The 100-Day Journey with Jesus
About this episode
Tom Hollis, COO of Cornerstone Television Network (CTN) in Wall, Pennsylvania and host of the flagship program Hope Today, joins Philip Cameron to unpack the inspiration and spiritual depth behind his book A Hundred Days with Jesus: A Journey Through the Gospels. Tom shares how the project began as a series of daily devotional emails written for CTN's prayer partners during a season of office remodeling — and how that discipline grew into a full 100-day walk through all four Gospels. Drawing on the teaching of Scottish Bible teacher Campbell McAlpine, Tom explains that meditating on Scripture day by day opens understanding that surface-level reading misses. "These are real people that went through real trials, real stuff," he says, "and it's real history — it's even got a little dirt under its fingernails." He writes each entry by stepping inside the perspective of the biblical characters themselves, including a memorable devotional written from the point of view of a merchant in the temple courts moments before Jesus cleansed them. Tom also reflects on the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15), arguing it is better titled "The Heart of the Father," and on the Great Commission's single word — go — as the irreducible heartbeat of every believer's life. A Hundred Days with Jesus is available now on Amazon; search for the edition by Tom Hollis. For more from CTN, visit ctv.org.
Part of our Devotional collection of conversations.
Quotes worth sharing
“My dad used to say, there's no gospel without go. Take the go out of the gospel, and all you have is a spell. And a lot of churches are full of spells, but they ain't full of the gospel.”
“Don't tell me that God loves me if I'm starving. Don't tell me God loves me if I'm freezing to death. Put a coat on me, put gloves on my hands, and then say, do you know why this happened? Because Jesus loves you, and you are important. Now you have an open and receptive heart to hear the gospel.”
“I'd rather build a hospital at the top of the cliff than a morgue at the bottom. Sadly, 1% of children that are found trafficked, 1% succeed in being rehabilitated. One out of a hundred. Why don't we stop them falling off the cliff? Why don't we build a place? A home is what they need. The gospel is what they need, and that is what we do.”
What's Discussed
Tom Hollis, COO of Cornerstone Television Network (CTN) and host of Hope Today, discusses his book A Hundred Days with Jesus: A Journey Through the Gospels. The devotional originated as daily emails to CTN prayer partners and grew into an 89-chapter walk through all four Gospels, expanded to 100 entries. Influenced by Scottish Bible teacher Campbell McAlpine's emphasis on Scripture meditation, Tom writes from inside the perspective of biblical characters — including a temple merchant during Jesus's cleansing of the temple. He reframes the prodigal son parable (Luke 15) as "The Heart of the Father" and argues the Great Commission's word go demands a literal change of location. The book is available on Amazon under Tom Hollis.
- Origin of the 100-Day Devotional
- Campbell McAlpine and Scripture Meditation
- Feeling God's Heart Before Acting
- Scripture as Real People and Real History
- Prodigal Son as Heart of the Father
- The Great Commission Word Go
- Being Known as Someone Who Walked with Jesus
Scripture in this episode
Episode Transcript
Auto-generated · click any timestamp to jump the video
Intro
Philip:Hello, my name is Philip Cameron, and I'm glad you can join us today. In Daily Faith, we have got a tremendous program for you to see, and I believe you're gonna be blessed by my guest. Tom Hollis is a dear friend of mine for many, many years, has been part with us in our mission work. Their great ministry up in Pittsburgh and around the world has supported us and given to what we do to help these young girls and boys that are being trafficked.
Philip:This new movie that's out just now, the Sound of Freedom that everyone's talking about, we've been doing that for 30 years. And so a lot of folk are excited about, oh, we're gonna help trafficking. That's what we do. We have a whole village of homes, the most beautiful village of homes by the largest lake in Moldova. And in those homes, we take orphans from orphanages and kids, girls and boys, at risk of being trafficked.
Philip:And they come into these homes, we put them back in school, and they hear the gospel and are transformed by the power of God. And these orphans at risk of being trafficked are turning into missionaries. They become sons and daughters, and then they're commissaries. And all this last year, they've been ministering in Ukraine, feeding broken people, preaching the gospel, sharing all through the summer in summer camps.
