The Plumbline

He was despised and rejected— a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! (Isaiah 53:3-4) We often hear this passage quoted on Easter. It carries the message of a Messiah - the rejection of the one who would come to save us from our sins and restore our relationship with God the Father. Yet, do we hear the real message of this passage? "And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God..." We thought...just how many things do we get wrong when we think one way, all the while forgetting there could just be a different perspective we aren't privy to at all? God gave this prophecy so many years before the Messiah came, yet many missed it because they 'thought' one way and refused to see Jesus as the red...

I have met church-goers who seem to treat their 'religious life' as though it was something they could hold so close to the cuff that no one else could actually know the God they serve. It is as though they think they have some 'inside track' with this God-thing, but in reality no one really has found a 'more right' way to heaven than to believe in the finished work of the cross accomplished by Christ himself. No one who really serves Christ whole-heartedly is able to 'shut-off' their 'religious life' just because it a workday and not the sabbath. In truth, our life isn't 'religious' if we are followers of Christ - it is a genuine relationship that carries into all the days and hours of our week. He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we’ve learned: that there’s one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captiv...

But he was wounded and bruised for  our  sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed!  We— every one of us—have strayed away like sheep!  We,  who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on  him  the guilt and sins of every one of us! ( Isaiah 53:5-6   TLB ) It wasn't for HIS sins, but OURS. What kind of a man would take upon himself the penalty of so many without consideration of his own pain? It was for us that he died - no sin of his own - for he was the perfect lamb sacrificed to all. In the Old Testament worship practices given down to Moses by God, God taught of the need for an "atonement sacrifice" - a perfect sacrifice whose shed blood would 'cover over' the imperfect sins of the many. Christ was that "atonement sacrifice" - his blood shed for the imperfect condition of each of our souls. Believe it or not - it is your choice. But...if you do choose to place your trust in that finished work, o...

The twelfth chapter of Hebrews begins with the words, "...we must rid ourselves of everything that slows us down..."  Do you have things which slow you down in life?  I think we all do.  I have had to learn to do things at two different paces since my mom came to live with me over six years ago.  One pace is my normal, get-er-done pace which is almost at light-speed compared to the other, which makes mom and I look like a race between the hare and the tortoise! Mom isn't able to move at the break-neck speeds I do anymore, so I have had to adjust some of my tasks to a slower speed.  Now, I am not complaining about mom being someone who slows me down - I wouldn't want to miss a day of this life we have together.  I just wanted to show how we sometimes have very "regular" things in life which slow us down - sometimes external to us, like another person; sometimes kind of internal, like raw emotions or fear.  There is nothing which quite slows us down as ...