Make the Cause of Christ Your Highest Cause

“I wish everyone would become like me.”

It’s horribly wrong to wish that, or it’s beautifully right. It depends on what you’re hoping for.

Paul expressed this wish in Acts 26:29. As he expressed his confidence in the resurrection of Jesus, he turned to King Agrippa and said, “You believe the prophets’ promise. I know you do.”

Put on the spot, Agrippa scoffed, “Oh, in so short a time you’re persuading me to be a Christian, I see!”

“I wish to God,” Paul replied, “that you and everyone listening to me would become as I am.”

Some of us want others to become as we are, but not in the way that Paul was wishing. What we mean is, “I wish to God that everyone would adopt my political convictions.” Or, “I wish to God that everyone had my taste in music.” Or, “I wish to God that everyone communicated with others in the style I prefer.”

We’re in a season where tribalism is a big problem. You’ve fallen into tribalism when your primary identity is found in a group, a race, or a cause. It has a tremendous pull on us. All human beings long to be part of something bigger than themselves. And there’s nothing wrong with taking pride in your group’s accomplishments and sacrificing yourself for a cause. But when our whole worth and identity is found in that, we’ve fallen into tribalism.

To protect ourselves from tribalism, we need to reengage with this holy habit: Make the cause of Christ your highest cause. That’s what Paul did. Even though he was proud of his Jewish ethnicity and his good standing in the Pharisee party, nothing was more important to him than Jesus (Philippians 3:4-7).

If we have met Jesus, we will say it with Paul: “I wish everyone would become like me.” We want everyone to know him as we do!

We’ll talk more about this on Sunday as I continue my series called “Reengage.” It’s your chance to reengage with some holy habits that bring life! Join me at 10am on campus or online.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Good...Better...Best

The Longhorns win over USC in early 2006 remains the highest-rated college national football championship game of all time, viewed by twenty-two percent of the television audience. The only two unbeaten teams of the season faced off in a back-and-forth contest. In fact, the Longhorns victory was not secured until the game’s final nineteen seconds. On a fourth-down play, Vince Young ran for a nine-yard touchdown, ending the game with a 41-38 win.

Now, there are three ways you can say you experienced that game. Let’s label them the Good, the Better, and the Best.

The Good: You can tell people you didn’t see it live but you watched a video archive of the game later.

The Better: You can tell people that you watched it live on TV along with millions of others.

The Best: Anybody who was in the Rose Bowl that evening would certainly say that there was simply no replacement for actually being in the stands when Vince Young crossed that goal line in the last seconds of the game.

When it comes to worshipping with your church family, there’s the Good, the Better, and the Best. 

The Good: You can watch the archive of our service at any time. 

The Better: You can watch the livestream with several hundred of your church family as it happens.  

The Best: You can be in the building as worship takes place.

So, if your work schedule keeps you from coming, watch our service later in the archive. If your health keeps you from coming, watch the livestream as it happens. But the best choice is to gather with the Lord’s people on the Lord’s Day. The online option is for those who need to stay healthy, not for those who just want to stay home.

This Sunday we’ll honor Gene Chappell, who retires after more than 43 years of service to our church. I’ll also continue my series called “Reengage,” challenging you return to some fundamental habits that bring life. Join us at 10am on campus or online.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Time to Reengage

After years away from home, Sebastião Salgado returned to his family’s Brazilian property with his wife Lélia. He was devastated over what he saw. The 1,750-acre property had become what Salgado described as “a bare crust.” His father and the surrounding landowners had cleared the trees off their lands. They wanted grassland to raise cattle for the global demand for beef. What they ended up with was a lifeless desert. All across the Rio Doce Valley, the forest shrunk to less than four percent of its original size.

Salgado said it was a mirror of what his own soul had become. The man had won great fame as a photojournalist covering the genocides in Rwanda and the Balkans, but the horrors he documented sent him into a deep depression. “I had never imagined that man could be part of a species capable of such cruelty to its own members,” he wrote, “and I couldn’t accept it.”

