The Wise Man Builds His House Upon the Rock

For three years we have been working on our house. Our house was built in 1912, the upstairs has not been changed since then. We have beautiful woodwork and floors, but we also had gravity heat, ancient windows, and plaster and lathe walls. In three years we have tore out all walls to the studs, updated electricity, installed insulation, put up drywall, expanded closets, put in a whole new heating/air system, and vents upstairs, etc. We are almost done, we just need to prime and paint the drywall on the landing/hallway area.

More than once during this time I have wondered if we were focusing on the wrong area. You see, we don't have a basement under the house and what foundation you see has numerous patch jobs and cracks. When we finished one of the bedrooms, you noticed a definite slant to the south. It seemed a little drastic. At different times I was sure I was seeing cracks in the kitchen and our bedroom that weren't there before. Tonight, after ginormous amounts of rain this month, my husband finds where water has run under the foundation. We have a foundation problem.

It makes me think of our lives as Christians. How many of us focus on the wrong things in our lives and ignore the foundation? We used to sing a song in opening exercises of my Sunday School that went like this,

The Wise Man builds his house upon the rock,
the Wise Man builds his house upon the rock and the rain came tumbling down.
The rains came down, and the floods came up, the rains came down and the floods came up, the rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the rock stood fast.
The Foolish Man builds his house upon the sand,
the Foolish Man builds his house upon the sand and the rain came tumbling down.
The rains came down, and the floods came up, the rains came down and the floods came up, the rains came down and the floods came up and the house on the sand went SPLAT!
So build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ, build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ.
So build your house on the Lord Jesus Christ, and the blessings will come down
Oh, the blessings come down as your prayers go up.
The blessings come down as your prayers go up, the blessings come down as your prayers go up so build your life on the Lord!

It wasn't for many years that I learned this song was based on verses from the Bible. Matthew 7:24 says, "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock." What were the words that everyone was to hear? The story of the wise man and the foolish man are the last words spoken in the Sermon on the Mount. This sermon is the best known sermon in the Bible. Whether you realize it or not, you know much of it. We are the light of the world, blessed are the poor in spirit, ask and it shall be given to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, do not store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, the list could go on and on.

In this sermon, Jesus was laying a foundation for how to live a life dedicated to him. How to live with others, how to conduct ourselves, how to live as He would. Can you look at the instructions from Matthew 6&7 and say that you follow these words? Is your life built on a solid foundation or on shifting sand? Do you worry more about your outside and not what's on inside? What is the foundation for how you act or feel everyday? Where do you run to when things slant south? Do you have a foundation problem?

If you're reading Matthew 6&7 and thinking there is no way you can do all that, you're right. You can't. There's another verse you need to know, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:13) Without the Lord Jesus Christ in your life, you will not be able to do these things. Jesus is our foundation. Without a relationship with him, our life is shifting sand. If you would like to know how to have a relationship with Jesus.

To have a relationship with Jesus you need to admit that you are a sinner. You need to believe that Jesus came to earth to die on the cross for our sins. You need to believe that he died, was buried and rose again on the third day. You need to believe that he is coming again. Do all this and you have a great start on a firm foundation!