WFTW Body: 

In 2 Chronicles 3:1, we read that "Solomon began to build the house of the Lord on Mount Moriah". Mount Moriah was the place where Abraham had offered his son Isaac to God (Gen 22). There on that mountain, Abraham understood God's way as the way of sacrifice and submitted to it. God sanctified that spot and determined that His house would be built on that very spot 1000 years later. And this is where God builds His house (the church) even today - wherever He finds those who have the spirit and the faith of Abraham. On Mount Moriah, Abraham was symbolically saying exactly the opposite of what Adam and Eve had told God in Eden.

In Eden, Adam and Eve as it were, told God by their action of eating the forbidden fruit that created things that brought them pleasure were more precious to them than the Creator Himself. And that is exactly what billions of human beings are saying to God even today. "They worship and serve created things more than the Creator" (Rom.1:25). But on Mount Moriah, Abraham said the opposite: that his God and his Creator was more precious to him than his dearest possession on earth (Isaac). And he was willing to sacrifice Isaac in order to prove it. God will honour all who live by this principle of sacrifice. It is by those who have been gripped by this way that the true house of God is going to be built even today.

On Calvary's hill, it was not only true that Jesus died for the sins of the world. There, Jesus demonstrated the principle of sacrifice by which God does all His work. No-one can serve the Lord in any other way. Those who seek for a comfortable life in this world and at the same time want to build the church also, will only deceive themselves. Those who seek the best of both worlds have been deceived by Satan thoroughly. Many have attempted to serve God without sacrifice. Their labours however have been crowned with failure after failure!!

"Christ loved the church and gave HIMSELF for her" (Eph.5:25). To build the church, we have to love the church in the same way. It is not enough to give our money or our time. We have to give OURSELVES - our Self-life.

When God wanted to describe His love to man, He could compare His love with only one earthly example - the love of a mother for her newly- born child (See Isaiah 49:15). If you observe a mother, you will see that her love for her baby is full of the spirit of sacrifice. From early morning to late at night and right through the night, a mother sacrifices and sacrifices and sacrifices for her baby. And she gets nothing in return. She endures pain and inconvenience, year after year for her child, joyfully, expecting nothing in return. A mother does not care whether others around her are sacrificing anything for her child or not. She joyfully sacrifices everything herself. In the same way, one who has seen the church as his own baby will not be bothered whether others around him are sacrificing anything for the church or not.

That is how God loves us too. And that is the nature He wants to impart to us. But it is impossible to find a fellowship anywhere in the world about which it can be honestly said that they all love one another like that. Most believers know only how to love those who agree with them and who join their group. Their love is human and is far removed from the sacrificial love of mothers!!