Monday, September 26, 2011

Unity and Maturity, The Bond of Peace.


The contractor assigned to my kitchen restoration project was asking $1900 to paint some of the rooms in my home where the old vinyl floor with its asbestos was removed, and I thought that charge very high but was going to go with it anyway. My sister urged me to get some other painter’s estimates, and so I did by calling numbers in the Home Services section of Sunday’s Arizona Republic newspaper yesterday. 
One man answered the phone and came within 15 minutes and bid $1100. 
Another responded to a message I left on his answering machine, visited, and then said he would get the estimate to me by the end of the day. I never heard from him and have dismissed the thought of hiring him at any price. 
The painter I chose came this morning at appointed time to look at what needed to be painted and then told me his estimate was $830. He gave me his business card and on it was this Bible scripture Eph. 4:1-8. After he left, knowing I had hired him and he would start Wednesday of this week, I looked up the scripture he thought important enough to display on his business card. His company is Young Brothers Painting ROC#271331 License Bonded and Insured. He only uses Dunn Edwards Paint because it saves his customers money http://www.dunnedwards.com/ . I have chosen Swiss Coffee (white) as my interior color. All of the different paint brands have that color.

After I thought I had selected the painter for reasons I thought important, another painter came about 1 hr later and bid the job for $689.  He also is using Dunn Edwards paint and additionally he is from Illinois, my native birth state.  We talked and I signed the work order for him to begin painting Wednesday confident that I was saving money and still getting my painting work done well since this painter also was licensed, bonded, and insured. Perhaps, it was one of the gifts mentioned in Eph. 4:1-8 ...
Unity and Maturity in the Body of Christ
1 As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
7 But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8 This is why it says:
 
“When he ascended on high,
he took many captives
and gave gifts to his people.”