Faith in Jesus and obedience are a solid foundation for life

Yesterday one of our pastors spoke about the importance of truth. He made it plain that no one can live a godly life unless what they think and how they act is based on truth. He also defined truth as what God says. Only God can know everything about everything. Ideas that look good to me might not line up with the life of Christ (who is truth) and the principles of His Word.

It was a thorough message that included the necessity of humility. I must realize and admit my errors before God can line them up with truth. He illustrated this with an actual plumb line. Truth measures my life and if it does not line up, then I must seek God’s will and cooperate with Him to make changes.

Most Christians know the children’s camp song about building our house upon a rock based on a passage from Matthew where Jesus used the idea as an illustration. Unfortunately, most of the song focuses on building on rock or sand and compares it to being built on Jesus Christ. It misses the point Jesus made:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24, italics mine)

Hear His words and do them. This illustration is about building on a secure foundation which is hearing and obeying the Word of God. It is the only way to develop a secure life that can withstand the storms life brings. Obedience is not mentioned in the child’s song even though some of the adult versions include it. 

Nor does that song mention ‘hearing’ Him in the first place. Jesus challenges me to pay attention to His words in a world full of noise and competing distractions.

I cannot say my husband is always good at hearing everything, but he is good at hearing God. From hearing God speak in that or any other message, he seems to grasp one truth and thinks about it for a long time. I’m more of a scatter brain. I try to remember the entire message and wind up not focusing on the parts I need to hear.

A solid rock or foundation is a good illustration, but this time it was not the illustration that echoes in my heart. It was the way the pastor applied it to all of life. I maintain that faith is practical yet he further reinforced it with dozens of examples of how to line up my life with the plumb line of God’s Word. By thinking of the Bible that way, the importance of measuring all I do and think (and say) becomes clearer.

He also clarified the need to keep short accounts. Without the humility that goes with confessing sin, I miss the negative power of personal pride to erode and even wipe out the foundation of truth. All my sinful ideas and responses to life have this “I can handle this myself” pride behind them. I jump into many things without seeking the Lord’s instruction or blessing. Then I call on Him to ‘fix’ the mess that didn’t need to happen in the first place.

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Jesus, thank You for empowering Your servants to find strong principles for life in the Bible and then with clarity and grace help us hear You and give us encouragement to do what we hear. I don’t get up in the morning and plan on sin and crashing, but it does happen. I want to have a stronger foundation that enables me to better withstand the storms and challenges that come. Never stop teaching and reminding me!

Why Obedience?

Bowed before God is a holy place. Listening to His Word is a holy place. Doing what He says is also a holy place, even the menial daily tasks when done as He commands and in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I love Bible study, but hearing is not enough, for hearing without obedience is deception. Being made clean from sin is not enough either. The whole point of my redemption is that I obey God:

“Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” (James 1:21–22)

God says that obedience is like building a house upon a rock, like the houses in Italy that have stood for hundreds of years: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” (Matthew 7:24)

Obedience is an expression of love and opens my heart to receive God’s love. It also opens my eyes that I can see Jesus: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:21)

Of course continued obedience keeps me in that loving relationship, the same as the obedience of Jesus kept Him there: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” (John 15:10)

Obedience declares and maintains freedom from sin: “But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:17–18)

Not only is the Holy Spirit needed for obedience, He is further poured out when I obey the Lord: “And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.” (Acts 5:32)

Obedience delivers me from self-deception and I am blessed in the doing:

“But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:22–25)

Obedience is the icing on the cake of faith: “You see that faith was active along with (Abraham’s) works, and faith was completed by his works.” (James 2:22)

And that icing produces assurance that I am redeemed and it gives me confidence in prayer:

“Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.” (1 John 3:18–22)

Tozer says we do not lack the power to obey, but the will, making this my responsibility. Yet the Word of God says:

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13)

Even that will to obey is a work of God!

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Jesus, there is so much work to be done in Your kingdom. Some days I feel so utterly useless. Yet You are the King, totally in charge of who does what. I’m thankful that Your commands are both general and specific. I know that I’m to think and talk like You and have Your attitude. I also know that You always tell me what is on my to-do list.

All the way my Savior leads me

The same sun that warms the rocks also hardens the clay. The same losses and disasters that suck away the faith of those who thought they believed also builds it stronger in those whose faith is genuine.

Who appreciates trials? Not me. As I read God’s Word again, listening to what He might say to me, I think of the relatively short-term struggles of days, weeks, months, even a few years, but also the longer tests, such as praying for the salvation of those I love. Those prayers began more than forty years ago and many are still unanswered. Yet in that trial, my faith has not diminished. It has gone up and down, but in the long run is stronger.

This is a principle for those who walk with Jesus Christ. Trials are not mere tests of faith nor merely the attempts of our enemy to rob us of it. They are gymnasiums where the muscles and sinews of faith are pulled, stretched, developed. This is why God can have the audacity to say,

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2–4)

These readings challenge me. Life is basically fair and sunny these days. Only yesterday my husband had a checkup at the cancer clinic with the good news that his white blood count dropped significantly (CLL involves a huge increase in WBC). Our family is well. We are blessed in many ways. Yet as today’s devotional writer says, “Yes, unbelievably they come. You and I go our sunny ways and live our happy lives, and the rumors of terrors blow to us from a world so distant that it seems to have nothing to do with us; then, it happens.”

He tells of the two men in the story of Jesus, who likely lived in the same village, went to the same synagogue. One day, some kind of gale blew into their lives. For one of them, everything collapsed for he had built on sand. In his day of need, everything was undermined and vanished.

The other man also faced the emptiness, loneliness and pain of loss, but came through braver, stronger, mellower, nearer God, for he had built on the rock. Read carefully this story. Jesus says, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). God say something similar to Joshua,

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. (Joshua 1:8)

Today’s verse is the same one as yesterday and the days before. It is God’s reminder to me that my response to the small annoyances, inconveniences and difficulties are tests, but more than tests. They are my sit-ups, leg raises, push-ups, and weight training in the gymnasium, so that when the greater challenges come, I will be ready for them.

If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? (Jeremiah 12:5)

Today’s devotional speaks of the sudden storms that blow up and buffet the breath out of me, then blow away as suddenly as they came. It speaks also of the “long purgatory of physical and mental agony” which is an even greater and more drastic test of faith, but of the right of Jesus Christ to take me on these paths. He alone knows what will make me strong.

I do not understand the purposes of God, at least in His initial dealings with me. I don’t always agree with Him or obey Him. I do not like the challenges of the gymnasium and would rather sit on the couch, but I do know one thing; after many years of both joy and sorrow, smooth places and rough, I think far more greatly of the grace and power of God than I did in the beginning. 

All the way my Savior leads me,

What have I to ask beside?

Can I doubt His tender mercy,

Who through life has been my Guide?

Heav’nly peace, divinest comfort,

Here by faith in Him to dwell!

For I know, whate’er befall me,

Jesus doeth all things well;

For I know, whate’er befall me,

Jesus doeth all things well.

All the way my Savior leads me,

Cheers each winding path I tread,

Gives me grace for every trial,

Feeds me with the living Bread.

Though my weary steps may falter

And my soul athirst may be,

Gushing from the Rock before me,

Lo! A spring of joy I see;

Gushing from the Rock before me,

Lo! A spring of joy I see.

All the way my Savior leads me,

Oh, the fullness of His love!

Perfect rest to me is promised

In my Father’s house above.

When my spirit, clothed immortal,

Wings its flight to realms of day

This my song through endless ages:

Jesus led me all the way;

This my song through endless ages:

Jesus led me all the way.

              (Fanny Crosby, public domain)