The Plumbline

It was Winston Churchill that reminded us that he was always ready to learn, but he didn't always like being taught. I guess we may all be a little like that at times - ready to learn, but not always in the best frame of mind to be taught. The godly offer good counsel because they have been both ready to learn and they have an earnest desire to be taught at the feet of Jesus. The godly offer good counsel; they teach right from wrong. They have made God’s law their own, so they will never slip from his path. (Psalm 37:30-31) Right from wrong is not something we just 'glean' by watching others. People can have their own definition of both, and as much as they vary by individual, the outcomes produced by following those examples can be disastrous! Jesus said we had one reliable example - HIM. (John 13:15) We are to follow in his example - rely upon his wisdom, listen to his truth, understand his plan. Proverbs 3 reminds us that when we commit our ways to him, leaning into ...

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. (Haile Selassie)  Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good. (Romans 12:21) I cannot say for sure, but there are times when I believe we ALL let evil get the upper hand in our lives, wishing for the best outcome possible, but then allowing our thoughts to turn where they shouldn't, our eyes taking in what they probably didn't want to really see. The moment we give any inroad to evil in our lives, the influence of that moment can create a 'highway' for evil influence to continue to travel until we allow God to shut it down once and for all. We may not see the harm in not shutting it down with immediacy ourselves, but God knows the harm that will come when even the slightest path is allowed to remain. To put this plainly,...

Always be full of joy. Never stop praying. Whatever happens, always be thankful. This is how God wants you to live in Christ Jesus. (I Thessalonians 5:16-18) Regretfully, there are just some moments in life when joy is the furthest thing from the emotions we are feeling at that moment. The world seems to equate joy with happiness, though, so when anything disturbs our happiness, we might say that our joy has been stolen by the event or memory. Joy is a much deeper feeling and is not based in circumstance - it is based on the relationship we have with Jesus. Happiness is elation over something that happened - it is fleeting and isn't guaranteed to be 'evoked' all that often. Joy is the emotion that emerges when we remember we have been placed securely in the arms of Jesus, that nothing and no one can rock our world so badly as to remove us from that safe place. Some will understand it best when we say that joy is internally based, while happiness is externally stimulated. If...

Everything good comes from God. Every perfect gift is from him. These good gifts come down from the Father who made all the lights in the sky. But God never changes like the shadows from those lights. He is always the same. God decided to give us life through the true message he sent to us. He wanted us to be the most important of all that he created. (James 1:17-18) Whenever we are faced with something that is less than good, honorable, or pure, we can know for sure that it is not from God. It is something of this 'earthly realm' that really isn't meant as 'the best' for us. When we settle for what isn't the best, we actually are rejecting what God has prepared for us that is meant for our good. We should never think God is tempting us with the 'less than' stuff in life - it is either our own fleshly desires having their way, or the enemy of our soul purposing to redirect our attention away from God.  We are important to him, so he prepared in advance...

Woody Allen always quipped, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." So true, isn't it? We plan one thing but find something totally different unfolding. Some fool-heartedly believe we are the makers of our own destiny. We are indeed the 'makers' of our own consequences, but are we really the makers of our own destiny? Plans change as life happens. Life choices bring either good, or not so good consequences. A consequence is just the outcome or 'output' of something that was 'input' earlier. You've likely heard the saying, "Garbage in - Garbage out". Nothing could be truer about the plans we conceive and then try to bring to fruition without God's oversight and intervention. If you plan to do evil, you will be lost; if you plan to do good, you will receive unfailing love and faithfulness. (Proverbs 14:22) Plan to do evil - lose it all in the end. The consequences may not be immediate, but they will come eventua...

Lord, you always give me justice when I bring a case before you. Now let me bring you this complaint: Why are the wicked so prosperous? Why are evil people so happy? You have planted them, and they have taken root and prospered. Your name is on their lips, but in their hearts they give you no credit at all. But as for me, Lord, you know my heart. You see me and test my thoughts. (Jeremiah 12:1-3) God never turns a deaf ear to our questions. This may come as good news to some who think they ask too many questions, but God isn’t put off by our questions. He is always open to hearing our concerns. As Jeremiah is seeing the people of Jerusalem taken captive, armies attacking and taking away their homeland, many are crying out, while others are uncertain as to why they are under attack. Jeremiah presents the issue at hand: The wicked take root and they are prospering. He wants to know how this could have happened ‘under God’s watch’. It appeared God had actually ‘planted them’ and allowed...

