The Plumbline

People who wink at wrong cause trouble,   but a bold reproof promotes peace. (Proverbs 10:10 NLT) It is impossible not to see 'wrong' around us today. It riddles the newscasts, fills our media feeds, and is probably evident right in your own neighborhood. The longer we live on this earth, the more we will have seen - all of it adding up to wrongs multiplied and troubles galore. Do we merely turn a blind eye to the evil we see around us - to the wrongs done to others? If we do, how will this world ever know the love or grace of Jesus? It takes the righteous to stand up to unrighteousness. It takes the people of God to drive back the forces of darkness that abound. What will we do if wrong comes our way? Won't we take up the fight because it affects us personally? Why should it be any different when we see wrong perpetrated against others? Shouldn't we be the instruments of change that this world desperately needs? Disapproval of wrong can come in many forms, but the grea...

Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? (Romans 9:21-23 MSG) We may try to tell God he hasn't done a good job at creating us the way he did, but we will never be able to be other than what we are created to be. The moment we accept that the gifts and talents he has given us are for his use, regardless of what they are, we will find ourselves presented with opportunity after opportunity to put those gifts and talents into use. When we resist what God has designed, we find ourselves miserably lost in an attempt to be other than what we were created to be. Our gifts and talents don't have to be 'big' or 'noteworthy'. God uses the painter to create beauty, the mechanic to make things hum, and the welder to hold things together. He uses the musician to lift our hear...