Chaos into Order - His Ways are Higher

Sometimes when I look around, all I see is chaos. People being oppressed or killed, nations suffering through famine or drought, communities being destroyed by nature’s fury, families being broken apart, the rich getting richer while the poor keep getting poorer, the list goes on and on.  I don’t understand. Sometimes I see scientific articles, news reports, or debates on certain topics and I am frazzled by what they have to say. Everyone is trying to prove their own points while trying to disprove the points of others around them at the same time. Terrorism, global warming, overpopulation, conspiracy theories….everyone has an opinion, everyone has an idea and everyone thinks they are right. I’m tired just thinking about it. Chaos.  All I can say is Lord, direct my steps by your word, and let no iniquity have dominion over me. When I don’t understand, I have to trust that God has a plan that is higher than I can comprehend, that what I see as chaos God created as order.  Isaiah 55:8 says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts.” 

Many people struggle with this, including me. It is in our nature to want to understand and to be in control. Even when we cannot control something, we attempt to. We gauge things, we forecast things. We cannot control an earthquake but we try to control the damage it causes by placing strict building codes in areas where they are frequent. We cannot control the weather (though some of those conspiracy theorists think that the government can and is) so we forecast it. We can’t control when it is going to rain but if we know roughly when it is going to rain we can make sure we are indoors when it does.

Even in our chaos, we have a certain amount of order. We have recognizable seasons; we have a gauge on time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, centuries, millennia, etc…); many of us recognize some form of a higher authority whether it is our parents, our employer, our government or our God.  The question becomes did we create this order within our chaos or were we made aware of it? The vainglory of man would have us believe that, out of our own intelligence, we have created some order. My belief is that, as the creation of God, we have been given certain revelations into His design.

I recently shared a Facebook update that consisted entirely of numbers:

550701701809050140420250404201601409022016042030404205504024012018042080240180702804205501026070420230901404202602404201702601703201201701404042015010330904207024025017026017024026042024033090180420250902704205502201601023025016042061061069044061063063

…and I left it at that. To look at those numbers, one might see purely chaos. They may think, “Wow, Mike must have rolled over on the computer while he was sleeping”.  Another may look at it and say, “This doesn’t make any sense but perhaps if I look at it long enough or study it in some detail, perhaps something will begin to come together”. The plain fact of the matter is, I know what this number means and you do not. I know what it means because I made the system to create it. I gave the number its order and it makes perfect sense to me. It is not overly complicated and I’m sure there are people out there smart enough that could figure it out given time. But, the easiest way to understand what it means would be to either simply ask me, or ask for the key to decipher it. That leaves me with a choice. If I want you to know what it means I can tell you, if I want you to figure it out for yourself I can give you the key and if I really just don’t want you to know I can simply do nothing.

If I were to choose to not tell you what it means or not help you figure it out, how would you react? Some might become angry and turn away from me. Some might continue to try and figure it out on their own. Some might decide that it may really have no meaning and just forget about it altogether.  What reason could I possibly have to not show you what it means? Perhaps I would not tell you because even though it has meaning, you wouldn’t understand it if I showed it to you. Perhaps I would not tell you because it would hurt you to see what it means.

It comes down to trust. We can trust that where we see chaos, God sees order. We can trust that God gives us the answers we need. We can trust that God protects us from things that we don’t understand and could hurt ourselves with (look what the knowledge of good and evil did to Adam and Eve when they chose to try the fruit over trusting God). We can trust that God has the keys and that He gives them to us when we need them.  I can trust because “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts higher than your thoughts”.

With love,

 Mike

P.S. I purposely didn’t give you the key to decipher the number. I will however give you where to find the answer - Psalms 119:133

Obedience over Understanding: The whole Duty of Man

Psalm 111:10 – The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments.

 

So often in life, I have heard others talk about how they want to believe in God but they just can’t seem to come to an understanding about certain things that are involved with believing in a sovereign creator. Topics such as follows commonly come up:

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why does He allow children to suffer and die?

