God Made All

If you've read the Old Testament, then you know just how long it took Solomon to build the Temple of the Lord. And if you've kept reading, you know how long it took Nehemiah to restore it. And if you've read after that, you know that Israel spent most of their history trying to rebuild and maintain the Temple of God because that was where God came to dwell among them. His presence, His glory, filled the place, and that's where they knew He was with them. 

When you're a people who have put so much work into a project like that, it's easy to take credit for it. It's easy to make it the shining piece of your own history, the thing you've done so much for, a testament to your own faithfulness and steadfastness. Look! We have created a beautiful Temple that God Himself lives in. 

But never forget that the entire Temple was God's handiwork, not ours. He gave us the blueprint down to the very cubit, and in that sense? We were merely the labor. 

Then you get to the New Testament, and we are told that we are the Temple of the Lord, the place where God dwells. Right here in our hearts. And certainly, there's no way we can take credit for our own creation; Genesis is clear that God made us with His own hands, too. He knelt in the dirt and formed it together and breathed into it the breath of life and of His spirit. 

After, you know, He flung the stars into the heavens and separated the waters and formed the light and filled the earth. After by His own hand, He created everything else. 

And it is this to which Stephen is referring when he faces the accusations of those who are not happy with his theology, who are threatened by the perspective that he has on God's world. He says, plainly, didn't God make all this? 

Or, more accurately, he speaks as the Lord Himself - Has not My hand made all these things? (Acts 7:50)

It is the quickest way to put everything - including ourselves (and the Pharisees who think they are better than us) - back in its proper place. If God made everything, there's nothing you can take credit for. If it's all God's handiwork, then it's not your shining achievement. If God did it by His very hand, then you, my friend, did not, and the only thing you can do is humble yourself and be thankful that you get to be part of it. 

By the grace of God, we sometimes get to get our hands dirty in the work, but do not be fooled - it is still God's work. Still His design, right down to the very cubit. We are here only because, by grace, He invites us into it. 

We would be wise to remember that. 

Has not My hand made all these things? It has, Lord. It has.