The Plumbline

Wash yourselves and be clean! Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows. “Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool. (Isaiah 1:16-18) If it were possible to have our sins washed away in our own power, we'd probably do everything we could to accomplish that task. In fact, a good many still believe they have to clean up their lives BEFORE they can come to Jesus. The opposite is quite true - Jesus came for the unclean, unholy, impure, unrighteous, and downright messed up lives. When God tells Isaiah that the Kingdom of Judah needed to wash themselves and be clean, getting their sins out of his sight, he was pointing out that they had embraced all manner of idolatry and cultural corruption. Their sins were an abomination -...

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.  (C.S. Lewis) God says, “Rebuild the road! Clear away the rocks and stones so my people can return from captivity.” The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts. (Isaiah 57:14-15) Rebuild the road. We 'rebuild' by clearing away the rocks and stones. Whatever clutters our way, left as hindrances in our path, rubble from wrong decisions - all must go. The need for repentance merely means we have chosen the wrong road, progress has been difficult, if not impossible, and now we see there is a need to turn around from the path we had taken. Sin always leaves debris in it...

Blessed [forgiven, refreshed by God’s grace] are those who mourn [over their sins and repent], for they will be comforted [when the burden of sin is lifted]. (Matthew 5:4) I cannot take God's grace for granted - how about you? I still find myself calling upon that grace daily. There is no end to our need for his grace. Have you ever thought of grace as 'refreshing'? When someone is refreshed by grace, new has come, something 'different' begins within one's spirit, soul, and mind. Sometimes God doesn't even 'reinvigorate' the old - he completely removes it! I have had moments when I feel 'sorrow' over my misdeeds, but I haven't really repented for them. The act of changing one's mind is often referred to as repentance. If all action begins in the mind, that could be a good place to start. If the work of changing one's mind is being done in your own effort, you might just find it is harder than you imagined! A lot of us feel some fo...

Bring your confessions, and return to the   Lord .   Say to him,  “Forgive all our sins and graciously receive us,   so that we may offer you our praises.  The  Lord  says,  “Then I will heal you of your faithlessness;  my love will know no bounds,  for my anger will be gone forever. (Hosea 14:2, 4) Many forget just how far they have fallen away from what God intended. All have fallen and are somewhere 'short' of where they should be, but when we bring our confessions to God, fully devoting our hearts to him, we will find he heals us of all our faithlessness. His love indeed knows no bounds - especially when it comes to restoring a repentant heart and a hungry soul. Look at what the Israelites say: "Forgive ALL our sins and GRACIOUSLY receive us..." The truth is that sin finds an inroad, making its way into our hearts and minds, until one day we don't even realize just how far we have fallen. At whatever point God's grace finally taps in...

For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs. (Zephaniah 3:17) Judah was in pretty bad circumstances all due to their idol worship and all the wickedness they had embraced because of the influence of the foreign peoples they were living amongst. The whole purpose of Zephaniah's words was to call Judah, and especially Jerusalem, to repentance and restoration. They have become rebellious, full of themselves, moving further and further away from the worship of the one True God. The people had 'mixed' religious practices, some were what God had asked in the Law of Moses, others were from the regions in which they now resided. Whenever we allow a 'mixture' of practices or beliefs, departing from what scripture clearly defines as moral, upright, honorable, or holy, we are in danger of doing exactly what Judah is found at f...

Now restore us again, O God of our salvation. Put aside your anger against us once more. Will you be angry with us always? Will you prolong your wrath to all generations? Won’t you revive us again, so your people can rejoice in you? Show us your unfailing love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation. (Psalm 85:4-7) Is revival more than an awakening? It begins with an awakening of our spirit and then it continues with a new sense of purpose and an 'inner fervor' that we have somehow lost along the way. Most of us need a bit of 'revival' at times, all because we allow that 'inner fervor' we once had to become 'dulled' by the details of life as they creep in. We soon lose sight of our purpose, finding ourselves a bit too inactive in our faith - what some may call being a little 'too stagnant' in our faith. In truth, what has happened is that we have lost our 'clear direction', leading us to a slower and slower 'faith progress', until...

