Ecclesiastes 12:10

    Elisha Otis built a better elevator, but no one was knocking at his door.   Up until his invention, there were elevators but they weren’t all that safe. Otis changed that with his elevator break. Now if something malfunction, an elevator could be stopped before the riders fell to their deaths. Still, sales were not that great, he only sold three in the previous year.   So Elisha did something crazy. At the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York, he raised an elevator up on a high suspended platform with him inside, held only by a rope. Then he ordered the rope to be cut. The crowd gasped and the elevator fell…..a few inches.   The elevator didn’t go down but sales went thru the roof. His invention help to make the modern-day skyscraper a feasible reality.   All it took was a demonstration.   People often have to be shown something is true in order to believe it. That is why it is so vitally important for a Christian’s life ...

  Being critiqued isn’t very fun. Even when it is true on what you need to do better, it still feels like being hit with a sledgehammer. But imagine if it was Jesus swinging that hammer.   In Matthew 23 Jesus calls out the scribes and Pharisees for their behavior. He works them over pretty good. At the heart of his message is their hypocrisy. They lack consistency. They make rules to break them. They try to look good rather than being good. But notice where Jesus starts in his condemnation. “ Therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them . They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger .” Matthew 23:3-4   Jesus sees their error in telling others to do when they won’t. They have high expectations but low work ethics. They know what to do but expect others to do it   Now let’s appl...

  The period of Judges lasts for close to 350 years. During this time men (and a woman) were raised up by God to free his people and bring them back to him (Judges 2:16-20). It never seemed to work.   The people wanted the freedom but not the faith required to sustain it.   We know a good deal about a few of the Judges (the majority of the book of Judges deals with Barak/Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson). But mostly we have a record of major events, a bit about their families, the battles they fought, the length of their reign. Their names are a little more than a footnote in history.   That seems rather odd. These were people of significate in their time and a major factor in the history of Israel. Why don’t we have more?   It’s because the story isn’t the history of Israel thought that is what is taking place. It is the story of God’s plan for mankind. It tells that tell us not only what he is doing but the why of it.   The peri...

  I guess everyone else has it all figured out.   It seems whenever we have some tragedy, some problem some crisis happens, folks come out of the woodwork absolutely convinced that know what will fix it. Pass this law, revoke this act, get rid of this guy, buy this product, start doing this, stop doing that.   Whatever the solution is, people seem to be really sure that it is the way even if another fellow thinks the exact opposite is just as true.   I just don’t know.   I’d like to think it is humility on my part but that is probably not. Thinking you are humble usually means you are not.   I do however know that the older I get the more I realize I have no clue how lots of things are and even less about how they should be.   Yet it seems our world today is so sure of itself. We have an opinion on everything and feel that our solutions are the solutions, even if we have no more to go on that a flimsy news report and second-han...