Stonewall - Growers Series, #6

  IN the Old Testament one man Nehemiah had the mammoth task of building a stone wall around the city of God. It was an impossible task to achieve by one man and one that drew critics. Nehemiah understood the principle of the stone wall and what it meant not just to the defence but the dignity of Israel as the church of God. The collapse of the defence of the stone wall of Israel meant the nakedness and shaming of God's people.
It meant God has abandoned them as the mortar that holds the stonewall together. But the man Nehemiah understood and so purposed in his heart to build the stone wall of Jerusalem and knew that in turn it will facilitate the rebuilding of the temple of God. For Zerubbabel to rise and build the temple Nehemiah had to first build the stonewall as a symbol of its defence, even for us to build the church of God today we need to be living stones of God bonded together by the mortar of His love.
Until and unless we learn to be bonded together to function effectively as one body, even as a single church the great commission has no stonewall to be built within. And where there is no defence we build for the enemy to come and take in our slumber. So the stonewall was for the monitoring of what comes in and out of Jerusalem, to monitor the spiritual life of the church of God and to surround the sacred place for worship and offering to God.
Before the church or an organisation can gather and build a home, it has to build the stonewall, or the hedge of limitation. In the Biblical times the stone walls were the sole way to protect cities from raiding bands and their enemies. Whenever the enemy provoked the people to war they would shut themselves within their city so that the enemy may break through the wall or die trying to, but the defence of the city depended on the wall.
 Nehemiah 1:3 KJV And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire. Every relationship and every 'new building' you construct in your life should thus have a specific purpose. For whatever is built without a purpose do not just add clutter but also brings with it interference.
Meaning it displaces reason with idleness and all that is aimed at nothing should be put to nothing in your life. It is not just things but even people, if they add or compliment nothing it means they are cluttering and even draining everything. Every person needs to be part of a stonewall in their lives. Be part of a stonewall at work, in church, in your family and a worthy germ in your personal life.
Purpose and polish yourself to be great. Do not be afraid to be great, some are born great but some achieve greatness or else you be a victim to someone else' greatness as it gets thrashed on you. Until you are defined to yourself at what you do, seeking goals and doing anything you have nothing to protect or to perfect yourself for.