Why does God allow people to die in natural disasters or at the hands of evil rulers and regimes?

Why does it seem like God isn’t answering when I pray?

The list could go on and on. Unfortunately, there really isn’t an answer that can be given or found to appease the minds of most, including me. I don’t understand. The good news is that we can get to a place where we don’t need to understand everything before God becomes real and important in our lives.

When I think about being asked to accept things that I don’t understand, I am immediately brought back to my childhood. There were times that my parents would do something that I didn’t agree with. There were also times that they would inform me that I was expected to do (or not do) some specific thing for no reason more than they were the parents, I was the child and I was to obey. Back then, as a child, these things may have rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t understand why my parents were doing what they were doing or why they wanted me to do (or not do) something. I wasn’t always capable of fully understanding the reasoning behind decisions and rules that they made, even if they took the time to try and explain it to me. For example, if my parents were to ask me to stop eating out of a bag of candy, I likely didn’t understand that if I ate too much candy I’d have a sour stomach shortly after.  All I knew was that candy tasted good. It was not that they weren’t explaining it properly. They had a higher level of understanding than me because of the wisdom that they had accumulated over the years through their experiences in many different circumstances.

As children of God, there is a great parallel in this relationship. God, the Father, in His sovereignty, possesses knowledge, wisdom and understanding in levels which we cannot even begin to comprehend.   As His children, sometimes, He looks to us to simply obey when we don’t understand. One great example of this is the story of Abraham and Isaac. In Genesis 22, God came to Abraham and asked him to do something that seemed totally absurd. Let us remember that, previously, Abraham’s wife had been unable to provide a child for him. God promised Abraham a son in Genesis 18:10 and this son was meant to fulfill the promise of God given in Genesis 15 that Abraham’s descendants would be as innumerable as the stars. Now God was asking Abraham to take this one and only son and offer him as a burnt offering. I can only imagine what must have gone through Abraham’s mind as he obediently took Isaac up the mountain to do what the Lord had asked. “I don’t understand. This doesn’t make any sense!” Yet he went up that mountain fully prepared to do what had been asked of him. Thankfully, in Genesis 22:12, God interrupts the preparations of Isaac and says, “Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him; for I now know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Abraham’s fear of the Lord was so great that he was willing to obey Him at any cost.

Fear of the Lord is something that is sorely lacking in our current times. As a world of prodigals, we very rarely look upon God as someone to respect and hold in reverence. With my father, there is a respect that I hold because, as his child, I have come to an understanding that when he says we will do something, he does it, whether that is in the form of discipline or reward. It is the same with my Heavenly Father. My fear of the Lord comes from a personal understanding that He rules over my life and that when He says He will do something, whether discipline or reward, He will do it.  Isaac must have learned well through his own personal experiences that it was good to have a healthy fear of the Lord and Isaac must have also passed the importance of the fear of the Lord to his own children as well. In Genesis 31:42 Jacob refers to God as “the God of my father (Isaac), the God of Abraham and the Fear of Isaac”. Such reverential submission must Isaac have had for God that his child would refer to Him as the “Fear” of Isaac.

While this level of “Fear of the Lord” is an extreme example, we can see that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob still held a healthy understanding of the fear of the Lord hundreds of years later.  We can see that the fear of the Lord is seen as an enticement to obedience and service: to fear God is to do his will. As we can see in Deuteronomy 10, the Israelites see the correlation between fear of the Lord and obedience. “And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes which I command you today for your good?”(Deuteronomy 10:12, 13).

If we turn to the book of Proverbs, we see that one of the first topics is the fear of the Lord. Proverbs 1:7 says simply, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction”. Similarly, Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” If we tear these verses apart we can see a progression.



Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge and wisdom. However, we can despise wisdom and instruction. An instruction (or commandment) is simply being directed to do (or not do) something. When we are given instructions we have the choice to obey or not to obey. Psalms 111:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do His commandments”. It is logical to see the progression as follows then:

Fear of the Lord -> Obedience -> Understanding, Knowledge, Wisdom

As I sit here a 30-year-old man, I have a much greater understanding of many of the decisions that my parents made. I also have a greater understanding of many of the instructions and rules that they gave me to follow. Through my obedience to them, I built up my own understanding of why certain rules were important and I am now giving many of the same instructions to my own children. It is my conclusion that before we are able to understand, we are called to obey. One of the final verses of Ecclesiastes sums up well the point that I hope I have been able to make.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments:

For this the whole duty of man. (Ecclesiastes 12:13 KJV)

With Love,

Mike

...but what if I'm right?

Please allow me to be blunt for a moment.

I believe in God. I believe that He created all things both seen and unseen. I believe that God created man to be in fellowship with Him and that our ability to fellowship with Him was severed when sin entered the life of man.

I believe that God set in motion a plan to bring restoration to the relationship between man and God through the nation of Israel. Out of this nation came The Lord Jesus Christ - fully man, fully God. I believe that, through the obedience and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have all been given the chance to turn back to God. The call made by Jesus was simple - "Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17). Jesus offered Himself as the offering for our sins so that we can have eternal life because He is the only one worthy to make that payment in full. What love! This is what saves us all from the penalty of our sins which is eternal death, not of the body, but of our spirit within it. Then, as a gift to help us live a life of righteousness, Jesus sent the same Spirit which was in Him to live in us and work through us to continue the furtherance of His kingdom.

The truth is that all which we see on this earth will fade away. Our time here is short but it's meaning is significant. Out of all eternity we have 100 years or less to make our personal decision. Believe and follow or deny and turn away. I choose to believe. So often I hear "but what if you're wrong"?  If I come to the end of my days on this earth to find that I was wrong then I will have lived a good life, have made many good friends and have given and been given much love. Let us turn that question around: But what if I'm right? The things you have accomplished for yourself in your lifetime, those things that stay behind at the time of your last breath...will they have been worth it? Or will you find yourself saying "I would trade it all for one more opportunity to turn to God"?

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! “For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?” “Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?” For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen. (‭Romans‬ ‭11‬:‭33-36‬ NKJV)

Waiting for the trees to wake up...

As I was walking with my children recently, I thought to myself of how it felt more like mid to late March than it did like April 30^th. As I looked at the trees, I was perplexed by the fact that there were not even the beginning signs of leaves on any of the trees in our neighbourhood. Because our winter was longer and colder than we have seen in many years, the trees are behind in their growth for this year. You see, trees go into a state of dormancy over the winter triggered by the shortening of sun exposure. However, it is not the increase of sun exposure that wakes a tree out of dormancy. It is the change in temperature in the spring that signals to a tree whether or not it is time to “wake up”.  Unseasonal temperatures can cause a tree to bud leaves early in years that we have a warm spring and they can also cause a tree to delay budding of leaves in years that the spring is cooler than normal.

As we were walking, I began making connections between the trees and us. I began thinking about how many Christians, including myself, find themselves from time to time in a form of spiritual dormancy. By dormancy I mean, inexpression, underdevelopment, unconsciousness, inactivity. When we are in this state, increased exposure to the Son is not enough to spur on a season of growth. The number of people sitting in churches every Sunday without seeing any change in their lives can attest to that.  A faith that isn’t totally dead is in survival mode attempting to brave the cold state of our hearts, holding out for that moment when our hearts become warm and hospitable for growth once again.

***I recognize that dormancy is a dangerous word to use when it comes to our spiritual state. The origin of the word “dormant” originates in Latin as “dormire” – to sleep. I refer to Ephesians 5:14: “Arise, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light”. Those who are spiritually “asleep” and those who are spiritually “dead” show no visible difference. The only way to know the difference is whether or not they ever wake up. ***


Let’s take a step underground for one moment and acknowledge that for warmth to trigger growth in a tree, the tree must first be rooted into good soil and plugged into a source of life-giving water. Without water, the tree will wither and die. Jesus is the source of this life-giving water to us.  John 4:14 says, “Those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life”. How do we get this water? John 7:38 says, “Anyone who believes in me may come and drink!” It is our belief in Jesus that draws us near to the “rivers of living water” that flow from His heart. Psalms 1:3 also talks of the importance of being near this river: “They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do”. This is a stark contrast to the next verse, “But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind” (Psalms 1:4).


