The Plumbline

“Pay close attention to what you hear. The closer you listen, the more understanding you will be given—and you will receive even more. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what little understanding they have will be taken away from them.” (Mark 4:24-25) I remember being in the classroom as a kid, staring blankly at some object or view from the window, all the while daydreaming some big plan or fantasy in my mind. The teacher would be going on with some lesson in geometry, mathematics, or science, all while I was soaring through space in a rocket ship or sailing the blue seas in search of treasures. The imagination is a good thing when it helps us invent new things that help others, but it can be a distraction when it causes us to lose focus!  Christ used parables to teach the people because they could relate to those objects or tasks. Sowing seed was common. Lighting a lamp at sundown was everyday practice....

When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. And we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things. Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? (Romans 2:1-4) Too many times, we judge others for exactly the same things we do, say, or feel. It isn't that we don't know these things are wrong and that we shouldn't be engaging in those things ourselves, it is that we can see them best in others! Remember, the eyes focus outward - they don't look inward. We need some 'inward inspection' to point out that we are engaging in similar behavior. I suppose this is why God gave us his Holy Spirit to reside withi...

For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory. So we tell others about Christ, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all the wisdom God has given us. We want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. (Colossians 1:27-28) Christ lives in you - those are words we can take to heart. In fact, I like to personalize that verse and remind myself that Christ lives in ME. That gives ME the assurance I will share his glory and will be 'presented to God', perfect in MY relationships to Christ. Maybe you might want to personalize that one for yourself. Recalling this from time to time may just be what you need to 'counteract' some of the stuff your enemy is telling you about yourself. We are 'in Christ', he lives 'in us', and we are certain that where he abides, his 'perfecting power' is sure to...

For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. (I Peter 1:18-19) I was reading this passage today and really began to focus in on the words 'the empty life you inherited from your ancestors'. If you have just skipped over those words, like I have so many times, you may not have even realized what this passage points out so vividly. Our life, prior to asking Christ to take control of it, was merely an empty shell that required his intervention in order to be what it was created to become. That empty shell might not have seemed like much to any onlooker but to God, because of his intense love for his creation, it required a 'ransom' in order to redeem it from the emptiness it had inherited. If you have not heard the truth that man is a 'tri-part being', made up of body...

I don't know about you, but I have realized that we aren't always going to walk the right path, no matter how 'determined' we are. There will always be alternatives, and we will not always select the right one. The issue isn't that we will veer off-course from time to time, it is that we should never make those 'veers' a permanent life choice. We need to learn to recognize them quickly, come before God in humility, acknowledge our need to get back on-course, and then let him help us take the right steps forward. Godliness guards the path of the blameless, but the evil are misled by sin. (Proverbs 13:6) A guarded path is much harder to veer off of than an unguarded one. We may try, but there is always protection to get us back on course or keep us there in the first place. It has good defenses to ensure there is nothing that can act as a destructive force on that path. The evil heart actually chooses a non-guarded path because it is more 'appealing...

 I don't know about you, but I have carried around resentment in my life at times that just ate away at me until I finally released that load to God. It was only then that I realized the significant weight I had put on myself and just how awful that stuff was to carry. Proverbs 27:3 reminds us, "A stone is heavy, and sand is weighty, but the resentment caused by a fool is even heavier." Our words and actions can turn from wise and kind toward bitter and foolish in just a matter of minutes. Our plan to be wise and act the 'right' way can be waylaid by some emotional 'mood' that hits us 'just right' at just the 'wrong moment' and there we are embracing foolish actions and a seed of bitterness. Our mind might be telling us to do one thing, but our emotions can carry us in a different direction when they are allowed to overrule our mind. Truth be told, the other person was kind of foolish in their behavior and it ticked us off just a bit mor...

OUR strength is often what we call willpower or the desire to act one way when the other is the choice we make most often. The truth be told, our ability or talent is way too over-estimated, and our strength is way too small. Proverbs 24:10 reminds us, "If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small." Have you never heard? Have you never understood? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless. Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:28-31) God's strength is for the weary and the weak. Not sure if I should admit this or not, but that is me! It is not for those who hav...

Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing. (Proverbs 12:18) Words - remember the old adage, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"? That adage is not true at all, is it? Yes, a beating with sticks and stones could leave us physically maimed, but words/names can hurt even deeper than some of those more 'physical' attacks. Words can be spoken with good intent, yet they bring hurt into the spirit of a man. Why? We don't always 'filter' what we hear. We don't always hear the intent behind the words - we only hear the words themselves. We take all of them in and then we take all of them to heart. What we neglect to do is ask God's help to 'sort' or 'filter' that are helpful and discard the rest. Maybe the problem begins with what we say because many of us are guilty of not really applying good 'filters' to what we say, beginning the pathway to words being said that cou...

Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him. (Philippians 2:12-13) Whoever told you that this Christian lifestyle was going to be a cakewalk was pulling the wool over your eyes! It is easier at first, but at some point, it actually gets a bit harder to continue in our growth. It is not always easy following the instructions laid out for us in God's Word, maybe because we see so many others just observing those words when it feels good to them and ignoring them at other times. Obedience is definitely not situational, and it is not a thing we 'show off' when others are watching and ignore when they are not.  Work hard to show the results of your salvation. That very statement suggests there may be more than a bit of work involved in making different choices in life. Lifestyle changes are hard, but when they begin with a proper respect for God...

Times may seem bleak right now, but we can know that even when disaster abounds and emptiness seems to occupy spaces once fruitful, our hearts are filled with an everlasting peace. Empty 'barns' and lost 'flocks' may not be our worry today, but empty pantries and drained bank accounts may be our present worry. Even in the midst of these struggles, we can rejoice in the Lord. Why? He remains our strength when our weakness abounds! Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation! (Habakkuk 3:17-18) Joy comes when we worship him - it actually ushers in his peace and joy when we surrender our hearts in worship. In short order, we find our strength being renewed and our peace restored. These are found in his...

The altar of God is a place of healing, but many just see it as a place of judgment or punishment. They fear approaching a holy God, probably because they don't understand the intensity of his love, nor the extreme privilege of his grace. We need to see the altar as a place of encouragement, where we are filled with the presence of God, and celebrate his goodness, grace, and strength. Send out your light and your truth; let them guide me. Let them lead me to your holy mountain, to the place where you live. There I will go to the altar of God, to God—the source of all my joy. (Psalm 43:3-4) Discouragement abounds today, making it ever so important to understand where it is we go to find our encouragement. It isn't in the rise of the stock market, or even the momentary good times we enjoy at family celebrations. It is at the altar that we are renewed and regenerated. It is there we find a lasting peace and an enduring courage for the trials ahead. Whenever we only ...

For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.” (Romans 1:16-17) Sometimes we encounter those who really don't believe the truth of the gospel. It could be that we sometimes struggle with it ourselves, questioning the validity of what God has said or promised to us. Those who doubt the truth today might even say it is just kind of 'old-fashioned' and outdated - like it belonged to our parent's generation, not ours. What is worse is that some actually believe they are able to do life on their own, that they don't need this 'God thing' we talk about. Faith isn't 'old-fashioned', outdated, or 'invalid'. It never grows old. I think some may balk a littl...

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you. (I Peter 5:7) All, not just some. Give them all to God. Seems easy enough, right? Nope! It isn't all that easy because we have this tendency to 'hold onto' just a few more worries than we should. The trouble with that is we aren't allowing the one who can 'take care' of them to handle them. Taking on the burden of those cares is not our 'duty' or even our 'privilege'. It is sin! God tells us to give him all our cares, so when we hold onto them so tightly, worrying them along, we get buried under a load of weight, some of which is the guilt we experience by not letting them go.  Our shoulders weren't meant to bear that burden. All we can do in life is our 'best', then we leave the rest to Jesus. If we have done our part, we need to allow him to do his. The issue comes when we think 'our part' goes way beyond where it should go. Our 'best' is done now, then ...

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2) When we get honest with God, ourselves, and others, we might just find ourselves expressing some feelings and thoughts that we have kept bottled up for a while. We start to share what we are experiencing - at the 'gut level'. True honesty with God begins with true honesty with ourselves. Until we are willing to be truthful about what we have been feeling or experiencing in life, we will just live truly superficial lives - emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. Dishonesty with oneself actually creates a pretty negative outcom...

After exploring the land for forty days, the men returned to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community of Israel at Kadesh in the wilderness of Paran. They reported to the whole community what they had seen and showed them the fruit they had taken from the land. This was their report to Moses: “We entered the land you sent us to explore, and it is indeed a bountiful country—a land flowing with milk and honey. Here is the kind of fruit it produces. But the people living there are powerful, and their towns are large and fortified. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak! (Numbers 13:25-28) The moment we let our eyes 'see' as only we can see is the moment the odds against us might seem a little too great to handle. We need to begin to see life through God's eyes, but how do we do that in the face of such great odds against us? There will always be circumstances that seem to be out of our control, beyond our natural means of handling or muddling through. When we only foc...