"Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against his house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it." (Matthew 7:24-27)
I decided to start with the scripture that this post was going to be based off of this afternoon. From looking at the scripture, I am sure that you noticed two things. A man who built his house on a rock and a man who built his house on the sand. Right! That is exactly what happened.
In this story, Jesus is saying that if we hear the words of God and do them we will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. Jesus also tells us that if we hear His words and don't do anything about them, we will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.
This is actually a pretty simple story to explain and encourage you with. It's easy read it understand that we need to hear the words of God and live by them. What is most important is how Jesus talks about the rain falling, the floods coming, and the winds blowing and beating on the house, and then the outcome. If we live by the word of God we won't ever fall, we will be tested, and thrown through the ringer and put through a lot of difficult things, but the word of God never fails. On the other hand, if we don't do anything about the word of God, we will be tested, thrown through the ringer, put though a lot of difficult things and then we will fall.
This passage is a perfect reminder about the importance of scripture and doing what it says.
Let me be the first to say, it's not easy to do hear and do all of the time. It's easy to forget simple basic truths that we read in the bible all of the time. I don't know why this example comes to mind, but it's like a card game you used to play with your family. Growing up, you could play this game (whatever game you played) a couple of nights a week. Everybody in your family had so much fun with it and everybody was really good at it. Well, life got busy and you and your family didn't have time for cards anymore. As time progressed, the knowledge you had about the card game slowly went away. After a couple years, you decide to play the game again. At first you forgot about everything, but then as the game goes on, things begin to become more clear and the rules start to make sense again. By the end of the night, you start to remember everything that you used to and you think to yourself...I don't want to get to that point again.
It's also like muscle memory. Ever since I was young, I loved basketball. I've spent hours upon hours in the gym throughout my life working on my game. I've spent so much time working on my basketball skills that what I do is muscle memory. I've trained by body to remember what to do and how to perform. Muscle memory is super cool. Again, if I take some time off from basketball, I am going to loose my sharpness and when I start to play again I will be rusty. Yeah, I will be a little rusty, but the skills that I have worked on and practiced aren't going to leave. I'll always have those.
From looking at the two examples I gave, you can't totally forget something that you've learned and practiced. These two examples show how easy it is to forget something. The common denominator in both? Life. Life gets in the way. Life gets busy and then we use that as an excuse for us to not stay in the word and to do what it says.
You of course have those who hear it and do what it says daily. Those people are like the little persistent piggy who built his house of bricks. The piggy who built his house of bricks knew the big bad wolf couldn't blow his house down. Just like how we should know that when we are persistent, we won't be blown down either. We'll have to wether many storms, but we will never be shaken. For the persistent piggies out there, Satan targets your more than anyone else. He knows that you have the ability to survive, he knows that you will be persistent, he will do whatever he has to. It's not going to work. Simple as that. When you build your house on the solid rock, or out of bricks like the persist piggy, nothing will bring you all the down.
My encouragement to you is to get in the word and do what it says. It's life changing.
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