Rock or Sand

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

ROCK OR SAND

Matt 7:24-27

24 "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. 25 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. 26 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. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash." 

NIV

This, therefore, includes everything He said, which includes starting with the beatitudes, being the salt and the light of the world, righteousness, being a gift to the altar, forgiveness, settling matters, even looking with lust, oaths, loving everyone, don’t do acts of righteousness before men, don’t pray like the hypocrite, the Lord’s example of how to pray, forgiven men, so God forgives us, fasting without showing it, not storing up wealth for self, what we look at, not serving two masters, not worrying about our life, if we judge, God will judge us, the plank and the speck, dogs and pigs, asking and receiving good things, and finishing with the narrow gate and road vs the wide road and the false teachers. All of that we are to put into practice if we are a wise person who builds our life on Jesus who is the Rock of our salvation. It sure looks like we should spend a great deal of time studying in more detail all of Matthew five, six, and seven, which we refer to as the sermon on the mount. That fact is we have to ask ourselves if we are indeed putting all of what Jesus said into practice. This means, not just some or part of it, that we feel comfortable with, or is already instinctively a part of our lives. If we are building our lives on Jesus, then we have to take every one of his words and put them into practice. The whole of the sermon on the mount plus all the rest of what Jesus said. That is a very tall order, and we cannot be sure that we are able to do it all perfectly for we are frail and weak and human. The danger is also that we could turn his words into sort of a law, again trying to live by a set of rules that we think is what Jesus meant. The fact is we do want to do all that Jesus said we should, or rather be the person that he desires us to be. This has to be a process that we go through during the course of our lives, being in this constant state of being transformed into the likeness of Jesus, through the power of His Spirit. Perfection, doing everything perfectly will elude us until we reach heaven, but that does not mean we abandon the effort, or the process because we are making every effort to live in a manner that pleases God, and that is believing in the one the He sent, Jesus. But that still means that we are to make changes in our lives, to try our best, with the help of the Spirit, to pattern our lives in accordance with what Jesus said, building our lives on Him. When we do that, whenever situations come into our lives, adversities, calamities, or those storms, we will stand firm, we will not be moved, for we are firmly standing on the Rock, we have and are continuing to build our lives on Jesus. All others, who try to build their lives without Jesus, are building on the sand, the sinking sand. Their lives will crash and be washed away, but we are on solid ground, and our lives are safe and secure from all alarm.