Pastor Tom's Journal

There Is No Cause for Delay. What Do You Have? Start Using It. As faith is exercised, so does our capacity to bring about positive change in  our lives and in the world. The stories of Elisha and the widow in 2 Kings 4:1-7 and of Jesus feeding the multitudes in Luke 9:10-17 both amplify this truth. Faith involves taking what you have, giving it to God, and putting it to use with the confidence that it is enough to get started. In the process, not only does your faith grow, but also your capacity to do good with it. There is a question followed by a directive. The question is, "What do you already have." The directive is, "Start using it." ----------------------------------- 2 Kings 4:1-7 Now the wife of a member of the company of prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but a creditor has come to take my two children as slaves.” Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have ...

We think about the parables in Luke 15 as being about lostness. But the real emphasis is on being FOUND. What joy. Listen: Read: Luke 15:1–3, 11b-32 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Pause in the reading, for here is the context. It is the grumbling of the grumblers over the company Jesus was keeping. So he told them this parable: Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that re...

Cracked Pots Psalm 31:12 God uses them to let the light in and out. "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." - II Corinthians 4:7 Listen to Leonard Cohen sing it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8-BT6y_wYg