The Plumbline

Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love. (Romans 13:8) Sum it all up and what really matters at the end of a person's life? I'd have to say it is that we have loved and lived well. Love others well and your life will be lived well. It would be terrible to go through life without having known love, but how many of us go through life being 'stingy' with our love? We have been hurt by others, so we pull in a bit and don't put ourselves out there like we should. We have hurt ourselves, so we we see ourselves as 'not worth the investment', holding ourselves back from others because of this untruthful view of ourselves. Love well, my friends and you might just be surprised how well your life begins to be 'lived'. I will not make light of your having been hurt by others, but the time for healing has come. It is time to move past hurts that are re

For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 1:9) I almost glossed over this verse today, but a seed thought sparked as I read it a second time. Have you ever given grace to someone BEFORE they even knew they would need that extension of grace? I daresay many of us have given grace in the moment , but have we really just extended it without any strings attached long before we even know what the individual will require grace for or way in advance of the individual realizing they stand in the need of our grace. God extended grace from the beginning of time - before we were even walking this earth. In advance of our many mess ups - way before we even took our first breath. No 'mess up' makes his grace any less available - it was already provided way in advance of us ever taking that first step toward sin! The verse ju

I just want to take a moment or two to remind each of us that God isn't done with us, even when we find ourselves in worst of places in life, our choices perhaps not the wisest. In the midst of our disobedience, God never stops finding ways to get to our heart - he uses all of this earth's and heaven's resources to reach the recesses of our hearts. The many and varied ways he uses to get the message of his power and protection across to his creation is not limited by the finite because he has access to the infinite. We often don't realize the means God will use until we look back "after the fact" and realize how much God was displaying his power, purpose, AND his protection in our lives. It is in the "hindsight" where revelation occurs - where our mind begins to comprehend what God has been doing in our hearts all along. Then they prayed to God, "O God! Don't let us drown because of this man's life, and don't blame us for his death

Trials teach us what we are; they dig up the soil, and let us see what we are made of. (Charles Spurgeon) If you have wondered about the value of the present 'trial' you are enduring, you might just wrap your words around Spurgeon's thoughts today. They 'dig up the soil' of our lives - revealing to us exactly what we are made of. Sometimes we discover the soil is pretty much 'infertile' - rocky, hardened, and just plain 'uninhabitable'. At others we may find that soil to be easily turned, full of all that will give and bring life, and able to bear much fruit. Do you know something? It is the same soil! It is just that the latter has been 'worked' a little bit more by the hands of the one who knows exactly how to bring forth life and fruit from our lives. Dear ones, don’t be surprised when you experience your trial by fire. It is not something strange and unusual, but it is something you should rejoice in. (I Peter 3:12-13) I am looking at th

Temples of God - what does that phrase mean to you? To me it means there is a special dwelling place where the presence of God dwells. As we have discussed in the past, that 'temple' is actually human beings, filled with the presence of the Most Holy God through the gift of grace provided by the sacrificial offering of His One and Only Son, dying for the sins of the world. As a young girl, I remember going through some areas as my parents would set out on a long weekend away from it all. I recall seeing both very new, modern looking homes standing right next to a very old buildings fashioned out of adobe brick, tree branches, and even a few sod roofs. I asked my dad why the new homes were built, but not lived in and do you know what he told me? Those 'new homes' weren't what the people dwelling in the land were familiar with - it was foreign to them. They chose to live where they were most comfortable. I wonder if we sometimes are like those people I observed all th

Billy Graham reminded us, "It is not the body's posture, but the heart's attitude that counts when we pray." How many of us focus so much on the 'way' we do something and forget all about the 'why' behind it? I think we might just do this a little more than we suspect as evidenced by us doing things 'by rote'. We do hundreds of things each day, simply by rote. Do you think through the steps of brushing your teeth, donning your socks, or even making the coffee? Probably not...they have become 'rote' tasks you just do without even putting much thought into them. If you really think about it, there are probably a lot of 'spiritual things' we can do totally by rote if we aren't careful. Some will pile into the cars on Sunday mornings - make their way to their local church building - all by rote. There was no real 'preparation' to participate in that worship service - they were there because it was Sunday and that is what

