids on the altar of success and we care about so much that matters so...

Send me a Text Message! How many of us have a problem? I wonder if you could make a case that we are defined, at least in part, by the problems we embrace. What's your problem? Sometimes we call it a holy discontent; an external problem so deep in your heart that it's hard to go to sleep without pondering it's solution. Maybe it's not just your problem, it's broader and yo...

Send me a Text Message! I know sometimes "the church" is a mess & right now it's nowhere near the center of attention in central PA (or wherever you live). But "the church" is where eternity is aimed. If you hate the church, heaven's going to be a bit awkward. The sermon on the mount is the blueprint for the life of the church because it's all about becoming...

Send me a Text Message! When my daughter Katy was about 3, for a season of time, one of her favorite prayers was, "And God please help me fly."  She had watched the movie Dumbo. I  was just glad she wasn't asking God for big ears! But that's my prayer at the end of this episode. God please help us to fly. Give us a love that soars. This is the dream on the heart of Christ for h...