The Plumbline

  Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!—harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. (Galatians 6:7-8) A crop of weeds - we all have a few weeds, don't we? What we don't want is for those weeds to overgrow what God is planting within us. A crop suggests there has been a gross over-growth of those ugly things in our lives. Planting is important - what gets sown is what gets reaped. Planting in response to what God asks in our lives is of the greatest importance - for this is what produces the harvest we really desire. As we think about ways we allow 'weeds' to be planted in our lives, it really all begins and ends with this idea of selfishness. Ignoring the needs of others - focusing primar...

A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong. (Tecumseh) If you have ever tried to resist temptation with one tactic repeatedly, finding it just didn't work as well as it should have, it is probably because we need more than one 'twig' in our bundle of 'temptation resistors'. Temptation comes at us one way today, another tomorrow. Each time it comes, we need the 'right' tactic to resist it. It could just be that the 'tactic' you have been utilizing is no longer working because your 'enemy' knows that tactic well enough to 'skirt it'. Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life. Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to b...

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places. (Ernest Hemingway) What are some of your worst 'broken places'? Maybe you have been 'broken' in the place we call the 'heart' - someone disappointing you so badly that you just have never fully healed. Perhaps it is in the place we call the 'spirit of man' - something occurring that just shredded your confidence and left you not wanting to ever try again. You and I both have broken places, but they don't have to be places where brokenness remains. There is hope for restoration beyond what we imagine possible when Jesus touches those places. The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help. He rescues them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. The righteous person faces many troubles, but the Lord comes to the rescue each time. For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous; not one of them i...