What are the people in your life doing today? I didn't ask what you are doing - I asked for you to tell me what they are doing. Do you know? Did you bother to ask? If you did ask them, what was the motivation behind your asking? There are times we ask what someone will be doing or what they are doing right now because we really want them to be doing something else - something we want done. There are also times we ask because we don't want to interrupt them if they are knee deep into whatever it is and our interruption would only waylay them, robbing them of their time and energies that would be best invested in exactly what they are doing. I think we might not do as good of a job 'understanding' what another is doing, though. We 'hear' them tell us they will be doing this or that, but do we take time to understand the 'why' behind their 'doing'? It may seem insignificant, but when I realize someone I care about is doing laundry for the fourth tim

God is greater - greater than _______. You fill in the blank. Go ahead, give it a whirl. Greater than . . . that speaks volumes, doesn't it? I wonder if God is your 'greater than' in real practice in your life.  Practice is merely the habitual or customary performance we exhibit as we go about our daily routines. it is the performance we repeat over and over again. The difference between talk and practice is simply our action - practice requires the action that backs up the specific talk we might talk. In other words, there is substance to our words. Today we are reminded that love is really an action, not just a "message" or a thing we "say". It requires action to back it up! My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our wo

Have you ever heard the story of the valley of dry bones from the Book of Ezekial? There is this place where skeletal remains all over the place, totally picked clean, dried up by the sun and time. God leads Ezekial around the valley, then through it, experiencing the full vastness of its expanse and the multitude of bones contained there. We probably won't experience anything like this, but there is significant meaning within this prophesy for the nation of Israel. I also think there could be a lesson or two for us, if we look close enough! In order to get as much out of this as possible, I am going to take you on a little "word journey", so bear with me! Then God said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they’re saying: ‘Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there’s nothing left of us.’ “Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, ‘God, the Master, says: I’ll dig up your graves and bring you out alive—O my people! Then I’ll take you

We might attempt to define obedience by the things we do instead of some other things. For example, we define it as obedient to drive the speed limit vs. careening down the highway as whatever break-neck speed we may feel like that day. We 'do' observe the limit, then we 'keep' our foot from pressing too firmly on the gas peddle, and we 'stay attentive' to the dial on the dashboard. All this to 'do' just one thing - drive the speed limit. Yes, obedience has to do with 'doing' and 'not doing' - it is making choices and living within those choices. It also has a whole lot to do with 'being', as well. We are 'being' renewed day by day - in the love and grace of God. That 'being' actually helps us with the 'doing'. We sometimes get that backwards, though - trying to 'do' in order to 'be', but God's plan is just the opposite! When you obey me you are living in my love, just as I obey my Fathe

Oh, how sweet the light of day, and how wonderful to live in the sunshine! Even if you live a long time, don't take a single day for granted. Take delight in each light-filled hour... (Ecclesiastes 11:7-8) How many light-filled hours have you been given on this earth? How many will you use to the fullest? It is just about time for the sun to creep slowly over the horizon and bring the light of a new day here. For those of us that live in Arizona, we don't celebrate the sun as much as we celebrate those infrequent breaks we get from the sun! A few clouds are a welcome thing once in a while around here - a relief from the scorching of the sun is accomplished in those passing shadows above. I imagine that those facing day after day of tornadoes, cloud cover, and incessant rain that produces flooding would love nothing more than to say, "Here comes the sun!" It is all about perspective - whatever we live with for a while becomes something we often take for granted in

Today is a day that will not come again - you have but one chance to live it, so live it well. A lot of people focus so much on living today to make a "good tomorrow" that they miss what is going on around them right here and now. One day, Ferris Bueller took a day off from school - ditched classes to just live his day to the fullest. A quote from the movie sums up why he did what he did: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." I don't condone ditching class, but the point is made - life comes at us at speeds often exceeding our own ability to keep up and before we know it, we have witnessed opportunity after opportunity to pass us by without any guarantee they will come our way again. 13 Some of you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to some city. We will stay there a year, do business, and make money.” Listen, think about this: 14 You don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Your life is like a fog. You