Author Archives: Pastor Tommy

My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. (Isaiah 55:8)

Every Christian will say they trust God, but the true test of trusting God comes when the storm winds of life begin to blow and the waves of challenge begin to crash over us. Today I have a word that I hope will provide both comfort and a challenge for you.

For one hour on Sunday morning we will readily say we are trusting in God. But from Monday through Saturday is where the rubber of our redemption meets the road of our reflection. When the sky is blue and the clouds fleecy, it is easy to reflect the character of Christ and demonstrate great trust in our God. But when the dark clouds of doubt, distress, disease, disappointment, and defeat roll in, we have a tendency to shrink back from our Savior and begin trusting in everything other than Jesus. We begin looking to the self instead of the Savior.  

Throughout my years as a pastor, I have found Isaiah 55:8, our verse for today, to be a source of both comfort and challenge, as I hope it will be for you. The text reminds us that life does not always go according to our plan. In fact, often it does not. Why? Because God’s plan is always better than our plan. He knows the end from the beginning; His ways are so much higher than our ways, and His purpose for your life and mine is not to make us comfortable but to make us Christlike. When we receive, understand, and live by this truth, we have a hope that simply cannot disappoint.

The true test of trusting God is only found in the test!

Where in your life have you been going through a test? Have you been trusting in your Savior? Or something else? Remember, whatever storm you are facing today, or will face in the future, God sent it for two reasons: your good and His glory. We may not understand all that God is doing when we are in the middle of the storm. In fact, we may never fully understand on this side of the grave. And therein lies the challenge in today’s message: to trust in Him at all times, not just during the “good” times. When we look to the cross, we can and should rest assured that our God is for us, He will never forsake us, and He is in the middle of the storm with us.

Let that truth set you free to trust Jesus, regardless of the test you are facing.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

The testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1:3)

One of the most important character traits for the people of God is the willingness to persevere under pressure, because the positive production of pressure returns blessings multiplied. Read on, and may you be greatly encouraged today!

The Bible is filled with examples of those who persevered under pressure. Joseph persevered under pressure, having been sold into slavery by his brothers, falsely and maliciously accused of attempted rape and cast into prison, only to rise out of the pit years later to the position of prime minister of Egypt. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego persevered under pressure, submitting to the flames of the fiery furnace rather than bowing before King Nebuchadnezzar’s statue made of gold. Esther persevered under pressure when she chose to approach the king uninvited, which could have resulted in the penalty of death, to save her people Israel. Stephen persevered under pressure right up to his very last breath, preaching the truths of the Gospel and speaking words of forgiveness to the religious leaders, even as those men were stoning him to death.

Of course, there is no greater example of persevering under pressure than the one provided by our Lord Jesus Christ. From his infancy, Jesus was pressured on every side. King Herod sought to kill the newborn King and decreed a death sentence on all male children in Bethlehem aged two and under. Throughout His entire ministry, Jesus was pressured and harassed by the religious leaders, who schemed to kill Him time and time again. And in His hour of greatest need in the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was sweating drops of blood as He prayed, His pressure produced perhaps the greatest word of inspired instruction in all recorded history: “Father, if you are willing take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

God’s grace is most magnified when we are navigating the waters during the storms of life. It all comes down to trusting God even when we cannot trace His hand. The positive production of pressure cannot be overstated. It is God’s ordained way of conforming us into the image and likeness of Jesus. Our lives are shaped and hammered out on the anvil of pressure. As Peter wrote —

These [all kinds of trials] have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:7)

Remember, when you squeeze a grapefruit, you get delicious grapefruit juice. So the question is, “What do those around you receive when you are squeezed by the pressures of life?” Those pressures are merely the passageway into producing a deeper intimacy with the One who died to make you His.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. (Hebrews 10:36)

I have a question for all of you who have ever been involved in running throughout your life, either for exercise or for competition: “What is the longest distance you ever ran?” Only a very few of you could answer that your longest run was 26.2 miles, the distance of a marathon. “Back in the day,” before my knees became so problematic, my favorite distance was a 10K run – 6.2 miles. Frankly, if I had been expected to run another 20 miles, I would have needed my car to finish the race! I’m sure some of you preferred the sprints — all-out speed competitions for relatively short distances of 100 yards or more.

