Our Labor for the Lord

We are not supposed to be saved and then sit down. We are not supposed to be saved and then act like we are happy to just have our hellfire insurance policy. God wants to fulfill His good purpose through us. Our salvation needs to be worked out. How? With fear and trembling! The New Living Translation says with "deep reverence and fear." It seems sometimes that we have turned God into a sugar coated tooth fairy who grants our wishes if we would only ask. And instead of fearing God, we fear nearly everything else you can think of. We fear speaking in public, heights, enclosed places, water, going outside, our boss, failure, rejection and any number of countless other temporal issues. But God brings this issue back to the eternal:

"Dear friends, don't be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot do any more to you after that. But I'll tell you whom to fear. Fear God, who has the power to kill you and then throw you into hell. Yes, he's the one to fear. Luke 12: 4-5 (NLT)

Thank God we are saved by His grace and mercy but how do we forget where we came from? How do we forget the sin that so easily entangled us and separated us from God? How do we not fear the terror of His majesty as Job asked? How did we lose the fear of God?

Because we do not view the life we are building in Christ as the labor it should be. We are spiritually lazy builders. Always have been. In the days of Nehemiah the Prophet we see a story of the building process we all face today. Nehemiah had a vision from God to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, which had been completely destroyed. Similarly, our lives were lying in ruins when Jesus reached down into the miry pit we were in and pulled us back up. Once Nehemiah asserted the plans to rebuild, he had the enemy come against him in the form of Sanballet and Tobiah. Similarly, once we give our lives to the Lord, the enemy will send Sanballets and Tobiahs into our way as well to stop the building process. But the similarities do not end there:

At last the wall was completed to half its height around the entire city, for the people had worked with enthusiasm. Nehemiah 4: 6 (NLT)

A lot of times we too will build quickly once we are saved on fire for God because we are still close to the point where He saved us from. But then soon the enemy comes against us and we can find our labor becoming slowed:

Then the people of Judah began to complain, "The workers are getting tired, and there is so much rubble to be moved. We will never be able to build the wall by ourselves." Nehemiah 4: 10 (NLT)

Aren't we the same way beloved? Soon into our walk we will start to complain. We will start feeling tired hey no one said this walk was going to be work! We will realize that God wants ALL of the rubble of our former life removed, not just what we want to give Him. He wants all of those hidden areas. He wants our secret hates. Our secret prejudices. Our secret lusts. God understands this part of the key verse means that if we are holding things back from the Master, then He is not the one building the house we are. And God forbid we try to usurp the role of the builder. Jesus taught about this very concept:

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