The Plumbline

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Eliab is tall and handsome, but don’t judge by things like that. God doesn’t look at what people see. People judge by what is on the outside, but the Lord looks at the heart. Eliab is not the right man.” (I Samuel 16:7) When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself. (Wayne Dyer) We can make some pretty false claims about others simply because we only see the 'message' they deliver on the outside. We can lift a man higher than he should be just because he 'plays the part' we expect based upon the 'role' he plays in life. Case in point - I observed almost every male nurse who wore a white coat over his work scrubs into a patient's room was asked if he was the doctor. The 'impression' of the white coat made the patient think the 'role' the male nurse was actually that of their physician. We can never judge someone by their appearance - there is always something much deeper that we must see - th...

The fire must never go out, so put wood on it each morning. After this, you are to lay an animal on the altar next to the fat that you sacrifice to ask my blessing. Then send it all up in smoke to me. The altar fire must always be kept burning—it must never go out. (Leviticus 6:12-13)   The Old Testament can be a bit hard to read through, especially since it seems like there are a lot of blood wars, blood sacrifices, bad things happening, and a whole lot of sinning going on! I see regular people, struggling to make a way in a regular world, and meeting with regular issues we all have to encounter. So, instead of slugging through, I look for the hidden truths and things we might otherwise overlook if we were just reading these chapters as "historical content". In the Book of Leviticus, much instruction was given to the priests on how they were to conduct their daily business in the offering of sacrifices.  In the instructions given to Moses for the priests, various sacrifices,...

But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true: Death swallowed by triumphant Life! Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now? It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus...