No Shortcut

Jesus says that if we take God’s Word and apply it to our lives we are like the man who built his house on a rock. When we build our house on a rock that house is secure. When we apply the Word of God to our lives we have a solid foundation to help us get through the most difficult of storms. Have you ever really thought about that? It’s hard to build anything on rock. It’s laborious and time consuming. It takes sweat and results in sore muscles. Building anything on rock is not easy. It’s much easier to build on sand. It’s not nearly as secure a foundation but the process of building is certainly much easier.

We like to find shortcuts in everything we do. Whether we’re going on vacation or placing a new icon on our computer desktop we’ve come to search for and depend on shortcuts. There are no shortcuts to the Christian life. There is no easy way to build on rock. We just have to roll up our sleeves and be prepared to hurt a little and sweat a lot.

When we seek to apply the Word of God to our lives we quickly find that it isn’t a quick and painless process. It takes time, it takes sweat and it takes blood. In the beginning it may seem easy but the deeper we allow God’s Word to penetrate us the more it hurts – and the harder the rock gets.

To grow into the disciple that Jesus intended us to become takes dedication. We must be dedicated to allowing God’s Word to penetrate and change our lives. We must be dedicated to drilling through layer after layer of hard rock in order to secure our foundation. We must be willing to endure a little discomfort. Reaching spiritual maturity takes time – our time devoted to becoming more like Christ, it takes commitment – our commitment to living a life that glorifies Jesus, it takes submission – our submission to Christ, it takes sweat - our sweat as we endure the hardships of this world in the name of Jesus, and it takes blood – the blood of Jesus Christ, shed for us.

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. 25The 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. (Matthew 7:24-25)