His wife proposed that he take a break from photojournalism. Instead, they would focus on restoring at least the portion of the vast forest that once grew on their own property.

It took twenty years, but a forest was restored to that dead land. And hope was restored to Salgado’s soul in the process. “All the insects and birds and fish returned,” he said, “and, thanks to this increase of the trees I, too, was reborn.”

It’s a parable of what God can do in you. A wrong direction can be reversed. A marriage can be revived. A soul can be resuscitated. Whatever’s turned into a lifeless desert can flourish again! God promises, “I will plant trees in the barren desert…so all who see this miracle will understand…that it is the Lord who has done this” (Isaiah 41:19-20, NLT). 

This Sunday I begin a series called “Reengage.” It’s your chance to reengage with some fundamental commitments that bring life! Join me at 10am on campus or online.

--Tom

(The information, quotes, and photographs for this devotional come from this Smithsonian magazine article, this Guardian article, and this YouTube video.)

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

How to Plan in Uncertain Times

After sixteen months under pandemic restrictions, Sean Novicki no longer makes long-term plans for his future. The 31-year-old audiovisual technician knows this global crisis will eventually end, but he told the Atlantic, “At some point another catastrophe beyond my ability to predict or control is going to occur and upend all my plans. So, why bother long-term planning when this is how the world works?”

I imagine Sean would agree with James 4:13-14: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

But that’s not all that James has to say about planning. He goes on to add, “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’” (James 4:15).

Ancient Christian writers often added the letters “DV” to any plans they wrote down. That’s an abbreviation for the Latin phrase, Deo Volente. It means, “God willing.”

When we come to terms with our ignorance and impotence about the future, we’ll make better plans. There are five things that characterize wise planning:

Caution: The wise know what they don’t know about the future, and that leads them to plan for the unexpected.

Convictions: It’s good to have a dream and work toward it, but it’s more important to operate from core convictions. Do that and you’ll always be able to adjust to unexpected circumstances.

Connections: Let’s learn from others how they’re navigating uncertain times.

Constancy: The three things we feel the most during uncertain times is helplessness, self-preservation, and panic. So, ask God to give you a spirit of “power, love, and sound judgment” (2 Timothy 1:7).

Confidence: In humility we admit we don’t know what the future holds, but in confidence we trust the one who holds the future.

Let’s go into more detail about wise planning this Sunday! Join me at 10am on campus or online.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

How to Make Decisions in Uncertain Times

A clerk in a large bookstore started laughing while checking out a customer’s two selections. She apologized in case she had caused offense, but she couldn’t help giggling. The first title the clerk rang up was Conversations with God. The second? How to Argue and Win Every Time.

Let’s face it. Sometimes when we ask for God’s help in a decision, we just want echoes instead of guidance. We want God to simply agree to what we’ve already planned. We should say, “Speak Lord; your servant is listening” (1 Samuel 3) but instead we say, “Listen, Lord; your servant is speaking.”

After 16 months of pandemic restrictions, many of us have developed a crippling uncertainty about what to do next. How can we have any confidence over the decisions we make and the plans we put in place?

According to Ephesians 5:17, knowledge of God's will is available, and searching for it can keep you from making some really dumb mistakes. Paul wrote, “Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is. 

How can you discover God’s will? The late John Stott taught five ways to discover God’s will: Yield, Pray, Ask, Think, and Wait.

Yield to God’s will. Until we are willing to do anything he wants, we cannot hear the will of God above the noise of our own plans.

Pray for God’s guidance. A vague surrender is not enough; sustained, expectant prayer is also necessary.

Ask for advice. Get feedback from people you trust.

Think it through. Although it’s good to ask others for advice, you’ll have to make up your own mind. And, praise God, he has given you a marvelous mind to make up!

Wait for an answer. If we have to make a decision by a certain deadline, we must make it. But if not, and the way forward still seems uncertain, it is wiser to wait.

