Your worth on the building plan

This post has much to do with the person we are and grow up to be and less with who we might blame for our shortcomings and circumstances. And the author is actually Paul in 1Collosians 3:1-23 and not me ...

So, here goes:

Hey guys, now that you have grown in Christ and realized your worth in Him, I speak to you differently

And I, brothers, was not able to speak to you as to spiritual ones but as to fleshly, as to babes in Messiah.

I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able, for you are still fleshly.

Sometimes it is still difficult

For since there is envy, and strife, and divisions among you, are you not fleshly and walking according to man?

Sometimes you think it is a contest, but we're in it together. You are worthy!

For when one says, “I am of Sha’ul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not fleshly? What then is Apollos, and what is Sha’ul, but servants through whom you believed, as the Master assigned to each? I planted, Apollos watered, but Elohim was giving growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is any at all, but Elohim who gives the increase.

It is all about building and building and ... you are the ekklēsia

And he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. For we are fellow workers of Elohim, you are the field of Elohim, the building of Elohim. According to the favour of Elohim which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it.

Yet it comes with responsibility and the Foundation is the same ... making you worthy

But each one should look how he builds on it. For no one is able to lay any other foundation except that which is laid, which is יהושע Messiah. 

You can try your own thing, but it won't work

And if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one’s work shall be revealed, for the day shall show it up, because it is revealed by fire. And the fire shall prove the work of each one, what sort it is. If anyone’s work remains, which he has built on, he shall receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, but so as through fire. 

It's simple, your worth as ekklēsia is determined and fixed

Do you not know that you are a Dwelling Place of Elohim and that the Spirit of Elohim dwells in you? If anyone destroys the Dwelling Place of Elohim, Elohim shall destroy him. For the Dwelling Place of Elohim is set-apart, which you are.

Don't succumb to worldly ideas and philosophies of what the ekklēsia is

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you seems to be wise in this age, let him become foolish, so that he might become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with Elohim.

For it has been written,

“He catches the wise in their craftiness,” (Job 5:13.) and again,

“יהוה knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are worthless.” (Psa. 94:11.)

Don't look at the labourers, rather look at the product

So then, let no one boast in men, for all belongs to you, whether Sha’ul or Apollos or Kĕpha, or the world, or life, or death, or the present or the future – all belongs to you. And you belong to Messiah, and Messiah belongs to Elohim.

From a letter once written to those called people of Colossae (1Co 3:1-23).