The Plumbline

If you are feeling a bit like 'all human help is useless' right now, you are probably not alone in that appraisal of some of the things happening in our country at present. I think we more than enough concern over the rising prices of just about everything, with no more 'double coupons' and 'killer sales' to help us fill our pantries, rising gas prices making it difficult to enjoy our travels, and natural disaster upon disaster setting ablaze entire cities. We don't need to worry if our God is still present. It may seem like we aren't doing 'all that well' and 'all human help is useless', but God's help is really what we need most! Oh, please help us against our enemies, for all human help is useless. With God’s help we will do mighty things, for he will trample down our foes. (Psalm 60:11-12) With his help, mighty things can be accomplished - even by those who say it is not possible. The impossible is God's domain. We should ...

  Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night so I’ll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns. (Philippians 2:14-16) Do everything readily - promptly, easily, and willingly. Do everything cheerfully - ungrudgingly, joyfully, with brightness. These two instructions might just seem a little bit like a summary at the beginning of our study and you would be right. We are told to 'go out' and as we do we are to shine as bright examples of his grace - grace upon grace. Why? So others will have a chance to meet the living God - the God who lives and breathes in us - so they may embrace this grace upon grace for themselves. An even taller order comes when we consider there is to be no bickering - petulant arguments get u...