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Building on the Rock

by Jerry Ousley  
4/06/2018 / Christian Living

            It was a very terrible sight.  Watching the evening news I sat feeling very sorry for the owners of the houses in California as one after another slid off the cliff.  The homes were very expensive, elaborate houses built on a scenic cliff overlooking the ocean.  It had been a coveted place to live and the prices reflected that.  But it hadn’t been taken into account that the soil underneath was loose and not firm.  When torrential rains arrived and softened the ground first the back yards of these homes fell off onto the beach below getting ever closer and closer to the houses until one by one they too gave way to the soft dirt and along with all the exuberant furnishings inside they fell crashing into a million pieces.  It was very sad.  But the builders should have taken into consideration the soil conditions.  They should have been built on a cliff that had solid rock underneath.

            This is also the case for our lives.  In our modern age of conveniences we have loosely built our lives on the softer soil.  We have made it easy on ourselves and the luxurious life appeals to us.  Jumping from one failing marriage to another, aborting babies because they will be too much of an inconvenience, spending money we don’t have to get those toys and trinkets we think we need to be happy, but in return digging a financially nightmarish hole that we have scooped out with a large shovel and we attempt to fill back in with a spoon, we have made an easy life for ourselves but at what exuberant cost?

            Building our lives on the bedrock of God may not have such an appeal as the other way but it will make for a much more stable life.  It is more difficult because we have to drill down into the rock to attach our house so that it is anchored securely.  It is hard work.  But when the storms of life come neither will our house be falling off the cliff and crashing in a shambles below.  When the rains, floods and winds come we will be held secure.  Even if life brings wind similar to a tornado, the structure may suffer damage but our foundation holds secure.

            In life we all suffer storms.  They can come in the form of devastating sickness that leaves the physical body wrecked in pain.  They can come financially or physically and they can be severe.  In no way am I suggesting that building on the Rock will keep us free from pain and worry.  We will suffer loss.  We will have heartaches.  We will have troubles, just like anyone else.  In fact, because we have built on the Rock we may suffer more of these things because our enemy, the devil, doesn’t want us there.  He may single us out for harder situations to keep us from being secure on the Rock.  But do not fear because our Rock is none other than our Savior, Jesus Christ.

            In Matthew 16 we read where Jesus had asked His disciples who the people thought He was.  Some said this prophet or that prophet come back to life.  Some said a good teacher.  Then Jesus asked them who they thought He was.  It was then that Peter said, “You are the Christ.”  Jesus responded with these words in Matthew 16:18:  “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.”  We need to note a couple of things here.  Some have tried to say that this was establishing Peter as the head of the church because the nickname “Peter” or “Cephas” means “a stone.”  But looking at the Greek words more closely we see that Jesus was saying, “You are Peter (petra – a little stone) and upon this rock (petros – a large stone or rocky cliff) I will build my church.”  It wasn’t on a man but on the foundation of the larger confession that Jesus was the Christ – The Messiah – the One to come who would become the sacrifice for sin once and for all and would free the world and mankind from the curse God had been forced to put upon us because of our sin.

            The rock we build our lives on is the solid Rock/confession that He is LORD of all and that we are securing ourselves to Him.  Then our foundation will not fail, regardless the storm thrown our way.  Those storms in the long run will only serve to strengthen us and make us strong in our faith and in our Lord!

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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