It is the love that we share with others that bears witness to us also loving God and having had tasted the living waters. Proof of this is found in 1 John 4:8 – “But anyone who does not love does not know God – for God is love”.  We are called by Jesus to ”love one another” with “agape” (or unconditional) love (John 13:34). Though we claim to ”love one another”, this love is usually limited to those who share our beliefs, interests, or bloodline. This is called ‘Philia’ or brotherly love. In Matthew 24:12, Jesus talked about how agape love would grow cold. I believe it is the cold hearts produced by the lack of agape love being given to others that brings on a state of spiritual dormancy. It is the love of God, His unconditional love, which has the ability to warm our hearts.  It is this agape love being given to back God and being shared with others which will build an environment of warmth that initiates growth. This is why fellowship is so important. In the metaphor of Ecclesiastes 4:11 we are shown how “…on a cold night, two under the same blanket can gain warmth from each other. But how can one be warm alone?” Fellowship is the way in which we can share our love with others and with God. 1 Peter 1:22 says “love (agape) each other fervently”. I love the definition of fervent:

/ˈfɜr vənt/ 1. having or showing great warmth or intensity of spirit, feeling, enthusiasm

2. hot; burning; glowing.

 Loving others fervently literally brings warmth of spirit!


It is when a tree is exposed to adequate warmth that buds on the branches begin to break open with sprouts which will later grow into leaves. The leaves that develop are important in accelerating growth of the tree through exposure to light via photosynthesis. A healthy, hungry tree can be identified by the leaves that it produces. The energy absorbed through the leaves allows the branch to grow. Similarly, as we are exposed to warmth and begin to wake up, we will also become hungry. We will desire to be exposed to the light (…and Christ will give you light) to be fed and to sustain energy for our growth. Yes, Christ is the source of light. John loved to talk about the light of Christ. John 1:4 says, “Life itself was in Him, and this life gives light to everyone”.  Later on, John 8:12 quotes Jesus as saying, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t be stumbling through the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life”.

 Now, we know from John 15:8 that, as disciples of Christ, we are to bear spiritual fruit so it is safe to say that we are fruit bearing trees. All fruit bearing trees grow flowers. This is necessary to the process of a tree bearing fruit because pollination must happen to produce the fruit. Through pollination, these flowers will give way to fruit. These flowers are a pleasing aroma to the ones who are capable of pollinating the flowers. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 3:15, calls our lives “a fragrance presented by Christ to God”. The most natural of ways that pollination happens is that the wind blows the pollen from flower to flower. The Greek words for wind and Spirit are the same –pneuma. John quotes Jesus as using “pneuma” for both in John 3:8, “Just as you can hear the wind (pneuma) but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit (pneumatos)”. As the wind gives life to fruit, so does the Spirit give life to us. Again, in John 6:63, Jesus is quoted as saying, “It is the Spirit (pneuma) who gives eternal life. Human effort accomplishes nothing”.

This life giving Spirit is why the fruit in the life of a believer is called the fruit of the Spirit. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23). Good fruit tastes delicious and people love to receive our Spiritual fruit from us for the same reason; it is pleasing to them. However, though the flesh of fruit is tasty, it is the fruit that also gives way to the birth of new trees. The seeds inside of the fruit, when handled properly, when germinated and placed in good soil, will break open with new life and start the process all over again for a new tree.  When we share our Spiritual fruit, we also share the seed of the Good News from within it. When handled properly, these seeds can break open and give birth to a new believer who, one day, will also mature and grow to the point of being able to produce good fruit.