Philip:And one of our leaders is Catalina, an amazing Holy Ghost filled young girl. She has youth camps all the time. She has weekend conferences. And a girl doesn't do this in Moldova. It's a very much male driven society and culture. And this girl will have 200 kids come, and half of them will get saved and baptized in the Holy Ghost. It's amazing. And she sent us a video just a couple of days ago of one of their camps that we're doing all through the summer because folk like you are helping us do this. Watch this.
Catalina:Hello from Orphan's Hands. My name is Catalina. Once somebody told me about God, about hope and about his amazing love. Some of them are from orphanages, and nobody told them about God. Nobody showed them love, nobody cared for them. Today we are here telling to these amazing people about how much God loves everybody. No matter how you look, no matter who you are, no matter what your abilities, God loves you very, very much. Today we are serving these amazing people in this camp. We are telling them about God. We are teaching them to pray and to read His word. Thank you for everything you do. God bless you. The Bible says, when you've done unto the least of these, you've done unto me.
Philip:And that camp, she called me a few weeks ago and she says, dad, we have the opportunity to sponsor a camp with a hundred handicapped people, physically, mentally. She says, can we please do this? And it wasn't scheduled. It came out of the blue. We were busy with all the stuff we normally plan. And I says, do it. And they spent a week with these handicapped lovely people, and you can hear in her voice the respect and love that she has for them.
Philip:So our orphans went to a camp and told people that have been totally cast off, you can't understand. There's no gentility or care for those that are broken. Life is so desperate that you don't have that luxury. And orphan kids that no one else wanted, used by God's loving hand, spent a whole week pouring Jesus into these people's lives. And that's what we do all the time in Ukraine.
Philip:My son Andrew just came back from Turkey and brought 200 gas stoves, dozens upon dozens of family tents, hundreds upon hundreds of care boxes that we gave out, and also sanitary boxes. The devastation in Turkey is one of the biggest frauds. Erdogan, the dictator in Turkey, didn't want the people to know — there's an election coming up — and he didn't want the people to know about how bad the earthquake was.
Philip:And he blacked out the news, and the news got blacked out all over the world. It is the largest natural disaster that's ever happened, and it was in one town with 1.6 million people, Antakya, 1.6 million people. And that city is 90% destroyed. 50,000 people died in one night. And the government says that's all that happened. And yet, one of the phone companies — now they've got T-Mobile and all the ones that we have — one phone company reported losing 300,000 accounts the week after the earthquake. So the devastation is unbelievable.
Philip:And Andrew was over there. He went to Ukraine and was in Ukraine a few days, and then he drove all the way from Ukraine right back into Moldova, and about 20 hours of driving in one of our cargo vans all the way down to Turkey, where he fed and brought all these things. So when you support Orphan's Hands, you're not just helping an orphan in Moldova. You are literally reaching into that whole region with the gospel.
Philip:And we need your help. Any gift you can give to help us through the summertime would be a great blessing to us. The address is really simple. Orphan's Hands, PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee, 37716. PO Box 25, Clinton, Tennessee. You can go to DailyFaith.tv and you can give a gift through the giving page there. And also you can call 1-833-Daily-Faith and be God's hand extended. Do something today to show this world — we are living in a hateful world.
Philip:America has gone from a gracious, kind place to everyone wants to kill everyone. I mean, I've never seen anything like this. And unless the church starts letting the light of the gospel shine and the love of God be manifest through us, this is going to spin out of control. I'm telling you, this country is not too big to fail. I am from Scotland, which is part of Great Britain. And Great Britain was the greatest empire that has ever lived. When I was a boy, the maps in my school, all the pink — we were told by our teacher, all the pink is the British Empire. And one of the boasts was that the sun never set on the British Empire around the world, and we turned our back on God.