Let’s go into more detail on these five steps this Sunday! Join me at 10am on campus or online.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

A Good Retreat for a Good Advance

Sometimes the only way to advance is to retreat.

This seems contradictory, but we see it often in sports, in military campaigns, and in the biographies of business leaders. Sometimes people need to disengage from a struggle so they can regroup, resupply, and reinvigorate before advancing to victory.

At the halfway point in the Gospel of John, Jesus did this, too. In John 10:40 we read, “Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptizing in the early days.”

He went back to the place where it all started for him.

A few years ago, I had a chance to return to Montgomery, Alabama, the city of my birth. I was attending a conference there, and so I decided to take some time to visit the old haunts of my childhood. I stopped by the house where I was raised, and my elementary school, and the field where I learned to play football. Then I went to my childhood church and got permission to enter the empty auditorium. I went upstairs to the balcony and sat on the pew where eight-year-old me responded to the gospel call. I’m not a sentimental man, but it was a powerful moment to return to that place where my walk with Jesus began.

Halfway through the Gospel of John, we see Jesus doing something like that. He went back to where it all began. The place of his baptism. The place where the Spirit descended on him as a dove to empower him. The place where his Father said, “You are my Son in whom I am well pleased.” The place where John the Baptist said of him, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”

Four months later he would carry a cross to Golgotha. His retreat to where it all began prepared him to finish his mission.

If the Son of God needed to retreat so he could advance, you’ll need it sometimes, too. Let’s explore this story from Jesus’s life at 10am this Sunday on campus or online.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Someone to Watch Over Me

“Do the chickens have large talons?”

Ask a devoted Napoleon Dynamite fan what that means, and they’ll quote you the entire scene where poor Napoleon gets introduced to work on a chicken farm.

Chickens don’t have large talons. Neither do sheep. It’s good to keep that in mind when you find out that Jesus called us sheep.

Sheep have little defense against predators. They don’t have fangs, spines, or quills. They can’t outrun a predator. They can’t even look threatening to an enemy. As Tim Challies puts it:

A dog will bark and growl and show his teeth to warn you away. A lion will roar. A rattlesnake will shake his rattle. A cat will arch his back and hiss. The best a sheep can do is baaa….It is for good reason that no one relies on a guard sheep to keep their property secure. Sheep can’t fight, they can’t run away, and they can’t scare away…Put a sheep in the wild and you’ve just given nature a snack.

When Jesus called us sheep in need of a shepherd, he wasn’t cooing over how warm and soft and cuddly we are. He was saying, “Come to me and stick with me because otherwise you’re just a snack for the enemy.”

Jesus called himself our Good Shepherd in John 10. We must respond with humility and joy.

First, the image says something about us which we must humbly accept. On our own, we’re defenseless and directionless. We may have an alarm system for our homes, and train in martial arts, and keep a pistol in our nightstand. But against the real enemies of our soul, we’re helpless.

Second, the image says something about Jesus which we must joyfully accept. He is powerful enough and interested enough to guard our soul against any and all threats.

Have you accepted these two things? Read John 10 where Jesus claimed to be the shepherd you need, and then study it with me at 10am this Sunday on campus or online at Hillcrest Church!

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Good Shepherd’s Good Shepherds

Mark Kelly lives in Japan where he teaches English during the week.

On the weekends he’s a fake priest.

 According to a BBC report, many Japanese young people want their weddings to look like scenes from American and European films. So even though about one percent of the Japanese population is Christian, about ninety percent of weddings now use Western Christian traditions. To complete the picture the wedding venues use white Anglos that look like the priests in the movies. Hundreds of expatriates in Japan now officiate ceremonies as fake priests.

Kelly isn’t a Christian but he doesn’t mind playing the part since the bride and groom want the image and not the religious aspects anyway. “I give a good performance,” he told a reporter. “I use an Apache wedding prayer in my ceremony. It works very well, although I had to take out the part about the bear god in the sky. If people are touched and brought to tears by the end of the wedding, I’ve done a good job.”

