The question I pose in the title of this post is pretty straightforward: Are you building the right life? But for a lot of people, it’s hard to know what the right life is. What one person thinks is the right life, another person might say is wrong. And what that person says is the right life might sound wrong to somebody else.
Luckily, we don’t have to wonder what building the right life means because God’s word tells us. For Christians, it means living our lives in the fashion that God would have us to live.
And that means surrendering our lives to Him and not living for ourselves anymore.
In Matthew 6:33, Jesus says, “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” This means that when we put God first, we don’t have to worry about anything else because He’s going to give us the things we need.
What do we need, really? It’s not a lot. A roof over our heads. Food to eat. A community of people we care about. Something to do that we enjoy and makes us feel like we’re contributing to the good of the world.
I might add to that list a cup of coffee or two a day, but that’s just me. God has promised to provide all of those things to us if we’ll only commit to putting His kingdom first.
A lot of people get caught up focusing on things that that don’t really mater in the long run, like money. Money doesn’t make us happy. What does make us happy—or should—is seeking God’s kingdom and keeping Him first.
The best way to do that is to build the foundation of our lives on Him.
Matthew 7 is an incredible passage of the Bible. There’s so much good stuff in there, and I’d like for us to cover it all together in time. For today, I want to read a parable that Jesus told about two men who were building houses. Let’s read verses 24-27:
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Everyone knows that you don’t build a building, whether it be a house or a business, on sand. If you do, it isn’t going to last long, and it’s going to be pretty shaky.
That’s why we lay solid foundations to construct buildings on. That way, they’ll stand strong and firm even when they’re hit with rain, winds, and all kinds of other things.
A building built on a strong foundation will stand the test of time. And it’s the same way with our lives, which is what Jesus is getting at in this story.
A lot of people build their lives on the wrong things: fame, fortune, pleasure, power, and other worldly concerns. We can look at their lives, what happens to them and how they turn out, and see that it’s not good to build a life that way.
If we’re going to weather the storms that are happening right now and that are going to continue to happen in our lives, we’re going to have to build our lives on a solid foundation. And the only solid foundation is God.
It’s not always easy, and it’s getting harder. If our lives are built on God’s word, we’re going be peculiar people. We’re going to live differently than those around us. We won’t be like the world.
And even though it’s natural to want to fit in, we shouldn’t fit in. Think of it like a puzzle: Only certain pieces will fit in the slots, and we shouldn’t be trying to fit into the world’s puzzle. We’re supposed to be part of a whole different set!
But when we do things God’s way and build our foundation on Him, we can trust that our lives are going to stand firm even when bad things come our way. We can depend on Him and His strength to get us through life’s catastrophes.
Last week, I was working on a project at a large house in Austin that required me and my team to put up scaffolding. I was dreading this project because it was way up high, we had to figure out how to work around a pool, and it was very challenging. Not to mention how dangerous it was!
We had to do the right things in order to build that scaffolding properly and keep ourselves safe. We needed to make the right decisions to ensure that it would stand firm while we were up there working.
We had to put some wood down in the pool to build our scaffolding on. At one point, I looked down and noticed that one of the pieces of wood was sliding out from underneath the scaffolding. It was barely holding steady! We had to stop what we were doing and fix it, or the whole thing would have fallen down.
If we hadn’t fixed the foundation of our scaffolding, we could have fallen off onto concrete and ended up in a bad situation. We possibly wouldn’t have recovered from it. That’s how important our foundation was.
In life, if we want to stand firm and recover from the storms that come or way, we have to have a solid, God-centered foundation. We have to surrender our lives to Him.
Building the right foundation starts with simple things. We need to spend time with God through prayer and Bible reading. We need to surround ourselves with other believers. We need to be in church and make sure we’re serving. These are the building blocks of a rock-solid foundation for life.
And when we build on these things, we know that what we’re building will last. Money and fame fade away when we’re gone, but the things of God last forever. There’s no better investment than that.
So here’s my question to you this week: What are you really building your life on? Is it the sand this world has to offer? Or is it the solid rock of God and His word?
Building on that foundation isn’t a one-time thing; it’s a lifelong process and something we have to constantly maintain. But doing life God’s way is more than worth it. It’s simply the best way to build your life.
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading. Let’s all make sure we’re building our lives on the rock of God’s word as we go about the rest of our week.
To your fitness!