The Small Branch

  Psalms 119:9-16 How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word. With all my heart I have sought You; Do not let me stray from Your commandments. Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You. Blessed are You, O Yahweh; Teach me Your statutes. With my lips I have recounted All the judgments of Your mouth. I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, As much as in all riches. I will muse upon Your precepts And look upon Your ways. I shall delight in Your statutes; I shall not forget Your word. I was looking at statistics on Bible reading today after someone I was talking to made a comment about the small percentage of people who read their Bible.  The statistics I saw all said only around 10% of Christians (or Americans, depending on the survey) read their Bibles daily.  On top of that, it seems that more and more people see the Bible as just another book.  Wow!  I’ve only posted the f...

  2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us that we are to “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”   This phrase is part of a sentence and larger section discussing spiritual warfare.   A large part of fighting the sin in our lives, those strongholds that don’t seem to let go, begins in the mind.   Just because we don’t act on our thoughts doesn’t mean we haven’t sinned.   Letting thoughts that are not obedient to Christ run rampant in our minds is sin.   Yes, just the thoughts.   It seems like our thought life should be private and not censored because no one else can see it.   But our thought life greatly affects our actions, even if we don’t go as far as we are thinking about going.   When we harbor bitter or angry thoughts towards situations or people, our words come out bitter and angry, even to people not involved in the original thoughts.   When we harbor lustful thoughts, even from fiction stories, we begin to be unsatisfied...

  There are numerous verses in the Bible, especially in Proverbs, about the sinfulness of laziness.   It is easy to see that God does not want us to be lazy, that laziness is sin.   Laziness is a hard thing for me.   Where does it stem from?   Yes, my flesh and my sin nature, but it is often more complex than that.   My biggest trouble is that I see things that need to be done but get overwhelmed because of how many things there are to do, or the magnitude or difficulty of the job, or the many unknowns in how to do the job, or the fact that, even if I do the job well, it will need to be done again the next day.   These feelings of being overwhelmed seem to “shut down” my system.   Sometimes, I struggle because I’m just waiting for someone to tell me what to do.   I am almost positive that this stems from growing up in the shadows of American education.   Teachers are there to tell you what to think and when to think it and what to do a...

 Israel began as God's chosen people.  They were given the great blessing of His Word and His care.  The Messiah was born among the people of Israel.  But were they a faithful community?  In Exodus, we are told about great worship experiences and also grumbling and idolatry.  In Judges, the cycle of sin, crying out to God, deliverance, then brief periods of obedience happens over and over for the nation.  God does something amazing and they worship and "get it together" to follow Him obediently.  But then, life happens and they get apathetic.  They don't teach their children to worship.  And they fall into sin.    What about us?  Are we a faithful community?  Or do we just have great worship experiences on Sundays and then live the rest of the week our own way?  It's easy to see Israel's problem, but it's a lot like their speck and our plank (Matthew 7:4-5).  Faithfulness is an always thing.  And it is ...

 There is often a big difference between being religious and truly loving Jesus.  There have been people throughout history that were "religious" but had nothing to do with the One True God.  Acts 19 talks about religious people who worship Artemis.  They joined in a riot where the whole crowd simply shouted "Great is Artemis of  the Ephesians!" (see verses 28 and 34).  But notice verse 32: "So then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion and the majority did not know for what reason they had come together. " (emphasis mine).  Mob mentality.  How many "religious" people are caught up in mob mentality?  There are psychologist devoted to studying this phenomenon.  Basically, people go along with the mob whether they understand what the mob is fighting for or not.  God does not call us to have a mob mentality.  He wants us to know  Him.  He wants us to know  what we believe ...

 "Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe;" Acts 2:43a In the end of Acts 2, we are told about the baby church.  They functioned in a way that was beneficial to all and led many to Christ.  I have a note written in my Bible (not sure where I got it) that says, "The church before people started messing it up."  As I was reading this passage the other day, one thing stood out to me more than anything else - their sense of awe.  We have lost our sense of awe.  How sad for us!  We serve an Awesome God!  He is holy and perfect and amazing.  We should be in awe constantly that He would pay the slightest attention to us rebellious humans.  Awe.  When we spend time with Him, often and consistently, we can feel that awe.  Verse 42 of Acts 2 says, "They were continually  devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." (emphasis mine)  Maybe that is where the awe comes from....

 “ 1  To the angel [ a ]  of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.  2  I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false.  3  You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4  Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.  5  Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."  Revelation 2:1-5 I have been a Christian for more than three decades.  I grew up in the church and cannot remember a time when I didn't know and love Jesus.  But lately, I have been very co...

"Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.  If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."  Joshua 24:14-15 Choices.  We have so many choices in our day.  When to wake up.  What to do each minute.  What to eat and drink.  Who to talk to.  Choices.  But how often do we choose the things of God?  We need to remember that we are always making a choice.  When we choose to ignore God, we aren't "not choosing yet" we are choosing to ignore God.  When we choose to think about serving Him later, we are choosing not to serve Him now.  There is no fence sitting.  We are...

 Where I live, we are experiencing a pretty significant drought.  A few years ago, we were experiencing some pretty significant flooding.  It is amazing the difference.  A few years ago, the grass was so green it almost hurt to look at it because of the bright color.  Now, the grass is having a hard time greening up at all.  Most of it is still pretty brown.   Our spiritual lives are like that.  It seems like it is always feast or famine.  Drought or flooding.  Usually, at least in my experience, the drought comes because I take the flood for granted.  I expect it to always be there and don't realize that maybe I need some irrigation ditches or even a dam for a reservoir.  But I do need those things.  Most of all, I need a constant source of Living Water.  When I take the Living Water for granted, I soon find that I am not taking the time to purposely stay in the flood waters.  I wander away.  I put my Bible...

Friday was rough.  I woke up a little frustrated and angry and little things kept happening all morning that, while I don't like them, wouldn't normally make me feel like screaming.  Friday, I felt like screaming.  It was one of those days where the battle was fierce.  After ranting with fellow teachers at lunch, I spent the rest of my lunch buried in my Bible, asking for help, and, finally, got some peace.  But the problems and frustrations didn't end.  One of the big frustrations of my day was the lack of retention my students were showing.  Things they needed to know from the past math they have learned, they didn't remember.  Another teacher and I were discussing (this was the ranting part, really) what we could do to combat this - more homework, more class time, what would help?  Once lunch was over and I was feeling some peace about life, I could finally listen to the Father, talk to the Father, and think logically as He guided me....