Thoughts for the Day

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building on it. Each builder must choose with care how to build on it. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.

Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

Do not deceive yourselves. If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written,

‘He catches the wise in their craftiness’,

and again,

‘The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise,
that they are futile.’

So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

Thoughts

I have a distinct memory of standing in the rain amidst all the paraphernalia of a building site in the 1980s at a new Church. The foundation stone had been laid for a new Community Centre by the Bishop of Gloucester and the Church was to live in that Centre. The first service was held on 3rd of March 1985, and for the first time I began to realise what it would be like to work with four different Christian denominations. It was the singing of the Methodist members that got to me, it was glorious. That was many years ago and the congregation now have their own church building on the other side of the same roundabout!

Paul insists that Jesus is the foundation upon which the Church is built, and each one of us will be tested one day to see if we have built a strong basis on that foundation. Did we teach or preach a watered down version of what Jesus has taught us; did we honestly try to build up another person's faith; did we show by example what it means to be rooted in Christ? This examination might be rather like the archeologist who can dig down and see the different layers of strata and proclaim who had done what in each period of time. God will one day help us to look at our record.

Paul also says we are God's temple and God's Spirit dwells in us! Just as Christchurch Abbeydale lived in a Community Centre so God's presence exists in us. But what are we building on this foundation ? Is it a prison, a pleasure palace, or is it a place where God dwells and with His help we continue to grow and mature as Christians?

Lord Jesus Christ,
Your apostle Paul taught us
that You are the foundation stone
of our faith and of the Church.
May we learn to be true to that foundation,
and continue building strong and safe walls.
May we remember that God's Spirit dwells in us,
and that what we continue to build during our life
must reflect that foundation stone.
Amen.