The Plumbline

My fair share - isn't that something we have wanted since we came into this world?  Give me a little attention, or I will cry!  Feed me, or I will wail until you realize my hunger!  That toy you have, I want one just like it!  Dear Santa, please bring me...  You get the idea.  Since we came into this world, we have had not had to tell ourselves to demand or seek out the things we want, but rather we have had to learn how to deal with all the things we want to figure out if it is really stuff we have need of.  In this perplexing discovery, we might have come face-to-face with the reality that food was a necessity, but the black patent leather shoes weren't; the school clothes were, but the frilly dresses and designer jeans weren't; the reliable means of transportation was a necessity, but the shiny new car every other year was not.  We will often struggle with trying to decipher the difference between need and want all throughout life - simply bec...

There are just some days when I don't feel like I have it all together.  You know the kind of days I mean - when you hit the ground running and just check off as much as you can, but you know you didn't get it all done, nor did you perhaps do as thorough a job as you would under normal circumstances. We all live extremely busy lives, experiencing this kind of lack of "togetherness" in our days, but it is not to be the "norm" for us.  In fact, God wants us to learn to rely upon him bringing things "together" FOR us rather than us having to do all the work ourselves.  We "enter into" what God has for us - in turn, he enters into us and begins to set things in right order which are kind of helter-skelter within us.  In the end, he begins to effect changes to the things in our days we cannot handle apart from his grace and action helping us to "get through"!   By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for ...

We probably have heard at one time or another of the responsibility we have of presenting our bodies as "living sacrifices" unto God - something described as "holy and pleasing to God".  I don't know about you, but this idea of being able to present anything to God which is "holy and pleasing" just seems a little bit too much out of my control!  I have tried this "holiness" living for a long time now and guess what?  I stink at it!  As much as I put all my self-willed effort into trying to produce holiness within me, the worse I feel in the end.  Why?  It is not my "job" or "role" to produce this "holiness" by any "self-willed" means!  It is God's business to provide this holiness through the blood of Jesus, and then to see produced within each of us the transition from self-willed performance to the reliance upon his grace upon grace in transforming us into holy and pleasing creatures.  Sure, he w...