Do you choose to trust and obey?

Matthew 7:24-27

“‘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.’” Matthew 7:24

In the almost 25 years that I was the Teaching Director for Community Bible Study in Decatur, Alabama, we boiled down the essence of what we had learned into three words: trust and obey. Then we amplified this synopsis into eight words: choose to trust and obey, abide and pray. We called obedience the “O word” because we encountered it so often and saw how crucial obedience was in living the Christian life. Some of my first words to the new class every year were: “I teach for application. The main point of learning God’s Word is to put it into practice. Teaching the Bible should result in changed lives.”

We are all in the process of building our lives. A firm foundation is essential for a stable life. We choose our foundations, but our choices have implications for the success or failure of what we build. Jesus talked about this in a parable about the wise and foolish builders. The wise builder built on rock, and when the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, it did not fall. The foolish builder built upon the sand. When the rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, it fell with a great crash.

What was the difference? What do the rock and the sand represent? Both builders heard the word of God, but the wise builder put God’s word into practice, and the foolish builder did not apply what he had learned from God’s word. The rock represented obedience, application, putting into practice what God tells us to do.

James gives us the same advice in James 1:22 when he says, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” James also says, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them?” (James 2:14) and “...faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:17)

Father, may I not only learn what Your word tells me to do, but may I do what it says. Amen.