The Plumbline

16  Admit your faults to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous man has great power and wonderful results.  19  Dear brothers, if anyone has slipped away from God and no longer trusts the Lord and someone helps him understand the Truth again,  20  that person who brings him back to God will have saved a wandering soul from death, bringing about the forgiveness of his many sins. (James 5:16, 19-20 TLB) Our pastor spoke about authenticity recently, another in his series about being established in our walk with God. As he said many times in the sermon, we finally come to the place of experiencing God's tremendous love for us once we are courageous enough to be the 'real deal' with God and others. There was a point in the sermon where he told us how hard it was for him to develop this authenticity in his own life. Now, you might think it wouldn't be a struggle for a pastor to be 'real', but the truth of the

Crowds have a way of pressing in on us, being a little unwieldy, and just plain rude, don't they?  Give people enough to "gawk" at and they will congregate quicker than ants on honey.  I call them "looky-loos" - they are they for the "show", not for much else.  They come to see, certainly not to participate. They come interested in what they might get, not in what they might give away.  What draws a crowd?  Isn't it the spectacular, the unexpected, and the unusual?  Jesus was all of these things.  Spectacular - dramatically daring as he went against the Pharisees and dared to challenge their "religious-ness". Unexpected - surprising those who least expected his touch or care with the deepest expressions of his love.  Unusual - shocking them with the extraordinary and the uncommon display of power, grace, and wisdom.  He was a crowd "gatherer", but he was also a crowd "divider".  The same things which drew many to him a