The Process of Holistic Building

UV 2122/10000 The Process of Holistic Building
But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
Jude 1 v 20

After dedication comes edification or building. Faith is the foundation on which we need to build. Faith in God, faith in Christ, faith in the work of the Holy Spirit. Character and good works are to follow to complete or perfect our faith. Hope is born out of faith in our future and our eternal glory. The Word is the master plan to build our lives on faith. To faith in God we need to add faith in self and to faith in self, faith in other believers and in others. To such faith, we need to add love, the agape of love of God. To love of God, we need to add love of self and love of other believers and all others inclusive of our enemies. Then, we need to add hope to our lives, hope in God, hope in Christ, hope in self, hope in others, hope in every situation. Every day in everything we learn and practice, we are adding a brick or a layer of bricks on the foundation of faith.

To hope we need to add patience or the grace to endure all trials and troubles. We need to add patience to wait for the pleasing will of God to be revealed and done. To that we need to add patience with ourselves, patience with other believers and patience with all others. To patience, we need to add kindness or compassion – the desire to make a difference to the lives of others, to lighten the burden of others, to share the agape love of Christ with others without expectation of any return. To kindness, we need to add a column of self control- allowing the Holy Spirit to control, guide and lead our minds, regulate our passions, control our tongues, our appetites, our every organ and desire. To kindness, we need to add humility- humbling ourselves before God and others, considering others better than us, more entitled than us to whatever we are seeking, submitting ourselves to the will of the Lord, regarding the interests of others as important as ours. To top it all, we add joy- the feeling of pleasure at being in the presence of God, in the centre of His will for our lives and doing His pleasing will. All these brick layers and columns are not done sequentially but often happens simultaneously. But we need to evaluate, decide and chose one brick at a time to build, or one thought, one word, one decision, one action or reaction at a time.

We cannot do all this building on our own. We need the help of a Master Builder- the Holy Spirit who knows the roadmap and the blueprint. We need to breathe in His power, grace and wisdom and to follow His lead. Our spirit needs to be of one accord with the Holy Spirit. He knows us from the inside out and He will shape us from the innermost being to be strengthened, built up and rooted in the foundation of faith as we increasingly yield to Him. As we are being built up in the spirit, we should not neglect the mind and the body, for the body is the temple, the residence, the mind is the living room of the Lord, our heart His sanctum sanctorum, the Holy of Holies, the most sacred place. We are to build to outlast time.

Prateep V Philip