How Strong Is Your Home?

How Strong Is Your Home?

Good Morning Friends,

After Hurricane Irma people have been evaluating the strength of their organizational structures. And by this, I mean both the physically and emotionally and spiritual and intellectual and relational ability of them to withstand stress. In today’s lectionary selection we have an example of weak links and issues of structural integrity. You see, there is a privilege and peril for every person that they might be inspired by God and be strong in the Spirit on a firm foundation of Christ or choose a cornerstone of their motivation that is not of God. Jesus stayed up all night considering the selection of his disciples to build his ministry and still one fell away. You see, relationships are the building blocks of our very salvation. And it all starts where the heart is. How Strong Is Your Home?

Scripture: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Ephesians 2:19-22 (NRSV)

Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Luke 6:12-16 (NRSV)

Message: When Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, he addressed Gentiles who were now Christians. He wanted them to remember their previous condition as strangers and foreigners, and then provoke them to gratitude to God who was building them together as a community. Their status had changed and now they were members of the household of God. They were now citizens in the Kingdom, and identified with others who enjoyed the same relationship with God in the building of a stable home on the foundation of strong relationships with Christ as the cornerstone. Friends, this is not about admiring architecture but about living and loving in a society that is built to withstand the storms of life. If you are a member of the household of God, this statement should renew your gratefulness to God and your daily devotion to Him. You see, the household of God is well built, unlike nations and institution of our own creation. Not only can we rejoice that we have been accepted as a member of God’s house, we can know that the structure is well built and will stand. The household of God was built on, and stands today on the truth of Jesus Christ.

Pray we are built together in the Spirit as a dwelling place for God. Pray we are secure in the household of God. Pray our lives are built on a firm foundation that is never failing. Pray the whole of our relationships are fit together so that we need not fear the collapse of the structure. Pray we guard against attitudes or actions that lead people away from a relationship with Christ. Pray we realize that we are not just a guest or occasional visitor but a permanent member of the family of God, dwelling with God in a home upheld by the divine power of holy relationships. Pray we bring worship into our daily lives and homes with Christ as the cornerstone.

Blessings,

John Lawson