God’s dwelling place
“Is it time for you to live in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Now this is what the Lord of Armies says. Consider your ways carefully. You sow much seed but you harvest little. You eat but you are never satisfied. You drink but you never become drunk. You get dressed, but no one is warm. The one who makes money puts that money into a bag with a hole in it. This is what the Lord of Armies says. Consider your ways carefully. Go up to the mountains, bring lumber down, and build the House. I will be pleased with it, and I will be glorified, says the Lord. You expected much, but look, there was little. When you brought it home, I blew it away. Why did I do that? This is a declaration of the Lord of Armies. It is because my house lies in ruins while each of you is busy with your own house. So it is because of you that the heavens have withheld the dew and the earth has withheld its produce. I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the olive oil, on everything which the soil produces, on people, on livestock, and on all the labor of your hands.”
For decades Christians have been told to get outside of the bubble—that our ministry lies beyond the church walls. It’s an important message, but something’s been lost: the health of the Church—Christ’s Body and God’s Dwelling Place. In our preoccupation with our own lives and our zeal to solve the world’s problems, we’ve left God’s House to deteriorate. Is it surprising that our efforts seem so fruitless? And we’re tired. Now is the time to work on God’s House—the Church—even as we continue to engage the world.
“So then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of God’s household. You have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the Cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you too are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
