Disaster House or Christ Built House?

Disaster House highlights home remodeling the “wrong way”.  The episode I watched showed them pulling out a load bearing wall by hitching the wall to a set of Clydesdale horses through a window. The horses pulled that wall down without much effort. But the after effects were bad: falling plaster, sagging ceiling, and the floor above falling down.

The results were truly disastrous.  The host did go on to show how to fix the mess once you’ve done it.  It took a lot more time, money and effort to repair the mess. They could have done it the right way to start with and saved a boatload of money and headaches!

Fortunately for us believers growing in faith and becoming Christlike don’t have to come at the cost of a disaster. Just like home remodeling, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things in the Kingdom of God. Unlike a homeowner who may have no background knowledge and no guidebook to go by, we believers have the knowledge of the Most High God spoken into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Our “resident” expert shines His Spirit on God’s Word and we can know that we know that we know how to live with one another, how to grow in unity, love and faith. We can also know how to build up one another, build up God’s ministry and repair any problem that arises.

But there will be times that we will have to start from the ground up. A lot of times we come into a situation with all of God’s knowledge but the building has sagged for a long time. Lack of prayer, lack of love, lack of the bolstering of God’s Spirit: all make for a bad situation.  We could just tear down the entire building or let it go empty. But is that God’s plan?   How do we go from the disaster house we find ourselves in to the Spirit built Kingdom God desires?

It may be that the disaster you are facing looks too far gone to do anything about.  You’ve tried everything and yet the walls are falling in everywhere. It may be your ministry, your marriage, your children, your future, your finances or your friendships.  While there’s nothing you can do to change things in the natural, there is always something you can do that will move heaven and earth on your behalf: you can pray. Keep asking God to show up and show out. Ask God to change your heart and then the hearts and minds of others.

Without God as the Master Builder and Chief Architect we all might as well go home. Without Jesus as the chief cornerstone of all we do we are headed for disaster. And would we want it any other way? Do we really want to do it all by the flesh? Are we really content when we’ve had our way? Do we feel great satisfaction when the things fall completely to the ground?  Does “I told you so” ever make the disastrous heap of rubbish look better or feel better?

Oh beloved, God has a wonderful plan for your life and for the life of those around you. His plan calls for Him to be first, for love to reign supreme and for the head of the building to be Christ. Can you work with that? Can you leave the choices to Him? If you do, you will watch Him display His wondrous power in glorious ways! He will take the crumbling edifice and rebuild it for His glory! And when it’s all said and done and our life of faith is over here on earth, we will arrive home face to face with the Stone the builders rejected.

God loves you and He’s for you – and that’s why He keeps asking you to let Him do the construction throughout your life as you learn to be more like Him. When it’s all about Jesus, He makes the reconstruction better than anything you could dream up on your own. You can trust Him as He builds your life into something magnificent to show forth His glory!

Ephesians 2:20 Together, we are His house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself.

Colossians 2:7 Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.

Matthew 7:24 Everyone who hears these words of Mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Jude 1:20 But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I Corinthians 3:11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.