More Than Bread

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As we get started back up with this podcast, I want to take some time, after 400 episodes to remind us why we are doing this. In Psalm 119:72, the psalmist writes, "The words of your mouth are better to me than thousands of shekels of gold and silver..." Similart words are found in Psalm 19:7-11, "The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the  precepts of the Lord are right... More to be desired are they than gold..."

Honestly my primary goal through this podcast 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 again and again in search of gold.  Because we need more than bread for our stomachs to thrive, we need His Word for our souls!

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As we close our series on "Praying Scripture" it’s a bit different episode; not so much a prayer in scripture, as it is a scripture for praying people, or a scripture about a praying person. The scripture is in James 6, and the praying man is Elijah. Elijah prayed for a miracle and he got a miracle, then later he needed a miracle and all he got was a gentle whisper. But God was in the whisper!

I think this episode will encourage us to listen for God to speak a word in the gentle voice of silence. The whisper. Sometimes hearing the whisper of God is the miracle we truly need!

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As we make our way to the end of our series, "Praying Scripture," we are continuing to look at the other side of prayer. Listening. If prayer is a conversation with God, the other side of prayer is listening. In this episode we are going back to one of my favorite "listening" stories. It's a glimpse in time of a moment between Jesus, Martha and Mary. And you will hear Jesus say these words, "Only one thing is worthy of your concern."

Wouldn't that be amazing, if there really was one thing, above all other things that should gain our focus, energy and time? Perhaps there is. Listening to every word that comes from the mouth of God!

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As we near the end of our current series, "Praying Scripture" we are talking about the other side of prayer. If prayer is a conversation with God, and we never listen to God, we are woefully ignorant of the greatest blessing of prayer. So we are talking about listening. One of the ways we listen for the voice of God is through his Word, (more than bread we need every word that comes from the mouth of God). The Word of God is not the only way we listen to God, but it’s a baseline for anything else we think might be his voice.

But here's the best part, with just a Word, God can bring a breakthrough...with just a Word, if we will listen.

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So to wrap up our praying scripture series and keep our focus on the value of every word that comes from the mouth of God. In this episode and at least the next, I want to talk about the other side of prayer. The listening side. Prayer was never meant to be the first word. Our prayers to God function best when they are a response to God's Words to us. Prayer is the second word. Perhaps one reason we find it hard to get excited about prayer is because too often it feels like a one sided conversation!

So in the next few episodes, we will talk about the other side of prayer. "Jesus I am listening."

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The book of Hebrews is written for people who had lost a measure of their passion for Jesus, people who had gotten so distracted by other pursuits that they rarely paid attention to God. They didn't have video games, social media, netflix, or 24/7 news channels, but the question has been the same since time began, "Will I choose to pay attention to God?"

You may not know it, but God created you with a hunger in your heart for Him.  Your heart wants to be with Him. When Jesus gave His life for us on the cross, He made a way, so that we can come boldly (like a little kid) into God's presence. He gave us an all-access invitation! 

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In I Timothy 2, Paul challenges Timothy, his young partner, to make prayer his first thing. I think today, Paul might say it like this, "So here's the deal.  My heart's desire is that pple would pray everywhere; that people would pray in their cars, and in the grocery store; that pple would pray as they walk the streets and sit in their class; pray in the halls of their apartment building and the streets of their neighborhood; that when they eat out, people would quit asking God to bless their food and ask him to bless their waitress instead. 

My heart's desire Paul says is for people everywhere to pray for everyone, to pray for them as though their lives depended on it. Make prayer for others your first thing!

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When I was a kid, church wasn't terrible but it wasn't at the top of my wanna-do list. I was always looking for reasons not to go. You name the excuse I tried to use it. And one of the things my father never said was, "Hey it's up to you. As long as you are in my house, you decide if church is for you." Nope he never said that! Whenever I said, "Do we have to go to church again, he always said, "No we don't have to go to church. We get to go to church." So I showed him. I became a  pastor.  And what I am today is at least in part because my mom and dad were committed to a mission that went beyond our comfort. They were committed to the mission of seeing the gospel take root in and shape my life. So let me ask you that question, "What's your mission in life?"

Paul's prayer in Colossians 1 is a good mission-prayer!

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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 than the beginning, and not flaming out or burning out; only one out of three! We can do better! 

This prayer as a prayer to finish well and a reminder of what it takes!

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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. 

Let’s be honest, it’s easy to pray when we go through stuff that overflows anxiety into our hearts. Even people who don’t believe in God might pray in a situation like that. But the secret sauce to peace over anxiety is thanksgiving. This episode will help us develop our thanksgiving prayer list by looking at 4 categories of gratitude.