The House of God

The House of God

Ephesians 2:19-22

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

               The house of God, as most of us know, is not a structure of wood and stone.  It is not a religion or an organization, but it is a living organism structured, designed, and formed by the Spirit of God for His Holy Habitation.   It is like a house within a house.  You and I are individually the temples and dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, but at the same time we are being formed corporately into the temple and dwelling of the Most High. 

               What comes to mind is a honeycomb of fitted individual cells all joined together into a hive.  It is there that you find the honey, the anointing, the sweet out-flowing of the Holy One.  All of its members work in one accord and unto one end, to perpetuate the life of that hive.  Each member has their own functions and abilities and as each one is faithful to function in their gifting and calling, the hive will prosper.

               Before we knew Christ we had no real home, no real purpose and we were strangers to God.  It was His grace that led us unto repentance and salvation that He might join us unto His own where we now have purpose and true meaning in our lives. 

               It says we have been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets.  These were the stones through which God’s Word came forth and established what we now read as our Bible.  They gave the tenants and blueprints of God’s design so that we could continue to be built with continuity from generation to generation, not wavering from the original design and purpose of our Master Architect and Builder, who is Himself the chief cornerstone, the primary support and anchor of God’s temple as well as the capstone and crown of glory that completes and finishes it. 

               Ephesians 4:11-16 says, “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”  From this scripture has come the terminology of what we call the five-fold ministry.  A brother shared with us a good analogy the other day as we were having fellowship.  He said he saw the five-fold ministry much like the forms in construction that are assembled with reinforcements placed within them and then filled with concrete.  The forms are not the actual structure or building, but are there to give shape, dimension, and form to the structure, but once the concrete has set up and taken the shape it was designed for the forms are stripped away.  The five-fold ministry is not an end in itself, but they are the materials and tools to build the house into God’s design.  The end purpose is to have a unified structure that is an organism that functions in the fullness of Christ, whose head is Christ.  Each member works together with the other and no one member works for their own good, but for the good of the whole.  Much of our mindset today is “what’s in it for me.”  In the true body of Christ, me doesn’t exist, it is all about Him.  That is the house of God.

Blessings,

#kent