Tommy Mann

  Hubert Humphrey may be best known for serving as the thirty-eighth Vice President of the United States during part of Lyndon Johnson’s administration, but prior to that post he was a senator from Minnesota. While working as a senator he once made the comment, “In politics, how you stand depends on where you sit.” That quip was a reference to the way members of congress are seated in our two-party system. If you are seated with the minority party, you largely play defense; if you are seated with the majority, you have much more latitude in fulfilling your agenda.   A politician stands for things based on where he sits. Whether that is right or wrong is not what I want to write about. If you are a Christian, where you sit should likewise determine how you stand. In Ephesians 2 Paul wrote these incredible words: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace y...

  Have you ever wondered what heaven will be like? The Bible gives us precious few details of the current heaven, but it tells us that there will be a restored earth that will serve as our eternal home one day. John wrote, “Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, ‘Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God ( Revelation   21:2-3 ).’”   Randy Alcorn, in his book simply titled  Heaven,  said that we do not need to look to the sky and wonder what heaven will be like; we just need to look around and imagine what this planet would be like if there was no sin. So let’s do that:    Imagine a place that we can go, beyond all that you’ve ever seen, Nicer than any place you’ve been, better than your wildest dreams. It will be h...

As Christians we often talk about walking by faith and not by sight. This popular phrase comes from Second Corinthians 5:7.  We typically use that expression to encourage each other when life is hard and doesn’t make sense. Sometimes we refer to this verse when we are not sure which decision to make when facing two choices. Walking by anything other than sight is difficult because we rely on our vision to help us navigate our steps in life.   There are some courses in life that we can walk without our sight. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I can stumble into the kitchen and get myself a glass of water without having to turn on the lights. That is because I know the path from my bed to the sink like the back of my hand. But when we talk about walking by faith rather than sight we might conjure up images of walking around blindfolded, as it were, with our arms outstretched, feeling our way around.  However, I don't think that was the image the Apostle Pau...

  Do you ever pray for revival? Revival is related to the word   revive , or to bring something back to life. Biblically speaking, revival refers to times when God moves in such a way as to stir Christians out of their complacency and into action. The church has a tendency to get stuck in a rut, going through the motions each week of “doing church,” and revival can help re-instill a sense of emotion and passion back into the congregation.         Charles Finney is remembered for the many revivals his preaching helped usher in, and he once delivered a series of lectures on the topic of revival. The majority of his lectures focused on the key ingredient in any revival: prayer. We need to ask God to bring revival because it cannot be manufactured by people. But Finney pointed out that sometimes there is an ingredient that precedes prayer: wickedness.    Finney said there had been times when great wickedness drove the people of God to their knees beca...