All in Truth
Lately, my life has been a full range of emotions and events. First, my dad unexpectedly passed away and moved through the door into eternity. Two weeks later, my granddaughter was born and passed through the door into this world. Our family has truly been living out the circle of life. As I contemplated the events of the past several weeks, of one exiting and one entering, I considered… What makes a productive and useful life between entrance and exit?
When a baby grows up and matures, there is a time of giving up the loved and favorite stuffy. In a similar way when I mature as a Christian adult, I grow up spiritually, and I give up my love of the worldly life.
Spiritual preparedness never goes to waste. That brings me back to my first lesson.
God graciously gave us the Bible, his very own Word, to help us on our journey of life.
His wisdom, commands, and words of compassion prove the best ammunition against
our enemy, Satan. An open Bible, when used, is powerful. David experienced victory
over his giant and we can over ours too.
While I wait, I am to live a pure and blameless lifestyle based on the correct teaching of God’s wisdom in the letters Paul wrote (verse 15).
What will ignorant and unstable people do? At the end, they are going to distort or twist the teaching in God’s word to mean something very different than what God intended (verse 16).
Friends, we need people in our lives to tell us the truth — even when it’s hard.
In a world constantly shifting beneath our feet, where even the most steadfast people, institutions, and laws can prove fallible, what can we truly depend on? While few things are 100% reliable, the Word of God offers an unwavering anchor.
My best friend betrayed me and later apologized, but I could not forget what she did. Even though it’s been years, I still remember the hurt of that betrayal. It threatened to destroy our relaitonship.
I felt the crack in our friendship the moment the lie left her lips. Years of joys and shared life-events seems to shift in my heart with that untruth. For days, I teetered between anger and despair. The Lord detests lying lips (Proverbs 12:22), I preached to myself, justifying my estrangement . As the convicting of his Holy Spirit resurrected memoires of past untruths from my own lips, God's quiet voice told me to forgive with love and grace.
I recently heard a recording purported to be a message from a well-known pastor whom I admired and trusted. As I listened, I noticed that the content did not sound like something the pastor would say, and the voice didn’t sound exactly like the pastor’s. I discovered that the audio was AI (artificial intelligence) generated and posted from a channel other than the pastor’s official channel.
Ah, parables! There had been a shift in Jesus’ teaching, an urgency to make the secrets of the kingdom clear. Now that He was on the road to the cross, it was imperative His followers understand these truths and pass them on. Parables would touch their hearts and be remembered when He was gone.
I like secrets! To me, they are fun little surprises… like gifts! Helpful hints, secrets or tips that encourage you or make life better.
What moves you?
I mean … moves you to action … compels you to do something.
Anger? Injustice? Anger can motivate.
It seems fear of the Lord has me in its grip for 2024. Let’s spend the week seeing what the book of Malachi has to say about a fearful attitude. How in the world do we live in the fear of the Lord?
Why is it hard to tell others the truth? We might be mocked and minimized. Maybe we don’t want to hurt others’ feelings. Maybe they will reject us. Maybe they will be angry. Maybe relationships will change.
Downsizing required sorting multiple boxes of yellowed childhood treasures. The task felt daunting. One item, though, made the experience worth the effort—a folded piece of manila paper with a title scribed by a child. “Prays and Verses.”
Why be a psalmist? Are you struggling with dark thoughts and troublesome feelings? I strove this way for over forty years. I prayed but wasn’t honest with God about my feelings.
Rhetoric: “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech” (online Oxford Languages). Amos is variously praised in the commentaries for his gifted writing. I was intrigued.
