Bible Study: Psalm 127

“Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.”

This Psalm seems almost random in its placement with the other psalms of Ascent.  I mean aren’t we going up towards Jerusalem and now we are going to sing about work and children?  Those are spiritual items?  Yes, they are as they will only be blessed when God is involved.  Psalm 127 reaches to more than just our vocation and family.  Every undertaking by man has to have God at the forefront.  We need to seek his blessing in everything that we do.

What is our house that we are building?  This surely means more than our physical house?  It would include our houses but only in the material sense.  There are also senses that this house means our soul, our minds, and bodies.  It means our families and our work.  It can be that that for “For the psalmist religion was practical.”  The practice of our faith was to be practiced in every facet of our life.  The house being built here is our very life.  No doubt it is the same house referred to by Jesus in Matthew 7:24, “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock,” and also to what Paul refers to as work in 1 Corinthians 3:13 “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.”

One question now follows, who is building your house?  Do you just have a God compartment in your life and you visit with Him just every once in while?  Or do you allow God to be the Lord of all your life?  Faith to be real has to be active in our every day life and needs to be seen in everything thing we do.  Let God lead the building of your life or else it will be in vain.