Divine Plumb Line
Scripture Reading — Amos 7:7-8
The LORD said, “Look, I am setting a plumb line among my people.”
—Amos 7:8
In Amos, God sets a spiritual plumb line among his people. A plumb line is a string with a weight at the bottom, used by builders to make sure walls are vertically straight. If God set a plumb line among us, how well would our spiritual lives line up?
Dr. Bruce Thompson teaches that there are two main ways in which our spiritual lives can be corrupted, or “out of plumb.” One might be called the “wall of rejection.” Often in life we experience rejection, so we build up bricks that isolate us from God and others. These bricks can include sadness, self-pity, inferiority, insecurity, and discouragement. They are all held in place by unbelief. We lack faith in Christ’s power to heal our rejection.
Another way our lives can be out of plumb is in a “wall of rebellion.” Bricks in this wall can be hostility, conceit, superiority, competitiveness, stubbornness, resentment, and bitterness. Pride is the mortar that holds them in place. These bricks are misshapen and lopsided—they corrupt us from the way we’re supposed to be. We can’t build straight spiritual walls with them.
The tool needed to bring correction is repentance at the cross. There our Lord pries the twisted bricks out of our lives and aligns us with his righteousness. Thank God, he is our master builder, and by his Spirit we are remade at the cross!
Lord, draw us to surrender our lack of faith, our pride, and all our other sins at your cross. May we seek forgiveness and new life through your sacrifice for us. Amen.
About the author — John Kuperus
Since he was young, John Kuperus has had a passion that everyone would know Jesus. Spreading the good news that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15) is very important to him. To be better equipped for missions, John attended Reformed Bible College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He applied these skills with marketplace evangelism in a business he started in Sussex, New Jersey. This calling continued to follow him, so John attended seminary and became a minister in the Christian Reformed Church, serving a church in Ontario for eight years. Currently he serves as a missionary for Youth with a Mission (YWAM). He witnesses Jesus changing lives as people walk out of the darkness into the light. John is married to Helen, and they have seven children.
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