Philip:And we are nothing more than a socialist little country that is sinking in horrendous ways. America is not too big to fall. And the one hope that America has is Jesus. And the one hope that America has is a revival. And where revival happens is in the church. And how revival happens is when we get sold out to him. So whatever you're doing, the Bible says, whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
Philip:So when I look at this mission field that God's given me, I can't look at it and say, well, we'll kind of do that in a casual way. And if it works out, it'll work out. And if it doesn't, well, it doesn't matter. Everything we do is life or death, literally, physically, life or death to these kids that you've just seen. These handicapped kids, they've never had a kind word in their life. We provide for most of those kids adult diapers. Most folk wouldn't even think that they need to have adult diapers, but they do. And we provide thousands of them every year to care for their needs.
Philip:Your giving and your prayers and your loving doesn't just bless the world. It blesses you to the measure that you sow. That's the channel, the pipe, the size, the diameter of the pipe that God can give it back into your life. So I ask you to pray, pray for our ministry. We are stretched more than we've ever been in our life before. We're just taking on a brand new challenge that we haven't even announced yet. And I'm just formulating it in my mind. It's so big. I'm trying to figure out the best way to describe it to you.
Philip:It's the biggest thing we've ever done. But I know this, that if I do it with all my might, God will stand up off the throne of heaven and say, I'm in on this. I'm gonna be a part of this miracle. So be a part with this, if you would. And as I said, the Sound of Freedom, this new movie that's taking the country by storm, a Christian movie that's done better than — what was it? What was the movie? Oh, I forgot. Well, Mission Impossible. No, no. There's the guy with the Ark of the Covenant. Ah, anyway, a senior moment. There you go.
Philip:But it was the number one movie. And so I'm hearing folk in the church, oh, this is the Sound of Freedom. That's what we've been doing for decades. We rescue kids, we stop kids going off that cliff. I've said this for decades, I'd rather build a hospital at the top of the cliff than a morgue at the bottom. And sadly, 1% of children that are found trafficked, 1% succeed in being rehabilitated. One out of a hundred. Why don't we stop them falling off the cliff? Why don't we build a place? A home is what they need. The gospel is what they need, and that is what we do.
Philip:So we just love you guys. Thank you for your care and your concern, and be a part of what we do. I'm delighted to have my friend with me today. Tom Hollis is the COO of CTN, Cornerstone Television, out of Wall, Pennsylvania. I've been going there, my lord, for 40 years. These folks are just part of my history and my life. And he is hosting Hope Today, their flagship program, and he's one of the hosts of it as well. And he has done tremendous things.
Philip:He's helped us at Orphan's Hands last year. He took it upon himself — now, I'm not talking about as a COO telling other folk to do it. He went out and bought coats. He would call me, I've just bought a whole bunch of coats, and they gave over 2,500 coats and thousands of gloves and hats for our Christmas in Moldova, the Christmas Ukraine that we had, the Christmas campaign. And he's just been so kind, so generous to us. And he's written a book that I want you to know about, because I think this book will be a great blessing to you. Tom, I'm delighted to have you today on Daily Faith. Welcome.
Tom Hollis:Well, it's great for me to be here, Philip. And just to think about all the times that we've had together, our ministry working with your ministry. I can remember back 20 years ago, raising all the money needed one night for a boiler that was needed. That's so exciting. And that money came in because people caught the vision, you know, they caught the vision that there's something that needed to be done for the kingdom. And when I see those pictures of Vara Village, I am thrilled. What a beautiful place it's become. It's amazing. We're so glad that we've been able to partner with you there as well.
Origin of the 100-Day Devotional
Philip:We just want you to come to Moldova one of these days and be there on the ground. And that would be a great blessing. Let me tell how long it's been. When I adopted Andrew, 34, 35 years ago, Pittsburgh was one of the first places I took him to. And you guys gave him a Penguins jersey. And this little kid had no idea what ice skating was, nevermind NHL hockey. But you guys were so kind to us to help us get Andrew all those years ago. And here we are still doing what we do. And God has been so faithful to us. And I wanna thank you in front of all of these folks for your kindness and generosity over the years to Orphan's Hands. We couldn't have done what we've done without your care and concern. So thank you so much, Tom.
