Your Message Is Building
Your Message Is Building
At the beginning of the New Year
Your message is building.
First try to build yourself spiritually on a sound foundation.
Then work in building others and participate in building the Kingdom.
Build people with love, and with prayer so that God may work with you.
In the previous issue we spoke about how a person should have a message in life, and that this message should be strong, have depth, and have continuity, and that it should also be a spiritual message, for this has the greatest value among all other works.
And today, at the beginning of the year, we wish to invite you to building, and that building would be your message in life.
What we mean by building is spiritual building, because many have built and did not benefit at all from all that they built…
The rich fool wanted to build!
So he said: “I will pull down my barns and build greater… and I will say to my soul: … You have many goods laid up for many years” (Luke 12:18–19). Then the voice came to him: “This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” (Luke 12:20).
It is a vain building, similar to what Solomon built for his luxury and earthly pleasure!
He himself said about it: “I made myself houses and planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and orchards… I acquired male and female servants… I gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces… Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them” (Ecclesiastes 2:4–10). And what was the result? Solomon says: “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun!” (Ecclesiastes 2:11).
The wise person, the first thing he builds is himself from within.
There are those who try to build for themselves a fading glory on earth that ends after a while! Or those who build for themselves wealth that they may leave to children who scatter it without knowing how, while he himself gains nothing for his eternity from all that wealth and prestige…
But the wise person builds himself, and builds himself upon a sound spiritual foundation.
He builds his mind, his understanding, and his knowledge. He builds his will and his character, and above all he builds his relationship with God and builds his eternity.
The house built upon the sand, which the Lord Christ mentioned in the Sermon on the Mount, is every worldly building built upon a weak foundation of fading worldly desires. It is also every spiritual building that is built upon a wrong foundation of self-love or self-reliance…
But the building built upon the rock:
It is the building of the soul upon faith and the love of God.
And that you are able to work in this building through strong spiritual disciplines that develop your spiritual feelings toward God.
Also, that you build yourself spiritually through the grace of God working with you, by calling it to you through prayer and contrition, and through cooperation and communion with the Holy Spirit in a life of complete surrender—a life that leaves your life completely in the hands of God, surrendering to Him the will and the desire, just as a piece of clay gives itself into the hands of the great Potter so that He may shape it as He wishes and make of it “a vessel for honor” (Rom 9).
Now enter into the details and see how you build yourself.
For example: what type of readings do you use to build your mind and your knowledge?
Do you limit yourself to building your mind scientifically?
Or do you limit yourself to passing entertainments that have no depth to build you?
Or instead of building, do you destroy yourself with stumbling readings that stir wrong emotions in your heart, or readings full of doubts that mislead your thinking or waste your faith?
And more importantly, how do you build your children?
These innocent, compliant souls that are easy to guide—how do you build them? And what do you plant in them of feelings, of thoughts, of influences, and of habits?
The Lord Christ said in building: “On this rock I will build My Church…” (Matthew 16:18). And this rock is the sound faith that does not shake—the unerring faith that the Father declared on the mouth of Saint Peter at that time.
And the question now is:
Do you participate with the Lord in the process of spiritual building?
Do you work with the Holy Spirit in building faith, in building the Church and the Kingdom, in building souls spiritually?
Do you participate in building the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the dwelling of God with men (Revelation 21:2–3)?
And how many souls have you built?
And have you built them with the Lord upon a strong foundation that will not collapse later?
The Apostle Paul was a wise builder in the Kingdom of God. And he said about himself: “According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it” (1 Corinthians 3:10).
The one who builds needs wisdom and also needs love.
Knowledge alone is not sufficient. For knowledge may puff up, but love builds (1 Corinthians 8:1). You cannot work on building people if you do not love them.
How often the work of those who become zealous for the Kingdom is lost, when they fill the sinners with rebuke!
They may crush their souls with bitter rebuke, and perhaps these people turn away when they feel in the harsh rebuke a cruelty that distances them…
With this love the Lord Christ built the Samaritan woman and the woman caught in the very act. And with love Zacchaeus the tax collector was built.
And with love also Saul of Tarsus was built, who was “breathing threats” and also “kicking against the goads.” And with love Peter was built who denied Him three times, and Nicodemus who feared the Jews, and Mary Magdalene who had seven demons.
With love you have compassion on sinners and help them rise from their fall.
In this the Apostle Paul said: “Remember the prisoners as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also” (Hebrews 13:3).
And he also said: “Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness… bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:1–2).
And the Apostle James said: “in the meekness of wisdom” (James 3:13). And the Lord Christ Himself gave us an example in the gentleness of wise building, for it was said about Him: “A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench” (Matthew 12:20).
And He said: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted” (Isaiah 61:1).
Be gentle with sinners so that they may love you, and you may be able to build them with love.
With this gentleness the Lord was incarnate and lived among us and went about doing good. And with this gentleness the Lord endured sinners in every generation with wondrous long-suffering. And by this long-suffering He led them to repentance.
And with this gentleness He rebuked the scribes and the Pharisees who were loading people with heavy burdens hard to bear.
Another point we add:
As you build people with wisdom and with love, build them also with prayer.
Yes, you work in building. But are you truly the one who builds, or is it God? The psalmist says in the psalm: “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (Psalm 127:1).
If the Lord is the One who builds, then ask Him in prayer to undertake the work Himself, and let all your work be that you participate with God in the work of building.
The Apostle Paul says to the shepherds in Ephesus: “And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up” (Acts 20:32).
If God does not enter into the process of building, it will not be accomplished. Because building the soul is not merely human effort, nor is it human wisdom. Rather, God by His Holy Spirit is the One who builds all souls by the work of His grace.
Therefore the wise builder is merely a servant who carries God—“Theophoros”—God who works in him, and works with him, and works through him.
Therefore building the soul must precede building others. And therefore working with God must precede working with people. But the one who works alone, without God working in him, will build nothing.
Perhaps through wrong zeal, and without love and without wisdom, he may destroy and not build.
Here appears the difference between the spiritual person and the non-spiritual person when both enter into the work of building.
The spiritual person:
Every word he says is a building word. Every action he does is a building action. And every person he meets feels that a spiritual foundation has been placed in his heart and a spiritual brick has been built in his life.
And every sinner who meets the spiritual servant becomes assured of his love—that he is building him and that he is more concerned for him than he is for himself… and everything he does with him is for good.
Therefore I say—as to my beloved—build.
And if you do not have experience in building, at least encourage the builders and support them.
And at least: do not destroy.
Listen to the voice of Saint Nehemiah when he said: “Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach” (Nehemiah 2:17).
Let building be in every field:
In the family circle, among friends and acquaintances, in the field of work in the Church, in society in general, and on the ecumenical level as well as in individual work.
And trust that God does not forget the labor of love.
How beautiful is the saying of our teacher the Apostle Paul: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
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