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. (Galatians 5:24-25) Hey, does your cross have a bunch of holes where the nails have been driven time and time again? I know I have a seen God drive a nail home when he convicts me of something he wants to change in my life, then after a while, there I am with the hammer trying to remove that nail! Nail and hammer in hand, I go about doing the very thing God asked me to allow him to nail to the cross! It is likely we all struggle with that from time to time, all because we want to control the course of our lives just a bit too much. The 'control thing' is really a combo of our pride and our lusts getting the best of us. We want what God says we should not have, then we struggle with the desire to possess it, before long giving into that desire instead o...

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error. (Voltaire) People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy. Blessed are those who fear to do wrong, but the stubborn are headed for serious trouble. (Proverbs 28:13-14) Voltaire also reminded us that "God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well." How well are we living today? Some will say their life is 'pretty good', others will remark that 'it could be better'. Either way, we still have room for improvement no matter how long we live. We can never 'outlive' doing right any more than we can outlive doing wrong! We need to be honest with ourselves when we don't live up to what God desires of us and confess that we need his help to 'do better'. Mankind has always made haste to get into trouble. What we need is God's help to make haste to move away from sin...

Joyful are people of integrity, who follow the instructions of the Lord. Joyful are those who obey his laws and search for him with all their hearts. They do not compromise with evil, and they walk only in his paths. (Psalm 119:1-3) Would you say you are 'upbeat' about all the steps of obedience God asks you to take in life? If you are anything like the rest of us who serve Jesus, you have your moments when being 'joyful' about a step of obedience God seeks isn't exactly your first response. In fact, your first response may be, "You've got to be kidding!" When he asks us to forgive someone who has hurt us deeply and doesn't really seem to be remorseful, we might respond like that. When he asks us to let go of some habit we have been holding onto forever, we might balk at the request because we know how hard it will be to let go. We don't always respond with an 'upbeat' attitude when obedience is requested, do we? Joyful are peopl...

Create in me a clean heart, O God; restore within me a sense of being brand new. (Psalm 51:10) Einstein said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."  He was so true in this perception!  The problems we create will never be overcome or changed until we change the way we have been thinking about them!  To change our thought process we often need to change what we are focusing on so often or intensely. If we always see the problem, we will never see the solution standing just beyond it! If all we see is the river in front of us, raging out of control and making it hard to pass over to the other side, we will likely not see the bridge being lowered from the other side! Restoration is a process of not only being "clean" of the sin in our lives, but of being able to look beyond the sin.  We can ask for forgiveness when we have done something we are not happy we have done, but if all we keep thinking about is that thing we asked...

 Have you ever wondered if your rebellion has an effect on others? Wonder no longer! We cannot live outside of God's will for very long without it having an effect on those around us. Either they will suffer direct consequences of our rebellion, such as when a drug addict brings drugs into the home and an innocent child gets hurt by them, or they will be indirect, such as when a spouse engages in an extramarital affair and there is a division of family through divorce. The effects of your rebellion are felt by many more than just you. Jonah said to the men, “I know I did wrong—that is why the storm came on the sea. So throw me into the sea, and the sea will become calm.” Instead, the men tried to row the ship back to the shore, but they couldn’t do it. The wind and the waves of the sea were too strong—and they were becoming stronger and stronger. So the men cried to the Lord, “Lord, please don’t say we are guilty of killing an innocent man. Please don’t make us die for killin...

...if my people who are called by my name become humble and pray, and look for me, and turn away from their evil ways, then I will hear them from heaven. I will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14) If my people - notice that God doesn't say 'when', but 'if'. There is a condition - we must make the first move when it comes to repentance. This message isn't written to those who don't already have a relationship with him - it is written to those 'called by his name'. These are believers who obviously have grown cold, a little too apathetic and indifferent. This is where we find ourselves whenever we allow our focus to become clouded by the things of this world - coldness drifts in, hunger begins to be fulfilled by something other than his presence. If we want to 'come back' from wherever it is we have drifted, it begins by humbling ourselves and asking for his help to return! Humble yourself, pray, and look for him - these ...

