The Plumbline

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romanns 12:1-2 MSG) Many of us attempt to 'blend in' with the culture around us, forgetting that God actually calls us to 'stick out' - not like a sore thumb, but in such a way that our lives make an impact on the world around us. It is through the living of our 'ordinary lives' that we become witnesses of his grace and transfor...

If we claim to live by the Holy Spirit, we must also walk by the Spirit with personal integrity, godly character, and moral courage—our conduct empowered by the Holy Spirit. (Galatians 5:25 AMP) Conduct may not always be the first thing we think about each morning, but if we were smart, we'd ask the Holy Spirit to actually take control of our conduct before we even set feet to the floor. Why? When our day begins under his control, our actions are more likely to reflect the image of Christ. Live by the Spirit and you will not be controlled by the lusts of the flesh or this world - isn't that what scripture teaches? We might not realize just how 'differently' we may act until we act him to 'act through us'. Walk by the Spirit with personal integrity. Whenever we ask the Holy Spirit to take control of our actions, we are relinquishing our 'right' to be our ultimate authority in life. This may not seem all that significant at first, but the more we relinqui...

Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. (Romans 12:3) How many times do we evaluate ourselves against other people? It may come as no surprise to you that psychologists have actually studied how people either "Compare Upward" or "Compare Downward" when evaluating their own behaviors. When we go the upward direction, we perceive someone to actually be better than us at something, so we judge ourselves against their behavior or actions. When we choose the downward comparison, we perceive ourselves as better, so we are judging them against our behavior. Unfortunately, God says that either way is wrong!  When we use others as our comparison, we find we either justify our behavior as 'okay' or we think we are so much worse than we should be. The first actually boosts what some refer to as 'self-esteem', while the latter merely pushes us further into a h...

Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God’s Law and Prophets and this is what you get. (Matthew 7:12) Plato told us human behavior flows from three sources: desire, emotion, or knowledge. Thinking upon that one a bit, it is clear to see how behavior can flow from emotion, for many of our 'responses' in life are emotion based. Desire certainly plays a huge part in us either pursuing or avoiding certain things. Knowledge is learned and can take us a while to grasp, making emotion and desire seem a whole lot easier for us rely upon! Until we learn that all emotional responses may not produce the best behavior (actions), we might keep leaning upon emotion too much. Unless the desire we lean into is one Christ would have us pursue, we are spending a lot of time pursuing something that may not always work out the way we hoped it would. We need to be taught which desires...

I have had those moments when I just wanted to say or doing something, but if I did, I knew the backlash would be more than I wanted to receive. It is a battle of the mind and will over emotions at times, isn't it? We 'think better' than our emotions tend to lead us on occasion - perhaps making 'emotions' one of the hardest and most fickle things we have to deal with once we get our mind under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit. Doing wrong is easy - doing right is a bit harder at times. Behavior matters, no matter what anyone says - behavior stems from all three - mind, will and emotions. Doing wrong leads to disgrace, and scandalous behavior brings contempt. (Proverbs 18:3) Back in the day, teachers used to give out little 'awards' to students with great academic achievements, including those who consistently exhibited good 'classroom behavior'. As you might have guessed, I might have received a few notes home to mom saying I was a bit of the clas...

Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. (I John 2:15-16) At times, people will ask me how they can know if a particular decision is 'in God's will'. I have found that using this verse as a guide to 'weed out' the ones that really aren't the best for us has helped me. If the craving is for some form of physical pleasure, I take a moment longer to consider the choice. If it is just because I see everyone is on the bandwagon to get something, I step back and wait to see if that 'thing' or 'activity' really is necessary or is just a nicety. If those two don't stop me in my tracks, I consider just how much my pride is motivating a particular decision. If it seems that...

