46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? 47 Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” Luke 6:46-49
Many people have lived in that one apartment. That one place that you close the door on when you leave and think, “Well, I can only go up from here.” For Kate and me it was my fourth year of seminary. We lived in that apartment. Crazy landlady, the whole bit. Throughout the year, the apartment began to develop a crack. It went from one end of the room to the other and seemed to get bigger as the year progressed. We didn’t think too much of it until after we moved out. Some of our friends who still lived there called to tell us that they were being moved into an extended stay hotel because the building had been condemned. They were going to jack up both ends of this large brick building and fill with special material to stop the sinking. It was pretty crazy to hear. It was even crazier to think that we lived on the fault line.
When Jesus speaks about solid foundations, I think of that apartment. It certainly is a wakeup call. God is calling us to get off the fault line. He is telling us that there is a real danger in not checking the foundation. The proper footings for our lives is clear – the words of Jesus. Notice however that the foundation is not just in hearing the words, but in putting them into practice. “Faith without works is dead,” James says.
Check the foundation. Where are the cracks? What is sound? As you evaluate, understand what Jesus is saying. Coming to Jesus, hearing his words and putting them into practice is not a pattern for salvation. You are not your works. Your life is centered on the love of God shown in Jesus. You belong to him. Your foundation is not your works, not your knowledge, not your strength. Instead, your foundation is Jesus – and it is secure. There is no need to build any place else!
