There’s been a lot of work going on at our church lately. We have some dedicated men at our church who are volunteering time, expertise, and effort to help us prepare to move our Sunday morning worship services into our family life center so we will have ample room to grow. The most obvious evidences of their work are a 20x38 stage, an 8x8 sound booth, and new wall setting off our kitchen area.
I have enjoyed being a “go-fer” and watching these talented men pull together. And I have also learned a lot about carpentry that I didn’t already know. I have learned how to lay out a wall, use a table saw, and for the first time in my life I have shot a nail gun! “Go ahead punk, make my day.”
I have learned the need to carefully measure before making any cut. It is not enough to guess or to “eye-ball” a cut. What looks like 8 feet to me might look like 6 feet to someone else. There has to be a standard of measurement – the measuring tape. The measuring tape provides a standardized measurement so that no matter who measures or cuts, the results will be the same.
Measuring carpentry is one thing, but how do you measure a life? By what standard do we measure what is right and wrong? What kind of tape can we lay down to determine if our behavior is what it should be?
God’s Word is our standard of measurement.
Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another — showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
By reading, learning, and living God’s Word, we measure, square, and cut our lives to fit the blueprint God has for our lives. I cannot over emphasize the need for believers to become students of the Bible and careful adherents to its teaching. Yet so many Christians are negligent, lazy, or rebellious and fail to avail themselves to the benefit of a healthy diet of Bible.
The beautiful carpentry work which now graces our new Sunday morning worship home would be useless and ugly if the workers had cut where they wanted, nailed where they pleased, and just built whatever came to their mind at any given time. Instead, they are diligent to follow the drawing, precise with their measurements, and careful with their cuts.
In the same manner, God will build something beautiful with our lives when we submit ourselves to His “blueprint” for life – the Bible. When we measure ourselves by His Word we are cut straight, put together right, and nailed tight.
So here is where the hammer meets the nail: by what measuring stick are you ordering your life? By what seems right to you? By what others define as “right”? By what God has taught you in His Word?
2 comments:
Good teaching, Jim. This is why it is so important that we understand God's Word to be inerrant and infallible.
Being in God's word has taught me to be flexible when it's time to change to plan "B" due to other events/factors that just happen to pop up in my life. I didn't know that the original plan would require a few changes, but God did. Knowing I'm where He wants me to be keeps me sure footed in spite of what I see or hear at the moment.
Jim, you sure know how to "hit the nail on the head"! Ar rr rrr
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