How long do we have after being born again of a Spiritual seed to grow and mature to the point of growing fruit? There is no definitive answer to that question.  If we base our thoughts on the parable of the barren fig tree (Luke 13:6-9), There is a grace period given to allow us to mature to the place to be able to bear fruit; However, we do not know how long it may be before we are declared by God to be “just using up the ground” and we find ourselves being cut down. This is why it is so important to share and spread the love of God! We need to stay in an atmosphere that is permeated with the warmth of that love, not only for our own ability to grow and produce fruit, but also for the ability for seeds to be sown so that we can see the birth of new believers!

 Proverbs 11:30 - The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.

Romans 12:10-12 – LOVE one another, not lagging in diligence, FERVENT in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer.


Mike

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Today many people around the world, whether Irish or not, are celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day. We all love to wear green, speak with a fake accent and eat chocolate coins in celebration of this day. It has come to my attention that many of us really have no idea what we are celebrating! So, I thought I would give a little information on Saint Patrick and the origin of this holiday.


First of all, Patrick was born around 385 A.D., he was not Irish and his name was not Patrick. He was actually born into a wealthy Christian family on the English Isle. Scholars cannot pinpoint the location of the village he was born in beyond it being somewhere in England. Although he was born into a Christian family, he had little interest in Christianity during his youth. When he was about 16 years old, he was kidnapped by Irish raiders and taken to Ireland where he was forced to work for around six years as a captive herder. During this hard time in his life, he turned to God for solace. He spent most of his time calling out to God in prayer.

During one of these times of prayer he heard a voice he believed to be God telling him it was time to leave Ireland. He fled to the Irish coast, a walk of nearly 200 miles, and escaped home to Britain on a ship. After a hard journey in which he was taken captive a second time for two months, he found his way home and was reunited with his family.

From this point forward, Patrick had a burning desire for the people of Ireland to hear the gospel. It is said that an angel told him in a dream that he was to return to Ireland as a missionary. After almost 15 years of study and training, he left for Ireland to go and spread the good news of the gospel to the largely pagan populations of the country. This was what he devoted his life to for the next 40 years.

As for some of the more common symbols of Ireland, it is believed that they have their origins at the hands of Saint Patrick. It is said that he used the shamrock as a symbol to explain the holy trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is also believed that he superimposed the cross onto the sun, an important symbol to pagans. Some say he did this simply to show that the cross of Christ was superior to the sun that they worshipped. Others say this was done to help the pagans see Jesus Christ as the one who gives them life rather than the sun.  This is likely where the origin of the Celtic cross comes from.

So why do we celebrate the life of Saint Patrick on March 17^th every year? It is legend that Saint Patrick died on March 17, 460 A.D. so it is fitting that his life is celebrated on this day. To many, St. Patrick’s Day is simply an excuse to party and/or show their Irish pride. To me, it is a celebration of the spreading of the love of Christ to an entire nation and a hope for today that the good news of Jesus Christ can and will be both shared and accepted!

If interested, check out St. Patrick's own testimony, "Confessio"

Also, for children (and adults), Veggie Tales shares this story in a fun way:

Finally, a real Irish song, performed by a real Irish band:

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all! Stay safe!


With love always,


Mike

Building Towers (a lesson on pride)

My young son and I love to build together. We have spent many afternoons using our bountiful supply of preschool sized lego to build houses, bridges, towers, spaceships…you name it, we’ve built it. The past few days, my son has become adamant that it must be possible for us to build a tower that goes from the floor all the way to the ceiling. The first day we attempted this, we went with the theory of building it as quickly as possible. We attempted to make one large single cube block tower to see how high we could get. I don’t think we ever made it past a few feet tall with that tower and that was with me holding on to it the entire time. Without a strong foundation and some supports to brace the blocks, the tower was just not strong enough.

On day two I managed to convince my junior architect that we needed to build some supports around the single cubes to help keep them standing straight.  We did much better with this tower. We managed to get up to about five feet tall before I had to hold onto the tower at all times so that it would not fall. Eventually, we started running low on blocks so we abandoned the outer supports and went for the single cube ceiling touch. No matter how hard we tried, we could not get it to stay standing up. It crashed to the ground and we were done for the day.

Today, I decided that we were going to continue as far as we could with the outer supports and just see how close we could get to the ceiling...