Here is the point: the Christian life would be very easy to live if it were only a sprint and not a marathon. Then we could simply run —

• A hundred-yard dash of devotion
• A quarter-mile sprint of service
• A half-lap of loving our neighbor as ourselves

But in God’s economy, unless He brings you home immediately after your conversion (as He did with the good thief who died next to Jesus), the Christian life has been divinely designed to be a long, grueling marathon, not a short sprint. Noah spent the lion’s share of a century on his boat-building project. Moses spent forty years on the back side of the desert as God was preparing him to deliver the people of Israel out of bondage in Egypt. David waited years after God had him anointed as king before he took possession of the throne. The list of biblical examples is long, and the lives of all these saints show us that God has called us to live lives marked by endurance, which is a requirement for living a life that is pleasing to God.

One final point about this marathon we are running. It’s never a straight and comfortable course that we travel. Often it is much more like an obstacle course, marked by barriers, steep hills, seemingly unsurpassable roadblocks, and many unexpected twists and turns. Yet we are called to persevere along whatever path God sets before us with a sustained determination until we reach our final destination.

And never forget this: your marathon race is never to be run in your own strength. God has given you and will give you everything you need to do everything He has called you to do (2 Peter 1:3) . . . as long as you determine to persevere in His strength and not your own.

Christian . . . How well have you been running your race? To be sure, it’s a long and frequently difficult road, but God has promised to make sure you have two things with you every step of the way: His power and His presence. Remember that He has promised never to leave you or forsake you! That knowledge makes all the difference in making sure we will cross the finish line filled with the joy of our Lord, which is our great strength.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

Since this Sunday is Valentine’s Day, I thought it would be good to focus on love from a biblical perspective as we close out this week together. There is a chapter in the Bible that is often referred to as “The Love Chapter,” but make no mistake, from Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is a book that is all about love, and that is the most important message its Author wants us to understand. Read on and be encouraged today!  

Whether you find yourself at a wedding between Christian believers or unbelievers, you will likely hear some of the words from 1 Corinthians 13, The Love Chapter. And why not? Never has pen been put to paper with a better description of true love. You see, the challenge we face in this fallen and broken world is that lust gets confused with love. Lust is inner-directed and focused on the self. But love, from a biblical perspective, is outer-directed and focused on others. And that focus, as you know, runs counter to our natural inclinations. However, when God changes our hearts, we can begin to express true, biblical love to the world around us.

But there is something very important that we must keep in view regarding biblical love, and that is the important role it plays in our lives. First, the whole Law is summed up by one word: love (Romans 13:10). Second, love sums up the Christian’s responsibilities in this life (John 15:17). And finally, love is the crowning virtue of all other virtues, as we see in today’s passage. And why should it not be? God Himself is love (1 John 4:8), and if we are to reflect Him in this world, we are to love as He loves — loving everyone unconditionally, selflessly, and completely.

Remember, everything God did and does is an expression of His love, and that includes the great and gracious gift of salvation . . . for God so loved you (John 3:16). God loved you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3) and sent His son Jesus to die on a cross to bring you into a right relationship with Him. Now, that is a love that is not only worth dying for, but living for too!

This Valentine’s Day, take some time to share God’s love with someone, because His love is the love that will last throughout eternity. His love changes lives. We love because He first loved us.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

From him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:36)

What is this world coming to? The answer can be expressed in one word: Christ. Regardless of how the world may look to us in the here and now, Christian believers have the confident assurance that this world came from our Lord, exists for our Lord, and will return to our Lord when He returns from heaven. Please let today’s message bring you joy unspeakable!

The Bible tells us what we are to expect in a world that has turned its back on God. By nature, no one seeks after God. Take in the truth presented in the passage below, which describes the condition of humanity before God brought the great flood upon the entire earth.

The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become,

and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. (Genesis 6:5)

The world does not seem much different today than it was in the days of Noah, does it? And the Bible tells us that before Jesus returns things will get much worse, not better. Jesus Himself warned that, “Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). We know these things to be true, but we must not live in despair. Far from it! We are to live filled with the living hope that we have in Christ. The good news of the Gospel is still saving people today, when God in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, enters into human hearts.

