Pastor Tom's Community

“…and then thou shalt have good success.” (Joshua 1:8)

Contrary to what we have heard, practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. If we practice foolishness, we will cement it into our behavior patterns. If our thinking is stubbornly calcitrant, it will grow brittle and crack.

    I like to share this every five or six years with the question:   On what are you working?   Does it sound frivolous?   I don't think so.   What have you been working on?   What have you been working for?   How is the legacy coming?   How about the…

  Public Domain: An image of Psalm 23 (King James' Version), frontispiece to the 1880 omnibus printing of The Sunday at Home.  (More Information Below)   “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.”- Psalm 23:1  Let us take a fresh look at the most familiar words in the Bible. Yahweh, the God of Israel,…

  One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. – Psalm 27:4 The Greeks had a curious concept of beauty. It…

In a moment of profound confusion, possible terror, and overwhelming spiritual awe, for John, Jesus places His hand on him with reassuring intensity.

Moved by humiliation and anger, Herod’s insult was matched only by his wicked lust for power.

  The Spirit Factor And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him. – Luke 2:25 Simeon was in the right place, in the right frame of mind, living a righteous…

Thanks to Christopher Burns on Unsplash – https://unsplash.com/@christopher__burns "…in all their distress. It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old." – Isaiah 63:9 (NRSV) This is the personal involvement…

        In addition to being the second day of Christmas out of twelve as we lead up to Epiphany, it is also The Feast of James the Just in the Eastern Orthodox Church, The Feast of Stephen in the Western Church, and the first day of Kwanzaa, celebrated until January 1  in…