Where God Lives

Read: Zechariah 8

The LORD says: “I am returning to Mount Zion, and I will live in Jerusalem.” Zechariah 8:3

IN WORD

The most glorious predictions of the prophets are for a future time. The world hasn’t seen their fulfillment yet. They are sweeping and majestic, so much so that many people take them to be exaggerated symbolism. But they are not. God is building His Kingdom, and it won’t be small or incomplete. It will be worthy of His majesty and glory. It will be even better than the prophets describe.

Zechariah prophesied during a time of rebuilding, when captives had returned to Jerusalem and begun the work of restoration. In case the laborers forgot the magnitude of their sacred task and began to see it as simply a building project, Zechariah’s prophecy gave them a powerful motivation: God Himself was returning to Zion. The restoration of Jerusalem was not a manual labor nightmare. It was a privilege of the highest order.

There’s a parallel for those of us who have been grafted into God’s Kingdom. The things we do in His name, even the most mundane of tasks, are eternally significant. To the extent that we are given over to His purposes, we are laborers in a sacred endeavor. And our task is focused on something far greater than a temple of stone in which our Lord will dwell. We’re craftsmen of a temple of flesh in which each one of us is a building block—and in which the King of Glory lives. There is no higher service in the universe.

IN DEED

You may have gotten up this morning dreading the work you have to do, or perhaps being completely bored with the prospects of your day. If so, consider the magnitude of your position. You are a key element in the eternal Kingdom, and your labor is never mundane. Whatever you have to do today, you can do it in the Spirit of Jesus, with grace and reverence, knowing that God uses even small stones to build His Kingdom. Your potential today is huge—and it’s absolutely sacred.

ADDITIONAL READING: Ephesians 2:21-22

There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation.

MADELEINE L’ENGLE