"Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.." - Col 3:23 (NIV).
There are a number of attributes of God like one, "God is love!" (1 John 4:8). We also know that God is faithful. "For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does" (Psalm 33:4). Another clearly distinct attribute is excellence.
Few can rival King Solomon when it came to applying this attribute. Passed on the task to build a temple of the Lord by his father, David, Solomon started by contacting Hiram, the King of Tyre to secure cedars from Lebanon (1 Kings 5: 5-6). He dispatched "seventy thousand carriers and eighty thousand stonecutters in the hills" (vv 15) who "At the king’s command they removed from the quarry large blocks of high-grade stoneto provide a foundation of dressed stone for the temple" (vv 17).
Once it came to building Solomon had no stops. "The temple that King Solomon built for the Lord was sixty cubits long, twenty wide and thirty high" (I Kings 6:2). Then "In building the temple, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used, and no hammer, chisel or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built" (vv 7). More, "He lined its interior walls with cedar boards, paneling them from the floor of the temple to the ceiling, and covered the floor of the temple with planks of juniper" (vv 15). With an eye for detail and beauty, "Solomon covered the inside of the temple with pure gold, and he extended gold chains across the front of the inner sanctuary, which was overlaid with gold" (vv 21).
After seven years of meticulous work he had not only fulfilled a vow passed on to him by his father but a work of exceeding beauty. Here the lesson or challenge King Solomon left us is that when it comes to doing things for the Lord we must strive for the best. This is because ours is a God of excellence!
Prayer for today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, today I pray that in all I do I may strive for excellence, for that is your very attribute, this I pray in Jesus's name.
