What are you building your life upon? What is your foundation? What do you depend on?

Your wealth? Home? Friendships? Career? Health? Accomplishments? The safety and stability of living in America?

I hope that even as you read that list of possibilities you realized that none of those things provide a solid, secure foundation. We are trusting in insubstantial, shaky support if our heart is relying on these type things.

Scripture tells us in Matthew 7 a story about a couple of people who built their houses, meaning, their lives. One chose a stable foundation and one did not. In verses 24-27 we read…

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

The house built for stability was built on a foundation of hearing and obeying God’s Word. If you’re unfamiliar with this lesson Jesus shared you might think the one who built on an unstable foundation didn’t hear the Word of God, but that is not so. He also heard the word of God. The difference is that the fellow with the unstable life chose not to obey. This reveals a life-changing truth: The difference in a stable life and an unstable one is whether or not we obediently put God’s Word into practice in our daily lives.

When we are hopeless, we can hope in Jesus if we have built our life upon Him and His truths from scripture. When we are depressed and the world looks dark and we can’t seem to see Him working, we rest in the truth of His Word. When the storms of life rage, we cling to Him and the truths He has revealed about Himself in His Message to us. When our soul is weary and we’re about to collapse, give in, and fall apart, we throw ourselves upon His grace, love, justice, and mercy revealed in His Word. This produces a hope that is not just wishful thinking, but is a confident expectation that God is on our side and He will come through for us in our trials and troubles.

An old hymn sums it up best. I find myself singing this around the house when my foundation doesn’t seem solid, to remind myself that things are not always as they seem, and that I have chosen to build on the solid rock, not the sinking sand.

On Christ the Solid Rock

by Robert Critchley

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand.

When darkness veils, His lovely face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood
When all around my soul gives way
He then is all my Hope and Stay

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

When He shall come with trumpet sound
Oh, may I then, in Him be found
Dressed in His righteousness, alone
Faultless to stand before the throne

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

Choose today to start building on a sure foundation!