When God Remodels

“Christ has broken down a ‘dividing wall,'” writes David E. Rainey.

You and I nod knowingly with great approval.

We might even connect that on our own with Ephesians 2:11-22 —

Don’t take any of this for granted. It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this, didn’t know the first thing about the way God works, hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ. You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel, hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large. Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.

Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.

That’s plain enough, isn’t it? You’re no longer wandering exiles. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer strangers or outsiders. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone. God is building a home. He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what he is building. He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation. Now he’s using you, fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone, with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone that holds all the parts together. We see it taking shape day after day—a holy temple built by God, all of us built into it, a temple in which God is quite at home.

— Commenting on that, Rainey further says that “this is surely relevant to every time and place.

“Christ continues to break down walls of hostility and bring people together!”

Again, you and I are nodding knowingly and with great approval.

Hold onto that sense of unity and even what’s been disparaged as little more than a “Kum-bah-yah feeling.”

Hold onto it for dear life; this is the work of God in Christ and us that’s the topic here!

Hold on, and let’s meet right back here tomorow.