One Japanese woman expressed surprise when the reporter asked her opinion about the use of fake priests. She said, “I thought the priests were all real and I think everyone in Japan thinks that.” And a real Japanese Christian priest who was interviewed said that’s the problem. He said, “They are not genuine and they give us a bad name.”

In John 10, Jesus warned his people to watch out for church leaders who are not genuine and who give Christianity a bad name. Jesus said, “I am the gate for the sheep. Any leader who does not come to the sheep through me is up to no good.”

It’s a passage about the Good Shepherd’s good shepherds. It’s about pastoral leadership. It’s about the need for shepherds, the task of shepherds, and the most important qualification for shepherds.

We’ll study the first ten verses of John 10 this Sunday. Read the passage now, and then join us at 10am on campus or online!

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

I Saw the Light

Hank Williams was in no shape to drive after performing in Fort Deposit, Alabama. So, his long-suffering mother drove him and his band home to Montgomery.

It was January 1947. As she was approaching the city, she spotted the beacon light of Dannelly Field Airport and said, “Boys, we’re almost home. I just saw the light.”

In the back seat, Hank was drunk as he often was—and regretful over his life choices as he often was. He sensed some kind of religious significance in his mother’s comment, and the lyrics of a song began to form.

I wandered so aimless life filled with sin

I wouldn’t let my dear savior in

Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night

Praise the Lord I saw the light.

I thought of that song while reading the story in John 9 of Jesus giving sight to a blind man. I wonder if Williams didn’t have this very story in mind as he sang—

Just like a blind man I wandered along

Worries and fears I claimed for my own

Then like the blind man that God gave back his sight

Praise the Lord I saw the light.

The song eventually became one of Hank Williams’ biggest hits and it’s now among the top standards for country and gospel music.

If you know anything about his life you know he didn’t live up to the aspiration of that song very often at all. But it remained his aspiration to the end of his life. His biographer called the song “the prayer of the backslider, who lives in hope of redemption.”

My invitation is to make that your hope, too.

We’ll study John 9 this Sunday. From this chapter we can learn to expect three things to increase as we follow Jesus: our understanding of him, our rejection because of him, and our encouragement from him. Read the passage now, and then join us at 10am on campus or online!

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Divine Ophthalmology

Fast Company magazine reported on a New Zealand doctor’s remarkable medical breakthroughs. Ray Avery said he started working on them after discovering how many years he likely had left. Out of curiosity, he devised a complex algorithm to find he had 4,795 days left. A little over 13 years.

He had made bank in the pharmaceutical industry, but he decided to put his remaining time into creating medical devices to help the world’s neediest babies. So, in his garage he created the Life Pod, an incubator for babies in poor communities that costs $2,000 instead of the average $40,000. He’s now working on a way to take the leftover chicken bits that fast-food restaurants don’t use to make a highly nutritional supplement that could save millions of babies in the developing world.

What are you doing with the limited time you have on this earth?

In John 9:4, Jesus said, “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work.”

“Night cometh.” That used to be a common phrase in our culture.

As I watched the Tom Hanks WW2 drama, Greyhound, the Lieutenant Commander used that line to report the radar was out. “Night cometh when no man can work,” he told the Commander. I imagine when most viewers heard the antiquated language, they thought it was a quote from Shakespeare. It’s the King James Version of John 9:4.

For centuries, people in Western cultures would use that line to remind each other to make the most of our time.

But in John 9, Jesus wasn’t speaking about the limited time to accomplish any task. He was speaking about the limited time to accomplish a specific task.

What is that task? He wants you and me to be involved in divine ophthalmology. That’s the branch of medicine specializing in sight. Jesus expects us to join him in helping the world see him better.

We’ll study the first seven verses of John 9 this Sunday. Read the passage now, and then join us at 10am on campus or online!

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

How's Your Babysitting Going?

The Instagram account, “Live from Snack Time,” is simply a collection of things kids say. Here are a few:

“Don’t wipe my tears away. I want to feel them on my face.” Henry, two years old

“Sometimes when my feelings are big, I like to sing them.” Gideon, seven years old

“I’ll just take a nap. That’s how you solve that.” Keira, seven years old

“I’m just too sad for pants.” Jamison, two years old

“Sometimes I fall down on purpose so that I can take a break.” Anonymous six-year-old

“I’m hugging you with my mind.” Anonymous eight-year-old

“I like spending time with you. It’s just better when there’s pancakes.” Harlow, eight years old

“I have a lot to say, maybe you should get some popcorn.” Anonymous six-year-old

“I don’t care and I’m not getting any more cares today.” Anonymous seven-year-old

“I did not mean to do that face out loud.” Anonymous nine-year-old

“My brain doesn’t feel like thinking today.” Finn, four years old

“But how am I supposed to know if I’m bored or hungry? They feel the same!” Lex, five years old

And then this one:

“Growing up just means you babysit yourself.” Savi Rao, six years old
 

If that’s true, some of us need to fire the babysitter! How have you been doing at babysitting yourself recently?

Your use of time. The places you go on the internet. The way you speak to others. Your diet and exercise. Your bedtime prayers. Babysitters make sure kids do what they’re supposed to in all these areas. Growing up just means you babysit yourself.

Proverbs 25:28 says, “Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.” What a vivid image. A city (or a nation) with porous walls is vulnerable to the enemy. It’s the same with your soul. Take some time today to do a quick audit of where your self-control has holes in it and do a little repair work.

--Tom
 

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Lord. Savior. Both.

Two of the most startling verses in all the Bible stand side-by-side. In John 8:58, Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am!” Then in John 8:59, we’re told that Jesus “hid himself.”

In verse 58, Jesus identified himself as the I Am. This was the sacred name of God first revealed to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-15). But from those heights, verse 59 takes us to the depths. When enemies wanted to execute Jesus for blasphemy, the one who had just declared himself to be the divine I Am slips away like a street kid who was just seen stealing an apple from a fruit vendor. That’s as astonishing as his self-identity!

It prepares us for a later time in John’s Gospel when he will not hide from those who wish to take his life. I’m speaking about John 18. Soldiers show up where Jesus and his disciples are gathered at night and ask, “Which of you is Jesus?”

Jesus identifies himself the same way he did in John 8. He says, “I am,” and these battle-hardened soldiers fall backwards to the ground. They get up, no doubt confused and unsettled, and take him away to be tried and crucified. 

What does this mean? It means they could not take his life, but he laid it down. The one they nailed to the cross was the great “I Am.” He was the Creator himself giving himself up to save his prized creation.

In 2 Peter 3:18, Simon Peter said, “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Lord. Savior. Both.

Jesus is Lord because in his life God came to be with us. Jesus is Savior because in his death God came to die for us.

Let’s grow in the grace and knowledge of those two things this Sunday. Read John 8:51-59 and then join us online or on campus starting at 10am. Find out more at www.hillcrest.church.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Getting Unstuck

Quick trivia question for Texas Exes: What’s inscribed above the entrance to the Main Building on the Forty Acres?

“Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

That may be the most-read inscription on the whole campus. Most people who see it probably assume it’s a quote from an ancient philosopher about the satisfaction that comes from intellectual curiosity.

It’s a quote from the King James Version of the Bible. In John 8:30-36, Jesus said that those who hold to his teaching would discover a truth that would liberate them. When his listeners objected that they were in no need of liberation, Jesus said, “everyone who sins is a slave to sin” but “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” 

To make any progress in life, we have to admit how we’re stuck and accept what it takes to get unstuck. This is true in business, in personal health, in politics, in overcoming addiction, in your finances—and it’s true when it comes to building a life that pleases God, too. Sin leaves us stuck without any hope of progress, but as we “hold to” his teaching we will know the truth that sets us free.

