The Transforming Word of God

I've been thinking a lot about changes lately, perhaps because of all the historical novels I've been reading. Some changes are easily accepted by the vast majority of us—like indoor plumbing and refrigeration. Some are more difficult to assimilate into our daily lives. It doesn't seem like that many years ago that I advised someone struggling with finances to give up the cell phone because it wasn't a necessity. Funny how it no longer appears to be the luxury it once was. Speaking of cell phones... Technology has brought rapid change to our lives. Just sitting here at a computer, typing away on a blog, is something I would never have dreamed of thirty years ago. Even the idea of a personal computer was unheard of when Bob and I were married almost 45 years ago. And smart phones? Other changes have come slowly, gradually. Like clothing. My grandmothers wore house dresses, although my Grandma Wallace did buy one pair of jeans for gardening. I remember how surprising ...

"Good behavior owes itself to lack of opportunity". I love this quote passed on to me from one of the ladies in my Community Bible Study core group. How true it is! If I don't have the opportunity to misbehave, I won't misbehave. Like dieting. If I don't have chocolate in my home, I won't eat it because I can't eat it. If I think about those things that are honorable, just, pure, lovely and commendable (Philippians 4:8), I will not be thinking about things that lead me into temptation, that lead me to opportunities to misbehave. The first two verses of Psalm 1 say it another way: Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. No opportunities to misbehave when delighting in the law of the Lord, when meditating on it day and night. Admittedly, we do not want to believ...