Pastor Tom's Journal

  Photo by Tijs van Leur on  Unsplash There is a way through the desert. There is an oasis. In fact, you are an oasis for others. You are chosen to declare God’s praise. God makes a way for you through any crisis. It will be a way that you have not imagined. Hear this sermon based on Isaiah 43:16–21.

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

Turn Around; You Are Going the Wrong Way Jesus could tell by the questions and the attitude behind them that the crowd was going the wrongs way, thinking the wrong way, and heading on a path toward destruction. Are you familiar with Newton’s third law?  It simply states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Paul called it reaping what you so. Jesus called it the fruit of the tree or vine. In my part of the world, if you are the 99-freeway pointing north from Fresno, if you keep going, you will get to Sacramento eventually, If I want to go to Los Angeles, I have to turn around. The gospel writers called the message of repentance, "good news," not so much because we must, but also because WE CAN. What then is the core of the message when the contrast is so profound between repentance and death? Luke 13:1-9 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition   At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate ha...

It is World Poetry Day. It is also Bach Day. Born this day in 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach, German Baroque composer and musician (d. 1750). Poetry and Bach on the same day! What a treat! Here is an hour and a half. Of Bach. Listen while you read wonderful poetry. According to the UNESCO web site: World Poetry Day celebrates one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity. In difficult times, do not forsake the beauty and picturesque power of words to move, soothe, and comfort the soul and to stir our resolve to think and to do. World Poetry Day is celebrated on 21 March, and was declared by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999, “with the aim of supporting linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard” Ars Poetica by Archibald MacLeish — 1892–1981 A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit, Dumb As old medallions to...

I have lost track of my tossings.   I have tossed; I have turned; I have shuffled the pages of my life; I have scuffled with the sages of my mind.   But, in all my hurry, worry, and flurry, God has kept track of my fleeting, bleating, self-defeating thoughts and often baseless concerns.   It  is a lot of tossing to keep up with sometimes, but not a moment is lost.   " You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?" -Psalm 56:8 ESV

I Must Walk At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ -Luke 13:31–33 When the colluded powers sent their collaborating messengers to warn Jesus he was in trouble and that he was likely to be killed, his response was four-fold: I am doing works of mercy and deliverance. I will continue to do them until I am done. I will not be stopped. I will not be intimidated. I won’t die here, but I will keep moving toward the place of my death. But there is a third day coming and no matter what anyone does or thinks they can do to me, I will move past it toward that day … and then, and only then, my work will be complete. The way of the cross is th...