The Plumbline

It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. (Tom Brokaw) My brothers and sisters, God chose you to be free. But don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful selves. Instead, serve each other with love. (Galatians 5:13) We can make a difference in BIG ways when we let God guide our steps, choose our interactions, and prepare us in advance of each day. What we choose to do with our lives will determine the outcome. Living for Jesus is more than living for oneself. When we choose to live for Jesus, we choose to live for all those he presents in our path! We might find it hard to please everyone, but God isn't asking us to be 'people-pleasers'. He is asking us to learn the acts of service that will touch those around us. In essence, he is telling us to turn outward and stop always looking inward. It is easy to ask how something will affect us - it is quite different to ask how something has or is affecting someone else. What

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.  (George Eliot) It was Eliot who reminded us, "Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." Small things add up, don't they? We may not see the effect of one small action today, but in the far off 'tomorrows' that one action may mushroom into a far greater outcome than we ever thought possible. So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith. (Galatians 6:9-10) We can grow weary in doing good at times. We plug along, taking all the right steps, doing all the right things, being as 'right' as we are able to be each and every day. Fatigue in 'doing' is natural - we get tired when we are active. Yet, contrary to what

Strength if for service, not status.... We can have a desire to help another person, but then we realize we just don't know what to do in order to reduce the burden they are under - the specific need escapes us, we just know they have a need of some form. We are being touched in our spirit to the point of action on behalf of another and that is good. We are "identifying" with the other person in some fashion - somehow we feel like we are connected to their feelings, emotional struggles, and the challenge they are enduring - but are we really? Rarely, do we REALLY connect in quite the same manner as the one under the burden. In fact, unless we have walked the exact same path in THEIR shoes, not our own, we really don't know what it is they are enduring. Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. Each one of us needs to look