The Plumbline

I used to watch those old swash-buckler movies where they would sword fight. The musketeers would banish all the bad scoundrels from the land and people would celebrate from being under some oppressor. There are lots of oppressive forces just seeking to keep us under their rule or domain. We are warned to be on guard against those forces. To be on guard signifies the alertness of spirit and mind that immediately recognizes anything that is not truth and rejects it as such. We are surrounded on all sides by that which is untrue - there may be elements of truth, but at the core, that which presents itself as light may not always be light! Satan is a real enemy - but he is limited in his power over the child of God. He may be the tempter, the deceiver, and the accuser of man, but his power is limited by the fact that each child of God is protected by God himself. We know that none of the God-begotten makes a practice of sin—fatal sin. The God-begotten are also the God-protected. The Evil

Okay, so you know how you read through scripture sometimes that you have read through like a million times and all of a sudden you see something new?  Well, what do you know - God isn't dead and his Word is living, alive, and life-giving!  If you experience something new on occasion - seeing some new revelation from scripture - it isn't that there is new stuff in there, it is just that you missed it the first million times because your heart wasn't ready to receive it!  There is actually a scripture which reads:  "Everything that happens has happened before; nothing is new, nothing under the sun."  (Ecclesiastes 1:9 CEV)  It was there all along - so were you - but you just weren't ready to receive it, didn't really need it that much at that moment, or other things needed to be learned before you understood this "new truth".  I often speak of grace - God's unmerited favor - something given to us, never earned, totally undeserved, and in astro