KEY SCRIPTURE.
Matthew 7:24-25
Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which BUILT his HOUSE upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
RELEVANCE
I want to press in on this subject for a final time. From Sunday School days, we all heard of the wise man who built his house upon the rock and the foolish man who built his house upon the sand.
The wise aspect of that parable talks of faith. If our faith is strong, we will not be blown off course and out of faith when the winds come. It is very much like the story of the three little pigs. Unlike the others, the third pig was different.
Third Pig Story (Courtesy of Wiki)
The third little pig builds a house out of bricks, which the wolf fails to blow down. The wolf then attempts to meet the pig at a turnip field, an apple orchard, and a fair, but the pig always arrives early and avoids the wolf. Finally, the infuriated wolf resolves to come down the chimney, whereupon the pig lights a fire under a pot of water on the fireplace. The wolf falls in and is fatally boiled, avenging the death of his brothers. After cooking the wolf, the pig proceeds to eat him for dinner.
As we see, the third pig was much more than simply a strong, well-built house. He was fearless, wise, anticipating, resourceful, diligent, intelligent, expectant, and risk-aware, much like we should be. Now, let's return to our wise man who built his house of faith. Notice that the Lord called him wise. Wisdom does not come easily. The beginning of wisdom is the fear and respect of the Lord.
Fear, too, doesn't always come easily. Some of us, me included, have learned fear the hard way, on the anvil of folly and experience. So, we say that our wise man was more than just a man of strong faith; people of strong faith also ensure they grow in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.
That Rock upon which we build our house is complex because the relationship between the Rock and the House is more than a wise build. The house becomes a part of the Rock, as the branches are with the vine.
Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
That sounds wonderful, but earlier in the chapter, Paul also warns us Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.
The Rock is made up of faith, spiritual fruit, spiritual gifts, and blessed character qualities, and these should be absorbed into our house (us)
The Rock or foundation is the substructure (Jesus). On top of that, we build the superstructure based on Scripture. So, I've listed a few things to help us understand what we might be building on that Rock.
For instance, Heb 13:5-6 says Let your conversation be without covetousness. If we do that and make sure our mouth or heart never thinks or mentions covetousness, we have built something godly upon the Rock and done exactly what scripture says, pleasing our Saviour. The Rock (Jesus) is without covetousness, so we build without it as well. Since there is none of it in our foundations, we make sure there is none in our house.
If love is part of our Rock, we build our house on that love. Then, we, like wise people, project love. If, instead, we project hatred and unforgiveness, we need to look at what rock we're building upon because that part certainly isn't Jesus. It's a misinterpreted foundation.
I've put a few other thoughts to work through. They can be an eye-opener.
If we build upon the foundation of rejection, our spiritual house will be riddled with bitterness and anger.
If we build upon simple-mindedness without taking into our hearts what the Word says, our house is built with argument upon argument.
If our foundation is deception, our house will be built with lying nailed into it, including little white lies we let slip through.
If our foundation is slothfulness, then the habit we build is disorganisation.
If our foundation is self-pity, what we build is a life of depression.
How did that go?
None of those characteristics are of Christ, yet we can still be Christians hiding the real truth from ourselves.
On the other hand, we can be more diligent about how we build, as Paul recommends, and work these into our lives:
If one of our foundations is Joyfulness, we build a cheerful attitude.
If one of our foundations is Forgiveness, we Resolve Conflicts rather than fuel them.
If we build upon Diligence, we live a life of High productivity.
If part of our foundation is Truthfulness, our house gets a name of being Trustworthy.
If our foundation is Self-Control, our house is filled with Positive Disciplines.
Once we understand that the daily choices we make on various things create our house—negative choices build negative outcomes (Hay and stubble), and positive choices build positive outcomes (Gold, Silver, and precious stones).
we can begin thinking ahead and make all our choices work for us instead of some of them working against us.
PRAYER
Dear Lord, thank you for the many riches in your Son's work and for allowing us to partake of them all. You truly are a wonderful Father. Please help me build my house correctly and accurately according to the plumbline.
Image from Brad Bates at eagerfortruth.com
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