Articles & Devotionals
How Solid is Your Footing?
Good morning church family!! I hope this email finds you all doing well and staying healthy. Today's devotional comes from Matt 7:24-27 and is also mentioned in Luke 6:47-49. It is the parable of the 2 builders, one wise and one foolish. All of us are familiar with this parable and if you have ever attended VBS you have used your voices and sign language to sing this song. It is a parable that is so simplistic that little kids can understand it, but at the same time so deep that when you really think about it you realize the work and commitment that it will take to truly live out this parable.
Jesus starts off saying, “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to the wise man who builds his house on the rock.” Years ago, I went to Maryland to help a friend build an addition to his shed. We carefully laid everything out, dug our footing like I would do around here in North Carolina, and built the addition. Maryland, by the Chesapeake Bay, has a high sand content in its soil and in the past 10 years, his addition to his shed has sunk about 3 inches. Why? Because we did not take the time to dig deep enough to get to a solid foundation. “North Carolina deep” foundations are much shallower than what needs to be done on the Maryland sandy soil. That was just it however, it takes time to set a proper foundation, it takes work and it takes energy to properly set that base needed to support a building on top of it. The wise man makes sure he does what is needed of him to set himself up for success.
“And the rains fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against the house, and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock.” Jesus makes the transition from literal construction to spiritual construction through Earthly example. I see this as the world bringing its storms into my life testing my spiritual house to see how it is built. How strong is my spiritual foundation? How much time have I vested into laying that foundation before building? At my friend's shed, we were excited to get it built, excited to see progress, excited to use the tools. Who wants to waste time digging with a shovel when we can be driving nails with nail guns!! We missed the mark and were not wise by taking the time to lay a proper foundation for the part of the world we were building in. So how do you lay a spiritual foundation to protect you from the storms of the world?
Simple, you build your relationship with Him and live in Him! How? With shovels and nail guns? No, with prayer, with study, with worship, with a daily focus. Jesus also tells us the parable of the sewer who sewed seeds on rocky soil, areas that had weeds, and lastly areas that had fertile soils. In the first 2 scenarios, the roots never had time to do their work and take hold for the plant giving a solid foundation. The fertile soil allowed the roots to take firm hold and supply the nutrients from the soil to the plant and it thrived. It had time to make a proper foundation. A proper foundation takes just that - time, it takes work, it takes energy and devotion. A wise man sees that and accounts for that as he prepares for his house be it physical or spiritual.
“Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on it is like the foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came and the winds blew and slammed against that house, and it fell – and great was its fall.” The world is going to test our spiritual house. Pandemics, social discord, famines, earthquakes, all of it are going to test us and Jesus says in Matt 24 the first 8 verses that all of these things are characteristics of the present age. It is part of the sinful world which we live in and sometimes these storms come to our house and beat on our house doing everything it can to bring down our house. This is when the work we have put in to properly lay our foundation becomes so critical. This is when all those hours of reading God's word, meditating on God's word and praying to our Father become so critical. It is our defense against the storm of life.
Consider this today as you start your week, how are you going to fortify your foundation. My friend this past year dug deep around his shed and increased his footings, spread them out to have more surface area, and has stopped it from further settling. He put in work, he put in the time, he put in energy. How are you doing that for your spiritual house?
Blessings to you all and I thank you for this opportunity again to share some of what I have been reading on in His word.
In Love,
Tim
