A GREAT VERSE TO BUILD ON
PSALM 127:1 NKJV
Unless the Lord builds the house,
They labor in vain who build it;
Unless the Lord guards the city,
The watchman stays awake in vain.
I was around people who really drove this verse home in my life. These were people I looked up to, and in my early days with the Lord, they helped me catch on to this verse.
This is a verse that I have seen operate in my own life. Basically, if the Lord is not in it, I don't want to be in it.
When we went to North Carolina to start a church in 1989, the Lord was not in that venture. He was not building that house.
Thankfully because I knew this verse and sensed that I had gone off on my own, I made a smarter move. We shut the church down one month after we started.
I remember a fellow minister who pretty much scorned me for shutting it down so quickly. But my pastor, John Osteen, often quoted that if God was not in it, he was backing out of it.
That belief that it was the Lord who needed to be building what we were doing saved us some major heartache. And this verse has been one of the key verses in my life. I don't just want to do something. I want to do what the Lord is instructing me to do.
I have not always been supported in my adherence to this verse. Joy has stood with me, but my family and other pastors did not encourage me along these lines.
One family member told me that he makes plans and then asks the Lord to bless them. I responded that I ask the Lord what His plan is because it's already blessed.
It is so easy to get busy, make plans, and not bring the Lord in unless things go wrong. But the best way is to ask Him ahead of time, "Lord, are you in this?" “Are You building this house?”
PRAYER:
Lord, I want to be part of what You are building. I do not want to be building on my own.