Thursday, January 22, 2015

Build On The Rock, Or Face The Consequences

"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand; and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."
Matthew 7:24-27 (NKJV)

My grandparents lived out in the country by a bay.  The road from my grandparent's home to the town ran along that same bay.  One thing I remember is seeing the foundation of a building that someone made too close to the water.  You could see the concrete blocks, but they were almost completely covered by sand and sometimes even by the water.  At some point the water was not so high and it seemed to someone that this was a good place to build.  Eventually the mistake of choosing this location became obvious and the building was abandoned, it was ruined before it was even finished.

Jesus told a story in Matthew 7 about two men who built houses and faced storms.  One man was wise and did what Jesus said, like a man building a house on a rock, his house withstood the storm.  The other man was foolish and did not do what Jesus said, like a man building a house on sand, this man's house was ruined.  Both men heard what Jesus said but the men responded differently to the words of Jesus, that was the only difference between them.  In the same way that these two men built houses we are building our life.  And just like the two men in the story we too will face storms.

How well we stand in the storms of life depends on the foundation we have built on.  To have a stable and successful building you have to build on the right thing, to have a stable and successful life we must hear and do the right things.  We need to hear the words of Jesus, and the entire Word of God, and we need to do what we have heard.  We need to put into practice in our lives everything we see in God's Word, this is like building a house on a rock.  When we are hearing the Word of God and living a life based on it we will have success and no matter what storm comes we will endure.

No comments: