Plumb Line

Amos 7:8 And the Lord said to me, “Amos, what do you see?” I answered, “A plumb line.” And the Lord replied, “I will test my people with this plumb line. I will no longer ignore all their sins.”

Webster defines a plumb line as: a tool that consists of a small, heavy object attached to a string or rope and that is used especially to see if something (such as a wall) is perfectly vertical.  The Plumb line for our lives is the Word of God. In our lives we need to weigh our thoughts, words, actions, decisions, attitudes, etc. by God’s Word.  The plumb line of God’s Word measures our character to see if it lines up with the character of Christ. 

Construction workers know that bowed or leaning walls are easily toppled. Every builder knows that when a wall falls, it always falls in the direction in which it is leaning.  If we have attitudes, thoughts, actions, speech, make decisions, etc. that don’t line up with the Word, those areas are the ones that will cause our character to crumble and fall apart. 

A little boy came up to his mother one day and said to her, "Mother, guess what! I'm eight feet, four inches tall!" His mother, greatly surprised, inquired into the matter and found he was using a six-inch ruler to measure a "foot." The boy was actually only a few inches over four feet. This is exactly what we do. We measure our words, actions, decisions, etc., by our feelings or desires rather than by the standard of the Word of God.  We also often measure our character by comparing our lives to that of others.  We may see someone who is “less mature” then us and measure our life/Christian walk against theirs.  If we feel we are “better/more mature” than they are, we might think we are doing ok. 

The Word never tells us to compare our lives with anyone other than Christ, and when we do that, we will always come up short (very humbling but necessary). However, if we work on keeping our lives plumb with his, we will find it easier to say no to temptation, have right thoughts and attitudes, control our anger, speech, etc., and make decisions based on the Word rather than our desires or opinions. 

Psalm 141:3 “Take control of what I say, O Lord, and guard my lips.”  When we invite God to help us guard our words, he will help us say things that will build others up and will be a blessing to the hearer. 

Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”  When we use the Word to measure our thoughts, we will find that the Holy Spirit will show us which thoughts are God honoring and which need to be “straightened” to align with the Plumb line.

 

The Word is full of Plumb line markers.  We need to be reading it daily and meditating on it in order to keep our lives plumb with Christ.   I, for one, never want my life to fall apart and crumble because I failed to keep it plumb with the Savior.