The Rock
"On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand."
"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."
The key to making it through life storms is to practically work out Christ's teachings in your life now. It's not about knowing stuff through maximum exposure to Bible studies, classes, and sermons; but it's about doing the stuff he did in your daily life. Then when it comes, you're already there.
Jesus says that just listening, just reading, just talking about it, just knowing it, just knowing people who walk in it..... these are sand foundations, not solid for storms and winds; and worse yet, it's foolish- stupid.
You have to do it for it to work. To have a life in God, you must participate you must work out.
You can't be passive and think you're ok. It's by faith, but you have to exercise your faith. Faith is not faith unless it is acted upon. It's a continuous acting upon, a lifestyle. He did it for you, but now you must do something. You don't do what he did for yourself, but if you have faith in what he did, then you'll do something and if you don't, you really don't believe in him and you are not his.
PS- after writing much of this post, I visited a young campus evangelist / church planter's blog from UCLA and was introduced to a missionary from Alabama named Paul Washer, under the title "Shocking Message". Paul was preaching from the larger passage that contains the text about building on the rock. He said that many people in churches and church groups will be going to hell because they aren't really saved. Paul has a deep passion to see people genuinely saved and transformed.
"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."
The key to making it through life storms is to practically work out Christ's teachings in your life now. It's not about knowing stuff through maximum exposure to Bible studies, classes, and sermons; but it's about doing the stuff he did in your daily life. Then when it comes, you're already there.
Jesus says that just listening, just reading, just talking about it, just knowing it, just knowing people who walk in it..... these are sand foundations, not solid for storms and winds; and worse yet, it's foolish- stupid.
You have to do it for it to work. To have a life in God, you must participate you must work out.
You can't be passive and think you're ok. It's by faith, but you have to exercise your faith. Faith is not faith unless it is acted upon. It's a continuous acting upon, a lifestyle. He did it for you, but now you must do something. You don't do what he did for yourself, but if you have faith in what he did, then you'll do something and if you don't, you really don't believe in him and you are not his.
PS- after writing much of this post, I visited a young campus evangelist / church planter's blog from UCLA and was introduced to a missionary from Alabama named Paul Washer, under the title "Shocking Message". Paul was preaching from the larger passage that contains the text about building on the rock. He said that many people in churches and church groups will be going to hell because they aren't really saved. Paul has a deep passion to see people genuinely saved and transformed.
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