A great place to live

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

A GREAT PLACE TO LIVE

Prov 24:27

27 Finish your outdoor work and get your fields ready; after that, build your house.

NIV

It would seem this is strictly a material saying. Although how many of us today have fields to get ready? Most likely in those times men were expected to own land, make good use of it, produce a plentiful crop and set aside their profits until they have enough to build the home that befits their land. This could also mean build a family. That would then mean a man should have a sufficient amount of wealth set aside before he marries and begins to rear children. But for many of us today this saying would then be like closing the barn door after the cows already escaped. How do we apply this to our lives if we have been married for years and even have grown children? It is a little late for us to finish our outdoor work before building our house. So is there any way we can get an application for our lives? Solomon used this principle in the building of the temple. He made sure he had all the materials in store before construction began, so that the temple construction could be done without stopping waiting for more supplies to be brought in. Are we in the process of building a temple for the Holy Spirit? Is it a process? We are told our bodies are the temple of the Spirit.

2 Cor 6:14-18

14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."   17 "Therefore come out from them and be separate,       says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you."   18 "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters,    says the Lord Almighty."  

NIV

Here is our outdoor work to finish and get our field ready. We are not to be in partnership in any way with unbelievers. This implies we do not blend our resources with unbelievers, no investments into their way of life. No commonality in material or spiritual things. Their way of materialism or their ideas of the supernatural are to be separate from ours. So our outdoor work is to get our field ready, our lives ready to be the temple of the living God. This would mean we are to come out from the form of life the unbeliever has and live in accordance with the will of God. As we study his word, as we cultivate our mind and heart we grow a bountiful crop, we produce much fruit. Well actually it is the Spirit who produces the fruit within us. We are in partnership with our living God, with the Spirit who dwells within our house, his temple. As we work our field, our mind and heart, he builds the house, his temple into a fitting place to dwell in. But we cannot ever stop doing our outdoor work. We must always be about readying our fields, so to produce this crop, which also could be the harvesting of souls for the kingdom of God. It might be difficult to harvest souls, if our field is not ready, our heart and mind not able to understand the truth of God. So let us be always about working the field, our heart and mind, so that our house, the temple of the living God, is suitable for his habitation, making it a great place to live.