God's Dwelling Place

This past Sunday New Life Community Church set out on a short journey together -- a 777 odessey.

I think the concept is great:

• Each day of the week (7) we are reading a chapter in Ephesians. Ephesians only has six chapters, so we get a free day on Sunday
• We are to be praying for 7 specific things we want to see God do in our life. We have been encouraged to dig deep into the privacy of our heart and bring our most honest requests before God.
• The duration of the journey is 7 weeks
• We are also being encouraged to journal our thoughts while we read and pray.

Yesterday was day 2 of week 1, so the reading was Ephesians ch. 2. Here's a verse that left me thinking: "And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."

The Apostle Paul is addressing the Christians in Ephesus, one of his many church plants. In previous verses he has described how Jesus' sacrifice has allowed both Jews and Gentiles equal access to God's grace (the Jews are no longer God's only chosen people). Paul goes on to say that our citizenship is being built upon a foundation laid by God through the prophets, the apostles, and Jesus himself as the Chief Cornerstone. Then Paul says, "And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."

I love the picture ...

I see one of the elders in Ephesus having received a letter from Paul. When the church next gathers together (maybe later that day, or on the first day of the week), the elder stands up and reads Paul's letter. He gets to this paragraph, looks around the room at his best friends, even his own wife and children, and says to his church, "We are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit."

The small gathering of men and women, boys and girls, look up, and then at each other. They exchange glances and nods, winks and smiles. "God is building us together." They ponder what that means. Carpenters, fishermen, weavers, maybe even slaves -- being built together.

And not just for any purpose, but for the most holy of purposes: "To become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit."

A man who makes clay pots stands up among his brothers and holds aloft a small pot. "God wants to fill up this little church, just as a flour might rest inside this pot." A few minutes later, the church prays that God's Spirit would be present even that very hour as they eat dinner and share the Lord's Supper.

Are you and I being built together into churches where God's Spirit dwells? What part of our own life, and what aspects of our churches, need to be refined so that God's Spirit can flourish?