An Anchor of the Soul

Posted on 2013/09/20 by Shawn Thomas

Hebrews 6:19 says: “This hope we have as an anchor of the soul.” The problem many people have is that there is nothing to “anchor” their lives; they drift wherever they “feel led”, or wherever the prevailing winds of culture blow them. Ephesians 4:14 says “we are no longer to be children tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine.” This is exactly the picture of many people’s lives today. They have no “anchor” to steady them, and there can be no peace, and no stability, where there is no anchor for the soul.
But Hebrews says there IS a hope which can “anchor” one’s life.

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“The Little Condo on the Prairie” (Sept. 19)

Posted on 2013/09/19 by Shawn Thomas

Both home school and football make their debut in this week’s “Little Condo”:

Although Michael is a very good student, and is usually very self-motivated, sometimes he and Cheryl go ’round and ’round in their homeschooling. Here are some episodes I have overheard from the other room:

LITERAL INTERPRETATION
One day, Michael’s Algebra assignment was to “factor out” the variable (in this case, an “x”). When Cheryl went to check his paper, she found that he indeed did “factor it out.” He erased it. Yes, he literally ERASED the “x” out of the equation! I suppose that’s one way to deal with it. He’s a literalist for sure — that’s not bad in some ways, just not in Algebra!

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The Fear of Man

Posted on 2013/09/19 by Shawn Thomas

After much prevarication regarding his sin of not fully obeying the Lord regarding His command to destroy the Amalekites, in I Samuel 15:24 Saul did finally own up to his sin: “I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord.” What is revealing is the next phrase, which tells us WHY he had sinned: “BECAUSE I FEARED THE PEOPLE, AND LISTENED TO THEIR VOICE.” Saul was afraid of what people thought of him.

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Be A Repenter, Not A Justifier!

Posted on 2013/09/18 by Shawn Thomas

In I Samuel 15, God had commanded King Saul to utterly destroy the Amalekites and all their possessions, but Saul spared King Agag and his people kept many of the best of the livestock. When Samuel rebuked him, Saul said in :20, “I DID obey the voice of The Lord …”. And he began to try to to explain how the people were going to offer the animals as a sacrifice to God, and that the king was the only one they brought back alive. He didn’t seem to understand what he did wrong; he thought his “half-obedience” was sufficient. He did not respond with repentance, but with justification for his disobedience.

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When Self-Congratulation Is Not In Order

Posted on 2013/09/17 by Shawn Thomas

I Samuel 15 narrates how God commanded Saul to attack the Amalekites, and utterly destroy them and all their possessions. Saul did indeed launch the attack, but he spared the king, Agag, as well as “the best” of the animals and whatever looked good in their eyes. As a result, God told Samuel that He regretted making Saul king, and Samuel went out to relay the bad news to Saul. Verse 12 tells us that on his way to the meeting, Samuel was told that “he (Saul) has set up a monument for himself …” because of his “victory.” How ironic; Saul was about to be rebuked, and His kingdom taken away from him, and here he was, making a monument for himself!

Surely Saul is not the only one to have done this. How often do we congratulate ourselves, because we think we have been “successful” in our own eyes, when in fact we have made ourselves odious in the eyes of God because we have not been faithful to His word in what we have done:

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Blessings of a Relationship With God

Posted on 2013/09/14 by Shawn Thomas

Psalm 73:23-24 says: “Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand. WIth Your counsel You will guide me, and afterward receive me to glory.” “Nevertheless” refers back to the description earlier in the Psalm of the struggle the writer went through in his faith. For a time he had doubted God’s goodness, and he envied the prosperity of the wicked. But he realized that even in such times, he had some blessings in his relationship with God that he could never lose. He shares in these verses 4 blessings of that relationship:

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The Leadership We Deserve (2)

Posted on 2013/09/13 by Shawn Thomas

In I Samuel 12:14 Samuel told Israel: “If you will fear the LORD and serve Him, and listen to His voice and not rebel against the command of the LORD, then both you and also the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God.” Notice that the verse says that IF they would obey God, “then both you AND THE KING who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God.” Here is another example of scripture telling us that we get the kind of leadership we deserve:

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Faith vs. Sight

Posted on 2013/09/12 by Shawn Thomas

In I Samuel 13:11 King Saul explained that he did not wait on Samuel to offer the sacrifice before the battle with the Philistines “Because I saw that the people were scattering …”. One of Saul’s problems was that he based his actions on the things he SAW instead of basing them on faith in God’s revealed truth.

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With Us At Our Worst

Posted on 2013/09/11 by Shawn Thomas

In Psalm 73 Asaph shares a very frank testimony. He had envied the prosperity of the wicked (:3), and had considered that he had kept his life pure in vain (:13). He admitted that “my heart was embittered” and he was “senseless and ignorant” (:22). But even at that, he says in :23, “Nevertheless I am continually with You; You have taken hold of my right hand.” As doubting and bitter as he was — “like a beast before You” — God had not given up on him. He was with him at his worst!

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The Top Shelf: Books I’ve Read More Than Once

Posted on 2013/09/10 by Shawn Thomas

When it came time to sell our home in Louisiana and move to a condo less than half its size in Oklahoma, we had to do some dramatic downsizing! One of the most difficult items to tackle was our book collection. Both Cheryl & I love books, but they were NOT all going to fit in that 1100-square-foot condo, so we had to do some soul-searching over which ones we could dispose of and those we just had to keep. (Don’t worry; we got to keep plenty!)

Books fall into a number of categories. There are many books that a person reads once, and for one reason or another, will never read again. Many of mine are commentaries or other reference books which I do not “read through” per se, but refer to as needed. But others are what I am calling here, “Top Shelf” books: those which I have not only read through, but have read in their entirety more than once. Following are my “Top Shelf” books, and why:

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