Words from a Branch

  Daniel 1             Babylon attempted to re-identify Daniel and company through a brutal program of brainwashing, not dissimilar in content to today’s programs of conformity. The key to successful resistance, as we see in this chapter, is to draw the line precisely at the point of obedience. Draw the line too early, and you have lost your witness by your absence. Draw the line too late, and you have lost your witness through compromise. The key to effective witnessing is to be in the world, but not of it. We must understand that the world is not so much a physical place; it is, in reality, a state of mind. Verses 1-4: the Ruin of Israel             Daniel’s home was completely devastated, and even the Temple was plundered. Babylon took the best and brightest, Israel’s future, and sought to turn them into Babylonians. Daniel has witnessed a catastrophe; he has see...

  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 ESV                 There are some verses in our Bibles which we know, but yet do not truly know. We have read them, heard them, perhaps memorized them, but we have not meditated on them, understood them, and applied them in our thinking and in our actions. Romans 3:23 is a good example of this. It tells us that no one has escaped the effects of sin. Still we are often surprised when sin appears in the lives of public officials, or church leaders, or celebrities, or children, etc. We should expect sin to show itself everywhere and in every situation.             The world is often surprised by sin, not because it went away for awhile and suddenly came back; but because they refuse to acknowledge the evidences. Christians, or so called Christians, follow along with this nonsense e...

            There are many places which we might think worthless. Generic buildings repeated over and over again in every town signifying nothing important or special to society at large; or small preserves of nature lacking anything extraordinary to the perception of the community as a whole, these might be done away with and nothing would be lost. So we think as we gaze on another box of concrete, steel, and glass set in a sea of pavement, or a little vacant lot tucked away between the more noteworthy spaces. These offer us no great historical significance, no architectural or natural wonders, no unique opportunities of any kind: so we think. Thus, we destroy these places and spaces without a second thought, anticipating that the next occupying structure will be more worthy than the last. We see only gain, but in truth each time we remove and rebuild we lose something irreplaceable.        ...