The Plumbline

Who may worship in your sanctuary, Lord? Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? Those who lead blameless lives and do what is right, speaking the truth from sincere hearts. Those who refuse to gossip or harm their neighbors or speak evil of their friends. Those who despise flagrant sinners, and honor the faithful followers of the Lord, and keep their promises even when it hurts. Those who lend money without charging interest, and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent. Such people will stand firm forever. (Psalm 15 NLT) Blameless lives - can any of us actually say we have or are living blameless lives? I dare not imagine what would be the outcome of your inspection of my life! I have lived far short of blameless! The only thing that makes it possible for me to approach a holy God is the holiness of Jesus. The only thing that makes it possible for you to approach a holy God is the holiness of Jesus and his grace applied...

Yesterday we began a discussion about some character traits which we seldom focus on when really examining ourselves in the mirror, but which are really what makes us very appealing to God, and honestly, they make us pretty "appealing" in all other respects, as well.   As I mentioned, these traits are interwoven, almost dependent and coexistent with each other.  One trait just doesn't stand alone.  It would be like having one hair on the top of your head, one on your chin and an errant hair growing from your big toe.  It just makes no sense for hair to be on your big toe!  It makes perfect sense for it to be on your head, and only makes sense for it to be on your chin if you are a man!  Yet even one hair on the top of the head is kind of out of place, isn't it?  It needs its "sibling" hairs in order to really make a "display" of the beauty of our hair.  So it is with these character traits - they need each other in order to put on "perfe...