The Plumbline

Life Hack #3: Forbes magazine published an article November 28, 2012, entitled "Why Winning Powerball Won't Make You Happy" written by Susan Adams. Citing multiple studies which point out the IMMEDIATE high or exuberance of winning, but then focus on the quick return to a low point within just a short point in time, she concludes: "While winning the lottery can make a difference, it won't affect the other conditions of your life". We can "bet" on the one-time windfall, or we can count on the certainty of what God provides with consistency. The choice seems pretty simple to me, but obviously there are a whole lot of others who actually don't believe this! Don’t gamble on the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, hocking your house against a lucky chance. The time will come when you have to pay up; you’ll be left with nothing but the shirt on your back. (Proverbs 22:26-27) "Life Hack #3" looks at where it is we determine our "...

Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that. (Ephesians 5:1-2) When you stop long enough to watch another, you might just see a thing or two which you'd have missed otherwise! The power of "observation" is a learned habit. It just doesn't happen one day. In fact, you have to learn to look beyond the surface to get really good at this - otherwise, you draw conclusions which are far from reality. It would be like the game we used to play as kids. We'd see someone or something and we'd make up some kind of story about what we were seeing. We saw what we wanted to see and formed the story around what we interpreted in our mind's eye! But...in the...

Blessed...what does that term mean for you? There are definitely times when I look at others and can see just how much God is blessing their lives. I have made the mistake of proclaiming how wonderfully lucky someone was when I observed a good thing happening in their lives, forgetting all the while how 'trivial' that term 'lucky' is after all. It is easy to say someone is 'lucky' while the truth is really that they were "blessed by a tremendous God". Sometimes we need to be reminded of the intensity of God's blessing in our lives! We are being blessed daily - by seen and unseen blessings alike. It may not be with stuff we see or feel or immediately appreciate, but every moment of life comes with some form of  blessing for those God declares as righteous! As I look back over the most recent weeks of my life, I can recount many blessings.    Hallelujah! Blessed man, blessed woman, who fear God, who cherish and relish his commandments, their childr...

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, Jesu...

God's love is meteoric - a brilliant thing, appearing suddenly, swift in its path - but continual and on course in all respects. There is a sense of the spectacular in beholding his love. Nothing else compares to the magnificence we behold in God's love and grace. It is there exactly when we need it - no delay in his reaching out to us.  It is direct - meeting us exactly where we are. His loyalty is astronomic - enormous, exceedingly great. Loyalty is faithfulness. His faithfulness to us is greater than we can ever imagine - even in our unfaithfulness, he remains steadfastly faithful. His purpose is titanic - his aim for our lives is enormous in strength, power, and possibility. He does more than create us - he sustains us, he guards us, his back is never turned to accomplishing his purpose in us. His verdicts are oceanic - his judgments are large, going beyond the surface of what can be seen to the inner recesses of a man's heart - looking not on what we display for all ...