The Plumbline

I said, ‘Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.’ (Hosea 10:12) Plant the good seeds of righteousness - harvest a crop of love. Back in the day, there was a song whose lyrics purported, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love...", and that may not have been bad advice back then or right now! The world needs to experience the love of Christ - through us. We take an 'active' role in not only accepting the 'good seeds of righteousness' into our lives, but in sharing (sowing) those seeds into the lives of others. One of the things we need to do within our own lives is allow God's 'plow' to be applied to the 'soil' of our hearts. Fallow ground is hard. It has been left 'untilled' and 'unplanted' for quite some time. Farmers actually allow entire fields to go ...

Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. (Galatians 6:7-8) We've discussed many times how actions have consequences. We reap one seed and expect some other harvest to come from it. That's just plain silly - a seed is meant to reproduce, but of its 'own kind'. For this very reason, we need to be mindful of the seed we sow. Soil matters, too, for bad soil with good seed is just 'wasted seed'. Good soil and good seed have the potential to produce a 'bumper crop', especially when both are in the hands of God. There are some 'practices' we engage in over and over again that consistently produce good harvests. Things like taking time in his word, worshipping him, and sharing life with others in the faith are n...

Thomas Fuller reminds us, "In fair weather prepare for foul." We prepare for a life with Christ in eternity by living a life close to him today. We are preparing for whatever may come our way. In living close to Christ today, we are ensuring whatever storm or battle comes next, we are prepared to face it with his assistance. The closeness we develop with Jesus today is something we can count on to be our firm foundation into every tomorrow.  So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:16-17) Way too often we evaluate others by what we observe on the surface, not really knowing what has been going on inside of their hearts and minds. We 'see' one thing but have no idea what preparation has been going on deep beneath the ...

It was D.L. Moody who reminded us of 'heaven being a prepared place for a prepared people'. Jesus reminds us, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be." (Matthew 6:19-21) Heavenly-minded individuals are living today in preparation for heaven. That may look like one thing to me and another thing to you, but the end result is what matters. Are today's actions in accord with the principles taught in scripture? Did we take time to consider others as Jesus always did? Are we leaving behind goodness and kindness wherever we journey? To prepare here, we stay focused on the actions and attitude of Christ in all we do. Wherever your treasure is... To understand the 'where', we must first define the 'what...