Tom Hollis:Oh, well, you're welcome. I mean, it's easy to partner with you. You bring such hope to these darkened corners of the world and to these young lives that don't have any other hope. Of course, they need Jesus. They need to know the Savior. And that's what you're bringing. You're not just bringing that coat, but you're bringing the love of God with it.
Philip:But what I've learned is that you can't talk to someone starving about Jesus. You can't talk to someone freezing cold about Jesus because their situation is louder, their crisis. Like the two men on the road to Emmaus, their crisis. They couldn't see Jesus because of the crisis. And when I'm starving and you're telling me that God loves me, don't tell me that God loves me if I'm starving. Don't tell me God loves me if I'm freezing to death. Put a coat on me, put gloves on my hands, and then say, do you know why this happened? Because Jesus loves you, and you are important. Now you have an open and receptive heart to hear the gospel. And that is why we are so successful in our ministry over there.
Philip:And we just wanna thank you. You have written a book. Let's get to this point, because I'm excited about this. If you are looking for a book that will impact your life on a daily basis, literally a daily basis, this is that book, and it is called A Hundred Days with Jesus. And I need you to tell us today, how did God spark this thing in your mind?
Campbell McAlpine and Scripture Meditation
Tom Hollis:Well, you know, my relationship with God, I've always tried to take the point of view that I am trying to be just like the disciples walking and talking with Jesus, learning to know him. And you know, if you look at the cover of the book, you can see Jesus's face. You only see part of it. Why is that? Well, that's because we're still getting to know him. You know, the scripture says that we see through a glass darkly, but hopefully as we grow, we're seeing better and better what it means to follow Christ and who he is.
Tom Hollis:You know, Philip, in the ministry that we have here, we have a 24-hour prayer line. And I would go down at lunchtime. We have these wonderful prayer partners that pray with people all day long. And I would go down there and I would teach a maybe 15-minute devotional, and I would just go through the scriptures with them. And it was wonderful. I enjoyed doing it. I think they enjoyed having me. But we did some remodeling here. We sent them home for like four months. So we sent the calls to their home, the prayer calls. But their supervisor, Amanda, who you've met, she said to me, why don't you write a devotional for them? Just email it to them every day. Well, I said, hey, that's a good idea, but it's a lot harder to write than it is to talk, you know.
Tom Hollis:But I got in the stream of doing that. And that was really the genesis of this book, is that I began to write through the gospels to the prayer partners, and found that God was giving me things. He was opening up doors that I hadn't thought about before. He was showing me how the people went through — you know, it was a Scotsman, you'll love this. It was a Scotsman that taught me one time about how important it is to meditate on the scriptures. His name was Campbell MacAlpine, years ago.
Feeling God's Heart Before Acting
Tom Hollis:And I've never forgotten that, that as we meditate on those scriptures, day by day, going through the gospels, going through the Bible, he begins to open up understanding to us, open up things that we hadn't seen before. And, you know, Philip, I'm big on people feeling something before they do something, before I tell them to do something. And the heart of God is so much a part of what I believe is the motivation for ministry. That father heart of God, that caring heart of God, that he wants us to know, he wants us to feel. So that when we go out, we're not just going out with the dead letters. We're going out with the truth, the passionate truth of the gospel.
Philip:Jesus drew together his 12 disciples. One was a tax collector, fisherman, a doctor, all the way across the spectrum of life. And he had them for 36 months. Three years was his ministry. That's less than a car payment. You can't even afford to buy a car on a 36-month payment schedule anymore because it costs too much money. In 36 months, their contact with Jesus so transformed these men that they literally, without TV, without radio, without cars, without bicycles, they walked and sat on donkeys and sailed on ships. And they literally changed the world because they had been with Jesus. They had walked with him.
Philip:And what you've done — and this is, if you're watching just now, I really want you to think about getting this book — what it is, it's a hundred days, it's a hundred-day journey with Jesus. So what Tom has done, he's gonna walk you through the scriptures, the gospels, and as you walk with Jesus through the gospel, you could do this every hundred days. You could do this three times a year. And I promise you, when you do this, you will open up your mind.
