The Plumbline

Be careful to obey all the commands I am giving you today. Then you will live and multiply, and you will enter and occupy the land the L ord  swore to give your ancestors.  (Deuteronomy 8:1) Be Careful! The instructions Israel received all those years ago, though they were spoken to reference their movement from wilderness wandering into the land of Promise, actually have application for us today.  The first instruction was to "be careful" - to mark their lives, their actions, and their thoughts with attentive concern so as to avoid error or omission.  The challenge to us is to be living in such a way that we show close attention to the details when it comes to conforming to the Word of God.  It has often been said that the "devil is in the details", but I would like to challenge you to think more appropriately that "God is in the details". Follow! They weren't asked to lead, but to follow.  There are some that follow a leader so closely that they ev...

11  Teach me your ways, O L ord , that I may live according to your truth!    Grant me purity of heart, so that I may honor you.   12  With all my heart I will praise you, O Lord my God.  I will give glory to your name forever,  13  for your love for me is very great.       You have rescued me from the depths of death. (Psalm 86:11-12) David's plea for a teachable (trainable) heart is followed by the cry for God to "grant him" the purity of heart so that he may live as God desires - in a manner that honors God.  We don't use the term "grant me" very much any more, but it was common when David penned these words.  It means to be "awarded".  It carries the idea of carefully weighing the evidence and then giving what is desired to the one requesting it. David is certain that the desire to honor God with his entire life is what he will present to God - in turn, he is confident that God w...

Train me,  God , to walk straight;       then I'll follow your true path.    Put me together, one heart and mind;       then, undivided, I'll worship in joyful fear. (Psalm 86:11-12) The teach-ability of one's heart is in direct comparison to the openness of one's mind.  Our actions begin in our mind - learning to perform new actions is made easiest when our minds are opening to considering the possibilities of those actions!  David's prayer reveals the secret of teach-ability:  God putting us together - making one heart and mind out of the "muddle" of the divided attention and direction of these two parts of our being. This is the prayer of a teachable heart - put me together!  David begins with "teach me" and "show me how to do this".  He concludes with the idea that he's not as "all together" as he'd like to portray to the world.  One of the signs of a truly teachable ...