The Greek word we translate “hold to” is also translated “abide.” We’re in a season in Austin where it’s very expensive to find a place to abide. It’s a great time to sell but a really challenging time to buy. It’s hard to find a home you can afford and the moment you do 15 other people immediately outbid you. Some of our neighbors have even found housing so expensive they’ve resorted to living in tents wherever Austin will let them. 

But in John 8, Jesus spoke about an absolutely priceless place you can live in right now—and there’s plenty of room for everyone! He said, “Abide…remain in…hold to my teaching.”

How do we “live” in Jesus’s teaching like we live in a house? And how does that set us free? I’ll try to answer those questions this Sunday. We meet online or on campus starting at 10am. Find out more at www.hillcrest.church.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Light of the World

Moon towers were briefly popular in the late nineteenth century in cities across the United States and Europe. The fifteen in Austin are the only ones left. The iconic Zilker Park Holiday Tree is built around one of Austin’s remaining moon towers.

Maybe you’ve seen them around town. They stand over 160 feet tall. Back in the 1890s when there was very little light from other sources, the light cast from carbon arc lamps on top of a single tower illuminated a fifteen-hundred-foot radius bright enough to read a pocketwatch.

Preserving these moon towers and celebrating these moon towers are just another way we keep Austin weird. But they were built back at a time when the city needed the safety and security that light provides. It’s said that the towers were built in response to fears of a serial killer known as “The Servant Girl Annihilator.” The local lore claims the moon towers made him depart Austin for London where he became Jack the Ripper. That’s most likely a Texas tall tale, but there’s something very true about the story: The city needed a way to push back the insecurity that darkness brings.

We know how darkness makes us feel uncertain and unsafe and how light can make all the difference.

In John 8:12, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Do you see what Jesus was claiming? All other great religious teachers have come on the scene to say, “Let me take you to the light. My eyes have been opened, so let me help you open your eyes.” But Jesus did not say, “I’ve become enlightened.” Instead, he said, “I am the light that enlightens you.”

You can’t be neutral when someone says something like that. What Jesus said is absolutely offensive unless it is absolutely true. You must make your choice.

Let’s think more about the light of Jesus this Sunday. We meet online or on campus starting at 10am. Find out more at www.hillcrest.church.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Forgiveness--Can You Imagine?

About halfway through the Broadway show, Hamilton, there’s a song called “It’s Quiet Uptown.” Alexander Hamilton had let himself fall into an affair, ruining any chance to be President and humiliating his wife, Eliza. But healing happens. And as the forlorn couple stand in their garden, Eliza’s sister Angelica narrates the event for the audience in song: 

There are moments that the words don’t reach

There is a grace too powerful to name

We push away what we can never understand

We push away the unimaginable

They are standing in the garden

Alexander by Eliza’s side

She takes his hand—

Then the chorus of voices on stage behind them lifts up this line twice in quiet wonder:

Forgiveness. Can you imagine?

Forgiveness. Can you imagine?

I cry every time we get to that song while listening to the soundtrack. Every dang time.

God extends that kind of grace to us, setting us free from the misery of failure and restoring us to himself. I see this in the next story in my walk through the Gospel of John this year. In John 8, we read about how the enemies of Jesus cast a woman to the ground before him and declared she had been caught in the very act of adultery. The law demanded she be stoned to death by the community, and they wanted to know what Jesus had to say about it.

It was an obvious trap, and Jesus replied, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

They left in defeat. Jesus said to the woman, “It appears no one is left to accuse you Neither do I. Go and leave your life of sin.”

Forgiveness. Can you imagine?

You need this same grace from Jesus. So let’s marvel over this story from John 8:2-11 this Sunday. We meet online or on campus starting at 10am. Find out more at www.hillcrest.church.

(By the way, most Bibles today include a notation that this story is not in the earliest manuscripts. In your sermon notes this Sunday I will provide some guidance on how to think about this subject.)