.

We managed to build a tower that not only stood on its own, it also was only a few more blocks away from touching ceiling.  If you take a look at that picture, my son was so proud of what we had accomplished. So was I! “Man, this is the coolest tower we have ever built! We are lego tower building geniuses! I’m so proud!” Proud…pride…pride comes before the fall…

“First pride, then the crash – the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.” (Proverbs 16:18 MSG)

If I’m being honest, the entire three days we were working on these towers I kept thinking about the tower of Babel.  Here was a group of people united in goal. “They said, ‘Come, let’s build a great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world’.” (Genesis 11:4 NLT)  We do not know how far the people of Babel got on their tower but we do know that God took notice of what they were building.  It was not the tower that was being built that concerned Him, it was the pride that they were building within themselves. Remember, they were building for themselves. To humble them, God came and gave different languages to confuse and scatter them.

You may be wondering what the big deal about pride is. Why does God oppose pride so much? Let’s define the word to start:

Pride - A feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired. (Oxford Dictionary, US English version)

God’s issue with pride is that it takes our eyes off of Him. We can feel something towards God for His accomplishments and His qualities - this is called “fear of the Lord”. That feeling towards God is what leads us to giving Him glory, honor and praise. That feeling is what causes us to humble ourselves before Him. When this feeling is not directed towards God and is instead turned back upon us it becomes pride. This is when we place ourselves in a place of honor above God.

Isaiah spoke of this pride: “For you said to yourself, ‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars, I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.’" (Isaiah 14:13-14 NLT)  

 Ezekiel also wrote on this pride: “Your heart was filled with pride because of all your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth and exposed you to the curious gaze of kings.” (Ezekiel 28:17 NLT)

These verses from the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel were words given to them by the Lord to serve as messages to the kings of Babylon and Tyre. God was referencing the fall from heaven of a “mighty guardian” or “shining star”.  God wanted them to see that as pride can be the downfall of a heavenly being, so can it be the downfall of a mere man, no matter how wealthy or powerful they may seem to be.

I am made aware that towers continue to be a symbol of pride. Every time I drive into Toronto I find myself looking for the CN Tower. It is a symbol of pride to the city of Toronto. Even by simply searching Toronto on Google in images you will flood your screen with pictures of the famous tower. If you search another famous city, New York, in Google images you will again find yourself barraged with images of skylines filled with the many famous towers, buildings and statues of the city. It should not serve as a surprise that the terrorists of 9/11 used the famous towers of the New York skyline to strike a blow on the pride of the United States. It also does not surprise me that new towers are being built on the same ground as the first ones to serve as a symbol of the rebuilding of the pride of the nation.

The fame of buildings does not stop in North America. Cities such as Dubai, Mecca, and Taipei hold their towers in high regards as the pride of their cities. Browsing the websites of these cities' towers, you will find words such as “world-class”, “magnificent” and “masterpiece” to describe them. Not every building attempted has been so successful. Cities such as Pyongyang, Bangkok, Krakow, and Caracas are home to buildings that have been abandoned in an unfinished state. These buildings serve as eyesores and embarrassments to these cities. No wonder buildings were so often used in parables and metaphors to send us a message.

“Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is useless”

(Psalms 127:1 NLT)

“But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first getting estimates and then checking to see if there is enough money to pay the bills? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of funds. And then how everyone would laugh at you!”

(Luke 14:28-29 NLT)

“For every house has a builder, but God is the one who made everything.”

(Hebrews 3:4 NLT)

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and obeys me is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse, because it is built on rock. But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will fall with a mighty crash.”

(Matthew 7:24-27 NLT)

                     

My son and I had fun building the tower today but right after we took a picture of it we took it apart before it could fall down. The towers we build do not signify how intelligent, powerful, wealthy or cool we may be.   But the damage done when the towers fall will show how high our pride has taken us.

“First pride, then the crash – the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.” (Proverbs 16:18 MSG)

"Don't be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn your back on evil"

(Proverbs 3:7 NLT)

With love always,

Mike