The Plumbline

The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire. (Richard M. Nixon) My brothers and sisters, you will have many kinds of trouble. But this gives you a reason to be very happy. You know that when your faith is tested, you learn to be patient in suffering. If you let that patience work in you, the end result will be good. You will be mature and complete. You will be all that God wants you to be. (James 1:2-4) While none of us actually wants to embrace the 'furnace' of trials and troubles of all kinds, it is actually how we realize the greatest growth in our faith and inner character. Be that what it may be, we don't usually run right into the face of trials and get all up in their grill, so to speak. We actually might just want to turn tail and run when we see them coming - especially when they are coming so rapid fire that we just don't seem to have any breathing room in between them. God's plan isn't to leave us devastated by allowing these trials - though t...

Desmund Tutu said, "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all the darkness." We can see all manner of darkness, but we don't see clearly in that darkness, do we? We are enveloped by its heavy shadow, but we can push back that shadow when we bring light into that dark place. Someone once said we can either be a candle or the mirror that reflects the candle - either way, we are pushing back darkness. We may not feel like it, but our very presence on this earth brings light into some very dark places. Lord, you provide the flame for my lamp. You, God, turn the darkness around me into light. (Psalm 18:28) God provides our 'flame' - we reflect his light. There is much to be said about having the 'right fuel' for our fire. You could start a fire with a gallon of gasoline, but it isn't all that safe because it has an explosive power. You could start a fire with a mirror, but it isn't reliable unless you have the brighter light of the s...

Our heart fire must be tended. What gets our attention gets tended - plain and simple. If we turn away from tending that spiritual fire, it is easy for it to begin to go out. Diligence must be maintained in ensuring we are consistent in tending it. Whenever we tend something, we are directing our attention toward the object we are tending - it means we narrow our focus to see just what we need to be paying attention to and then we do something about it. It is not enough to just look like we are tending our spiritual growth. We need to be actively engaged in taking care of our spiritual lives - not just passively going about life hoping God will help us to grow. 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)   Our heart fire must burn hot. 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,...

So seek God and live! You don't want to end up with nothing to show for your life but a pile of ashes, a house burned to the ground. For God will send just such a fire, and the firefighters will show up too late. (Amos 5:6) Ever find yourself in a place where it feels like everything around you is 'on fire' and you are somehow trying to put out all the fires at once? I think we occasionally find ourselves in these times of wearing and quite frustrating 'firefighting'. Most of us can put out a small fire, but those bigger ones require the expertise of the firefighter specifically trained in the task! Amos was one of the twelve minor prophets of Israel. He finds himself leading a group of people who had little time for God and lots of time for their good life. The armies of Assyria (one of their fiercest rivals) were battling for bigger territory and Israel was allowed to live almost without warfare during that time, enjoying the expansion of their own territory wi...

Now and again, mom begins a discussion by saying she doesn't know what she has done in this lifetime to 'deserve' all the pain she experiences because of her arthritis, stenosis, and neuropathy. Any one of those can be quite debilitating - add all three together and you rarely have a day when one or the other isn't a troubling thing. Add to this that she is legally blind, hard of hearing, and 100 years old, and you can see why she might just 'bemoan' some of these ailments once in a while! While we may not understand the 'why' behind the present set of worries and woes that we experience, we can be assured of one very important fact - the day is coming when we will live healed and whole once again if our hearts are surrendered to Christ! What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future i...

Back in the days of the pioneers, there was a crazy flurry of activity to 'hit it big' in the gold mining 'rushes' of the day. Someone would come across the 'mother-load' and the rush would be on. Whether that sparkly stuff was panned from streams or chiseled from the walls of the caves that housed their rich vein, the result was the same - it had to be melted down before it could really be used. Along came the silver and copper mines, each yielding their own 'ores' of great promise - each requiring their own type of 'smelting' processes, but each producing various 'qualities' of 'finished product' as a result. The smelting process usually involved what came to be known as the 'crucible' - that smaller collection spot within the larger furnace where the refined metals would be collected. While the furnace produced the heat to accomplish the refining process, the crucible acted as a collection device to capture the purified...

It is wildfire season in Arizona and our very dry winter has created the perfect conditions for dry forest lands which can quickly burn out of control. Already many fires have taken out way too much forest land, burned down homes and structures, and tormented animals seeking a safe place to find food and shelter. Fire is a devastating force. The words of our mouth are more powerful than a small spark that can set an entire forest on fire – or so scripture tells us. If our words are this powerful, just imagine the extreme power of the words of God! His words are instruments of grace, love, healing, direction, and even chastisement, if warranted. Regardless of the types of words he speaks, they are filled with power - power not matched by any other power in this world or in the heavens above. They are spoken to hearing ears and responsive hearts. Those who will listen intently to their meaning will be blessed by these words, but one must apply themselves to listening and being open to w...