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Real Thirst Really Quenched

Diane and I spent a few days in Marfa for our wedding anniversary. This little town is in the Chihuahuan Desert region of southwest Texas. The hillsides were green and little flowers were blooming. Of course, that’s only because we’re still in the month of May and rains have fallen every afternoon for several days now. As the spring season gives way to summer, rainless days will turn the desert vegetation brown and brittle.

Jesus said you need him like living things need water. He said this right after the water ceremony that ended the Feast of Tabernacles. Just when the priest finished pouring a vase of water at the base of the altar, Jesus stood and shouted, “Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:38).

The Old Testament people always longed for that day in the future when God would move in life-giving ways throughout the entire world. We see this longing in Ezekiel 47, where the prophet had a vision of the heavenly temple. He saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple, and it got deeper and wider as it flowed out from there.

As the priest poured out water at the base of the Temple altar on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, it was a longing for that vision to be fulfilled. God’s people looked toward the time when God’s presence and power would flow from the point of sacrifice to change the whole world.

In John 7, Jesus was claiming to be the fulfillment of that hope.

Those who come to Jesus right now begin to feel his presence guiding us, encouraging us, and empowering us. As wonderful as that is, it is only the beginning. A day is coming when not just our souls but our world will be gloriously changed as the presence of God flows through the whole created order like a river! All broken things will be fixed, all the unjust scales will be balanced, and all the heartbreak will be mended.

Let’s look at this great promise from John 7:37-39 this Sunday. We meet online or on campus starting at 10am. Find out more at www.hillcrest.church.

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Seal of Approval

I once had a handheld embosser for the books in my personal library. With it I could impress a raised seal on the title page of a book. The page would then forever bear my initials encircled with the words, “From the Library of Tom Goodman.” I lost the embosser on one of my moves, but many of my older books still have that personalized mark.

The relation of that tool to my books illustrates the relation of God’s truth to our lives. Having faith in certain doctrines and convictions is essential and yet incomplete. 

On the one hand, being a Christian means having faith in the enduring truth of God’s word. God’s character and promises and expectations are found in the Bible. Read it, study it, discuss it, and believe it.

And yet there’s more to Christianity. What we believe has to make an impression in our attitudes and behavior. In Ephesians 1:18-19, Paul wrote, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” Paul wanted believers to move beyond mere mental agreement with certain facts. He wanted those facts to show up in their priorities and passions.

This will help you, but it will also help those around you who are unfamiliar with Christianity. They will have an easier time understanding it by first “reading” God’s truth in the imprint it makes in our lives. I mean, have you tried to read the wording on an embosser? The letters and the sentences are backwards. You can eventually work out what it says, but it’s easier to read the results the stamp makes into a page. Likewise, those who are unfamiliar with Christianity will find it easier to understand our faith by starting with the impression it makes in our lives.

Along with Paul, I pray that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened so we may actually experience the hope and the riches and the power that are ours in Christ!

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

Stickable Faith

An interesting characteristic of our age is the celebrity deconversion story. Someone who was once an influential Christian speaker or Christian musician decides they no longer believe, and they post it on Instagram or YouTube, or they write a book about it. With the same evangelistic zeal they once had for the gospel they now tell others about their journey out of Christianity.

One of the saddest phrases in the Gospel of John is, “From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.” That’s found in John 6:66. (Hmm.) Jesus asked his Apostles, “Will you leave me, too?” He wasn’t asking the question in whiny neediness. But neither was he indifferent to the answer.

How do you respond to that question?

In surveys of favorite Christian worship songs, you’ll often find a 260-year-old hymn by Robert Robinson called “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.” Maybe it’s a favorite because of how honest the lyrics are about vulnerability and struggle. One of Robinson’s stanzas begins: 

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love.

Most of us recognize that same proneness, that same weakness. How can we develop a stickable faith? Robinson shows us how. He concluded the stanza in this way:

Here’s my heart, O, take and seal it.

Seal it for thy courts above.

