By Sandy Mayle
In 1886 Sarah Winchester, the Winchester Rifle heiress, bought an eight-room farmhouse near San Jose. She wanted it renovated, but eventually got rid of the architects she’d hired and took over the planning herself.
Then things really got interesting. If Sarah didn’t like how a project was going, she reportedly had it torn down or simply abandoned, resulting in a maze that included a seven-story tower (said to have been torn down and rebuilt 16 times) and doors and stairways that led to nowhere after an earthquake in 1906.
By the time of Sarah’s death, the mansion included 160 rooms, 2,000 doors, 10,000 windows, 47 staircases, 47 fireplaces, 13 bathrooms, and six kitchens, all covering an area of six acres. Now that’s a building project!
It’s enough to make us look around at our few humble rooms and feel pretty insignificant. Wouldn’t it be something, we think, to live in a mansion like that! Maybe… if you like cleaning 10,000 windows and 13 bathrooms!
But each of us have been involved in our own building project, haven’t we? It’s been going on all our lives. And today, right now, you and I are still building our lives.
So, how’s our building project going?
Is it founded on Jesus? Is he our rock and cornerstone? The apostle Paul cautioned, “Whoever is building on this foundation [of Jesus Christ] must be very careful… anyone who builds on that foundation may use gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But there is going to come a time of testing at the judgment day” (1 Cor. 3:10-13, New Living Translation). Everyone’s work will be tested by fire, and though each believer will be saved, only what we’ve built with lasting material will survive with us.
Before we come to the Lord’s Table, let’s each examine our heart and our life. Now is the time to repent of any sin and ask God’s forgiveness for time and materials we’ve wasted. Here is the place to lay aside the straw in our lives that will not stand the final test, and to ask the Lord for opportunities to rebuild relationships and construct lasting legacies.
Let’s praise God together that Jesus, by his sacrificial death on the cross, became the cornerstone of our salvation. And let’s leave here committed to building on that cornerstone with materials that will stand the test on that great day that is coming.
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