Philip:When you meditate on the scriptures, I always think of the scriptures — you have the front of the scripture that you look at, but as you meditate, you start looking through the glass, the front glass, into the depth of the scriptures. So when you are lonely, suddenly the scriptures start talking to you about the comfort of God. Or if you need healing, suddenly that aspect of the brilliance and the divinity of the Bible is that as you look into the scripture, you open up new facets of the word of God. And this book, A Hundred Days with Jesus, will help you get to know him better.
Philip:When the woman in the Song of Solomon, when her lover had drawn away from the door, and she looked at the men of the city and the daughters of the city, she says, have you seen him whom my soul loveth? And what we need in the church is to have a love affair with Jesus. We need to fall in love again with Jesus. Not programs, not denominations, not preacher personalities. We need to find him whom our soul loveth. And this book helps you get there. And what do most folk miss when they're reading the scriptures, Tom?
Scripture as Real People and Real History
Tom Hollis:Well, you know what, I think what people miss about the scriptures is these are real people. This is you. You know, Philip, I heard growing up that the Bible is God's love letter to us. Now, that's true. But it's way more than that. It's real people that went through real trials, real stuff, and it's real history. It's even got a little dirt under its fingernails. It's right down there with everyone. So when we read through the scriptures, we're saying, God, speak to me through this book and the stories of the people in that book.
Tom Hollis:So that's kind of the way I wrote the devotional. I think about the people in the stories. What were they thinking? And one of the devotionals is written from the point of view of one of the people selling goods in the temple, thinking, oh, this is a prophet. He is gonna come bless what we're doing here. And of course he had a big surprise coming, didn't he? Jesus wasn't coming to bless what he was doing. But see, we can be deceived, but the scriptures hold us to account just like Jesus held them to account.
Philip:So true. You know, I have a little story. I was taking a vacation with some friends of ours, and they go to a very kind of liberal denomination. They're good people, but they kind of have a liberal view on a lot of things. And anyway, I was preaching as soon as I got back. So I was studying the scriptures one morning, and the woman came out and saw me early in the morning there with my coffee and studying the scriptures and preparing. And she said, you know, she said, our church needs more of the Bible. We need to have more of the Bible. And I'm thinking, okay, so here's this liberal denomination person telling me they need more Bible. Well, hey there, conservative Christian, are you ignoring those scriptures?
Tom Hollis:Well, what I wanted to do with this book was, it takes basically one chapter of the gospels a day. Some of them, like the Sermon on the Mount, I spend a few days there. And so there are 89 chapters in the gospels. We did a few more to get it to a hundred entries. And it's just walking you through the scriptures. What could be better than to walk with Jesus the way he wanted to reveal himself to us?
Philip:That's what. Now I'm interested — as you're talking, this thought came to my mind. Of the four gospels that you've studied and you've broken apart for us, did any one of the gospels show you more, touch you more, impact you more than the others? Or did you end up having a favorite through this study?
Prodigal Son as Heart of the Father
Tom Hollis:Well, there are certainly favorite portions of scripture for me. Like the prodigal son is my favorite portion of scripture. So Luke 15 is so much about that. You know what I think about that, Philip? Sometimes, you know, the heading says the prodigal son, but Jesus never called it that. I think it might be better called the Heart of the Father, because here was the father looking, longing every day. So this is representative of God, right? I mean, this is what the parable is about. And in fact, the whole idea of Jesus using stories, using parables, that's what matters to me so much, because that's kind of how I've written the book. I've kind of tried to get inside the heads of the people that were experiencing this. Or in some cases, applying it to a modern-day person. How would a modern-day person put these things into action?
Tom Hollis:Brilliant. And so just that portion of scripture always speaks to me. One thing I did notice as I was meditating more closely, Jesus gave a hard time to the religious leaders a lot more than I thought. You know, we've certainly heard teaching on that. But he certainly took them to task on how they were misleading the people.
Philip:I know you've had some great response already to the book, and when I saw this, I said, I says, well, let's get Tom on here because I think this book is important for you to have. If you're watching us today, wherever you're watching us, you can get this book. Tell us how, what's the easiest way?
Tom Hollis:A Hundred Days with Jesus, a journey through the gospels. You can get it — I'll do the hard work for you, Tom — www.amazon.com. That's one way.
