Dick and Harry (I gave Tom a rest) are building a house when Dick sees Harry going through a bag of nails. He checks each nail. Throws some of them away and puts the others in a box.
“What are you doing?”
Harry replies, “They’re pointed at the wrong end.”
“Don’t be silly,” says Dick. “We can use them on the other side of the house.”
In building our earthly homes there is much amiss. The average home in ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /Vancouver is 1.27 million. That’s in dollars. Everyone wants to have a home on this earth; then in retirement they downsize to condos or apartments. We all have plans.
When it comes to building our spiritual home for the soul, are we much wiser than Dick and Harry? Do we recognize the tools we need to construct that house of heaven?
“Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labour in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1).
St Paul instructs us: “Build on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:20-22).
In other words, look to the church established by Christ: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18).
Jesus tells us to build like the man “who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears [the words of Jesus] and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great” (Luke 6:46-49).
The Lord challenges us to serve in humility and sincerity: “‘what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be,’ declares the Lord. ‘But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word’” (Isaiah 66:1-2).
Again, in scripture we hear God’s challenge: “if you listen to all that I command you and walk in My ways, and do what is right in My sight by observing My statutes and My commandments, as My servant David did, then I will be with you and build you an enduring house as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you” (1 Kings 11:38).
The world may reject us for the life we live as Christians, but we are precious in God’s eyes: “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5).
So build that spiritual dwelling and make it eternal in the heavens. 2 Corinthians 5:1 says: “For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
