The Plumbline

"Treasure the love you receive above all. It will survive long after your good health has vanished." (Og Mandino) This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other. (John 15:12-17) The same way Christ loved us - is it possible to love that much? I don't believe Jesus would have told us to do so if he wouldn't also empower us to love in such a manner. How does one actually lay down their life for another? Does it always require physical death? I don't believe Jesus would have told us to al...

People who live following their sinful selves think only about what they want. But those who live following the Spirit are thinking about what the Spirit wants them to do. If your thinking is controlled by your sinful self, there is spiritual death. But if your thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace. (Romans 8:5-6) Thinking or not thinking - both can present problems we might not want to deal with. If we think upon things that are not honorable or will bring dishonorable actions into our lives, we get the resulting problems associated with those sinful thoughts. If we fail to think before we act, relying only upon what feels good to us at the moment, we will reap the results that will not always be very rewarding or wonderful. Thinking must be controlled - it cannot just be willy-nilly. If we are to live upright lives, we need a 'thinking partner' in this walk. That is why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to live within us. We need his presence to help us fil...

So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy." (I Peter 1:13-16) How do we keep from returning to a bad habit? Experts might suggest things like a 21-day commitment to the new one - advising that after those three weeks have passed, the new habit is ingrained into our current way of living. I am going to dispel that myth a bit because if that was the truth, why would we need to return to dieting time after time again, with rebound weight loss? Obviously, the 21-day commitment didn't 'take', did it? We found ourselves drifting back into eating a bit more tha...

Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission. (Arnold Bennett) Bennett also reminds us "it is easier to go down a hill than up, but the view is from the top" - something we'd do well to consider when we are just 'coasting through life'. We oftentimes take for granted the things we allow to 'penetrate' our minds, almost without any real thought to it at all. It is as though the process of things 'getting into our minds' can be a little 'passive' when we are not 'on guard' to keep out unwanted influences and misguided half-truths. Maybe the one thing we can do to 'guard' our minds seems a bit too easy, but in allowing the Word of God to begin to penetrate our minds more and more, we are actually 'setting up the guard'. Be careful what you think, because your thoughts run your life. (Proverbs 4:23) Indeed, our thoughts dictate so many of our actions - both good and b...

Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse. Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized. Do that, and God, who makes everything work together, will work you into his most excellent harmonies. (Philippians 4:8) I often go to this verse whenever I observe my thinking being a little too negative, my speech a little too critical, or my attitude just a bit off. Why? It is a reminder to me of the importance of taking particular note of what goes into my mind and what it is I allow my mind to contemplate over and over again. The old computer geek term of 'garbage in - garbage out' really holds true with this thing we call our brain. We do our best when our minds are filled with the right stuff - we don't do as well when there is input that '...

 I’m speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. (Romans 12:3) The more we try to figure ourselves out, the harder it gets. We do something and we attempt to get down to the rationale behind the action we exhibited. We don't do anything and we try to look deeper into the meaning of the inaction. We are always evaluating ourselves by the outcomes of what it is our action or inaction produces. Is this always the most valid way of evaluating ourselves, though? If we take our text today as truth, then we are clearly not to evaluate self by self - we are to evaluate self by what God does...

Did you realize there are various forms of bankruptcy? I didn't know a person could declare themselves 'bankrupt' and still keep their stuff, but they can. They don't always have to 'liquidate' everything - there is this option to kind of 'rehabilitate' your financial status, while eliminating a whole lot of the debt one has created in life. In the simplest terms, being bankrupt means one is unable to satisfy any just claim made upon that individual; or their is this lacking in a particular thing or quality. Today, as our economy tanks and our finances seem to be the focus of so many conversations, I'd like to take a moment to really focus on something we seldom spend much time thinking about in terms of bankruptcy - love. We throw the word "love" around like it was a "thing" rather than a quality, or an outflow of a person's life. For anyone who has been around a while, it is not uncommon to have heard some familiar passag...

