The Plumbline

May the Lord richly bless both you and your children. May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth. The heavens belong to the Lord, but he has given the earth to all humanity. The dead cannot sing praises to the Lord, for they have gone into the silence of the grave. But we can praise the Lord both now and forever! (Psalm 115:14-18 NLT) The heavens belong to the Lord. We cannot fathom the true majesty of his heavenly realm, even though we have powerful telescopes that help us to explore the skies. The 'human eye' cannot see the divine in all his glory, but the human heart can come to know and appreciate the mystery of his intense love for his creation.  We may think of praise and worship as engaging in behavior that 'glorifies God' through song, raised hands, dance, and even silence at times. Yet it is so much more. There is a transformative power within praise and worship. It regenerates our hearts and focuses our minds. We might just find that praise and ...

Avoiding a fight is a mark of honor; only fools insist on quarreling. (Proverbs 20:3 NLT) There might just be a few more fools in this world than there are wise at the moment. It seems everyone wants to quarrel about anything they don't like or agree with, doesn't it? The wise will do anything short of sin to avoid he quarrel, though. Why? It brings out things that never should be voiced, and it creates a set of circumstances that allow a 'build up' of things that should never be done. The fool speaks his mind without thought as to how the message will be received. He isn't concerned about the ones hearing it - he just insists on voicing it. The wise think first about who will hear their message and how it will affect those who do hear it. Perhaps the question we need to be asking is how we can avoid a quarrel when all around us there seem to be quarrelers. Choosing our words wisely is the beginning of wisdom in relating one to another. When we match this with ch...