Building

All this rain has caused me to have some concern over the work being done on our new building. You can't put on roof in the rain. And it has been raining a lot. It seems as though there has been one hurdle after another throughout this building process. God is answering my prayer when we first began. My prayer was "God let this community know you are God through this building process." There have been hurdles and God has removed them - in His time and in His way. It has been a total God-thing. I am amazed at how well God has fulfilled my prayer request. It certainly has built my faith.

So these hurdles created a curiosity in me. When in scripture has there been a time like we are going through? So my reading this morning was the book of Ezra - talk about living in the same time!

The exiles return from Babylon. The first thing they want to do is rebuild the Temple. They are coming back with nothing and yet they give so much to get the Temple started. It reminded me of our Big Event last May when we kicked off our building project. The amount of money people pledge to give that day was incredible.

As the Israelites are rebuilding the foundation of the Temple there is excitement growing. But there is also another voice rising up - dissention (Ezra 3:12). Then there is disgust in the surrounding community over the re-building of the Temple and they send letters to the king to get the work stopped. This reminded me of the work of some people in our area that tried to get our building project stopped because of a storm water issue.

Nothing was going to stop the re-building of the Temple - it is what God wanted. I believe that nothing will stop the building of our new facility, it is what God wants.

Here's the kicker for me - the end of Ezra. God has made it very clear the Temple will be re-built. There is a great time of celebration and everything seems to be going great. Then Ezra comes along and says to all the men is Israel that they have been unfaithful to God by inter-marrying with foreign women. They are convicted and they send their foreign wives and children away. Everyone agrees except three men (10:15). Ezra concludes by naming names - it gives a list of every man who had intermarried! Wow!

Here's what I learned...God is more interested in our character than in a building. Our faithfulness and devotion to God is the most important thing. Nothing else matters.