The one who wrote that song as a 22-year-old had a crisis of faith as a 54-year-old. He became attracted to the Enlightenment skepticism of men like Joseph Priestley. Some say Robinson died as a nonbeliever, others say he returned to faith before he died, and still others (like me) say that he never finally embraced the sterile rationalism that so attracted him. I believe he applied the same solution to his struggles as a 54-year-old that he applied to his struggles as a 22-year-old. “Here’s my heart, Lord. I don’t trust my own ability to protect it. Please take it and seal it away safely.”

In John 6:63-71 you can find four ways to develop a lasting faith. We’ll look at that passage this Sunday at Hillcrest. Join us on campus or online!

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Thread of Bread

The idea of bread runs like a thread throughout the story of Jesus. The Gospels constantly remind us that Jesus is our bread.

At the start of Jesus’s story, he was born in Bethlehem. You know that from the Christmas story. But do you know what the word “Bethlehem” means? It means “House of Bread.” So, Jesus enters into the world from Bethlehem, the House of Bread.

In the middle of his ministry, in John 6, Jesus fed physical bread to a multitude and then told them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35).

At the end of his earthly ministry, the image of bread shows up again. The night before Jesus went to the cross, he took bread and said, “Take and eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26).

“Our souls can only find spiritual sustenance and deep satisfaction from Jesus”

Why bread? What does this image tell us about Jesus?

We love bread in all its wonderful forms. Buttermilk biscuits. Naan bread. Warm tortillas. Cornbread. Dinner rolls. When we go on a low-carb diet, we dearly miss this part of the meal. Our bodies find physical sustenance and emotional satisfaction from bread.

In the same way, our souls can only find spiritual sustenance and deep satisfaction from Jesus.

Too many of us satisfy our physical hunger with junk food and empty calories. It’s true with our spiritual hungers, too. We try to sate our craving for significance and security by reaching for possessions, achievements, and control. It’s only when we trust fully in his love and his plans for us that we can become what God intended us to be. That’s what it means for Jesus to be your bread.

This weekend at Hillcrest, we’ll look at this wonderful image of Jesus as our bread. Read John 6:27-35 and let’s study it on campus or online at 10am this Sunday!

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.

He Walks on Water to Reach You

In his book, God on Mute, Pete Greig wrote about a Scottish lady he once knew named Margaret Lee. When she was diagnosed with throat cancer, people would visit her and say, “Oh, Margaret, you’ve had such a very tough life, and now this. It’s all just too much.”

Margaret knew they meant well, but she had a different perspective on her situation. She prepared a written response for them since the cancer had taken away her voice. She would show it to everyone who visited. It said:

This is not the worst thing to ever happen! Cancer is so limited. It cannot cripple love, shatter hope, corrode faith, eat away peace, destroy confidence, kill friendship, shut out memories, silence courage, quench the Spirit or lessen the power of Jesus.

After recounting this, Greig wrote:

Isn't that extraordinary? Cancer was killing Margaret, and yet she was able to list its many limitations. She could barely speak or swallow, her body was emaciated, and the pain was insistent, but the cancer had not--and could not--consume Margaret Lee. To all outward appearances, she had become a grim testament to the corruption of nature and the limitations of Christ's power.Yet in reality, her life and her death bore eloquent witness to the power of prayer for those who believe.

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase: “Sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes God calms his child.” Either way, he sees us through, and that was enough for Margaret Lee. It’s enough for you and me, too.

When I’m in crisis nothing can keep Jesus from coming to me. How do I know this? Because of a story in John 6:16-21. When the disciples were caught out in a storm in the middle of the night in the middle of the sea, Jesus came to them by walking on the water.

This weekend at Hillcrest, we’ll look at this wonderful story and see what it tells us about our Lord’s care. Read John 6:16-21, and let’s study it on campus or online at 10am this Sunday!

--Tom

Sign up here to receive Tom Goodman’s weekly devotional in your email inbox. Tom serves as pastor at Hillcrest Church in Austin, Texas. His sermons are available on YouTube and the HillcrestToGo Podcast and you can find him on Facebook and Twitter.