The Plumbline

  A Psalm of Thanksgiving 1-2  On your feet now—applaud  God ! Bring a gift of laughter,        sing yourselves into his presence.    3  Know this:  God  is God, and God,  God .        He made us; we didn't make him.  We're his people, his well-tended sheep.    4  Enter with the password: "Thank you!"  Make yourselves at home, talking praise.  Thank him. Worship him.    5  For  God  is sheer beauty,  all-generous in love,  loyal always and ever. (Psalm 100 The Message) We are beginning the month of November, beginning to look ahead to the holiday we call Thanksgiving in the United States.  As  was reading this morning, I started in the 99th Psalm and continued to this passage above.  As I began to consider all the ways we "worship" God in our lives, one of the most important ways that spoke ...

1-2  If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. (Philippians 2:1-2 The Message) We often skip over the "small" words of the Bible, almost without noticing that they really convey a tremendous amount in how we interpret what it is we are reading.  For example, when we see a statement that sets up a condition one way, then is joined to another statement with the word "but", that simple word "but" declares the initial condition as no longer applying because the second condition set out is really the accurate way we should see things.  In this passage above, the little word with much meaning is the word "if".  Let's dig in: 1)  IF you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ...  This st...