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Unless the Lord Builds the House


Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain. (Psalm 127:1)

 

        Two of the articles I read over the past couple days tell approximately the same story. One was about the Islamic refugees in Europe and the apparent lack of understanding of them on the part of Europeans and their governments. The second was about a picture taken near Detroit, MI, showing multiple ISIS flags being flown. Like the Europeans and their governments, Americans and the American government seem to have no idea why this is happening and they really have no better idea than Europe of what to do about it.
         The problem is (at least in part) that over the past hundred and fifty years religion has been systematically removed from Western culture. There are people who think this is a good thing. A new society is being built that has little or no room for such "folly" as God. This society has promised its citizens a utopia in which the government takes the place of God. Such a society has been built in vain. It has failed to live up to its promises. It has gone into financial and social debt. Society is calling for repayment of the social debt and when the government doesn't pay up because it never had anything with which to pay, the people are growing angry and desperate. They are looking elsewhere.
       Unfortunately, society has not been taught how to evaluate those who offer solutions. They have no idea how to build their own spiritual houses. They are angry. They feel betrayed, and so they respond to that which fuels their anger and feeds on their sense of betrayal.
        The solution to this problem is to turn to God, and ask Him to rebuild. Not to rebuild the nation or even to put Christians in political office, though those things are things for which we should pray. No, we need to be praying that God would build us as individuals and watch over us. As we are made over in the image of His Son, we will become the building blocks of the Church that He is building in our area, which will become the building blocks of the societies in which we live. It all starts with God building you. It's not easy being chiseled into the shape He wants for His building, but it is vital that it happens because if He does not build His Church, everything anyone else does is a waste. 

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On The Calendar Worm Moon

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