Once upon a time there was a man named David who enjoyed God's favor. God had brought him to the throne when he was nothing before. From a simple shepherd God made him king. David loved God despite his personal shortcomings. One day, he looked around him and said to himself, it is not normal that I live in a beautiful house while the ark of the Lord remains in a tent; and he made the decision to build a temple for God. But God stopped him in his tracks and told him that it was rather the son of David who was going to build him a house. Interestingly, David did not feel offended or excluded, he did the best he could, he provided abundantly from his own pocket for the construction of the building, because he said 'This palace is not for man, but for the Lord God.'. (1 Chronicles 29). And the finished building was truly splendid.
In reality, our situation is like David's. God took us from nothing and made us children of the kingdom, 'a royal priesthood'; He literally made us the temple of His Spirit. Then He asks us to come together to worship Him, and to do this, we need a place. Question: What is your attitude toward the Lord's place of worship? Do we have the heart of David, do we tell ourselves that our collective place of worship should not look bad compared to our living space, our home? Do we have the heart to build a place worthy of our God, to give generously so that our place of worship is pleasant, welcoming, decent, and fit for worship? Or do we think that any miserable little room will do?
A limited mentality
Often evangelical churches are reduced to meeting in 'near slums', shabby buildings and unsanitary rooms; sometimes because the members are not involved and do not bother to look for better (the pastor is there for that, it is none of their business), sometimes because the mentality is limited and they do not have the spirit of David and cannot conceive that God would want them to meet in a more pleasant place. And sometimes it is simply because the congregation cannot afford better, because the members have another idea of generosity towards God, a few coins in the basket waiting and praying that God will provide; while they live comfortably at home and feed on fatty and succulent food.
It's that there's a lack of men like David who take to heart what concerns the house of God. What's not lacking are those who have the gift of criticism. Recently, a church I know had to move, they ended up taking a location that wasn't ideal, there was only the pastor and one other person to do all the searching for a room. The others had other fish to fry and were content to wait until the room was found to decide whether or not it suited them and if they were going to go to the trouble of going that far. Some decided that it wasn't and stopped going. This is very serious. Now this indifference, this consumer mentality, of self-service is very widespread in our churches.
Work us!
May God work on us, may
- Let our hearts be consumed with zeal
- Let us be jealous for the house of God
- That we spare no effort to find the best premises for the use of our local assemblies
- May we make it a point of honor to acquire real estate with a view to using it for the work of God.
- May we be faithful in our tithes and generous in our offerings so that all the bills of our congregations are paid and the pastors can devote themselves to the work of the ministry without worrying about running the premises.
May everyone imitate this cry of David " For who am I, and who is my people, that we should willingly offer these things to you? All things come from you, and we receive from your hand what we offer to you. …. O Lord our God, all this wealth that we have prepared to build a house for you, for your holy name, is from your hand; and all things belong to you. (1 Chronicles 29:14-16)
When we are part of an assembly and our life has been positively influenced within this assembly, when we receive spiritual nourishment that builds our lives, we have the responsibility to participate in all these ways so that the assembly has adequate premises for the work of the ministry, for preaching, teaching, prayer, evangelism, helping members, ministry to children, young people and especially to all those who do not know the Lord and who will cross our gates if indeed there is a decent place to welcome them.
Shalom!
This article was first published in 2010 and remains as relevant as ever. I thought about republishing it after publishing my last article about Solomon's Temple. Read it here
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