Don’t build your house on sand…
These days we live in an age of instant gratification: instant meals, quick getaways, microwaves, dishwashers, credit cards, washing machines, iPhones, emails… All designed to make our lives easier, but all at a price. We’ve seen a dramatic rise in cancers of all kinds: credit card debt, foreclosures, leaks of high-level secrets, organized riots, scandals, rapes, kidnappings, building collapses, obesity, and cancer, to name a few.
Are these the causes of instant gratification where we don’t have to work hard to get the goals we want? Does it mean that we are becoming lazier and more impatient? If you don’t have email or a cell phone these days, many in society consider you abnormal, but wait a minute, civilization survived thousands of years without computers, credit cards, cell phones, so it might indeed survive now without them. .
What does it mean to have everything at your fingertips, instead of searching for the answers, instead of making the effort to discover things for yourself? It means that you are not investing in what you long to have, you are building on sand.
Jesus talks about this in Matthew 7:24-27
24 Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and beat against that house; it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But whoever hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain fell, the rivers rose. , and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
What does that mean? Can’t we have something that is instant and very easy to get?
Well, I’ve mentioned the things we have on a daily basis and the damage it can do, so how much more damage can spiritual or carnal instant gratification do? Perhaps reading the daily horoscopes? It all seems harmless enough, but it’s instant gratification: I want to know now instead of looking for God’s plan for my life. Or perhaps we could see the physical gratification in a quick cigarette to calm the nerves, comfort food, or getting drunk to eliminate a problem. All of this is instant gratification.
As believers, we are the temple of God and His Holy Spirit dwells in us: He needs to be respected like royalty: Harrods and not Tesco, Gucci and not Wal-Mart. We need to live like a King in our presence, because he indeed is. Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He did not promise us a bed of thornless roses, but he did promise to be with us in every way, twist and turn.
He promises to help us grow and deal with those thorns. By cutting off the thorns, we leave the rose unprotected from the dangers those thorns protect it against: the sweetest-smelling roses have the sharpest thorns; The Holy Spirit has the sharpest sword… why? To protect ourselves from the evil one and his intentions to steal, kill and destroy, and sometimes we need to be pricked by the sword so as not to give in to instant gratifications.
The path we take is narrow and hard, not wide and easy. The easy path leads to destruction, the hard path leads to life. Building a house on sand is easy: you don’t have to worry about foundations or digging deep or damage from water or erosion – you can have beautiful views and easy access to the sea. But that sea will soon turn against you when it wants to claim the sand.
The devil is like the house and the sea: everything seems good and easy until he wants to steal your life. Building your house on the rock takes time: laying the foundations of truth, integrity, faith, etc. but the rewards are eternal and the beach may be far from sight but the sea will not destroy you.
Friends, work on your faith… keep working on your salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who works in you to want and to do to fulfill his good purpose.
It is not a microwave meal but one cooked from scratch.
The only thing that is instant for everyone is eternal life – building a sandcastle won’t get you there.
If you don’t know the Lord yet, isn’t it time you made an eternal investment in Him? Do you want a life represented by a sand castle or a strong fortress???? I challenge you to start by reading the Gospel of John to discover who Jesus really is and ask him to open your eyes and your heart to the truth of his word. And to those of you, who are his, keep working on that fortress and do not forget: Strong tower is the name of the Lord; the righteous run to Him and are saved.
AMEN