Have you ever seen a house built without a foundation? It might be a mobile trailer, a shipping container, a tent, or some other form of temporary shelter. Such structures can be very useful for a limited period or during an emergency. But they are entirely unsuitable for times of trial or permanent residence.
If I begin building a house with the roof and afterward start laying the foundation, I believe I will encounter serious problems during construction. I find it difficult even to imagine what the final result might be.
Once someone asked me, “What do you believe in?” I knew the answer and immediately said that I believed in Jesus. Then I was asked another question: “What is the foundation of your faith in Jesus? How do you understand His teaching? How do you live while believing in God?” I began to think. Where is the foundation of my faith in reality? If there is none, any teaching or false doctrine that appeals to me may become my foundation. I will become established in it if I do not know God’s view. In that case, my life will be built upon a false foundation.
Consider love and friendship. These two sisters exert a very powerful influence upon the minds of others. They know how to open hearts and give people joy. When I begin living in this atmosphere of Heaven, I notice how many wonderful people appear in my life. If I compare some women with my wife, I will honestly say that my wife loses by every comparison. Yet I also love her, and she is the person closest to me, possessing the status of my wife. But suppose that while loving my wife, I find a female friend whom I decide to love from a pure heart just as I love my wife and secretly become a faithful husband to her without society knowing. How does this appear in the eyes of Heaven? It is obvious adultery. But I do not consider it so because I love this person, and she is a friend after my own heart. Moreover, this sister believes in God, loves Him, and loves me as well. She is a very active missionary and sincerely performs many good deeds. Besides all this, the sister is not married!!! You understand nothing about love. You do not know my true motives! Everything between us is pure and for life, and only death will separate us!!! What does such love look like? I do not think a person even needs to be a believer to understand that love without faithfulness is not love but the lust of the flesh.
Many of you receive everything I write as a message from God. You see how God works by using my abilities and talents to convey this light. But your trust is based on the fact that I also live according to the truths I present. You assume that I am pure before God and His law, that I share what fills my own life, and that I possess what I teach you. This is normal. Therefore, the message exerts a special influence because God uses those who serve Him faithfully while asking Him for greater love.
But the enemy of my soul knows that one unfaithful step on my part can destroy all my work in a single moment. Therefore, he looks for an opportunity to destroy me. Yet by God’s mercy, I am alive. Through your prayers and my own, I am preserved from evil. Through love from above, I develop and grow.
If I suddenly begin teaching you that all religions testify about the same God in different ways, I believe all my writings would immediately become dangerous to you. There would be a possibility that this philosophy permeates them in every direction. In the Christian world, there is a rule that all the writings of an author, even very correct ones, are declared dangerous, removed from circulation, and destroyed if the author departs into heresy or returns to the world.
Martin Luther was once asked to renounce his writings and messages and acknowledge the teaching of the church against which he had spoken as true and correct. Martin replied that if anyone could refute his arguments on the basis of Holy Scripture, he would immediately renounce his convictions. But if no one could do so, this testified that his messages were true and contained no darkness. “Here I stand. I can do no other. May the Lord help me!” These famous words of Luther entered Christianity as a symbol of the solid foundation of biblical teaching.
Upon what do I build my faith? What is the foundation of my love and friendship?
A tent is useful for spending a night in warm weather or sheltering from rain. But living in it permanently causes much discomfort. A house with every convenience looks far more attractive than a tent. Yet if the house has no foundation, a person may live in it wonderfully and without difficulty until the first natural disaster. A small hurricane, flood, or earthquake can very quickly deprive him of his home, leaving him standing before a pile of debris. He will look at it and wonder what went wrong. Then he will remember all the advice he previously heard about laying a foundation and every appeal to be a wise builder. At the time, such counsel disgusted him. What will he think now? And what if members of my family, or I myself, are buried beneath that pile of debris? What can be done then?
Something can still be done about a house, and a family can be created again. But what will happen when I look toward Heaven and see Christ coming from there with all His Angels, raising and gathering all the redeemed? One after another, they rise to the clouds, while He does not even look at me. When I cry out, “But what about me, Lord?!” He calmly answers, “I do not know you.” What will I do then? At that moment, it will truly be too late. I will stand there remembering all my teachers and pastors who urged me to receive the truth or, on the contrary, confirmed me in their errors by teaching that such conduct was right because everyone acted that way. I will understand that throughout my Christian life, I built upon sand. My little house collapsed directly upon me, and great was its fall. Then I will no longer be able to correct anything. All my achievements and talents will become nothing. My entire life will prove empty, and all my money will become garbage. I will no longer be able to continue living in my sins but will be destroyed as one of the wicked.
Perhaps it is better to prepare now for the coming event and lay a solid foundation for my faith. The opportunity still exists. There is still time. God’s grace still offers a chance. The fact that I belong to the true church with genuine teaching does not make me right. What is right must be present within my heart and mind, and I must personally allow it to enter there—with God’s help, of course.
The Lord Himself promised that with His Own Hand, He would write His laws upon my heart and teach me His statutes. What does this mean? For example, I once believed that an unregistered partnership—living together outside marriage—was good and that there was no reason to spoil a page in one’s passport. But after believing in God, I allowed Him to teach me the truth that the marriage bond is holy and should be legally registered with the government, because only then will it receive God’s blessing and approval. I believed this, and God wrote this law concerning the family into my mind and heart. I now live according to this ordinance and consider everything else to be sin and a violation of the law. I do not intend to act as I once did, nor do I approve of this behavior in the lives of others, because sin is lawlessness. In this way, God brings order to every area of my life.
My love and friendship dwell very joyfully in a strong house upon a solid foundation. This is the foundation upon which I build.
Bible Verses for Reflection
Psalm 89:14; 119:160; Isaiah 26:18; Luke 1:3–4; 6:48; 1 Corinthians 3:10–15.