The Plumbline

  “The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him.” (John 14:21) It is one thing to know something, but quite another thing to act upon what we know, isn't it? I just discovered a crack in my drywall that was repaired when they painted the house a year ago. I believed the repair to be solid and to the uninformed eye it was pretty much undetectable. I heard some settling the other night and now it is back again! I see it - know it is there - but I haven't taken any action to repair it yet. Why? I want to know the best way to act - not acting in haste, wasting time and resources on something that won't last. We all get the same information about God's commandments, don't we? We can read them in his Word and we can even talk them over with others who also know them. It is one thing to 'know' them - quite another to be willing to ta...

Does your 'thinker' always work? Mine doesn't! There are lots of times I'd have to admit I might have totally disengaged my 'thinker' and was acting merely on 'feelings'. Thinking is hard enough when we 'have to' do it, but when we don't feel like investing the time or energy into thinking things through, we usually find we get down the road and don't have what we needed for the journey. Some of us shut off that 'thinking' side of our lives on purpose, while others of us abandon 'thinking' almost without even knowing we have done it. There are things we do by 'instinct' now - like putting on our socks or lacing up our shoes. We don't have to really engage our 'thinkers' to get those tasks done. It has become what most refer to as 'muscle memory' - really showing our 'thinkers' don't have to continuously be engaged in order for us to have purposeful action take place! Good thinking wi...