Philip:That is the best way, to go to Amazon. Now, there's another book called A Hundred Days with Jesus, so make sure you get the one by Tom Hollis. But the thing that I think is so important in this is that we need to understand who Christ is. I wanna know him. I wanna know who he is. I wanna know what he speaks to my heart.
Philip:Again, you mentioned the two men on the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his friend whose name we don't know. I even have an entry about that because it's so important that their hearts were burning within them. There's something that God wants beyond the norm, beyond the day-to-day life. Look, we've all got our jobs to go to. We've all got our families to take care of. Those are all so important and can be so joyous. But God wants us to rise into a place of knowing him and bringing that love of God to the people around us.
Tom Hollis:Amen. We're not about just going to church. Church is vitally important. I encourage everyone listening to be involved in church, but it's what we do when we're outside of church that matters so much. Are we touching the lives around us? Are we living a proper life to our family, but also to our neighbors and the people around us? Are we caring about the people on the other side of the world that need the gospel? Those are all things that I couldn't write without writing a lot about the Great Commission, because there's one word in there — I know missions is your heartbeat, isn't it?
The Great Commission Word Go
Tom Hollis:There's a word that says go. It means to go somewhere, doesn't it? If I said, hey everybody, let's go to the ball game, and you all said amen, and we all just stood there, well, we wouldn't go to the ball game, would we? Go means we have to change our location. We have to go somewhere else.
Philip:My dad used to say, there's no gospel without go. Take the go out of the gospel, and all you have is a spell. And a lot of churches are full of spells, but they ain't full of the gospel.
Tom Hollis:That's right. Is that the truth? I just think that God wants us to know the gospels and know the God of the gospels. Walk with him.
Philip:You just mentioned 36 months. These people left everything to go follow him, and they were with him. And it says later that they recognized that these men had been with Jesus. That's what matters to me. Do people say that about us? You know, there's a lot of things they could say about us. All I care about people saying about me is, hey, that's somebody that was with Jesus. That's somebody that acts like Jesus. And I've got a long way to go to achieve that. But we're on that walk. We're on that walk of faith. So let's get to know him better. Let's walk with him. Let's hear his heart.
Being Known as Someone Who Walked with Jesus
Philip:Tom, we are out of time. Thank you so much for being with us. Get in contact with Tom. You can watch CTN at ctv.org. Thank you for being with us on Daily Faith. We'll talk to you again. Bye-bye.
Common questions
What is the book 'A Hundred Days with Jesus' actually about?
Tom Hollis wrote it as a devotional journey through all four gospels — roughly one chapter per day, with a few extra entries on passages like the Sermon on the Mount, to reach 100 days total. The goal is to walk with Jesus the way the disciples did, letting the scriptures open up new understanding as you meditate on them day by day.
How did Tom Hollis come up with the idea for the book?
It grew out of 15-minute devotionals Tom was teaching to the prayer partners at CTN's 24-hour prayer line during their lunch break. When remodeling sent the prayer partners home for four months, their supervisor Amanda suggested he email a daily devotional instead — and that discipline of writing through the gospels became the genesis of the book.
What does Tom say people most commonly miss when they read the Bible?
Tom says people forget that the Bible is about real people going through real trials — it has, as he puts it, 'a little dirt under its fingernails.' He wrote the devotional by trying to get inside the heads of the people in each story, even writing one entry from the point of view of a merchant in the temple who expected Jesus to bless his business — and got a very different surprise.
Does Tom have a favorite gospel or passage from his study?
His favorite portion of scripture is Luke 15 — the parable usually called the Prodigal Son. Tom thinks it's better titled 'The Heart of the Father,' because the parable centers on a father who longed and watched every day for his son's return, which he sees as the clearest picture of God's heart in all the gospels.
Where can I get Tom Hollis's book?
Tom says the easiest way is Amazon.com. He notes there is another book with the same title, so buyers should search specifically for the one by Tom Hollis.
Topics
tom hollisgospel devotionalscripture meditationcornerstone televisionhope todayprodigal songreat commission