What Are You Building Your Life On?
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Jesus once told a story that I believe every Christian needs to take seriously because it speaks directly to the question of what we are building our lives upon and what will happen when the storms of life come against us.
He described two men who built houses, and both men heard His teaching, and both men eventually faced the same storm, with the rain descending, the floods rising, and the winds beating against their houses, but the outcome was very different because the two men had chosen very different foundations.
One house stood when the storm was over, while the other house fell, and Jesus made it clear that the difference wasn’t the strength of the storm but the foundation upon which each man had built.
“Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
Then He described the foolish man who heard His words but didn’t do them, saying that he built his house on the sand, and when the rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew against that house, “great was its fall.”
That leaves us with a very important question that every one of us needs to answer:
What are you building your life on?
Jesus Said to Abide in His Word
Earlier, Jesus had spoken to a crowd at the temple, particularly addressing those who believed in Him, and He said something that gives us the foundation for understanding what it means to be His disciple.
He said in John 8:31:
“If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
I want you to notice those words, “If you abide in My word.”
The word “abide” carries the idea of making your habitation or dwelling place somewhere, so Jesus wasn’t talking about occasionally listening to His teaching or picking up the Bible when we need an encouraging verse, but about taking our lives and building them upon His Word so that God’s truth becomes the place where we live.
That’s what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
We don’t simply hear what Jesus says and then go back to living according to whatever philosophy happens to be popular around us, because Jesus calls us to make His Word the foundation upon which we build our thinking, our decisions, our values, and the way we live our lives.
What Happens When the Storm Comes?
Jesus knew something that every one of us eventually discovers, which is that storms are going to come regardless of how carefully we have tried to live our lives.
The rain will come, the floods will rise, and the winds will beat against the house, because following Jesus doesn’t mean that we will never experience difficulty, sickness, disappointment, financial pressure, grief, persecution, or uncertainty.
The difference comes when the storm arrives.
Jesus said the wise man built his house on the rock, and when the storm came against that house, it did not fall because it was founded on the rock.
The foolish man heard the same teaching, but he didn’t put it into practice, and when the storm came, his house fell.
I have lived long enough to understand that the storm itself isn’t what determines whether we stand or fall, because the same storm can come against two people and produce completely different results depending upon the foundation underneath them.
That is why I keep coming back to the question: “What are you building your life on?“
Are You Building Your Life on God’s Word?
We need to examine this honestly because it is possible to own a Bible, read the Bible, and even believe the Bible while still building our lives on something other than the Word of God.
Are you using the principles and building blocks of God’s Word to establish your life, and do you trust the truths and precepts of Scripture enough to allow them to determine how you live when those truths disagree with the culture around you?
We live in a time when human reasoning, education, political philosophy, popular opinion, and cultural ideas compete constantly for our attention, and if we aren’t careful, we can begin to build our lives on those things without even realizing that we have moved away from the foundation God has given us.
Human knowledge has its place, but it cannot become our ultimate authority.
Human philosophy has its place, but it cannot become our ultimate authority.
Popular opinion changes from one generation to another, but God’s Word remains true in every culture, every generation, and among every people group.
That’s why I believe we must return again and again to the Word of God.
What Are You Building Your Life On?
So I want to leave you with the question Jesus asked through His teaching about the wise man and the foolish man: What are you building your life on?
It is easy to say that we believe the Bible, but Jesus called us to do more than simply believe His Word intellectually; He called us to abide in His Word, to hear what He says, to trust what He says, and then to build our lives upon what He has said, even when the culture around us tells us that we should build somewhere else.
The storms are going to come, and none of us can prevent every storm from entering our lives, but we can decide what kind of foundation we will have before the storm arrives.
If my foundation rests upon human philosophy, political ideas, cultural opinions, personal feelings, or the approval of other people, then I have built upon something that can change, and when it changes, my foundation changes with it.
But when I build my life upon the Word of God, I am building upon something that has already endured generations of opposition, changing governments, cultural revolutions, and countless attempts to silence it.
God wrote it. God said it. That settles it.
So read His Word, study His Word, meditate upon His Word, obey His Word, and let His Word become the foundation upon which you build your life, because when the storm comes, the question will not be whether you heard the truth, but whether you built your life upon it.
