7-31-16
This past week I was thinking about the parable of the wise and foolish men and the way they built their houses. Typically I consider this passage as teaching us to build our lives on Jesus, and it is. But I realized that it’s teaching us something else, too. I’d never really considered the premise. Nobody is immune to the rain.Let’s take a look at the passage from Matthew 7:24-27.
“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.”
So, the houses represent our lives. We have two choices to build on: Jesus, or the world and Satan who runs it. Everyone gets a house, and everyone gets a choice of how to build it. Likewise, everybody is going to get the storms. They’re enough to knock us down, but if we’ve been building on the solid foundation of Jesus, we will stand.
Building our lives on Jesus doesn’t mean we are exempt from trouble.
It means that when trouble comes, and it will, with His help we can make it through without being destroyed. We don’t get a shield that makes problems bounce right off us. We just get to be prepared for when they do.
Christianity isn’t a guarantee at all that our lives will be easy. James 1:2-3 says, “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.” James doesn’t say if something happens to you, remember that it’s making you stronger. He says “when” things happen.
It would be nice to think that nothing bad would ever happen to us again when we start following God, but that isn’t the case. God does give us a promise, though. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?…For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35,38-39)
Let’s build up our foundations now so that we’re ready for the storms. Are you going through something? Know that you’re not alone, because we all will. Don’t ever forget that the God who loves you is stronger than everything else.
How about you? Are you weathering something in your life?
May the Lord bless and keep you,
Heather
Heather Tabata 