The Plumbline

Did you ever stop to consider the way various people address God?  I have been around some pretty "staunchly" religious people who continually refer to him as "heavenly father" or "God Almighty".  Yes, he is both, but these terms actually describe a kind of formal and rigid relationship with God.  If I had gone around responding to my dad with "Yes, father" all the time, it would have been like I was saying, "Sir, yes, sir!"  I would have been treating him merely as an authority figure in my life much in the same way I treated my commanding officer in the military!  Indeed, God is the authority over my life, but I don't want to approach him as the "big authority in the sky" kind of God.  I think God intends for us to have a more intimate, or close relationship with him.  He doesn't want us to treat him like our "bestie", but I do think he wants us to be comfortable calling him "Abba" (daddy).  ...

The ability to live up to the standards proclaimed by God does not come from within our own ability or effort, but because we walk according to the movement of the Spirit of God within our lives.  It is not easy to grasp this concept because we simply find it hard to believe that anything we "do" is just not going to make us any closer to God because he already indwells us.  He moves within us and we move in response to his movement.  I saw this little clip on Facebook the other day with a little hermit crab tightly tucked into the security of the shell.  A little finger came along and began tapping gently on the outside of the shell.  It didn't take long before the tapping stopped and the crab began to unwind itself from the security of the shell.  In short order, what seemed inanimate took on life.  Why?  The touch stimulated the movement.  God's touch in our lives stimulates our movement away from a life controlled by sin, tightly bound u...

Back in biblical times when priests would be anointed with oil, they would pour that oil from the jar right over their heads and allow it to flow down their bodies.  It was as though from the top of their head to the soles of their feet, they were being anointed for service.  There was much symbolism in the use of the oil, but it is this visualization of being "covered" and "it flowing freely down" over their body that is so similar to what Paul describes in this passage to the Ephesian church.  We are asked to "visualize" the blood of Jesus flowing freely from the cross - in so doing, it set us free (not the visualization, but the action of Christ's blood shed for us).  I don't like to think of all the "gore" of the cross, but it was definitely there.  Whether it was the thorns digging into this head as they encircled his head in mockery of him being the "King of Kings", or the spear thrust into the depths of his flesh as he h...