Good foundations

[Lou Ruppert <lruppert@ucf.org>]

This week is on Matthew 7:24-27:
  "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.  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.  
  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.  The rain 
  came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that 
  house, and it fell with a great crash."

When Jesus said this, he'd just gotten done talking about all sorts of other
stuff.  You can read it yourself if you're interested in the context.  The
point he's making though is that the stuff that God shares is really smart
stuff.  The collection of wisdom that Christ shares works like a big rock.
Normal wisdom and advice works like sand (a collection of very small rocks).

When you base your decisions around what God has shared, you are basing your
decisions on one centralized thing which cannot be shoved around or broken.
Basing decisions on the law, or physics, or what your friends are doing can
be wise, but at best you're basing your life on something that is only 
connected to God, and not on God himself.  And the thing about sand is that
it will squish in all different directions when pressure comes because it's
not directly connected to the bedrock.

When trouble comes, you want to be connected to something that won't budge.
Sand doesn't work for that.  It may work when things are simple, or even when
they are a little out of hand, but it's not like bedrock which is solid pretty
much all of the time.  People build on sand when they're too lazy to find
bedrock, or if it's too far down to bother digging for.  You don't have to
settle for that.  Absorb what God has said, and make it something you
incorporate into your life.  It doesn't shift its position over time or
depend on other things in order to work out for you.  You'll thank yourself
later.


-Lou
(glad to be able to access the rock through prayer, as he is too lazy to dig
a hole deeper than two feet.)