GOD’S CONSTRUCTION WORKERS
“Except the Lord build
the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the
watchman waketh but in vain.” “Now
I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak
the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be
perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same
judgment.”
Psalm
127:1
1 Corinthians
1:10
King James
Version
I went by a
construction site several times in the past three weeks and every time I passed
by the site I saw the workers helping each other. Once I saw a worker carrying something
that was too heavy for him and I watched as another worker took the other end
and helped him carry it. I thought
“How tragic it is that Christians sometimes fail to carry the other end of a
heavy load for another Christian”.
Sometimes
pastors will ask the members of their congregations to do something and asks for
volunteers. Usually the people that
raise their hands are the ones who are already active in most of the projects of
the church. I used to just as
guilty concerning this issue. When
my pastor would ask for volunteers, I never raised my hand. May God forgive me for my lack of
compassion.
The main reason
I didn’t raise my hand was because I didn’t think I had any talents so there
wouldn’t be anything that I could do.
One day, my pastor said when he called for volunteers for a project in
the kitchen “Anybody can wash dishes and set tables”. It felt like somebody had plunged a
sharp knife deep into my heart as the Holy Spirit convicted me of my lack of
concern, obedience and compassion.
I asked God to forgive me for being so selfish and
disobedient.
However, it
doesn’t matter if every person in the congregation works together on a project
because it will never succeed unless Jesus is the builder. We can’t do anything that will last in
our own strength. It takes Jesus
working through us to effectively accomplish what He has called us to do. So many times we try to do things
without Him and we fail every time.
When we will ever learn that without Jesus, nothing is of any value and
is only temporary?
There are some
churches that have the policy that if a person doesn’t attend that particular
church and is a member of another church, they shouldn’t have anything to do
with that person. That not only is
not scriptural; it hurts Jesus and
it breaks the heart of our precious Saviour. The Bible says “that there be no
divisions among you”. When we get
to Heaven there won’t be different congregations, we will be one family just as
we are now.
We are brothers
and sisters in Christ and it is time that we stop hurting people by rejecting
them just because they go to another church. One day, we will stand before a Holy God
and give an account of way we treated one another. How tragic it would be if we had to look
away and hang our heads in shame because of the way we rejected somebody just
because he or she wasn’t a member of our church.
Joanne Lowe
September 9, 2007