"O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?" Who is worthy to be a sojourner with God, or a visitor in His dwelling place? What are the qualifications for abiding with God? What must our lives look like if we are to be part of God's family? A description follows: "He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart" Our lives must be blameless, or perfect and complete in Him. The same word was used to describe Job, who was considered to be "blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil" (Job 1:1). Also, we must be actively doing what is right, and actively speaking the truth. These are not passive things; we must [...Read More]
Finding Rest in Obedience
November 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment
"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-29). Isn't it amazing that we can find rest in the practice of obedience? That rest is gifted to us as we pursue the instruction of Christ? That we can be at rest at the very same time that we are learning and growing in Him? Christ calls to us to go to Him, to take His yoke (affliction and/or instruction), and to learn from Him. What a seeming paradox, that we are to do these things, adding a new weight to our already wearied souls, in order to [...Read More]
Anxious for Nothing
September 18, 2010 By 1 Comment
Over the past few months, we have had countless opportunities to choose between worry and trust. We've faced long separations as husband and wife, major decisions about occupation and schooling, financial and physical hurdles. To name these things in a mere few words on paper makes them look so simple - but the reality is that they were each long and hard roads that we had to travel, often only seeing no further than the step we were taking. And sometimes we worried. It's such a normal, human response to worry. We start wondering "what if" or "why," and we let our imaginations run free with those questions. But this is completely opposite of how we should be thinking as believers. Consider [...Read More]
Being Abraham
August 31, 2010 By 1 Comment
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. Hebrews 11:8-10 Lately we have been reminded frequently of the believer's need to walk by faith and not by sight. We have been traveling down a path that did not allow great visibility, a path headed toward a definite intersection but without any definite directions. We have been walking as [...Read More]
No Worries
July 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Consider this: what if, the next time you have to move, or find a new job, or make any other possibly life-changing decision, you didn't get stressed or worried or anxious about it? In a way, it's easy to get there. Well, maybe not easy, but definitely simple. Remember the old Sunday school song, "Read your Bible, pray every day, and you'll grow, grow, grow"? There's a gold mine of truth in those simple instructions. If we are spending consistent time in His word and in conversation with Him (not just at Him) every single day, in time we will come to know almost instinctively how He would have us to act in every situation. Yes, this is due to the pricking and leading of the Holy Spirit, but [...Read More]
From Prince to Pauper: an Epistle of Endurance
July 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Once upon a time there was a young boy who was his father's favorite child. He came from a large family with 11 brothers, a step-mother, and his own mother and father (imagine having 2 women in charge of the same family!). Despite all the other brothers, or maybe because of them, he became his father's favorite. He enjoyed a comfortable life and the knowledge that he was chosen above all the other sons to be his father's successor. He innocently (or perhaps naively) shared this knowledge with his brothers... which, of course, made them jealous. After all, he was the next-to-youngest of them all, and still only a teenager. In fact, they got so jealous of him that they sold him into the [...Read More]
The Blessings of Diligence
June 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment
How often have you wondered if the hard work of Christ-like living is "worth it"? If it's worth it to practice self-control, to be consistent, to love the unlovely? We are given so many commands in Scripture about how we are to live, but it can be so easy to forget why we are to live that way. For example, in his second epistle, Peter gives us a list of qualities that we are to add to our lives as we mature in Christ: ...make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 2 [...Read More]
