“After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building.”
1 Corinthians 3:5-9 (NLT)
“…you are God’s field. You are God’s building.”
Wow! That makes us sound important. God is doing something in and through us.
God is using us for His purposes and His task.
A field is something that requires constant work – preparing, planting, watering, weeding, harvesting, and back to preparing again. A field is never “finished.” God is never finished with us. He is working in and through us. We are all at different seasons in our life, and we all need God to work in us in different ways in different seasons.
When I was young, I lived out in the country and I watched the farmers working in the field behind my house. They worked with tractors to prepare the fields and combines to harvest the wheat and the oats. I loved to watch the fields as they went through the different seasons and as the fields were transformed from dirt, to green growth, to golden stocks ready for harvest, and then back to brown dirt again. It doesn’t happen overnight. And the farmer can’t “make it happen.” But if the farmer doesn’t do his part, he won’t get the harvest. I always marvel at the beauty along the way, through each step of the process. It is interesting that at the end of the process, it is the death and dryness of the plant that prepares it for harvest. If the wheat and oat stalks don’t die, they can’t be harvested.
Similarly in our lives, I think it is the struggles that we go through, the dying to our own self and selfish motives and desires, that allow God to bring about a harvest in and through us.
God is never idle. He is working in and through us. We are God’s servants, doing the work that He gives us to do. We cannot do that on our own or through our own strength, but as we come alongside Him and allow Him to work in us, He can work in and through us.
Similarly, a building is something that takes a lot of work to build. If a building is built well, it can last for hundreds of years, or more! It still requires maintenance over the years, but the bulk of it’s work is done in the initial stages of building it.
My grandfather was a carpenter. He built his own house and houses for others. I loved going up to work with him during summer break from school each year. I was able to watch him build, and also to have the opportunity to learn from him and help him build. It was his work, but he included me into it, and I was a co-worker with him.
In life, God calls us alongside of him as servants, but also co-workers. We God’s building, but we are also used by God to build into the lives of others. The things that we do to build into the lives of others can have impact for many generations to come.
At FFICM we are working to help people to get a firm foundation in their relationship with Jesus Christ, so that they can stand the test of time like a good building, and so that they can bring in a bountiful harvest through the lives of others.
Written by: David Moore