The Plumbline

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.  ( Philippians 4:8   NLT ) In a time with so much negative input through media of all sorts, it is imperative that we not lose our perspective on just exactly who remains in control. It has never ceased to be Jesus - for he holds all things together by his word. It has never once veered from the course of justice - for his reign demands nothing else. We can get caught up in the hype of the moment, distracted by all the violence and protests, or we can redouble our efforts to remember God is able to turn the circumstances of even the worst imaginable conclusion into something no one ever expected.  Don't believe me? I would only have to remind you of a very hot, fiery furnace of old, where four men were planned for their final fate. The day they stepped into t...

Probably one of the most frustrating things we encounter in this lifetime is the need to actually forgive another human being for something they did against us or someone we love. It is doggone hard to forgive, move on, and let God deal with the other individual - let's be honest! If we look up forgiveness in the dictionary, we'd hope to find the definition that says we turn them over to some terrible fate, simply because we don't want to let them "off the hook" for what they have done. Webster's defines the act of forgiving as "giving up resentment of someone" and the idea of "pardoning" someone. Rarely do we want to pardon someone - we have a hard time "getting over" what they did without "giving up" on our feelings of being violated, though. The feelings follow the action, not the other way around. We give up the right to hold that other individual in a position of "owing us" anything - then the feelings of ...