How many of you are like me and are just stunned at the popular culture we live in today? I’m not as young as I used to be, but I’m not ancient either 🙂 I remember the days (not that long ago!) when good was promoted and evil was looked down upon. We always wanted to be the cowboy in the white hat and wanted the villain in the black hat to go down. As a Christian, years ago I backslid for a time. As the granddaughter of two pastors, I knew the Bible and the teachings of Christ well enough to know that I was in sin. I never questioned that and I didn’t explain it away as being anything but what it was. In fact, I wouldn’t let anyone around me know that I was a Christian, because I didn’t want to cast a bad testimony upon our Lord or on the reputation of His church. Sin was sin and I knew it. I think I shocked a handful of people who had met me during my backslidden years when I got online and started posting scripture and calls to come to Christ because they had no clue I had a deep faith deep within me that I never demonstrated while in my backslidden state.
When you turn the TV on now, open a magazine, listen in on a conversation while out and about, sin is considered good and appropriate, even (sad to say) while calling ourselves Christians. I know those who live an “alternative lifestyle” that the Bible plainly calls sin who acknowledge their lifestyles openly and say God is ok with it and that they are ready to meet Him when they die. They embrace the thought that He approves of the lifestyle.
I’ve learned this week that YouTube is cracking down on Christian videos referring to many as “hate speech” when they do something as simple as share the good news of Jesus with their viewers. To stop the videos from being accessed by those who have willingly clicked that “subscribe” button desiring to watch the videos supposedly shunned by the world at large.
Something is seriously wrong with our world when the world says radical ji hadists and murderers have rights and if we call what they do evil or sin, we are at risk of being called “judgmental” or “______aphobic” , but the world is killing countless babies daily and the babies have no rights to the life that Creator God breathed into them at the moment of conception, but the mothers who conceived them are more than just in having the right to tear those little lives out of the bodies.
We need a plumb line in our world and God gives it to us in the form of The Holy Bible. We need to use the entire thing as our plumb line, and not pick and choose what we want for our lives. God has given us the whole thing for many very good reasons! I remember as a little girl watching my dad and brother building the first camper we ever camped in. I remember vividly, them using a plumb line to mark in chalk the lines they need to cut. God can teach us even through memories from our youth. He is so good!
This is the straight message we cling to –>
In light of this thought, I share a devotional with you by Michelle McClain-Walters from her book, The Prophetic Advantage: Be God’s Mouthpiece. Transform Your World.” :
The Plumb Line
A plumb line is a simple tool used to determine whether or not something is perfectly vertical—upright. However, there are things that are crooked that can never be made straight. False teaching and sexual perversion cannot be made straight in the sense that they cannot be justified or declared right.
It is dangerous to justify evil and call it good. It is evil to call what is bitter sweet. God pronounced judgment upon those who did this. The prophet calls it what it is. There is no confusion in the mind of God concerning right and wrong, and neither should there be any confusion in our minds. Ward, watch, and watchman are words that refer to a watch over a local church, region, state, or nation to preserve, protect, or guard.
The prophetic ministry is a plumb line ministry. Prophets are called to make crooked things straight, rough places smooth, valley areas of your life high, and mountain prideful areas low. Prophets are spiritual watchmen set in the church by God. Every church needs watchmen. Watchmen protect and guard. They can watch for judgment or watch to protect.
Amos had a plumb line in his hand to measure the purity of Israel. We are to measure the purity and purpose of God with its complexities in the temple, altar, and its worshipers (Rev. 11:1). It will require true spiritual discernment.
You can get this book here —>
“This is what he showed me: behold, the Lord was standing beside a wall built with a plumb line, with a plumb line in his hand. And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A plumb line.” Then the Lord said, “Behold, I am setting a plumb line in the midst of my people Israel; I will never again pass by them”
–Amos 7:7-8 (ESV)
“Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there”
–Revelation 11:1 (ESV)