The Plumbline

Yesterday we began to look at embracing change before it becomes a requirement to change. While we all know we resist change in various ways, we ALL resist it sometimes. The more comfortable we become with some choice we are making, the easier it is for us to make that choice time and time again. The more we desire to change that choice, the harder it can become. Hence, we need Jesus and the Holy Spirit to help us embrace change. Good change is encouraged - change that still leaves us somewhere short of the 'bullseye' in a spiritual sense just isn't cutting it. Change to be like Jesus - don't change to be like the world around you! Don’t change yourselves to be like the people of this world, but let God change you inside with a new way of thinking. Then you will be able to understand and accept what God wants for you. You will be able to know what is good and pleasing to him and what is perfect. (Romans 12:2) Knowing what is good is probably easier than we might think ...

Help us defeat the enemy! No one on earth can rescue us. Only God can make us strong. Only God can defeat our enemies! (Psalm 108:12-13) Defeat:  To prevail over, vanquish, overcome in battle; to frustrate or thwart; to eliminate or cut off from what was expected.  We can all remember times when we seemed to be vanquished by some force bigger, more difficult to resist than our own abilities could handle.  Those moments invoked fear in us, or perhaps just plain sadness and a sense of helplessness as we stood there under the attack of whatever it was.  This sense of overwhelming frustration can overcome us with such force we almost cannot stand under the weight of it. I don't think these are times God intends for us to face alone!  In fact, he will help us defeat our enemies if we just ask him to and then stand assured in his help. There is no power on this earth stronger than our God.  He is able to thwart the craftiest of plans laid against us - whether the...

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...

God makes his people strong. God gives his people peace. (Psalm 29:11) Strength is definitely something we strive for, hold onto for dear life, and which often seems to evade us in the moments we need it most. Brute force by which we can do some things is not always the right kind of strength, is it? We probably have all passed around a jar of some condiment or pickles at one time or another, each taking turns trying to get the lid undone so we might enjoy what is inside. It goes from person to person, until someone in their wisdom takes a tact of hitting the lid ever so squarely on the side of the sink, allowing the seal to be broken, then gingerly uncaps the jar. What most of us did was rely upon our physical strength, but what the last one did was to rely upon their wisdom to figure out the solution to the problem! We have both mental and physical strength - both sometimes evading us more than we'd desire to admit! There is another type of strength which sometimes evades us...

Train me, God, to walk straight; then I’ll follow your true path. Put me together, one heart and mind; then, undivided, I’ll worship in joyful fear. From the bottom of my heart I thank you, dear Lord; I’ve never kept secret what you’re up to. You’ve always been great toward me—what love! You snatched me from the brink of disaster! God, these bullies have reared their heads! A gang of thugs is after me— and they don’t care a thing about you. But you, O God, are both tender and kind, not easily angered, immense in love, and you never, never quit. So look me in the eye and show kindness, give your servant the strength to go on, save your dear, dear child! Make a show of how much you love me so the bullies who hate me will stand there slack-jawed, as you, God, gently and powerfully put me back on my feet. (Psalm 86:11-17) Character traits are the things that actually "reflect" better than any "image" we see of ourselves in the mirror on our wall. Justice and Joyfulnes...

True confessions this morning - I spent a great deal of my youth and young adult life trying to 'fit in'. Have you ever tried to "fit into" some other person's image of you? I wasn't comfortable in my own skin - trying to always be something that I just wasn't. Do you know how miserable you can be when you try to 'fit' and you just 'don't'? You allow the "remake" because you figure you need an improvement on what it is you already have. What you and I fail to recognize is that you usually "fit" pretty well because you are exactly how God made you! Jeans and comfortable shoes are who I am - not frilly, painted, and bound up! David, a young shepherd boy, planned to go out against Goliath with nothing more than outfitted as a "shepherd". King Saul tried to "outfit David as a soldier in armor". David couldn't even move in the stuff King Saul tried to 'put on him'! He could barely take a...

Pressure is the exertion of force upon a surface by something in contact with it. When we use the term, "I am under a lot of pressure right now", we are simply saying, "There are a whole lot of EXTERNAL influences in CONTACT with my life right now". Something, or someone, comes into CONTACT with our lives - but they are not "invading" our inner life - their contact is on the surface! This may not be earth-shattering to some, but I think if we really begin to latch onto this, we may just see how much control we have over what actually can affect us on the "inside". It is what we 'let in' that matters - not so much how much EXTERNAL pressure we are under. If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small. (Proverbs 24:10) What we allow into "contact" with our lives will exert some kind of force against us. Even air exerts some kind of "force" upon that which it surrounds! We cannot escape the fact that things ...

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...

Have you ever heard someone say, "That wasn't a fair fight"? In terms of "fairness" they were looking at the two parties in the fight and seeing if they were "matched up" evenly. When I was young, Dad liked to watch an occasional boxing match on TV - it was a pretty big deal back then. There was always lots of talk about "heavyweight", "lightweight", "welterweight", and "featherweight" - something I just never really understood, but knew it meant how someone was matched with someone else. The term described their overall weight - giving the boxer a "competitive class" ensured they were not pitting a man over 175 pounds with a man of 130 pounds. This was designed to give a man a "fighting chance" at winning. Each of the fighters had someone in their "corner" who fulfilled the role of their "trainer". This individual had the responsibility to keep track of how the othe...

Winston Churchill once said, "Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning." C.S. Lewis echoed his words when he penned, "Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." I used to have a pastor who always said you needed to stand for something or you'd stand for nothing. Some refer to this as 'steel-strong' convictions. Steel in your convictions - what does this mean? It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very much but also has put his hand on you for something special. When the Message we preached came to you, it wasn't just words. Something happened in you. The Holy Spirit put steel in your convictions. (I Thessalonians 1:3-5) God's hand is on us for something special. We serve a God who is not only supernatural, but he actually influences us to move beyond the natural into the abundance of all he is! Our holy and mighty God wants us to live in the abundance he knows! I...

The Word of God can become an intensive training tool in our life - - we CAN come to rely upon hearing it, using it in practical ways to assist with the day-to-day decisions of life, and leaning on it when no answer seems apparent. It can become our source because we have come to know the one who stands behind it! Did you ever stop to think that the Word of God might just put a little 'iron in your soul'? I wonder how many of us might just suffer from 'iron-deficiency' now and again, having neglected to take in the Word, making it part of our daily intake? I'm homesick, God, for your salvation; I love it when you show yourself! Invigorate my soul so I can praise you well, use your decrees to put iron in my soul. And should I wander off like a lost sheep—seek me! I'll recognize the sound of your voice. (Psalm 119:174-176) You can ask God to "put iron" in your soul - there is nothing wrong with this request. When we think of the soul, we are reminded it...

We can AFFIRM or REASSURE - both have a little different meaning. Affirm refers to remaining true to that which has been promised, such as confirming or ratifying an agreement. WE all want to know that we have the confirmation that God's promises will remain true for all time. Reassure carries the idea of being encouraged again by those promises. When one is reassured, there is a confidence that what has been promised will indeed come to pass. There is a difference between the promises God makes and the ones we make to God - most of the time it is in the fact we never 'ratify' the agreement! At best, our own promises are marginal - we seem to vary our commitment to them with the changing of circumstances in our lives. The tougher things are, the more we draw into God. The converse is true - the better things seem to be going, the less intent we may be at honoring those promises we made in the tougher times. Isn't it reassuring that we don't have a God that is "...