The Plumbline

Some people say, quite rightly, that idols have no actual existence, that there’s nothing to them, that there is no God other than our one God, that no matter how many of these so-called gods are named and worshiped they still don’t add up to anything but a tall story. They say—again, quite rightly—that there is only one God the Father, that everything comes from him, and that he wants us to live for him. Also, they say that there is only one Master—Jesus the Messiah—and that everything is for his sake, including us. Yes. It’s true. (I Corinthians 8:4-6 MSG) Paul is about to deal with the issue in the Corinthian church related to the 'permissibility' of eating meat when it had been offered at the altar of an idol. While this is not our concern this morning, the preface to his instruction to the church on that subject carries some very important points: 1) God is the one true God; and 2) the other 'gods' that exist in mind or theory all amount to nothing but a big fat z...

I do want to point out, friends, that time is of the essence. There is no time to waste, so don’t complicate your lives unnecessarily. Keep it simple—in marriage, grief, joy, whatever. Even in ordinary things—your daily routines of shopping, and so on. Deal as sparingly as possible with the things the world thrusts on you. This world as you see it is fading away. (1 Corinthians 7:29-31 MSG) We spend a great deal of time and money complicating our lives. We enter into agreements that leave us over-extended and stressed out. We take on the worries of others when there is nothing we can do about them. We open doors that should have remained shut. In other words, we allow complications that should have been guarded against. This world will always thrust things on us that are more than we want to handle or more than we should try to handle. We need to exercise God's wisdom in not taking on the things this world sends our way that might have been best for us to just leave alone. When we ...