by Desiree Bustamante

Christ died so we could be rebuilt.

You can listen to today’s devotion by clicking on this SoundCloud link.

“A time to tear down and a time to build up.”
Ecclesiastes 3:3 New Living Translation

Sometimes a building isn’t worth saving. It takes too much effort and money to make useful changes. It’s wiser to tear it down and rebuild.

Sometimes we think that we are only full of imperfections and problems. We pass judgment on ourselves and declare that there’s no hope, we’re just failures, what has been built isn’t worth anything. We wish we could tear it all down. Yet God never gives up on us! He may agree that what He sees is far from perfect and He often had reasons to tear down, but He’s much more patient than we are. He wants to restore and rebuild us over our entire lifetime.

God knows that the renovation of our hearts and our lives will mean some ways of thinking and ways of life will need to be demolished. Yet the goal is always to build us up in God, dismantling our flawed perceptions of Him so that He can build something new to reflect His love to the world.

This process feels uncomfortable at times, but this is a natural process of change by a God who meets us on the cross. While we are being rebuilt, we hold fast to Jesus because we repeatedly hear Jesus talking in these terms about His own life. He speaks of losing life to truly gain it, of being killed before he can be raised, of being torn down by human sin and pride only to be lifted up by the Father. By handing himself over to be crucified, Jesus won the victory. We can now be rebuilt firmly on the foundation laid by our resurrected Christ!

Copyright Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Colorado Springs, Colorado