Now we see how God does make us acceptable to him. The Law and the Prophets tell how we become acceptable, and it isn’t by obeying the Law of Moses. God treats everyone alike. He accepts people only because they have faith in Jesus Christ. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. But God treats us much better than we deserve, and because of Christ Jesus, he freely accepts us and sets us free from our sins. God sent Christ to be our sacrifice. Christ offered his life’s blood, so that by faith in him we could come to God. And God did this to show that in the past he was right to be patient and forgive sinners. This also shows that God is right when he accepts people who have faith in Jesus. (Romans 3:21-26) I live in a neighborhood with regular trash pick-ups. Each week we put out the black can for our regular household trash and the blue can for everything we will recycle. One day a month, we put out all our "bulk" trash, such as large limbs from the trees, bro...

Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world. (Psalm 46:10) I have a hard time being 'still'. It is as though there has to be some 'activity' going on, even if it is thought. I spend a good deal of time thinking on things, then I usually take action after learning what I can from thinking on the subject. I think about what is for dinner, plan a menu in my head, and then execute the preparation of the meal. I think on my next woodworking project, plan the tools I will use, bits and blades needed, any finishes I will utilize, and the types of woods I will incorporate into it. Then I execute the steps to see what I envisioned created. It is never wrong to just 'be still' - for in the stillness, we often 'hear' much clearer and 'plan' much better than we do without all that thought! To 'be still', one might imagine we need to cease all movement, but there can be movement in stilln...

Wash yourselves and be clean! Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows. (Isaiah 1:16-17) I remember undertaking the task of repainting a dock on an empty pond at a Girl Scout camp in Southern California. You have to scrape the old paint before you put on the new, but you also have to use a very thick, oil-based paint to redo the dock. Why? It helps preserve it from rotting. As my friend and I undertook the task, the weather got warmer as the day progressed, the task was less than interesting at some point, and we got a little mischievous at some point. We were at the point of applying the paint when all of a sudden, an all-out 'let's paint each other' rebellious attitude overtook us. There we were, swiping oil-based blue marine paint across each other's faces, arms, legs, and even our painting clothes. We were a mess by the end, but we had a fe...

You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever! (Psalm 30 11-12)  If we stop to consider what sin does to the emotions, physical body, and even our spirit, perhaps we'd describe it much as being in a state of great loss and mourning. It strips us of our joy, but it also strips us of our hope. We wallow in our downfall much as the mourner 'wallows' in the extreme sorrow over their loss. Mourning involves a deep ache for what was lost - there is an internal agony that often makes its way to the surface. Sin has a way of stripping us down - laying us bare, causing us to bemoan our losses, agonizing that we don't have a 'way back'. We might be incapable of finding our 'way back', but God has already set the 'way back' into motion - we just need to call out for his mercy. As some may...

Do God's plans ever change? It is a question I have often asked when things seemed to be going one way and then all of a sudden, they are all headed the opposite direction. Is it possible the 'turn of events' that happened was really all of the original plan? Could it be that I just didn't see the 'whole plan' when I set out on the journey? Is it possible God's plans for us include much more than we see right now? Perhaps God has things more 'under control' than we might think because he frequently reminds us that even before we were born, the plans for our lives were already marked out. Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5) But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. (Galatians 1:15-16) Home birth or h...

Troubles multiply for those who chase after other gods. (Psalm 16:4)  As we are reminded in Proverbs 17, "Sensible people keep their eyes glued on wisdom, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth. Foolish children bring grief to their father and bitterness to the one who gave them birth." (vs. 24-25) Run away from God and toward anything else that we embrace in place of God in our lives, and we will soon know the bitterness that comes from pursuing these 'false gods'. Kids do a wide variety of things that parents may label as 'sweet', 'cute', or 'precious', but God will always label our wayward desire to put anything else in his place in our lives as 'sin'. Reject God by not putting him in his right place as Lord of our lives and we will soon reap the 'reward' of that rebellious spirit - the consequences may not be all that kind to us. If you have been anything like me, you might just know there is a certain amount of ...

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...

Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night. Against you, and you alone, have I sinned; I have done what is evil in your sight. (Psalm 51:1-4) How is it that we don't always make a beeline to God when we sin? There are excuses uttered - thinking we can somehow justify our offense as though it were impossible for us to have resisted the temptation. We find ourselves turning this way or that, in hopes of not encountering God over the issue, but find ourselves feeling the guilt 'prick' at us like thorns on a rosebush. I don't think we intended to give into the temptation, and we don't really think the excuses or 'running' will keep us away from dealing with the sin, but we respond this way for some inexplicable reason. Guilt is that 'pin prick' in our conscience t...