Day 12 - The Wisdom Of The House Builder

Are we being sensible? The opposite of 'being sensible' would mean listening to, or reading, the sayings of Jesus and neglecting to do them. That is like being someone who was silly enough to build a house on sand. He would have been better off not even starting the project as his investment was entirely lost. He could have enjoyed that money in a thousand ways if he had not wasted it. What a silly man!

But then how can we be sensible and wise? By reading and hearing the sayings of Jesus and going out and doing them. We would be much more like the man who built his house on rock. From a secular standpoint, nothing else is quite so conducive to our happiness as a good home.

There is no better way to spend money, from that point of view, than to put together a good home, provided of course that the house is built on solid foundations.

Someone who hears God's Word and carries it out is like a man like that. Building a Christian life in imitation of the words and works of Jesus in the Bible displays an even greater wisdom. That is the work of providing for a mansion in heaven.

Living a real and true Christian life will cost something, but it is worth paying for because it will be solid and stand forever.

It may well be that a mere profession of faith will cost something, too, but it will not be worth the investment - it will not hold steady. Building a house on sand will probably cost a great deal less than building it on rock but at the very moment that the short-sighted cheapskate most needs his house to be solid - when the winds of life blow and the rain falls - that is when the weather destroys it. On the other hand, the rock builder always has a house to shelter him through the bad weather.

In the same way, if you build up a Christian character in obedience to the Word of God, you will have something to hold fast to, and shelter under, in the bad times.

This is how we can learn from Jesus' parable of the wise and the foolish house-builders that obeying the Bible is the true, sensible and practical way of life.