Buildings That Endure

1 Corinthians 3:10 says, “According to the grace of God which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it.”

Not what we build so much as how we build. We create space on purpose. For some people that will feel uncomfortable — sitting, being still, waiting. That’s okay. We’re not afraid to be different. I love the people in the room. I do. But I don’t do church to please you. I do church to please Him.

If you live trying to please people, you will be frustrated. When we make it our priority to please Him, it produces life. Unless the Lord builds the house, we labor in vain. It grieves the Spirit when we never make room for people to encounter Him.

Grace is ability and enjoyment. Grace is an influence on your heart to do what you cannot do in the natural. When you are enjoying God, you are living in the grace of God. God will always call you to something you cannot do. That’s how you know it’s Him. Expand the tent pegs of your heart. Jump in the river of grace. Then He can work with you. We’re all building something — your relationship with God, your marriage, your family, your workplace, your ministry. If Christ is in you, you have one.

Jeremiah 9:23–24: don’t glory in wisdom, might, or riches. Glory in this: that you understand and know Him.

Jesus said it in John 17:3 — this is eternal life, that they know You. That word “know” is experiential. The woman with the issue of blood knew. She felt virtue flow. Intimacy. Encounter.

Deathbed confessions rarely sound like, “I wish I had built a bigger business.” They sound like relationship.

Ephesians 4 says He gave gifts for the edifying of the body. Edifying means building. God is joining us together to build something. But before you build, some things have to come up.

Jeremiah 1:10 was the first verse the Lord spoke to me when He called us to this: “to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down, to build and to plant.” Not only build and plant. I’m not Jeremiah. But you can identify with a calling in the Word. This is not a people-pleasing business. It is to please God, say what He is saying, and do what He says to do.

We tear down because mixture ruins purity, and purity is the integrity of what gets built.

1 Corinthians 3: the foundation is already laid — Jesus Christ. No other foundation. Then we build with gold, silver, precious stones… or wood, hay, straw. The fire will test what sort it is.

What’s motivating what you’re building?

What you build is tested. Jehoshaphat did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Nevertheless, the high places were not taken away. A leader can walk the right path and still leave worship half reformed.

Jesus told the woman at the well: true worshipers worship in spirit and truth. You are the temple. When people ask what denomination we are, I usually say: whatever denomination Jesus was. Unity is in Christ. Mixture overcomplicates worship. Almost three hundred years before Josiah was born, a prophet named him and said he would tear down the high places. Josiah came and did it.

William Booth did something like that in his generation when churches rented pews — better seats for those who could pay, the poor in the back or outside. It was normal. It was also a perversion of what the church is for. It still takes a Josiah voice to uproot things God never asked for.

Jeremiah’s tearing down was really a Father’s cry: return to Me.

And the cry of a Husband in 2 Corinthians 11: “I am jealous for you with godly jealousy… I fear lest your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”

Purity is simple. If you add to Jesus, you corrupt it. If you take away, you create mixture.

Father, make our hearts tender enough to hear Your cry. Anything that separates, distorts, or confuses — anything other than Jesus — help us tear it down at the root. Not by our might, not by our power, but by Your Spirit. Help us build things that do not get in the way of seeing You.

This post was shaped from the transcript of a recent teaching with the help of AI tools. I reviewed and edited every part so it reflects my own thoughts, voice, and study of Scripture.

Courtney Olson