Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands. (Psalm 90:17)
When God instructed Israel to build “Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them,” the benefit was not intended to be for them only. True, God’s Presence resided among the tribes of Israel but it was always God’s plan that what began among His holy nation was to go forth and permeate the nations. As it is written, “I will give you as a light to the Gentiles, that you should be My salvation to the ends of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6). This being so, it was incredibly important that God’s people construct the Sanctuary according to God’s specifications and that the function and purpose of the Sanctuary be established for future generations.
We all desire that God will bless the works of our hands so that we may prosper; however it is not His intention that blessing and prosperity should begin and end with us. When God called Abraham and blessed him, it was so that Abraham and his seed could be a source of blessing to the nations of the world, thus it is written: “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). This is the ultimate reason we pray that the beauty of the Lord be upon us and that He establish the work of our hands — that those endeavors we undertake will be a contribution to His plan for all mankind.
In his letter to the church of Ephesus, Paul said that “we are His workmanship, created in Messiah Yeshua for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). I take this to mean that, before we were born, God’s purpose for us included all the works we were to undertake according to His purpose. Therefore, when He breathed the breath of life into us, He infused us with the skills and inspiration we needed in order to fulfill His calling. It is for us to pursue that calling and do the work. As we do, we pray that He will indeed establish the work of our hands that it may endure and that it may accomplish what He intended from the beginning. May it be so in all our lives that we may stand before the Son of Man with confidence that we have performed His will.
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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