The Plumbline

“I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26) Do you believe this? That is a very telling question, for all else in our life hinges on the answer. Anyone who believes - is that you? Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Do you believe he made a way for you to be reconciled to God? Do you accept this free gift? These are the questions we must answer - if not today, then when? First, we believe in his finished work on the Cross - then we live in him. What does that mean? We don't become puppets in his hand, but we do relinquish the right to live in control of our lives. We willingly lay down our control and allow him to take the reins. The free gift opens the way for us to live free of things we don't even know have us bound. So many claim they have no need of a Savior because they have lived 'good live...

Every time I think of you—and I think of you often!—I thank God for your lives of free and open access to God, given by Jesus. There’s no end to what has happened in you—it’s beyond speech, beyond knowledge. The evidence of Christ has been clearly verified in your lives. (I Corinthians 1:4-5) Free and open access - wouldn't it be nice to have that type of access to everything we need in life? We could just walk into the bank and the manager would be right there to welcome us in, taking care of each of our needs. We could call the city buildings and there would be no phone trees to navigate through, or automated systems to push our buttons! I am so grateful for the free and open access I have to God - through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus! No 'phone trees' or 'buttons to push' - no sense that anyone else matters more than me. How about you? Do you sense this free and open access you have with him? If you have said a grateful 'yes' to Jes...

Have you ever stopped to consider how hard it is to get your body to do what your spirit is telling you to do? You likely will find that the way to your "body" is not so much through your "spirit", but rather through your "mind". What you believe in your mind, you see acted out in your body. What you commit to in your mind, you usually see commitment toward in your body. What you focus on long enough in your mind will eventually become a primary part of your life. Most of the time, we try to get our body to dictate what our spirit should do, but it should the other way around. Your spirit should be the one dictating to the body since you get to your body through you mind. If you want to really change the way you are making choices in life, you need to ensure the spirit is working on the mind, not your body! “Still, if you set your heart on God and reach out to him, if you scrub your hands of sin and refuse to entertain evil in your home, you’ll be ab...

Billy Graham reminded us, "It is not the body's posture, but the heart's attitude that counts when we pray." How many of us focus so much on the 'way' we do something and forget all about the 'why' behind it? I think we might just do this a little more than we suspect as evidenced by us doing things 'by rote'. We do hundreds of things each day, simply by rote. Do you think through the steps of brushing your teeth, donning your socks, or even making the coffee? Probably not...they have become 'rote' tasks you just do without even putting much thought into them. If you really think about it, there are probably a lot of 'spiritual things' we can do totally by rote if we aren't careful. Some will pile into the cars on Sunday mornings - make their way to their local church building - all by rote. There was no real 'preparation' to participate in that worship service - they were there because it was Sunday and that is what...

The hot monsoon season is upon us in Arizona, meaning very high temps and lots of humidity. For those of you that already live in a humid area, you know how stifling high temps can be in combo with humidity climbing. There are lots of things that stifle us in life, but when you begin to feel like every step you want to take is being held back, like every dream is crushed right before your eyes, or there is some force just standing in the way of you moving forward, your spirits get a little 'forlorn'. The feeling you experience is like the walls are somehow "closing in" around you - like you can palpate the very space you occupy on this earth as getting smaller and smaller! In the most literal sense, being stifled means something similar to being choked out, much like we'd "choke out" a campfire. You smother it with something like dirt long enough and in sufficient quantities until it just has no way of receiving the very thing it needs to continue on ...

There are lots of places of dryness in our lives, aren't there? As I age, my skin just seems to go from moist to dry in no time flat. Before long, I look down and see those lines and grooves that suggest all the hand washing of my day has left behind a look similar to that of a lizard's skin! The day can get past me in pretty short order and I wonder why I need to drink a gallon of water when I get home, then realize it is because I forgot to stop to get anything else to drink after my coffee first thing that morning. My body is just demanding to catch up! Arizona is a kind of 'dry' climate, but when you need the heat on in winter AND you live in a dry climate, even breathing can be 'dry'! I have come across animals and even fallen cacti - all leaving behind tell-tale signs of life at a former time - now dry and scattered, making it hard to really tell for sure what that animal may have been, or how majestic that cactus may have stood. Imagine if God were to tak...