Built To Last

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. (Matthew 7:24-25)

After more than fifty years in ministry, something still catches me by surprise. It is the ongoing level of revelation that keeps coming. God opens something in the Word that used to be closed, and you find yourself looking at it, saying, 'Where was I when this was in here all along?' He opens Scripture and your understanding of how the enemy is moving and why. He shows you how to win situations you have never faced before. And every bit of it flows from one thing: consistent time spent meditating on the Word. The more of that you do, the more He opens.

Jesus said the wise man heard His sayings and did them. He said that man was like someone who built a house on a rock. When the rain descended, when the floods came, when the winds blew and beat on that house, it did not fall because it was founded on rock. It wasn’t just church attendance or knowing the vocabulary of the faith that held it up, but an actual foundation built through consistently hearing and doing the Word of God.

What does that kind of life look like? It looks like someone who is not knocked off balance by bad news. It is not because their life is free of problems. The same rain falls on the wise man's house as on everyone else’s, but because their response to pressure is grounded in something that does not move. They have a Word from God. They have meditated on it. They have acted on it. And when the flood comes, there is something in them that the flood cannot reach. What is in them does not wash away.

Practical Application

Everybody wants to be unshakeable. Everybody wants to be the person who can look at a hard situation and say, 'I don't care what comes my way; it cannot knock me down.' That is available to every believer. But it does not happen by accident, and it does not happen quickly. It is built through consistently hearing the Word, receiving it, and doing it precept upon precept, line upon line, until your life is sitting on something that no circumstance can move.

Proverbs 14:1; Job 8:15