Day 359

Nehemiah 3:1-4:23, Revelation 17:1-18, Psalm 147:12-20

Twice, with the help of my father-in-law, I have built a barbeque. Not just a pre-made kit one that would go in the garage, but a proper brick one that would stand the test of time. In all honesty I didn’t do a bad job, but a builder would have done a far better job. Walls, however, are a very different matter, they are quite hard and I have seen a number of quite badly built ones that start to bow and eventually fall over – walls that haven’t been built properly.

For the walls of Jerusalem you may expect a large company of builders to get the contract, the kind of companies that build roads and hospitals and schools. And yet the wall was built by the people, by a perfume maker, a jeweller and a bloke with his daughters. And it was done properly.  The other striking thing is that each person did their own section but it had continuity. It wasn’t a mosaic of different kinds of bricks it was a wall worthy of the city of God.

If that was the city of God, then the church is the body of Christ. We all bring different things to our work in the body and yet it has integrity and consistency that is fitting to the body of Christ.  The reason that it worked back then and it works today is that it was not their skill that built the wall, and it is not our skill at work in the church, it is the power of the Spirit working in and through us.

If we are open to the spirit then we can turn a perfume maker into a builder, a student into a preacher and a road sweeper into a healer. All in the power of the Spirit. What might the Spirit do in you to continue to build his church?