I have read through scripture a number of times but have always struggled a bit with how God could 'get angry' and still be a merciful and kind God. My guess is that I am not alone in this quandary. What I have deduced is that God gets 'angry' when people sin - sin gets his anger stirred up. He is slow to anger, but that doesn't mean his patience can be taken for granted. God is the judge of human character - not us. We would like to sit in judgment on occasion, but we are not qualified to judge simply because we have this sin nature at work within each of us.  Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. (Galatians 6:7-8) Whenever we think we are above the judgment of God, we are in a very troubling place. We may want to take...

Whoever wants to embrace life and see the day fill up with good, Here’s what you do: Say nothing evil or hurtful; Snub evil and cultivate good; run after peace for all you’re worth. God looks on all this with approval, listening and responding well to what he’s asked; But he turns his back on those who do evil things. (I Peter3:8b) How many of us actually wake up on the side of the bed that has us wishing that only BAD things will come into our day? I daresay if this were the case, most of us would get a new bed! We wake up hoping for the day to bring us GOOD things, don't we? 😁We want our day to be filled to overflowing with GOOD - so shouldn't we be listening to what God says will actually produce GOOD things in our day? It begins with us - not the bed! We begin by paying close attention our 👄. We don't start the day with negative words - words that actually reek of evil intent and unkind motives. We choose to speak words that will uplift, encourage, and even create a ...

Every now and again I run across an 'old school' preacher who will blurt out, "God is good", expecting the response, "All the time", from those he or she is around. It was frequently used as the 'affirmation' of our trust in his goodness and grace that we were expressing back in the day. We don't hear it very much in our local churches these days, but it is a good thing to remember - our God IS good. He isn't 'becoming' good - he IS good. He isn't enticed to 'do good' - he IS good. The state of 'IS' really means in the present tense, at this very time, without any hesitation, or without any concern that something exists - he IS good. The Eternal One is good, a safe shelter in times of trouble. He cares for those who search for protection in Him. (Nahum 1:7) Three short things we can learn from what our writer shares here today. First, God is good - even when we doubt his goodness, he never ceases to be good....

"Aah...this is the GOOD life!" We are perhaps kicking back on the beach, enjoying the rays, listening to the palm fronds rattling in the wind, and then we utter these words of absolute contentment! The next thing you know, a gust of wind blows away your umbrella, a happy-go-lucky child throws sand on you, and the sun drifts behind the clouds! What happened to your "contentment" in that moment? Ummm....honestly....it was no longer the "good life"! The days of good old conversation and peaceful repose with an aging parent turn into helping them make daily decisions, take their showers, and ensuring their safety at every turn. Yep, the 'good life' is kind of missed in those moments, isn't it? There are lots of things that change our 'good life' concept - from sudden gusts of wind to changing needs of those around us. When the 'good life' morphs, are we ready? Even though a person sins and gets by with it hundreds of times throughou...

Be not simply good - be good for something. (Henry David Thoreau) What is that "something" for you? We all strive to be 'good', but how much do we strive to be 'good for something'? I think Thoreau was maybe trying to tell us we all have that 'something' God has placed us on this earth to do and we won't be totally fulfilling our purpose until we recognize and move into that 'something'. We do focus on 'being good' a lot more than we focus on finding our 'something' we are really 'good at' and then finding how that 'something' can bless the lives of others. God made everything with a place and purpose... (Proverbs 16:4) Our place and purpose has been defined by God - at the time he formed us in our mother's womb, that purpose began to take form. The 'something' we were created to fulfill began long before we ever knew life. It may take a while for us to figure out what our 'something' ...

Do not those who make sinful plans go the wrong way? Kindness and truth are for those who plan good. Proverbs 14:22 NLV  Planning is a good thing - most would agree - but the wrong set of plans, even in the hands of a good man may not turn out right! Why? Good plans usually produce a better 'end result' than bad plans. Yet, the hands in which the plans are organized and carried out matter a whole lot, don't they?  I am a novice wood-worker. Plans in my hands need to be very, very simply illustrated and the tools need to be quite basic. Yet, even with the simplest of plans, plainly laid out, I can mis-cut a piece of wood and end up with ends that don't match as they should. Why does this happen? It is usually because I didn't read the plans all that well! Good plans are only part of the end result - the guidance of the hands combined with the engaged mind go a long, long way toward producing a better result! The same is true in our daily walk with Jesus. We g...

What have we come to 'treasure' in life? There are lots of treasures when we stop to consider it, but we probably have some things that rise above the rest. For me, it is relationship - first with God and then with others. We place a 'premium' on what it is we come to treasure - devoting time and energy to those things. We are asked to live disciplined lives - exhibiting the ability to "listen" well and to "treasure" the right things in life. The ability to listen may be hampered by the life choices we have made. The clarity of what is heard becomes crystal clear when we learn to treasure the relationship we have with Christ. We won't want to miss what he says - the advice he gives. Good friend, take to heart what I'm telling you; collect my counsels and guard them with your life. Tune your ears to the world of Wisdom; set your heart on a life of Understanding. That's right—if you make Insight your priority, and won't take no f...