Always remember that Jesus is on His throne and that the Gospel will continue to triumph over hard human hearts throughout this fallen and broken world. And when that day comes — when Jesus steps down from His throne for a second time and returns to this earth — He will put every enemy under His feet, and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

What is this world coming to? It is coming to Christ, and the question each one of us must ask ourselves and answer is this: Am I playing our role in this profound process? Are we busily engaged in expanding the cause of His kingdom in this world, rather than striving for our own cause? There is no greater joy we can experience than to be involved in expanding the kingdom of Christ, because this is the one thing that will return eternal value and live on forevermore. And so let us receive and act on the words of Paul: “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them” (Romans 12:6).

This world is coming to Christ; who are working to bring along with you?

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)

Our lives are marked by yield signs – whether we are yielding right of way in traffic, to yielding right of way to ourselves, to yielding right of way to our Savior. Today I’d like to encourage you with a word about “Yield Sign Saints.” When we yield to Jesus Christ, we grow and mature in our faith; when we yield to ourselves, we stunt our growth. And know this: We are the ones responsible for which yield signs we follow and obey.

To yield is to give up (or surrender) our right of way to another, and how well we yield will determine the consequences that will follow, whether we are out in traffic or inside the truth of God’s Word. In essence, yielding to our Savior means we are surrendering to His will in our lives rather than following our own will. We know that God is all-knowing, and we also know that He has promised to work all things — even the bad and painful things — for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28).We can and should rest in this truth and fully trust that His plan and purpose for our lives is far better than any we could ever conceive.

There is no better example of yielding to the will of God than the one we find exhibited throughout the earthly ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said plainly that “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38), and that is exactly what He did. He lived a life fully surrendered life to God’s will, and God blessed everything He did.

You probably recognized that our verse for today comes from our Lord’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. Having known from all eternity the horrific extent of the crucifixion experience that was now only hours away — so great was His anguish that Jesus was sweating drops of blood as He prayed — He still yielded completely to the will of His Father in heaven. His prayer is a wonderful example of how Jesus in His humanity was completely committed to living in alignment with the will of God, regardless of the cost or circumstance. And in yielding His will to the Father, Jesus provided the perfect prescription for how we are to think, pray, and live as yield-sign saints: “Not my will, but yours be done!”

May this be the confession of our lives in all things. Because we know that God is for us and working all things together for our ultimate eternal good, our prayers, no matter what we are currently facing, should echo that of Jesus in the garden. Is there any area in your life where you are saying, “No” to God right now? To be a yield-sign saint, we must be willing to say “Yes!” to Him, no matter what He sends our way, because “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Corinthians 3:17). True freedom in this life is only found through fully and cheerfully yielding to our Savior.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

We all feel weak from time to time; when we do, we must hold tightly to the promise we have in Christ. Read on and be encouraged today, especially if this message finds you in a season of weariness and weakness.

As Christians, we know about the strength of Almighty God. He is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He spoke everything into existence, and if He were to withdraw His hand at any moment in time, everything would cease to exist.

Do you know when God’s strength is demonstrated most vividly and effectively in our personal lives? It is when His strength intersects with our weakness. Our human frailty has been a fact of life from the moment sin entered into our humanity in the Garden of Eden. Because of Adam and Eve’s dreadful act of cosmic treason, we all received the wages of sin, which is death. We are all dying at the rate of sixty minutes an hour.

Sometimes our weakness presents itself in our distress and difficulties; at other times it appears in our struggles and storms. But regardless of the challenges we may be facing, we possess the source of supernatural strength to rest in and rely on, because when we are weak, He is strong to work in our lives (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Here is a very important point for you and I to remember: The promise of His strength in our weakness does not mean that God will remove the source of our struggle. Jesus assured us that we will experience trials, troubles, and tribulations in this world. We read in the Scriptures that our Lord was “a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3). But in the midst of our struggles, we must remember that He also assured us that He has overcome this world, and so we have a greater power at work within us than any power that can come up against us. Jesus does not remove the storms from our lives, but He strengthens us in the middle of them. That way, when we emerge on the other side of the storm, we are more conformed to His image than we were before.