Is there really an real time in our lives when we are too young, immature, or obstinate to be important to God? Sometimes I think we discount our potential based on our chronological age, accomplishments, or obedient responses! God doesn't! He sees potential in the words of a child just learning to speak and the aged who share from a vast wealth of accumulated knowledge. He sees only the best in the one who seems to struggle with obedience repeatedly because he knows how badly we don't want to do the stuff we do. The potential one has in his eyes is really determined by the way we choose to yield our hearts and spirit to him - even when we do it less than perfectly. I'm too young to be important, but I don't forget what you tell me. Your righteousness is eternally right, your revelation is the only truth. Even though troubles came down on me hard, your commands always gave me delight. The way you tell me to live is always right; help me understand it so I can live to ...

Those who plot evil shall wander away and be lost, but those who plan good shall be granted mercy and quietness. ( Proverbs 14:22   TLB ) Good or evil - both are the result of certain processes set in motion within our lives. Deming said that if we could not find a way to describe what we are doing as a 'process', then we actually didn't know what we are doing. All of life is filled with processes, beginning with thought and carried into action. If you have ever had one of those involuntary moments when you are asleep and suddenly feel like you are falling, jerking yourself awake, you know how 'off' that feeling of falling can make you feel. You might not realize it, but we are all subject to 'interpreting' certain actions or reactions based on how they make us feel. Yet, not all feelings are real - that 'fall' was imagined. You weren't actually falling out of bed, but somehow your thoughts engaged a reaction to that 'impression' of f...

2  People think that whatever they do is right, but the  Lord  judges the reasons for everything they do.  3  Do what is right and fair. The  Lord  loves that more than sacrifices. (Proverbs 21:2-3 ERV) What are the reasons behind the actions you take? This is a reasonable question, but one that may require a bit more soul-searching than we often want to make at any given moment. It is not uncommon to "act", then think of the motivation behind those actions. It usually happens as a result of the action falling short of whatever it was you thought you were doing when you acted! It is then that you look back, wondering just how quickly your actions got that off-course. I've said this before, but it bears repeating - actions really do follow thought. We may not realize what we have been entertaining in our minds until we see the actions in play. As I have often said, having a "guard" over our thought life can be our salvation in more ways than one! ...

13  Therefore, once you have your minds ready for action and you are thinking clearly, place your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed.   14  Don’t be conformed to your former desires, those that shaped you when you were ignorant. But, as obedient children,   15  you must be holy in every aspect of your lives, just as the one who called you is holy. (I Peter 1:13-15 CEB) There have probably been times when you begin something, thinking it is the exact thing you needed to do, or the right time to do it, only to find you run smack-dab into one wall after another. What happened? Was your intention wrong? Were the steps you took just not good enough? No, it may just be that your mind was ready for action, but you weren't thinking as clearly on the matter as you needed to - you had a good idea, but you didn't give it time to filter through enough or the right filters in order to remove all the "sediment" and "mud...

" The undertaking of a new action brings new strength ." (Richard L. Evans) While this is ultimately quite true, most of us begin some new task wishing to be where we want to end up right from the beginning - we wish the steps in between didn't have to be taken because it is a lot of work sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other!  Some think we make our own future, create our own hope, live as though we create the world in which we live. While I think keeping a positive attitude is quite important, we don't actually create our outcome just because we think our way to a positive approach to the problem at hand. We often have to struggle with the "negative" stuff in the middle of the problem, with the gamut of emotions that brings, until we reach the other side. As Evans said, the actual action we take creates a little bit of new or renewed strength in us. Each action is the starting place for momentum to develop - without action, there is no poss...

Have you ever noticed that God uses people to accomplish his plans and purpose?  I guess I find this kind of amazing considering how capable he is all on his own to accomplish whatever it is that needs to be done.  Do you ever wonder why God uses us to accomplish the things he wants to see done on this earth?  Maybe it is as simple as something I discovered as a parent when my kids were growing up.  The more I had them participate, the more invested they were in the thing being done. They kind of "owned" a part of it, so they were a little more inclined to really value it.  Maybe God just wants us to understand the value of what he is doing - not just revel in the awesomeness of him "doing stuff" on our behalf.   The tribal leaders of Judah and Benjamin, the priests and Levites, and everyone motivated in his or her spirit by the True God prepared to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Eternal’s temple.  All their neighbors gave them silver, gold, ...

