The Plumbline

We have seen that God All-Powerful really is all powerful! But he is just and never treats anyone unfairly. That is why people fear and respect him. He shows no respect for those who think they are wise. (Job 37:23-24) We serve the one who makes heavens heavy with rain and snow; winds that gentle the leaves and topple them at times; oceans that flow in and out with rising and ebbing tides; and the one who takes notice of our every action or inaction with his watchful eye. God's justice is sometimes not understood - as much as we try to understand his holiness requires the need to judge sin, it is hard for us to wrap our heads around a merciful and loving God bringing 'justice' in a sinful world. I think we have come to think of justice as everyone being treated equally rather than that a morally righteous God cannot tolerate sin and must expose it for what it is. Sin is sin - give it all kinds of other names, but it is still sin. All sin must be judged by a holy, righteo...

Bless our God, O peoples! Give him a thunderous welcome! Didn't he set us on the road to life? Didn't he keep us out of the ditch? He trained us first, passed us like silver through refining fires, brought us into hardscrabble country, pushed us to our very limit, road-tested us inside and out, took us to hell and back; finally he brought us to this well-watered place. (Psalm 66:8-12) Maybe we think "blessing God" means giving a little of our hard earned income in the collection plate on Sunday, or perhaps singing a sweetly sung hymn. To bless means to exalt, magnify, and glorify the one we consider worthy of such a position and honor. It means we worship and adore the object of our affection and attention. What we miss most of the time is that the one we worship and adore is supposed to be  the object of both our affection AND our attention. The one who receives our greatest attention usually holds our greatest affection , and because of this we find opportuni...