Building on the Ashes
Building on The Ashes
If you know anything about building, building starts with a plan. It starts with an idea of what the outcome or ultimate goal or finished work should look like. It takes some time to look ahead and envision what the end is going to be. Without the first idea, thought or desire to get from point A to point B, people can roam around life aimlessly. Only to look up one day and find that life has passed you by.
What are we as believers building? Are we building based off of our own limited understanding of how we should be living? Or have we decided to yield to the blue prints of our lives, hand drawn by the finger of our heavenly Father? Mapped out by the very word of God?
I want to talk about building on the ashes of our perceived failures on today. The first thing I want to point out is that we can’t build alone. Last week we talked about Christ being about community and being a relational God, today we are talking about allowing Christ to build us up from those places of trauma, disappointment, difficult decisions, and perceived failures. Why do I use the term perceived failures? Because if we can grasp the kingdom concept of being content in every season of our lives, we will come to the understanding that even our failures are temporary. The advantage that we as believers have is knowing that we are in a continual state of allowing Christ to mold us in His image and likeness. As we are being built, there may be times when we get tired, or discouraged or over whelmed but when we learn to train ourselves to see things through the eyes of Christ, we will get the understanding that even when we are tired we can keep going because the word says that in my weakness He is made strong.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
When we are discouraged we can look to scripture and see that Isaiah 41:10
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
There may be times when people attempt to tear us down. But if we can take a moment and remember what the word says. We can stand. Know when situations, when people and when our own self doubt tries to rear its ugly head, we must take a moment and ask is this thought, is this person, is this situation for the betterment of my end result in God? Does this action, does this though line up with who Christ is building me to be? Because if it does not, I have to understand that its not part of who I am becoming so I must let it go.
Deuteronomy 20:4
For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.
Psalm 73:26
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Anytime we fall short we must remember deep down on the inside of us that there is a but God! I know that there will be times when I may have to make those tough decisions, but God has my back. He is with me. When I feel alone and thrown away by the very people who vowed to love me, I know that God will never leave me nor forsake me. When depression taps on my door, I must remember to run in His presence because there is safety there. If I can’t go anywhere else, I know that in Him I am comforted, I am safe and when I get there, He is pouring and shaping and building me up. So when He takes his hand, the architect of my soul, he will stand back and admire His handy work in me.
Ephesians 2:10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.Romans 15:32 So that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.
Have you surrounded yourself with people who know who they are in Christ? There is something about being around the confident in Christ. A refreshing comes over us when we hear someone speaking life in the atmosphere. When we allow Christ to build on the ashes, it can be hard. For one we must know that becoming someone new requires a different mindset. You can not bring a carnal mindset into a renewed day. You have to talk like Christ. Think like Christ, live and love like Christ.
When The Lord burns away the old, the flesh becomes dead, the ashes of who we once were collect in piles beneath us. Sometimes the memory of what we are familiar with tugs and pulls the frames of what is being built in us, down. But as long as we have a strong foundation, we can build again. Every brick that The Lord stacks on the inside of who He is making us to be, become stronger and stronger. Why because Jesus is the chief corner stone of our lives and when we allow him to lay down the bricks of change and purpose on the inside of us, doubt, fear, low self-worth, bad decision and not knowing who we are in Him, must go.
The entire purpose for adversity is to keep us in a constant state of lowliness, depression, trauma, failures, fear, bad decisions is to keep us a far away from our true identities in Christ. Why because when we are built up in Him, we walk in the authority and power to be unbothered. When we become unbothered by the things of this world, we can no longer be affected. In other words, whatever is going on within us or around us doesn’t dictate our outlook on life. Which is important when we are representing Christ.
Luke 6:48
He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.
Matthew 16:18
And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
1 Corinthians 3:13-16
Each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?
1 Peter 2:4-6
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Ephesians 2:19-22
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
In closing, allow Christ to build you up in Him. No matter what you have been through, know that there is room to live gain in Him. Speak what the word says over your life and know that Jeremiah 29:11 says: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
He has already written out the plans for our lives, Trust Him and walk it out. Stop being so hard on yourselves and know that He will walk with you and you walk with Him to get to the end result that has been ordained before the foundations of this world.
