For many years our family had summer vacations in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, creating some great memories there on the beaches and sand dunes. Last week I saw video clips from Buxton, NC showing beautiful vacation homes falling into the ocean as the waves undermined them, washing out the supporting pilings on which those homes stood. Over time the beach eroded away and those homes which had essentially been built on sand just fell down! It was sad but somehow inevitable with time’s passing.
Is your life at risk of collapse? Are you building on a solid foundation or one that stormy waves can wash away, leaving you vulnerable to great loss? Jesus counsels us to find the Solid Rock on which to build.
“Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matthew 7)
Let me ask you to
consider on what or whom you are building your life.
Is it on your wealth, hoping that accumulating ‘enough’ will create a life of
comfort and enable you to ‘buy’ security from the troubles that come our way?
Is it in someone you love? Surely our love for another is a wonderful thing and
can be a source of great joy, but no one lives on this earth forever, do they?
Relationships break down, too, and can leave one who has mistakenly built his
whole existence on that marriage or friendship can be left destroyed!
Is your life built around a career or reputation? The day will come when someone else will do what you do better! Your job could become obsolete; your employer close up shop; what then if your entire life is defined by what you do?
Is your true hope based more on political activism, hoping to change the culture through Washington, DC rather than through the Gospel of Christ? Do you take more identity from a party than the person of Jesus? If so, you’re building on a sandy foundation!
Christians must ultimately find their identity in Christ Jesus, defined by their love of Him and their hope in things eternal more than any earthly thing.
A critical part of building that kind of life is to be rooted in Truth, not just some religious ideas. Since the mid-20th century, many pastors and churches have looked for ways to accommodate the culture changes, softening the call of Christ to discipleship, remaining silent on the more controversial truths of the Scripture. The “Gospel” of Christ and Life in the Spirit became about self-esteem or simply becoming a ‘nicer’ person. The hard edges of Jesus’ invitation to ‘Come, follow Me’ were rounded off to accommodate self-centeredness, materialism, and personal happiness.
As a result, most people under 40 in our churches have no idea about the actual revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Instead they have adopted a new kind of ‘religion’ that some call “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” shaped around the idea that God exists but is distant from daily life, that He (or She) just wants us to be nice people, that our highest purpose is simply to feel good about ourselves. Self-denial is mocked as an ancient relic or leftover superstition.
The weak religion that has emerged is a sandy foundation, does cannot compel radical change, has no concept of sin, and does not see the need of a Savior. Thousands of “Christian” churches stand nearly empty across America. The solid foundation of Christ is lost and so are those who once worshipped in those buildings.
Dear Christian, it is time to dig down to foundations, to look deeply at our faith, to ask ourselves where the holes exist in our convictions! We need to pray for a new revelation of God, the rediscovery of Christ Jesus, and a fresh outpouring of the Spirit.
Such a life will make us fools in the eyes of our world and cause us to be rejected, perhaps even hated, even as Jesus was. Paul sarcastically addressed the ‘worldly wise’ Christians in the church of Corinth saying, "We are fools for Christ, but you are so “wise” in Christ!" (1 Corinthians 4:10, NIV) His words echo to us today who are confronted with the same label if we choose a live that is centered on God and His will. Are you ready to be dismissed as a ‘fool’ because you radically trust and serve Jesus Christ?
Here’s a word from the Word for your thoughts today. I pray that the Spirit will use it to pierce our pretensions, to guide us to true wisdom.
“Stop deceiving
yourselves. If you think you are wise by this world’s standards, you need to
become a fool to be truly wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to
God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own
cleverness.”
And again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise; he knows they are
worthless.”
So don’t boast about following a particular human leader. For everything
belongs to you— whether Paul or Apollos or Peter, or the world, or life and
death, or the present and the future. Everything belongs to you, and you belong
to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.
(1 Corinthians 3- NLT)
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