Word for the day by Christian Education Forum

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Temple of God
1 Corinthians 3:10-23
"If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light.” (1Cor.3: 12)

Here we have Paul telling us God has given him the grace to lay the foundation as an expert builder. Notice that we are nothing apart from the grace God gives us to enable us to function in the ministry God has placed us in. If he has not given us the grace we will only find ourselves struggling and tired because we are working in our own strength. Paul says he is an expert builder laying down the foundation of Jesus Christ. Let us pray and strive to be like Paul expert builders for the Lord upon the lives of our church and family.

 Strong foundation: Let us first resolve to make sure our foundation is strong and our spiritual house is made with costly material such as gold. There is a reason why Paul is using this imagery, there is a gospel out there that builds using weaker material and the “Day” or time of testing and also the Judgment Seat of Christ will bring our work into the light to see if it can stand. God will test our work with fire, beloved when trials come are you standing strong? God will test the work in your own life and the gospel you preach to others by allowing us to go through fire to test the quality of our work. If we build it on any other gospel the fire will burn it down. Let’s not conform to the standard of the world culture around us and boldly preach the truth of the Gospel! In this manner we will be building with gold and the day will test to see if our faith will hold!

Holy Spirit dwells in us: Paul also speaks in verse 16 that we are the temple of God, and that the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us, but he says this as a rhetorical question. God is challenging you to stand firm in your identity! Don’t you know who you are, beloved if we are not convinced of who we are in Christ, our adversary and this world will be quick to label us and we will be living with an identity crisis lost and confused. Finally he is speaking to the church about the wisdom of this age, that God considers the wisdom of this age as foolishness to him. Don’t conform to the standard of the culture around you, God has given and revealed his wisdom through Christ Jesus in you. The world might call you foolish for believing in the Gospel but remember it’s the foolishness of God that confounds the wise! God’s wisdom is steadfast, while the wisdom of this age has no foundation!
Prayer: Dear God help us build our life on the strong foundation; that is you Lord. Amen.

Deepak Mathew, Epiphany MTC, NY




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