You Get What You Pay For

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:11)

When builders develop a new section of land, seasoned buyers know to watch which lots they choose first and which they fill in last. The best lots, those on the most stable ground, go first and usually cost more. The leftover pieces tend to be on less stable ground. You might be tempted to take one because the price looks better. But when the foundation is not solid, you end up paying for it in other ways over time.

Paul wrote plainly that no one can lay any other foundation than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ, the living Word of God. It is not a denomination, a philosophy or a system. Those things can be real and valuable in their proper place, but none of them can serve as your foundation. If that is what your life is built on, whether it is who you know, what you have earned, what your career looks like, or the relationship you are hoping holds, you are building on sand. And sand shifts.

I bought my first desk when I started in ministry, and I am still using it today, nearly forty-five years later. People have told me over the years that I spent too much on it. But I bought quality the first time, and I have never had to replace it. If I had gone cheap, how many times would I have had to buy another one? You pay one way or another. The only question is whether you pay wisely up front or keep paying over and over because you tried to cut corners.

People build their lives on the foundations of friends, money, degrees, careers, and relationships. Some of those foundations look solid while everything is going well. But when the flood comes, and it always will, only one foundation holds—the Word of God. It is not as a concept you know about, but as a foundation you have actually built on through hearing, receiving, believing, speaking, and doing. That is what holds. That is what does not shift. Whatever it costs you in time and discipline to build on that foundation, it is worth it every time.

Practical Application

Look honestly at what your life is actually built on right now—not what you say it is built on, but what you actually trust when things go wrong. Where do you turn when pressure comes? If the answer is not the Word, it is time to start rebuilding. Get into the Word today and stay there.

Acts 4:11; Isaiah 28:16