News For September 9, 2013

Forward!

Dear brothers and sisters,

Greetings to all of you in His name!

Reading about the construction of Solomon’s temple, its grandeur, its wealth, the amount of people who worked on it, it amazes me all the time. Thinking about the magnificence of the building makes our church buildings today look like kids’ toys. Some may say they had only one to build and we have thousands to build all over the nations. True!

Maybe that was what Haggai meant when He said: “I will shake all the nations, and the desire of all the nations shall come to this temple, and I will fill this place with glory. … The future splendor of this Temple will be greater than the splendor of the first one! For I have plenty of silver and gold to do it,” (Haggai 2:8, 9). It is evident that He has plenty of silver and gold, because rare church buildings today cost small amount of money. And the nations continue to build churches for HIS glory in all continents.

As we are building this church building we are doing an exercise of faith. We are praying for people to give just like the Israelite gave when they were building the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exodus 25). Or perhaps like David, Solomon, Jewish leaders and the people gave when they were building the temple (1 Chronicles 29). I pray that we have the same tenacity and boldness to carry out the building project just like Joshua and Zerubabel did when resuming building after the project had stopped for a good 15 years (Ezra 5). I pray that we will not rest or quit until we dedicate the building. And even then, we should not stop.

Looking at how much money we have to work with, doubts want to come in. But no, our God will provide. We will continue the project till the end. So Forward!

Please notice the three photos. In the first one you will see that the trenches are wide and deep. Wider and deeper means more concrete. More concrete means more money, but also equals a stronger building and that is what we need. The second photo shows a number of guys wrestling with a column to put it into place. The third is a view of the progress as it is now.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and your gifts. May God bless you all.

In Christ,

Salonique and team