Build on the Rock

Jesus ends His great sermon with a promise hidden inside a picture. Two men build houses; from the outside they may look the same. But one builds on rock and one on sand, and the difference is invisible until the storm comes. When "the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house," the house on the rock stood, "for it was founded on the rock." The promise is that a life built on Christ's words, hearing and doing them, will stand when the storms of life beat against it.

Notice the two conditions: "whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them." It is not enough to hear God's Word, admire it, even agree with it; the wise builder does it. Hearing without doing is building on sand, it feels like faith until the storm exposes that nothing was actually founded on Christ. But the one who takes God's promises and commands and builds his life on them, acting on them, obeying them, finds that when the storms come, and they will, his life holds. The foundation laid in the calm is what saves the house in the flood.

The storms will come to every life. Build now, in the calm, on the rock of Christ's Word, hearing and doing it, so that your house will stand.