Tommy Mann

This time of year I can't take a step in our driveway without crushing about a hundred acorns. We are surrounded by oak trees, so the acorns are innumerable. I like the sound of the crunching under my feet, and I also like that the sight of dead acorns reminds me of the words of Jesus. When speaking to His disciples in John 12, Jesus didn't mention acorns, but rather grains of wheat. In the 24th verse Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."  This was spoken in response to a group of people who requested an audience with Jesus. Surprisingly, Jesus turned down this request, telling Philip and Andrew "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified (v.23)."  We would expect Jesus to drop what He was doing and speak to the people who wanted to see Him, but for the first time in His ministry, He announced that the hour had come. Jesus was making Hi...

Although I do not have them very often, I like root beer floats (you may prefer a Coke or Dr. Pepper float). I think I have perfected the art of the perfect float. It starts with a good amount of vanilla ice cream (preferably Blue Bell). But there is room for more ice cream if you take the spoon and smush it down, so do that and add even more ice cream. Then comes the root beer. Pour in as much as you can fit and wait for the fizz to die down. Once that happens, you can give the glass a little shake and the ice cream will settle, allowing the soda to fill in the cracks and make room for even more root beer. Add just enough to reach the top, and a little fizz will run down the sides of the mug. That is a well-executed float, getting as much out of the drink as possible. Interestingly, God follows that same formula when it comes to how He blesses us. Speaking in Luke 6:38, Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be p...

Have you ever seen a bread tree? It would be nice if loaves of bread grew right on their branches, and all we had to do was pluck them and eat. In their book The Shaping of Things to Come , Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch address the question of why God didn't just create a bread tree. They wrote, "He prefers to offer us a grain and invite us to buy a field and plant the seed. He prefers that we till the soil while He sends the rain. He prefers that we harvest the crop while He sends sunshine. He prefers that we grind the crop and knead it and bake it while He gives us air in our lungs and strength in our arms. Why? Because He would rather that we become partners with Him in creation."  I agree with those authors, and believe we can apply that same way of thinking to our money. Most churches probably have a wish list, things they would love to do if only they could afford it. We dream about doing things, and say, "If someone gave us a million dollars, I would use the m...

Is Jesus really God? I often hear people say that Jesus never actually claimed to be God, and that Christians are mistaken to say that He is. But that is not true; Jesus often equated Himself with God, saying things like, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father (John 14:9)," and "I and the Father are one (John 10:30)."  But even beyond those claims He made are the things He did. Yes, Jesus performed miracles, healed the sick, and cast out demons, but He also did something quite noteworthy: He forgave sin. In Mark 2 Jesus healed a paralytic and then told him his sins were forgiven. Those words enraged the Pharisees, who angrily said, “Why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? (v.7)” That may seem like a poor litmus test, because how can any of us know whether or not the paralytic's sins were truly forgiven? Just because Jesus declared them to be doesn't prove that they were. How can we verify that statement? We...

Most people are familiar with the first public miracle of Jesus, at a wedding reception, where He turned water into wine. This act averted a disaster, as running out of wine was a societal faux pas that the family would never live down. So Jesus intervened.  John 2:7-8 tells us: Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And He said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” When the master of the feast (something akin to our wedding planners) tasted the wine, he was amazed at how good it tasted. As any wine aficionado knows, the best wine is aged wine, but this wine was only water two seconds ago. Jesus didn't just make wine out of water, He made it as if it had been around for years.  This miracle was so much more than just some sleight of hand trick; Jesus genuinely made something incredible out of something ordinary. It also shows us that God's relationship to time is different than ours. When He c...

The great writer and humorist Mark Twain once quipped, "The two most important days in your life are the day you were born, and the day you find out why." Of course by finding out why he meant finding out what we were born to do--why God put us on this planet.  I agree with Twain, so long as we agree that the "why" is found in Christ. Specifically, we were born to be in a relationship with the God who made us. The problem is, because we are sinners by nature, we are disconnected from the God we are supposed to be in a relationship with. A holy God cannot associate with sinful people. That is where Jesus comes in. He satisfied the law's demands, paying the penalty our sin deserved. The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross allowed the Father to punish sin while allowing the sinner to go free. God can be just and the justifier. God can deal severely with sin while allowing the sinner to go free. God can be full of fury and full of mercy. God can hate sin and love the si...