I live in Florida where we are subjected to hurricanes. Praise God we were spared by the most recent tropical storm, Isaac. (I’m praying for Louisiana as they await the impact of it possibly becoming a hurricane before landfall.) Due to our location and experience with terrible storms, our building codes have become more stringent, as they should. God has gifted people with different talents and responsibilities. I’m no contractor and have no clue if I’m going to make sense now, but… someone may be gifted in designing, another with supplying the perfect product for building the walls, someone else has the talent to construct the walls in their proper place with precision, a roofer has qualities that only he knows how to prepare a roof, there may be better nails that work best in a given situation, there is an electrician gifted in his/her field, and on and on and on. But, what is the most important part of the building process? The foundation. Without a solid foundation, the house can still eventually collapse.
Another procedure in the building process is the inspection. The inspector investigates every little nook and cranny of the home. He will crawl in areas you didn’t think he could fit in with his flashlight and examine all areas. If something is not up to code with the inspection, that area would have to be removed, rebuilt, and replaced. During the removal, the foundation would remain and the home would survive, but that specific area must be detached.
If all is well after an exhausting and hard inspection, the home is ready to withstand any storm that may come its way.
If the inspection wasn’t thorough and you are in the path of a hurricane, yet your foundation is solid, the home will sustain damage but it can be rebuilt.
This building process is much like your life. If you have Jesus as your foundation for everything in life, and those “storms of life” occur two things will happen:
- if you have upheld all the areas in your life to godly standards, you’ll be fine; but…
- if you’ve cheapened areas in your life by worldly choices and have lowered your standards in life, then that part of you will be damaged and need to be torn out. The good thing is, if your foundation was set upon God, then you will survive. It will be difficult at times, but you will survive.
Check out 1 Corinthians 3:9-15,
“Or, to put it another way, you are God’s house. Using the gift God gave me as a good architect, I designed blueprints; Apollos is putting up the walls. Let each carpenter who comes on the job take care to build on the foundation! Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely.”
I pray that YOU will withstand any storm in your life because your foundation is set on Christ and Christ alone.
Blessings to you.
August 27, “Walking in the Word”