Hard work, for the building..and repair

The Gold Plated clock tower roof was repaired recently in our town on the Old Historic Courthouse Building. The scaffolding took many days to build to get to the top of the tower. The repair seemed like it took little time. The tear-down of the scaffolding took a long time also.

 My first thought was - that was a lot of work just getting to the area to do what was needed and then a lot of work afterwards for the tear-down. Great effort for a great purpose...to restore something of value- gold.

The scaffolding would have required a good foundation to be stable at the great height needed to reach the gold clock tower to restore.

1 Corinthians 3
10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—

Building Scaffolding

Take Heart in the building and the repair! You are of  immeasurable value to God.

what-god-is-building-through-all-the-inefficiencies-of-life

In God’s economy none of these resources were wasted. He invested them in building something far more important and precious than a wall. He was building faith.

A rebuilt city and a faithless people would not please God (Hebrews 11:6). History had shown that a strong wall doesn’t save “unless the Lord watches over the city” (Psalm 127:1). So, as Nehemiah and the people worked to rebuild Jerusalem, God worked — through opposition — to build their dependent faith in his power rather than their own. It was the opposition that prompted Nehemiah to preach, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome” (Nehemiah 4:14).

Faith is “the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). God gives it to us as a gift (Ephesians 2:8). But he tests, refines, and strengthens it in the fires of difficulty, adversity, opposition, and suffering. We only really learn to “walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7) when we must trust what is “not seen” more than what is seen.

That’s why all the seeming inefficient trials of our kingdom life and labor are not wasted. God is building “the tested genuineness of [our] faith,” which he considers “more precious than gold” (1 Peter 1:7). And it’s trials more than prosperity that teaches us to “remember the Lord.”

So “count it all joy” today “when you meet trials of various kinds” (James 1:2). God is building your faith.

Faith is worth all the time, energy, and money it costs to build. Because only by faith will we receive our commendation from God (Hebrews 11:2). (Jon Bloom Desiring God)

Lamentations 5:21 (ESV)
Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old—

ACTS 4
11 This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

Tom Peel/Gazette

Wholly Yours (B Varient -David Crowder Band

I am full of earth.
You are heaven's worth.
I am stained with dirt,
Prone to depravity

You are everything
That is bright and clean
The antonym for me
You are divinity

But a certain sign of grace is this:
From the broken earth
Flowers come up
Pushing through the dirt

You are holy, holy, holy.
All heaven cries, "Holy, holy God."
You are holy, holy, holy.
I want to be holy like You are.

You are everything
That is bright and clean
And You're covering me
With Your majesty

And the truest sign of grace was this:
From wounded hands
Redemption fell down
Liberating man

But the harder I try
The more clearly can I
Feel the depth of our fall
And the weight of it all.
And so this might could be
The most impossible thing:
Your grandness in me making me clean.

Glory, hallelujah.
Glory, glory, hallelujah.

You are holy, holy, holy.
All heaven cries, "Holy, holy God."
You are holy, holy, holy.
I want to be holy like You are.

So here I am, all of me.
Finally everything.
Wholly, wholly, wholly -
I am wholly, wholly, wholly -
I am wholly, wholly, wholly Yours.
Here I am, everything
Finally, all of me
I am full of earth and dirt and You.