For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 3:11*
Reinforced concrete makes up the majority of modern foundations. In ancient times, people dug through the top soil until they got down to bedrock. Jesus explained in His Sermon on the Mount that those who got down to the solid rock were wise, because storms and winds won’t bring down their houses. It’s the lazy people that have no foundation. They don’t put the effort into making something that will last. Their houses won’t stand the test of time, proving them to be foolish.
The Lord Jesus is the spiritual foundation of every believer and it’s the nature of foundations to be built upon. Everyone builds their lives on some kind of worldview. If a person has a philosophy of life that lives for the moment and has no concept of God, judgment, or eternity, then it’s as if they had a foundation of sand and their destruction is sure, although maybe not immediate.
Belief in Christ and the Word of God opens potential for greatness that endures forever, but that’s only if faith expresses itself in action. Faith without sweat equity is like a big slab of concrete without a building on it. The Apostle James put it this way, “Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17).
In God’s eyes, obedience, fervent prayer, meditation on His word, worship, and dedication are comparable to building materials made of gold, silver, and precious stones (1 Corinthians 3:12-13).
When a Christian has the Savior as his sure foundation, but his life is composed of incomplete obedience, hypocrisy, and materialism, it is like building a ramshackle shanty made with cardboard boxes and sheets of plastic on a footing made for a skyscraper. The wasted life results not only in a great loss of reward for the believer at the judgment seat of Christ, but is a terrible insult to the Son of God who laid down His life to become our Foundation.
*see also Isaiah 28:16; Luke 6:48,49; 1 Corinthians 3:12; 2 Timothy 2:19
October 28