Are you being buffeted by storm winds today? How would you describe the witness of your weakness? Please understand that there is nothing wrong or unbiblical about asking God to remove the storm. Paul prayed three times that God would remove his “thorn” (2 Corinthians 12:7-8). But when God does not remove our own thorn, whatever it may be, we must understand and accept that the storm has been delivered to help us decrease and for Jesus to increase in our lives. This is the process of sanctification; God is bringing us to the end of ourselves as we make our way through this life and making us more and more like Jesus.

Let your heart be filled with hope, because you can rest in God’s promise that “My grace is sufficient for you” — regardless of the storms you are facing!

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

“Forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)

There is nothing more damaging to the soul than a heart that is unwilling to forgive. Unforgiveness is the undoing of the Christian life, leaving behind a shell of the person God has called that individual to be.

Here is a wonderful story about the undoing of unforgiveness; I cannot confirm that these events actually happened, but, true story or not, the principle expressed is true for all people in all ages and in all places.

Leonardo da Vinci painted his famous “The Last Supper” fresco in a church in Milan. At the time that he was working on the painting, Leonardo was angry because of a bitter argument he had had with another painter. Da Vinci despised this man, and when he painted Judas Iscariot sitting at the table with Jesus, he used the face of the man he had argued with so that everyone who saw the painting would see the face of his enemy representing the man who betrayed Jesus. Da Vinci is said to have taken great pleasure in knowing that others would actually see the face of his enemy in the place of Judas.

As he worked on the faces of the other disciples, Da Vinci often tried to paint the face of Jesus, but he couldn’t make any progress. Da Vinci grew increasingly frustrated and confused. Over time, he realized his own fault. His hatred for the other painter was holding him back from finishing the face of Jesus, who had told us to love our enemies . . . just has He had loved us when we were still His enemies (Romans 5:10). It was only after he had made peace with his enemy and repainted the face of Judas that Leonardo was able to paint the face of Jesus and complete his masterpiece.

Having counseled with countless people as a pastor over the years, I am convinced that the main reason we have a difficult time accepting God’s forgiveness is because of the undoing of unforgiveness that lives in our own hearts. I must admit that I am speaking from my own experience in this matter. In our sinful nature, we have a tendency to remake God in our own image; we imagine a God who holds grudges and withholds forgiveness. But, like Da Vinci, when we let go of our past pain, resentment, and anger and offer forgiveness to others just like the grace we ourselves have received, we free ourselves to see the face of our Lord Jesus more clearly, and His face reflects the twin truths that we are unconditionally loved and completely forgiven.

How are you doing in the area of forgiveness? Is there anyone in your life right now that you need to forgive? It has been well said that “Unforgiveness does more damage to the vessel in which it is stored than to the object upon which it is poured.” Remember, offering forgiveness is not condoning wrongdoing, and forgiveness is not equal to trust. Wrong behavior is wrong behavior, but you and I have been called to “Forgive as the Lord forgave you” (Colossians 3:13).

God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

May we be the fragrance and the aroma of Christ — and may that sweet fragrance permeate out own hearts — as we release any lingering bitterness and unleash the forgiveness that God lavished on us.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites our of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)

Moses had spent forty years tending sheep on the back side of the desert; now God was ready to use him to deliver the people of Israel from their bondage in Egypt. Moses started well. When God called to him from the burning bush, Moses responded willingly, “Here I am” (Exodus 3:4). But as soon as God revealed His plan to use Moses as the divine deliverer of His people, Moses began to exchange God’s use for his excuse. Let’s take a closer look, and I promise you will be as comforted today as you are challenged to answer whatever call God has placed on your life.

When Moses asked, “Who am I . . . ?” he was acknowledging the truth that he was not qualified to carry out God’s call to do anything, at least from his perspective. Forty years earlier, he had killed an Egyptian slave master who was beating a Hebrew slave. When it becamse known that Moses was a murderer, he fled Egypt and spent the next forty years as a shepherd in Midian. We can only imagine that in the intensity and intimacy of his encounter with God in the burning bush — God the Lord, who instructed Moses to take off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground — that Moses remembered just how sinful he truly was. He had lost his temper and committed murder, supposing that the people of Israel would recognize him as the great deliverer of their nation (Acts 7:25).

