Clothe yourself with Love Col. 3:14

I was born with a condition called congenital cataracts. It is a disease of the eyes where a section of the eye becomes blurry and nothing can be clear in that section. I had surgery in 2002 that corrected this issue. If you looked into my eyes on the outside, my eyes looked normal, but I was half blind. There is a big difference between seeing and perceiving . If there was a commotion in the street, I would always ask my family: “ What’s happening? ” They knew that I still couldn’t see, even if we were all looking in the same direction, so they would describe to me what they saw, so I can perceive and understand what’s going on. Seeing is not always perceiving . Did Adam and Eve see and know the importance of obeying God? We know that they eventually tasted the forbidden fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden. They saw it, but they did not perceive that by not obeying God, they would come to know the good by the loss of it, and they would come to know evil by the sen...

  A study led by an associate PhD professor, a research scientist at Indiana University, found that people with clean houses are healthier than people with messy houses. Participants who kept their homes clean were healthier and more active than those who didn’t . We may speculate on that, but it sounds like a no brainer. Clean house, healthy life! This theme of cleanliness or purification is prominent in the Bible and is also at the center of today’s sermon. The prophet Malachi is describing the day of the Lord’s coming, saying that He is like a refiner’s fire and like Fuller ’ soap. On the one hand , the coming of the Lord is described as one who purifies with fire, separating dross from real gold. In movies we sometimes see blacksmiths beating metal, pushing it into the fire until it's red hot, beating it some more, pushing it back into the fire, and so forth, to obtain the final well-rounded desired product. We are like that when our faith is being tested! On the other...