The Plumbline

You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel. Be careful that you do not refuse to listen to the One who is speaking. (Hebrews 12:24-25) We can refuse to change our minds - determined that we know what is best for our lives, but when we determine to never allow our hearts to be changed, there is no hope for our minds! The mind change occurs because of the heart change. We may not understand the connection between the two, but it exists. To live a transformed life requires a yielded heart and a mind renewed. To refuse is to make a determination that we will not accept or do something. We actually demand our own way whenever we refuse. To refuse God's invitation leaves us in a very dangerous place, though. All will be shaken, but will all stand? Only those who have their lives built upon a solid foundation will be unshakeable. Do...

We are living in troubling times. Our country is a mess, quite frankly, and we are seeing all manner of chaos as a result. We'd like fix blame for all the calamity we are experiencing right now with civil unrest, viral attacks on our bodies, and even failed fiber circuitry that cripples millions of cell phone users. We have to assume some of this blame ourselves. It isn't the government that is to blame for civil unrest - it is human nature at its worst. It isn't medical science or some evil terrorist group to blame for a virulent virus attacking our world right now - it is part of viral mutations that occur all the time and get an inroad into human hosts, oftentimes quite undetected until it is too late to stop the inevitable spread. It isn't one cell service provider to blame for the massive outage in service - it is likely our overuse of these devices we have come to rely upon that tax an aging system of very intricate circuitry. "Fixing blame" isn't re...