Key Chain Level

I have to get a new bag, they boy I gave it to I haven't seen in two weeks. Last week was my pastoral installation service, so we didn't have kid's time at the altar. This week I had to come up with something on the fly.

I hung a picture in my office this week, just eyeballing it. Needless to say it's not strait. In a creative planning meeting we started talking about upcoming services, and Father's Day was mentioned. It came up that the gift we have for the men is a key chain level. I mentioned that I could have used one the other day, and when I walked into my office the next morning one was sitting on my desk. My picture is still crooked, but the level gave me my "sermon in the sack" for the week.

How a level works is there is a liquid with an air bubble in it. There are two lines in the middle, and when the air bubble is in between those two lines the time that the level is resting on is level. If the item isn't level then the bubble moves to either side of the line. The more unlevel it is, the farther to the side it gets.

Our lives have a level, and the lines are Jesus and the Bible. Our lives need to be in between those lines. If I'm not in a relationship with Jesus my life isn't level. I'm all the way to one side. Once I enter into that relationship the bubble moves to the middle. But it doesn't just stay there, there's another line.

That line is the Bible. As we read and study we learn how to live, we learn how to keep our lives level. The issue comes when we take the Bible too far, when we become legalistic. If we get to the point where we force the Bible down people's throats, where we use it as a tool to judge and condemn others, our bubble goes to the far other side of the line.

The lines are Jesus and the Bible. We stay between them by prayer, by church fellowship and cooperate worship, by one on one fellowship with other believers, and by proper Bible study.

Let's keep our lives level. Too many times it has been taken to far, and each time it hurts Christianity and discredits it more. Stay level.

Peace be with you.