A Spiritual House...

Years ago my brother in law John would wait for someone to make an awkward comment or do something less than appropriate and he’d chime in with “you’re such a piece of work.” He’d then pause just long enough to make sure he had your attention and finish with "...God’s workmanship..." a passage from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (2:10).

A piece of work. God’s workmanship. I have often ruminated on that subject and wondered about how I, or anyone for that matter, would be considered a piece of work by the very One who created this universe and all that is therein.

Peter, in his first Letter writes, encouraging Christians in this way: "As you come to him, the living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him, you also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house..." (1 Peter 2:4-5).

We ARE a piece of work. God’s workmanship. Like Jesus, the living stone, we too are living stones being built, modified, shaped into a beautiful spiritual house.

But it’s only by coming to him who is the living stone that we are able to do it. And he bids us, Come!

My wife and I are remodeling an old hunting camp into a year round residence. We’re using pine tongue and groove throughout the house. I love choosing the boards, individually, first at the lumber yard and then as I carefully place them next to the other. The variation in the level of pitch present in the board, the location of the knots and the size of the knots, or even the number of knots determines where each board is put.

There are some boards which take a little more work. In some cases they weren’t milled correctly, or they warped a bit, but they all can be used, eventually. I know. I chose them.  Just as God chooses us, with a purpose (Eph 2:10).  And when I complete a wall I stand back and look at it and wonder, is that what the Temple in His eternal Kingdom is like? Is that what the Lord is doing with me as he builds me, this living stone, into his spiritual house, the house in which His spirit is pleased to dwell?

What about you? Do you wonder what the Lord is doing in your life? Do you sometimes wonder what possible good could come of the situation you are now facing...even today.

Take heart, if you are in Christ, you are a new creation, the old is gone and a new life has begun. The Lord God himself is working with you, a living stone, shaping you through these experiences into a wonderful spiritual house.

One of the most wonderful things about wood, stone and other natural building materials is the patina they take on with age. It’s what gives an old stone church or an antique table it’s character. The scratches and the divots, the scars of a life time of use...So as you face whatever challenges are before you today, take this hope with you – You are a piece of work...God’s workmanship...a living stone being built into a wonderful spiritual home.

Dear Christian...

Dear Christian, 

I am growing increasingly concerned that the LGBTQIA++ movement in our midst, under the guise of educating our children in “welcoming,” is instead sexualizing our children in such a fashion as to actually constitute “grooming.”

While scripture admonishes us to show Christ’s love, so too are we instructed to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord who defined acceptable sexual relationships by saying “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female’ and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? [Matthew 19:4-5] thereby defining heteronormative behavior as the biblical standard.

The continuing bombardment of our children with a message that runs counter to the faith, once and always delivered to the saints, should be of growing concern to each of us.