As with most 'baby Christians', I was one of those who actually believed that everything would come out all right - nothing bad would ever happen to good people because God makes everything work together for their good. Only good things are gonna happen to Christians, right? Wrong! It came as a surprise to me that bad things still happen to good people! What I failed to recognize is that God often takes us through periods of "adjustment" in order for his vision to be accomplished within us. He sometimes has to "enlarge" us enough to see what it is that he intends for us. The 'bad' isn't really meant to hurt us, but to make us see a new aspect of his keeping touch, understand a little more about his healing hands, and come to a place where we follow him no matter how the circumstances attempt to dictate otherwise. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or wh...

Sometimes a song's lyrics will just speak to me almost as deeply as scripture does. One such song is entitled "Good Enough" by Dara Maclean on the album "Wanted". Almost all of us desire to be "wanted" by someone. We seek that attachment - that connection to another individual. We go through life pursuing what we think will make us a "wanted" friend, wife, husband, employee, etc. To many of us, this equates to a pursuit of being "good enough" - we don't believe we will be "wanted" until we are somehow "good enough" in one way or another. We change our appearance, develop our talents, learn a new skill, etc., all in pursuit of being "good enough". My question is, "When is good enough really good enough?" So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:2...

Mark Twain once quipped, "Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest." I think sometimes I do a pretty good job of astonishing myself with doing what is right instead of what I may have wanted to do! Why does doing the right thing sometimes just flow from us and then at other times it is so very, very hard? It might just be that the "right thing" is harder because we wanted something to be different - we thought we'd be on the receiving end, instead of the giving end, or maybe we believed the circumstances would have changed just a little the last time we "did the right thing", but found they pretty much remained the same. It can be difficult to do the right thing all of the time, but the more we get this right, the more of Jesus others will see in and through us. 9 We must not get tired of doing good. We will receive our harvest of eternal life at the right time. We must not give up. 10 When we have the opportunity to do goo...

The wicked are  overthrown and are no more,   but the house of the righteous will stand.   (Proverbs 12:7 ESV) There are definitely times when I think, "What is this world coming to?"  It is as though the mess we are creating is just abounding, not getting any better. Now, don't get me wrong - I know who is in control of all this and who will win out in the end - but in the meantime, some can certainly manage to create just a bit more chaos and upset than is their fair share!  Without sharing all the details, suffice it to say that our country is in a muddle where it comes to politics. The level of crime in my own hometown is multiplying rapidly, with some even joking that West Phoenix is becoming a little like L.A. when it comes to gun violence.   As long as there is chaos caused by man's wrong thoughts and intentions, we will always have some sort of evil at work in this world and that will leave some feeling a little less than comfortable or se...

12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace. (Romans 6:12-14 NLT) Something always exerts control - it is the nature of how things work. The "control" or force of gravity exerts the pull that keeps us from flying away from the surface of the earth into the oblivion of outer space. Oxygen controls the ability for human life to continue to exist on this planet, for without the availability of oxygen we'd all die. Weaker are consumed by stronger, simply because they can have a greater "control" over the outcome of the chase. If control is t...

Have you ever noticed how being in some crowds and doing what is right makes everyone in the crowd a little "off balance"?  It isn't that they cannot appreciate doing what is right, they just don't have the same enjoyment of doing what "isn't" right when someone is around who is consistent in doing what is right!  Equally so, doing what is wrong keeps everyone off balance, but lends an element of insecurity to the mix.  Why?  This thing we might term as "self-doubt" begins to enter into the mix when we see everyone doing one thing and we are doing something so totally different.  We begin to question the "validity" or "importance" of what we are doing - even when we know it to be the right thing to do! It is all because a little self-doubt enters into the mix - planted there by the actions of those around us who are pretty excited about doing something totally different than what we know to be right.  It is often the moment...

You are probably familiar with the term of sowing one's wild oats, but do we just do this in our youth?  Although this term has some differing meanings, in the most literal sense this idiom carries the idea of doing something wild and foolish - so I guess we could all probably answer this question with a resounding "NO"!  We find ourselves doing a good many foolish things in our older age, don't we?  What about the last time you said something you regretted, or acted a little too hasty, making bad decisions along the way?  Wasn't this acting foolishly?  What is the one thing we hope will happen whenever we have done something so foolish and silly?  Isn't it that God will forget all about it?  Or perhaps that the consequences of our actions will not find us out!  Either way, we know what we have done has been both misdirected and silly - all we want is to be "square" again with God, the others in our lives, and our own conscience! God  is fa...