100 Days on Jesus’ Sermon Mount (Day 94)

Jesus said, “However, everyone who listens to these sayings of mine but fails to put them into practice can be compared to a stupid man, who built his house on sand. When the rain pelted down and the torrents came and the winds gusted and buffeted that house, it collapsed and was a total write-off.”

— Matthew 7:26-27 (USC)

FOLLY is the opportunity of wasting a perfectly good life, to insist upon how it shall be run.

We have all had that opportunity. None of us have wasted the opportunity to waste our lives. We have all perfected — to some degree — how to blaspheme life, which is to say, we have insulted God. Grace. Grace enrolled over us for our wasting such a precious thing.

Such is the grace of God, we have been forgiven all those iniquities of waste that we have laid up for ourselves through the passage of our time here on earth.

It’s okay. We regret it, though it’s not God making us feel that way. It’s our own sense of remorse we wrestle with — that we were and are wired to do God’s will.

Because eternity is hardwired into the heart of our soul we cannot resist making the most of life. Whenever we miss this mark — and we all do — regret is the inevitable conclusion.

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But this section of Scripture is not simply about regret. It’s about destruction; the purgation of a life. Not everyone experiences the torment that their actions of wastage deserve, but blessed are they who do suffer and learn through the torment the better way to live.

A house built on sand that is lashed by pelting rain, swept away by the torrent, and buffeted by cyclonic winds is a property vanquished. It was but it’s there no more.

All that can be done is to build again; this time on rock.

For all of us who have experienced such a purgation — who have responded to endure that storm of a living death in life — an absolute calamity — we can testify. God is faithful. He brings us through!

But it’s better by far to build on rock in the first place.

Those who build on rock build for the present and future having learned from the past.

So as it is, that’s our opportunity, today.

Storms are indiscriminate. They beat against us all. We all build a life. Why build on shifting sand when we can build on solid rock.

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QUESTIONS in REVIEW:

1.     The storms of life: how have you endured your own storms? Have they made you better or bitter? What can be done to make for the best response?

2.     Whether you stand today on sand or on rock, what can be done to prepare for the inevitable storm?

© 2015 S. J. Wickham.

Note: USC version is Under the Southern Cross, The New Testament in Australian English (2014). This translation was painstakingly developed by Dr Richard Moore, a NT Greek scholar, over nearly thirty years.