But here is the comfort for you and me . . . and also the challenge. To be sure, God knew who Moses was. God knew that Moses had tried, in his own strength, to free his countrymen from slavery in Egypt. Moses had gone about things in the wrong way: he had trusted in his own strength rather than the strength of the Almighty. And Moses was under no illusions about how sinful he was; he had committed murder, killing one who was made in the image of God, the most heinous act imaginable. Yet here was God, calling Moses the murderer into His service to deliver His people out of their bondage in Egypt!

This is one of the greatest comforts we find throughout sacred Scripture: God sees past our past, all the way to our current potential as an instrument of usefulness in His mighty right hand. This was true for Moses, and the same is true for me and you.

Have you ever wondered why God chooses to use such messed up people in His service? It’s because we are all He has to work with! We are all messed up. We are all sinners with a past that would embarass us terribly if those closest to us knew what God knows about us. And yet, in His magnificent mercy, God raises us out of the pit of our sinful past and into His promised plan and purpose for our lives. And that is why God refused to accept Moses’ excuse that he was not good enough to answer God’s call. Moses was absolutely right to believe that he was not good enough in his own strength, but in the strength of the Almighty he was more than good enough; he was God’s ordained instrument of usefulness.

By the way, if you continue reading in Exodus, you’ll see that Moses made a few more excuses, and God simply moved Moses from excuse to use, and that is exactly what God wants to do in each of our lives.

Does that knowledge comfort you? Here is the challenge: Have you answered God’s call in your life? Remember, God knows everything about your past, and he still wants to use you in the present for His glory and your ultimate good. So when you sense His call, don’t object “Who am I?” Say “Here am I!”

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!

With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise. (2 Peter 3:8-9)

When was the last time you were convinced that God had slammed the door on some dream or desire in life? When were you tempted to give up on yourself and simply throw in the towel? Because our view is limited, we have a tendency give in to discouragement time and time again, only to realize that God is not finished writing our story. You see, God is in the business of inserting a cosmic comma where we expect Him to apply a personal period.

Here are just a few biblical examples that make this truth gloriously clear:

Abraham and Sarah placed a period on their ability to give birth to the promised child because of their age, but God inserted His cosmic comma, and Isaac was born to them when Abraham was 100 and Sarah 90 years old.

Moses killed the Egyptian slave master who was beating a Hebrew and then had to run for his life to escape the wrath of Pharaoh. Living on the back side of the desert, Moses put a period on his usefulness to God, but God inserted His cosmic comma and sent Moses back into Egypt to deliver His people out of slavery.

Martha and Mary sent for Jesus because their brother Lazarus was ill, but Jesus arrived four days after Lazarus had died – period. But Jesus was not finished writing their story; He inserted His cosmic comma and brought Lazarus back to life.  

Peter denied knowing Jesus three times and believed his days as a disciple were over – period. But Jesus showed up on the beach after His resurrection and used His cosmic comma to restore Peter to ministry.

When we are writing our own story, it only makes sense to put periods when doors close, opportunities vanish, and loss comes into our lives. When we are living out our plan in our strength, we believe that periods are appropriate punctuations to our story. We find ourselves in a relationship that is coming apart at the seams – period. A career we have pursued for years is suddenly terminated — period. We face a crisis in our health when the doctor tells us the tumor is malignant – period.

But when we are living God’s plan and purpose for our lives, He is writing our story, and He inserts one cosmic comma after another in His time and in His way. When one door closes, Jesus opens another. When one pathway is blocked, He makes another way. If you are feeling defeated and hopelessness has hemmed you in on all sides, remember this: What is impossible from a human standpoint is not impossible for God. And that is why we need to make sure we leave the pen that is writing our life story in the hands of Jesus, because He always writes a better story!

Even at the moment of our death, Jesus replaces our period with His cosmic comma. No one expressed this better than C. S. Lewis in The Last Battle:

All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and title page: now at last they were beginning chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

When we close our eyes for the final time in this world, we will immediately open our eyes in the next. As Paul wrote, when we are absent from the body, we will be present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). When Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!” He was announching that He had finished His work of inserting history’s greatest cosmic comma, a comma which means that all who have trusted in Him can be absolutely sure that all of this life is only a brief prelude to an eternal existence that will be spent living in the light of the One who wrote the greatest story ever told.

This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!