The Plumbline

Rules exist for our safety - at least that is what I have been told repeatedly. Can we really say we always play by the rules? Or that we actually "enjoy" the rules? Truth be told, most of us resist the rules on occasion, or think they are not really pertinent to our lives, so we don't embrace them as we should. If I didn't own a handgun, all laws (rules) applying to firearms wouldn't really apply to me. Yet, I could go out today and acquire one - making those rules ever so important for me to understand. I don't have to become acquainted with the rules until I need to use them within my life - convenient, huh? Most of us deal with most of God's rules in life in this manner - if there is not a clear-cut reason for them right now in the "here and now", then they are good to have, but we don't go out of our way to learn them. Even when these rules are God's rules, we don't need to know them fully to understand they still apply to u...

  Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. (Romans 12:2) We can become so 'well-adjusted' to our everyday culture that we aren't really paying attention to things around us as God sees them. We actually miss 'everyday opportunities' because our gaze is too far off or our attention is distracted. All change within us begins on the inside, working its way out to the things we see and appreciate about each other. Have you ever been so engrossed in something happening 'around' you that you miss totally what is going on inside you? It is possible God has placed you right where you are today - though not totally mature or ...

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 we really need it. 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 throughout life - simply because the circumstances change and we are called upon to change with them.  In time, we can become a little confused between the two, especially when we aren't aware of this nasty little thing called "greed".  It rears its ugly head more often than we'd like to admit and we struggle with this thing called "contentment" more often tha...