More Than Bread

Send me a Text Message!

Acts 2:42-47 is the original destination for the church. Don't get me wrong, the Acts 2 church was just as full of imperfect people as we are today.  The Acts 2 church would make mistakes just like we do today. But there was a freshness of Spirit and when that Spirit is let loose in the church, I believe the church is the hope of the world. 

I don't mean a building or a Sunday morning gathering. I mean followers of Jesus let  loose in the world; loving God, loving each other, and loving their neighbors like they love themselves. Because listen, as another pastor once said, "There is nothing like the local church when it is working right.  Its beauty is indescribable. Its power is  breathtaking.  Its potential is unlimited."

If we aren't that kind of church...we have to ask...why not?

Send me a Text Message!

What if it's true that God offers us His presence in the same the same way, he offered it at Pentecost? What if a group of people could be so filled with the Spirit that the world was changed...turned upside down? What if what happened in Acts 2, could happen today? Would we want it?

That day in the upper room as the Spirit came, tongues of fire sat upon each head. Fire is a dominant metaphor when talking about the work of the Holy Spirit.  The followers of Jesus saw 120 flames of fire, one on each person. The Spirit gave them a fire of passion for God, for each other, and a passion to share Jesus with others. An encounter with the Holy Spirit will cause our hearts to burn.

Lord would you do it again?!!

Send me a Text Message!

We can be filled with many different things...good and bad. What are you filled with today?  It's an uncommon call to be filled with the Spirit of God. We're not exactly sure what it means, but we do know what it's like to be filled with something. If someone says that they are filled with grief, or filled with fear, despair, anger, ambition or joy...of filled with love, we understand. We know that what fills us dominates our thoughts, dictates our actions and perhaps even describes who we are. What fills us, shapes our hearts. So let me ask a "what if."

What if it's true that God offers us His presence in the same the same way that He offered it at Pentecost? What if a group of people could be so filled with the Spirit that the world was turned upside down? What if what happened at Pentecost, could happen today? Would you want it?

Send me a Text Message!

Imagine you had a chance to be there in the upper room on Pentecost when the Spirit of God came...but you missed it.  Imagine you missed it. You weren't there. You didn't join the group. Got distracted. Got scared. Other things were more important. You missed it. What did they have to do in order to receive the promise? Just wait. Be there. 120 men and women waited. They prayed. They didn't have to earn it. They just had to be there, they just had to join in. I know there are times when we are called to wrestle in prayer,  to travail and battle in prayer, but what if sometimes we just need to be there. 

I read the book of Acts and I envision extraordinary events.  Things that make me go, wow! And then I look around me and I see spaces filled with ordinary people.  I look within me and so often I feel like I'm even less than ordinary. There's extra-ordinary and there's ordinary and then there's Dan. 120 people were in that room that day; each and every one of them...ordinary. But what God can do through ordinary people submitted to the Spirit of God...now that's extraordinary!

Don't miss it!  

Send me a Text Message!

When God asks us to wait, it's always a word of hope. When God says, WAIT, He's  promising you that there will be a tomorrow.  Wait is a word of hope. God's Wait is  always tied to a promise, which simply means there is still more to come.

Some of you have been waiting on promises you believe God gave you years ago, maybe decades ago. God put something in your heart and then you waited. And as you waited, and waited, you began to wonder why, you even began to doubt the outcome. But God's waiting room is not like a hospital waiting room. When God asks us to wait, the outcome is never in doubt. It's simply the timing that's unknown.

 So let's keep asking Him for more, even when He tells us to wait!

Send me a Text Message!

"The Holy Spirit will come upon you," Jesus said.  "And you will be baptized, immersed in the Holy Spirit.  You will receive power and you will be my witnesses everywhere you go." I love my church. I see God at work here. But if there's anything that I know we need more of, it is the power of God.  So if we want to turn the world upside down, we have to change the preposition.  Change the preposition and you will change the world.  

What do you mean by that Dan? I mean that in the case of the disciples before Jesus death and resurrection, they were doing life "with Christ."  They were expanding the Kingdom "with God."  And when you read the gospels we see what amazing stuff, a group of people can do "with God, with Christ."  But Jesus said, just wait...there's more, there's more than "with God." Wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, wait to be immersed in the Holy Spirit. Why? Because you cannot even imagine what it's like when you stop doing life with God, and start doing life in Christ.

The promise worth waiting for is that we can change the preposition from "with" to "in" and find the power to turn the world upside down.

Send me a Text Message!

Before I recorded this episode, I was listening to a playlist that I put together and the title of the playlist is simply "Jesus." The song that was playing before I recorded is a song by Terrian entitled, "Honestly We Just Need Jesus." I would add it to the episode if I was better at editing. But instead, click the song and listen to it. It will set up this episode better than the words I had planned to write.

Honestly, I think we just need Jesus.

Send me a Text Message!

We want to live in an upside down world because what we have come to experience as right-side-up is all wrong. So let's start with that moment when we were first called, "those who turned the world upside down." It happened a few years after the resurrection, and it's recorded in Acts 17:1-6. That's why every time I read the book of Acts, I'm praying, "Lord would you do it again?"

But here's the reality, we can't turn the world upside-down, if we are desperately striving to keep our feet on the ground.  And many of us are; we're trying to keep our feet on the ground, because being turned upside down feels so out of control. It sounds so uncomfortable and not very safe. It sounds like a carnival ride without seat-belts that has no red-stop button.

But what if, that’s what it takes to turn the world upside down? 

Send me a Text Message!

This is an utterly simple reality. Jesus does not have my heart if  He does not get my time. I am not an apprentice of Jesus loving like Jesus, and sent like Jesus if I do not long to be with Jesus. And it’s a journey, not a curriculum; it’s a journey. 

This journey you are on, of apprenticing Jesus, is a life-long journey. It’s not a two-day retreat, or a semester long curriculum or even a one-year course, it’s a life-long journey that involves like Paul said, finishing well. I want my life to count. That's why we do what we do, we want our lives to count. It's not enough to count our lives. We want our lives to count. And it all begins be being with Jesus!

Send me a Text Message!

The ascension tells us who Jesus is today and where Jesus is today.  The ascension tells us what Jesus is doing today.  Who is he? He is the Lord of heaven & earth; ruler of all the nations, King of the Universe, and the Head of the Church.  Where is he?  Jesus is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, a position of authority and power.  What is he doing?  Besides ruling, Paul in Romans and the author of Hebrews both say that that Jesus is interceding for us. He is praying, speaking to the Father on our behalf.  

Jesus -- ascended -- holds the answer to all our prayers and the fulfillment of all God's promises. Jesus.  King.  Christ.  Messiah.  All power and authority has been given to him.  He has the name that is above all other names.  Right now at this very moment, Jesus is King over all the earth's presidents, prime ministers, kings, military leaders and tribal chiefs.  And in his time, through his means, by his strategies, he is leading the events of my life, AND the events of the world toward his glorious purposes.

And so we prayer, "Father of Heaven, through Jesus would you make it down here, like it is up there!"