Pastor Tom's Journal

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...