Matthew 7:24-27 (CEB)

24 “Everybody who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise builder who built a house on bedrock. 25 The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against that house. It didn’t fall because it was firmly set on bedrock. 26 But everybody who hears these words of mine and doesn’t put them into practice will be like a fool who built a house on sand. 27 The rain fell, the floods came, and the wind blew and beat against that house. It fell and was completely destroyed.”


Reflection

Guilt over something you tried your best on has nothing on the guilt from the kind of situation where you go, “but I knew better.” There’s nothing like it. The logic always wears thin on the times where we knew what we were supposed to do then just didn’t do that. Then why when Christ offers us guidance on anything, we then do the opposite and wonder what happened?

In today’s text, Jesus is at the end of a long speech. Here, He’s offering a warning about just hearing His guidance versus living out His guidance. Jesus often has a way of making things so simple and so difficult at the exact same time. Example: Love your enemies – So simple. So difficult.

The rules, commandments, and general advice of Christ are not there to make life difficult, quite the opposite! We make things difficult. Basically, Jesus says, “You know what would be a good idea? Building a house on bedrock.” And we’re like, “I hear you but I’m going to build on sand.” and then when it gets destroyed, we’re left wondering, “Why did I do that, I knew better!”

That’s what Christ is challenging us to do in this text: to not just hear His words but to actually put them into practice. We’re called to fight the urge to cut corners and to not fully internalize the lessons of Jesus.

By Rachel Callender


For Pondering & Prayer

Can you think of a time when you made the wrong choice despite knowing better? What factors played into that? What is a teaching of Christ that you have difficulty putting into practice?

Prayer: Teacher God, you want what’s best for us. You teach us yet we don’t listen. Forgive us, we pray. When you call us to build on bedrock, may we listen. Amen.