Be A Builder!
"Therefore let us pursue the things which
make for peace and the things by which
one may edify another."
Romans 14: 19
Say you’re at a neighborhood gathering and you meet a new
neighbor. When you ask about his line of work, he says,
“I am the president of AAA Edification Company.”
If you're familiar with New Testament language, you may
think he was in a ministry of some sort. But when you
inquire, he clarifies: “We’re in the building business—
houses, apartments, office spaces, and the like.”
That would be a reasonable, if not unlikely, name for such
a company since edification means “to build up.” The New
Testament words edify and edification are based on
compound biblical words: house and build.
More than a dozen times, the apostle Paul applied
this “building” idea to Christians and the Church.
On the large scale, he compared the Church to a building—a “holy
temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21). At the personal level, he exhorted
Christians to “build up” one another—to build up the Church by building
up (edifying) the individual members (1 Thessalonians 5:11, NIV).
Look for ways today to build up—strengthen, encourage,
love—other members of the Body of Christ. In doing so,
you build up the whole Church.
"If you build upon yourself
your edifice will be a mere ruin."
Augustine