Hello and welcome to yet another day of God’s Word in the 5 minute challenge. So yesterday afternoon I started building the foundation for our new spa. It’s a small spa, just big enough for Margie & me so the foundation doesn’t have to be too big. We had a guy that was gonna come and help, but it ended up falling through so I decided to tackle it myself. Because the spa holds water, the foundation has to be perfectly level so the water will be level. Extremely level in fact, no pressure, Dan. There’s 2 big points God revealed to me throughout the process. (well actually there was a third...my back is no longer 20 years old!)
First, the importance of a good foundation. This is where everything starts. Buildings, highways and yes even lives. I’ve personally seen what happens when something is built on a poor foundation. Hopefully you’ve never had the horrible words spoken to you about your home…”you have foundation problems.” You immediately know it’s gonna be complicated and expensive to correct the problem. I laid over 40 12”x12” pavers and each and every one had to be perfectly level if the entire foundation will end up level. This morning Paul mentions a foundation, the only true foundation that our lives should be based on…Jesus Christ, the son of God. “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 3:11)
If we truly understand the importance of what a foundation does, then you will truly appreciate this verse. Everything decision we make, everything relationship we have, how we treat all people, how we serve Him, everything is founded upon Jesus. Folks, if this is true in your life, there should not be a single hour in your day that you are not seeking His wise counsel for the decisions in your life. I think about the pavers I laid yesterday. The integrity of the spa depends on those pavers. They are true, level and they will hold. If your life is founded on Christ, your life will have purpose for Him, you will have Joy in Him and it will hold against the evils of this world. If my pavers were loose and unlevel, the spa would eventually suffer. Because it did not have a good foundation it will in time begin to show. You see normally it’s not immediate. Foundation problems in homes can sometimes take 15 years to surface but they will surface if the foundation is lacking. If your life is built on any other foundation than Jesus Christ then problems will start to show. If your pavers are loose and unlevel, the sins of this world will slowly work their way in and cause small problems that will turn into bigger ones. I pray today that you choose to make your foundation one that will never crack, split or rupture. Jesus is the rock, build your life upon him.
Second, I want to look at tools. As I was laying my foundation I ended up needing to dig up quite a bit of grass to make sure the ground was perfectly level before I started laying the pavers. I specifically needed a square shovel so I could remove the sod and use it elsewhere in the yard. I needed one and nothing else would do. I didn’t have one so I stopped and went and bought one. Next, I needed a rake to level the soil and remove the roots, left over grass, rocks and other debris. Have you ever tried raking with your hands? When you need a rake, nothing else will do. Then finally I had two tools that without them the entire job would have been in vain. Levels. I had a small 6” level to use on each paver and then a large 3’ level to make sure the whole was level. My dad & I always joke about the “Potter eyeball.” We always try to level something by eye first before applying a level to see how close we can get. (My dad is great at it!) Well let me tell you, trying to level 40 pavers that will in turn be level as a whole is dang near impossible. After about 10 I went cross-eyed and what was truly level no longer looked level. I needed those levels to complete the job and without them it wouldn’t have been successful.
The point? Well, which tool was better? The shovel, the rake or the level? Which one was the most valuable and the most worthy? Well, that’s just silly, without each and every tool the job could not have been completed. Exactly. Listen to one of my favorite verses from Paul.
“I planted, Apollos watered, bur God gave the growth. So neither he who plants now he who waters is anything but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. We are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.” 1 Cor. 3:6-9.
You see God has many tools and all are needed to complete His work. Paul said he planted God’s Word as a missionary but then Apollos came behind and was the Pastor that preached and taught God’s Word daily after Paul had moved onto to another town. So who is the best tool for God? The missionary, the pastor, the Sunday school teacher, the pre-school worker, the choir singer? They are all needed greatly by God and each has been gifted in a special, unique way to serve Him. Just as my shovel, rake and level work together so should the body of Christ work together in perfect harmony to see God glorified and His gospel go out to the world.
I’d also like to mention the first few verses of chapter 3 because they are of pivotal importance today. Yesterday Paul talked about two different kinds of people in chapter 2, the spiritual man and the natural man. At the beginning of chapter 3 he makes a further division, its amongst believers, the spiritual Christians and carnal Christians. Mature Christians versus baby Christians.
“But brothers, I could not address you as spiritual people , but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even know you are not yet ready, for you are still in the flesh.” 1 Cor. 1:1-2.
You see we all start off as infant Christians, new to the faith, new to the walk with Christ and new to the voice of God. Paul is making this point here to call the baby Christians out of the flesh and into growth in Christ. He says that as new baby Christians, he fed them with milk as they were not yet capable of solid food. You see as much as you want to feed a baby a steak, it just won’t work. Paul was bottle feeding the new infant Christians. So what is he trying to feed them? The Word of God.
When I was a new Christian I had been gifted the Holy Spirit but God’s Word still seemed foreign. You just don’t accept Christ and become a Bible scholar, that’s not how it works. So how do you learn more about God? His Word. How do you learn more about His Word? You pray to the Holy Spirit to make it alive to you and then you spend time in it. Pretty novel huh? If you want to become an expert in Russian history how do you do that? You read ALOT about Russian history and sit under the teaching of people that know more about it than you. It’s the same with learning about God and His Word. You read it everyday and with the help of the Holy Spirit you WILL learn more. God wants you to know more about Him and His Word but YOU HAVE TO PUT FORTH THE EFFORT! You have to make time in your day to pick up that Bible, focus, be still and read it.
Paul’s question here is, are you a baby Christian or a grown up Christian? Are you still on the bottle or are you eating T-bone steaks? I often hear people say about a church they have left or a Pastor they don’t care for say, ‘Well I just wasn’t getting fed there” or “He wasn’t feeding me.” I heard a response a while back and it set me on my heels because of its truth and impact. Folks, adults feed themselves and babies need to be fed! If you’re expecting to show up for church a few Sundays a month and be impacted “and fed” by a pastor’s sermon that’s silly. You see the Pastor is the one doing all the Bible study and hard work compiling a sermon, he’s the one getting fed and he’s feeding himself. On Sunday’s we’re just listening to how God has spoken to the Pastor through His Word. If you’re a mature Christian you should be feeding yourself the Word of God, not relying on someone else to spoon feed it to you and then spit it out because you don’t like it. Paul says we are to grow up and you do that through His Word.
This is the primary reasoning behind the 5MC. “To encourage all to spend daily time in God’s Word.” If you are spending time in God’s Word everyday and praying that the Holy Spirit reveals its wisdom to you, folks, you ARE going to grown in God. It’s a promise from God. God’s Word is His way of maturing us by bestowing His wisdom upon us so we can be better equipped to serve Him. But you see, it’s a choice. You have to actually pick up that Bible and read it. It's a choice, milk or steak?
Thanks for reading along today, I hope that your personal time in God’s Word today is enrichening, enlightening and useful for your daily walk. It always is for me.
May you abound in God’s Grace today.
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