Richard Nixon reminds us, " The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire. " The hottest fires can be the ones that come up unexpectedly and consume way more than we ever thought possible by one tiny spark. They can also be those that are stoked over and over on purpose so as to accomplish a particular task. Both have similarities, for both require fuel in order to burn. What fuels the fire that refines the "steel" of our lives is sometimes stoked with great intent by a faithful God, while at other times we might just find that something which appears to be a wildfire burning in our lives is really the result of "untended" ground. Fire is used to make gold and silver pure, but a person’s heart is made pure by the Lord. (Proverbs 17:3 ERV) Wildfires burn because there was something to ignite - the fuel existed to allow the slow burn to begin to become a much bigger burn. The wildfire burns because something acted as an ignition point - there was somet...

I want us to look at three separate verses today - each carrying a little bit of this vs. that.  In other words, if we act a certain way, this is our reward; act the other way and your reward will be quite different.  Outcome is often determined by the things we set in motion at the beginning of the course - but not always. It is possible to turn an outcome around, even when you are already well down the path toward a certain outcome.  For example, I can determine I want to build a fire.  When I do, I set out to find some kindling - small pieces of dry leaves and wood to be the thing which will catch fire quickly when exposed to the source of fire.  Then I will find other wood for the fire, in varying sizes because some will need to catch quickly and others will sustain the fire a lot longer.  I can stack all of this so carefully, making a nice little mound in the middle of a pit I dig for the fire.  If I don't have anything to ignite the fire in the ...

Yesterday I shared the truth about warnings - they are meant for our safety, but we need to have hearing ears and attentive eyes.  Today, we will look at the third characteristic related to heeding warnings - a responsive heart.  Remembering the heart is really the seat of our emotions, we can just imagine why God wraps the heart up into this picture of avoiding hazards by heeding warnings.  Our emotions can sometimes play tricks on us - making us see something totally different from what is really ahead of us.  Mom asked my sister last night why women choose losers.  I am not sure where this conversation came from, but I guess it was part of a story they were reading, so I just listened.  My sister's response was some women just do because they feel "needed" for the first time, or they feel "special" to someone and this is what they have wanted for so long.  I guess this kind of lends some credence to our discussion this morning - we cannot just list...

3  As silver in a crucible and gold in a pan,    so our lives are assayed by God.  (Proverbs 17:3 The Message) Yesterday, we took a look at the process of "stoking" the furnace of our hearts - getting us to a place that God can work with us, forming us into what it is he envisions for us.  Today, I'd like to continue to explore another instrument of the craftsman used in the process of purification - it is what is known as the crucible.  The crucible is similar to the furnace, but its purpose is not so much to heat to the point of being "pliable" in the hand of the craftsman as it is to bring to the surface that which is impure in the substance he is working with.  For some of us, we feel the "heat" of the crucible much more often than we'd like.  Take heart, that really means that God is just at work bringing to the surface the things in our lives that he needs to remove by his tender care. When I lived in Alaska, I got to know a gentle...

What does straw have in common with wheat?    Nothing else is like God's Decree. Isn't my Message like fire?" God's Decree.    "Isn't it like a sledgehammer busting a rock? (Jeremiah 23:29) To a farmer, a crop of straw has little value compared to wheat.  Each has its purpose, but what is yielded in the return of the seed planted is much greater to the farmer with wheat than it is with straw.  If all the farmer is doing is raising a bunch of cattle, the straw might have a purpose - but it still has a very limited purpose.  God's word is as different from the words of others as wheat is from straw.  There is something infinitely more valuable in his word than that of man, no matter what authority that man may claim to have. Israel finds themselves in a position of having drifted from what God had intended for them as a nation - they were in a position of seeking visions and messages from their prophets.  Yet, these visions and m...

1-3  Listen,  God ! Please, pay attention! Can you make sense of these ramblings, my groans and cries? King-God, I need your help. Every morning you'll hear me at it again. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on your altar and watch for fire to descend. (Psalm 5:1-3) A bold cry from a desperate heart - Listen!  Pay attention!  Why?  I need your help!  There is no other acknowledgement that God needs more than the simple admittance that we "need his help".  I honestly believe that those very words set in motion countless things way beyond our comprehension - things meant to protect us, provide for us, and powerfully intervene in the turmoil of our life experiences.  David was desperate - desperation moves the heart of God.   Think about it - if you had two kids sitting side by side on the couch, each making a plea for your attention, which one would you be most inclined to turn to?  One is si...