We all have those moments in time when we just "feel" like doing something is going to be the right thing to do and we just go ahead with our plans.  There are even time when we kind of suspect there might be a little "issue" with what we are doing, but then we go ahead anyway.  Whenever we just move without fully thinking it through, or getting God's perspective on the matter, we are usually pretty disappointed with the results!  There are times when we have duped ourselves into believing our actions are fully "justified" by the actions of another.  It is like we are saying, "Well, he did this, so I did that" - thinking our actions are "made all right" because of the actions of another.  If they don't think about the outcome of their actions that is one thing - but we have the responsibility to think about how our actions exemplify the heart of Jesus, so we may not want to respond without thinking things through! People ...

The beginning of "doing" something may actually begin in the "wanting" of something bad enough we start to make a movement or two toward whatever it is we want.  In everyday life, we "want" certain things and then we set about "doing" things to get or accomplish whatever it is we want.  Recently, I have been working in the backyard to add some raised beds.  It began about a year ago when I shared my vision with my son and he set about to make the first "addition" to the yard in the form of three nice tiered raised beds and a small deck in between.  This gave me the start for what became the next extension of the deck and a cover to shade me while I barbecue under it.  Now, I am collecting old pallets (with the help of my sons).  I am busting those apart and seeing what I can create from them.  The latest addition to the yard is about a 10 foot long diamond-shaped raised bed about one foot high.  It was totally reclaimed wood (with the ...

If you have ever had one of those days where being agreeable and loving just seem to be the most difficult response to muster, then you are not alone. Every now and then, these days seem to creep up and the testing of our patience almost overwhelms us - sometimes it even does!  When we have these days back-to-back, there seems to be no helping us - for every response we have is less than kind!  Learning to bless when we just don't feel like it is a difficult thing to do - especially when we are relying upon our own self effort to accomplish it!  Truth is - we are all pretty disagreeable at times - some of us more than others.  When I run into someone who just seems to be disagreeable every time I see them, I have to wonder what made them so "sour" on life.  Maybe they just haven't recovered from some hurt in their past, or someone keeps opening up their "healing wounds" and now all they can do is "fester" in their misery.  Regardless, the very bes...

I wonder if you have ever considered how it is people come to understand the "value" in following Jesus.  In fact, when you really stop to consider how it is we determine "value" for anything in our lives it becomes apparent "value" is often determined by how it makes us feel, what it promises to provide for us, etc.  It isn't so much because someone else says this object is worth great value - we somehow "determine" the value of the item as it relates to US. The value another sees in an object may not be the same as we place in it. Antiques are a good example of this.  As I shopped throughout the antique stores in Virginia on a recent trip, I saw everything from a manageable $3 price tag on a milk bottle to an astronomical price of $295 on another.  They did not look all that dissimilar - but the "value" of one was obviously huge compared to the other.  Perhaps someone who understands antiques will tell me the value of the more exp...

Brainstorming:  A technique for solving problems, amassing information, stimulating creative thinking, or developing new ideas, by unrestrained and spontaneous participation in discussion.  If you have ever been part of a "brainstorming" session in a large group, you know you can generate a whole bunch of ideas in a short period of time using this technique.  Yet, I find we don't always get the best from the most - we often get the best when we are able to filter it down to the least .  For example, when we have to choose between cookies on a platter, there may be ten different varieties.  The one "creating" the platter wanted to have a "selection" of all possible choices.  The one eating the cookies may have one thing in mind - satisfy my craving for chocolate and peanut butter!  The cookie-eater zeros in on exactly what will fulfill - not all the other sweets on the platter! We humans keep brainstorming options and plans,   but  God ’s p...

Are you a "figurer"?  You know - the one who has to have a plan worked out, all the steps in order, constantly vigilant for even the slightest change in course?  Many of us have a tendency to "over-work" the plan - sometimes so much so as to never fully step out in the plan because we are still working it! In fact, some of the TV commercials I see today are addressing the issue with us "planning", but not doing the "acting" on the plan.  There is a popular Christian dating website proclaiming "you might be waiting for God to act, but God is saying it is your time to act".  Now, I don't agree we need to act, but we also need God's direction prior to acting.  The problem with most of our "plans" is the one doing the planning - us!  WE don't control the circumstances, so even the best laid plans don't always work out the way we counted!  Solomon wants to leave his sons with some advice related to turning the plans...