We Are the Church
I love this passage of scripture. In my mind I tend to knit it together with 1 Corinthians 12:27 which declares, ‘ (We) are the body of Christ, and members individually.’ In so doing I picture a church building and see each brick representative of every born-again believer; past, present, and future. Perhaps you do too.
Then I pause.
If this structure consists of bricks yet future, then the structure is not yet finished. And if we (you and I) embody the present-day, then we are not part of the ‘wall’ either, because the process that makes us brick-like is far from being finished. At this point, the only bricks in the wall are those saints who have gone on before us.
What Then Do I See?
1 Kings 6:7 puts it all into perspective. It is four hundred and eighty years after the children of Israel had come out of Egypt and the fourth year of King Solomon’s reign; he has begun to build the house of the Lord. This particular verse focuses on one aspect of the construction—the building blocks.
And the temple, when it was being built, was built with stone finished at the quarry, so that no hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built.
The implications are colossal. We know that the Temple (and the Tabernacle that preceded it), were mere shadows of things to come, or more precisely: Heaven–Hebrews 8:5 and 9:24 make that clear. However I want to spotlight the stones. The first thing we should notice is that they were finished at the quarry and not at the Temple. Do you see the significance?
Like those stone, we are being finished (hammered and chiseled) at the quarry (earth). It is not until after we are finished that we are transported to the Temple (Heaven). Suddenly, our entire refining process takes on new light. The trials and tribulations we endure are nothing more than the Creator chipping away everything that is not worthy of a Heavenly dwelling. To resist the process is to thwart the mallet-wielding arm of God and/or His designee.
Rejoice Ye Blockheads
Consider the trials and tribulations. We truly need to stop praying against them; we need to stop trying to ‘fix the fix’ that God has allowed—He has permitted them not that we might suffer, but that we might prosper. The maxim is correct, “If God has brought us to it, He will see us through it, ” therefore our prayers should be for strength to stay close to the One who has allowed the fix we find ourselves in. We are being fixed on earth so that we might be affixed in Heaven.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven… Luke 6:23
He Dwells -- The B'log in My Eye 