Life Hack #14: Dear child, if you become wise, I’ll be one happy parent. My heart will dance and sing to the tuneful truth you’ll speak. (Proverbs 23:15-16) None of us become wise overnight, but in the development of our lives, we learn to embrace truths and live well. In turn, we bring honor to our parents - if not our earthly father or mother, then our heavenly Father is honored immensely!  Whatever the "parenting style" you were raised under, know this: God can "undo" the wrong stuff our parents did with us or to us in our lives just as much as he can magnify the good stuff! God wants every one of his children to become wise. How is this wisdom manifest? In the truth we speak and reveal with our actions. The soundness of heart is often betrayed by the words we speak, is it not? There are times people try to deliver such polished speeches, believing their words will mask the underlying misery in their lives. Our words can only do so much to mask what is trut...

What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you—guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.  (2 Timothy 1:13-14) May I ask what you 'keep safe' or 'guard' in your life? If you are a parent, it is likely you may have answered that your primary focus is to keep your little ones safe, harboring them against all harm as much as possible. If you are the owner of a company, you may say you are working hard to keep 'safe' that investment you made into that business and all the employees you have working within it. If you just got a brand new car, you might just admit to parking further away from the front door of the store because you want your car to be 'safe' from scratches and dings for as long as possible. We 'guard' or 'keep safe' a lot of different things in our lives, huh? Some are significant others, while others are things...

There are times when my BFF says something and I fake being 'hurt' about whatever she said - like walking away with head hung low, sagging my shoulders, or just putting on a pout. It is all in jest, but there are times when we all say or do things that really hurt another. We may not intend it, but the words come across curtly, the actions seem a little too rehearsed and stiff, or the response just doesn't match the moment. What happens next is critical. We can internalize the hurt so it does us harm, or we can externalize it in a way that harms another. Another option is to learn to actually recognize the offense as an opportunity to grow and to solidify the relationship. Overlook an offense and bond a friendship; fasten on to a slight and—good-bye, friend! (Proverbs 17:9) There are definitely times in life when an offense seems just too significant to overlook - there is just something about that offense that makes you think it is "justifiable" to remain angry ...

" He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose ."  (Jim Elliot)   This is truly a "deep" and "profound" observation on this clergyman's part.  To give what we cannot keep is more of a struggle than one may at first imagine. Silly as it may be, we often hold onto practices much like we hold onto things in our lives just because it has been the way we have always done things.  The defining moment comes when we actually realize we cannot get different results while doing exactly the same thing repeatedly, especially if those things are what we are counting on to somehow make us nearer, or more acceptable to God. We do a great deal to "give our best" to God, but even if we repeat the steps over and over again all we give is "our best".  I would much rather give to God what I am not able to give myself - no matter how hard I try!  Grace is something I cannot give myself - it is a gift freely given by him, but ...

Over the past couple of weeks I have been referencing this thing called "behavior" a lot.  If we don't think it matters, we are sadly mistaken.  We probably all know the adage, "Do as I say, not as I do."  In simply saying there is an inconsistency between what one says and then how one acts, we are setting up a standard contrary to what brings honor to God.  I have a little sign in my office, given to me years ago, which simply reads, "Every time you walk by the violation of a standard, you set a new standard" - profound insight indeed.  This is certainly important to me in my job since I am responsible for assisting people to adhere to the standards we are to operate within for our healthcare environment.  Those standards provide safe conditions for our patients and promote positive outcomes.  So, the standards matter - and every violation of a standard matters, as well.  What others observe in our "behavior" - good or bad - can actually s...

Have you ever tried to be so much like somebody else it was almost kind of comical to watch this transformation?  During the era of Jimmy Dean's fame, boys were dressing with white t-shirts and blue jeans, trying to look like the "tough guy".  Women were trying to dress and act like Marilyn Monroe.  Later on, rock stars like Michael Jackson were on the scene, sporting a new kind of "hip" or "cool" - while young and impressionable kids attempted to master his "moon walk" and got the cool glove!  Now, no one wants to see me moon walk, so I won't even try!  I didn't then and I won't now.  Yet, down through the ages, regardless of the generation in which we lived, people found "models" of behavior or style they wanted to emulate.  To be honest with you, I tried to preach like one of my Bible College professors!  You might ask how that worked out for me and I'd have to be honest - I was a flop!  Why?  I was not made to t...