Faulty Foundations Lead To Ruin : By James Lantz
A building with an insufficient or faulty foundation may look good for a while but when the storms come and the winds blow the weak foundation will crumble and cave causing the building to crack or fall. Our building codes and required inspections are designed to protect the integrity of our buildings from the foundation up, including the roof. Building code requirements tend to be expensive and time consuming but they sure do help prevent the untrained consumer from premature loss and possible injury. Many have heard about or experienced a building or part of a building that failed prematurely due to a faulty foundation costing many thousands of dollars.
Our heavenly Father is building His house, the church, the body of Christ, on a sure foundation! Long before Jesus came to earth God had revealed to Daniel that He would be setting up His eternal kingdom that would never be destroyed nor left to other people. Daniel 2:44 And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. The sure foundation that God has laid is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ! 1 Cor. 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Mk 12:10&11 Have you not even read this Scripture: The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” John the Baptist burst on the scene preaching, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus declared, if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you. Some try to put the kingdom of God off till the future when satan is in lock down and Jesus and His saints rule over the new earth. Remember, Jesus said, you can not see the kingdom of God coming on you because it is within you. ( John 3:5-8 & Luke 17:20&21 ) God wants us to pray that it gets on earth like it is in heaven. The redemptive work of the second Adam, is much greater than the death which came on all of mankind through the disobedience of the first Adam. Rom. 5:17 For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ. God gets glory when His children believe Him and take their authority over the evil one, knowing what was given them through the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
We as individuals have been given the choice of how we build our own life (house). Jesus said, if we do what He says, we would be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. As believers, we are referred to as God’s building, and God’s building material, and yet we get judged and rewarded individually in how we respond to God’s word. We get to do our own inspections with the help of the Holy Spirit and make our own corrections before we stand before the Lord on judgement day. 1 Cor. 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
Quotes like, all things work together for good, can cause us to believe the wrong thing. It certainly is not a good thing for a person to live their life without Jesus and die and go to hell. It is not good for a young mother to die of cancer leaving her husband alone to care for their children. It is not a good thing for a child of God to try to navigate through life without the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Death is our enemy, sickness is evil, and poverty is a curse. ( 1 Cor. 15:26, Job 2:7, Ps. 41:8, Luke 13:16, Acts 10:38, Gal. 3:13 ) When we take what God actually said about all things work together for good, and couple that with what is said previously we get the accurate meaning. Rom. 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. This is referring to those who are obeying God and have purposed to do His will. The previous verses reveal that this person has prayed with the Holy Spirit’s help and God has responded to their prayer and turned that which was meant for evil unto their good. Glory to God, it pays to obey God!
Quotes like, I am free in Christ, along with, whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men can be misunderstood by the unlearned. If this is all the word a carnal Christian knows they can get the idea that they can pursue their carnal desires with all their heart caring not how it effects others. It is true that Christ has set us free from the power of sin and death in Christ Jesus! We are no longer bound to a life of sin but freed to serve our Lord in righteousness. Rom. 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. The Spirit through Paul said earlier that we are free from sin and have become servants of righteousness. This freedom that we have in Christ allows us to walk in the Spirit and resist the old way of walking after the lust of the flesh. Gal. 5:16 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. Notice that God did not say, don’t fulfill the lust of the flesh so that you can enjoy walking in the Spirit. We are empowered to resist walking after the lust of our flesh after we commit to walking after the things of the Spirit. The prophets of old were required to only write what God said. 2 Peter 1:20 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. We are responsible to correctly interpret what God said in proper context. We have not been given the freedom to choose our place in the body of Christ but we are free to be the supplying joint that God created us to be. We don’t get to choose that faith works by love but we do get to choose to love God with all of our heart. We can’t change the fact that death and life are in the power of the tongue but we can choose to put words of life in our mouth.
The phrase, God is in control, is widely used among Christians. Surely every christian believes that God created the heavens and the earth and that He sent His Son Jesus to redeem fallen man. We believe that God is going to receive us up to heaven to be with Him where there will be no curse. Yes, God is in control in the sense that everything He has spoken will come to pass and that all of His enemies will ultimately be destroyed and those who choose Jesus will live forever. However, saying that God is in control, can imply that everything that happens in the earth is because God willed it. Job did not have a New Testament to read which reveals that the thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Job did not understand that he had given satan access to his his family, his property, and his body through his fears. Job 3:25 For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. Job judged God of being unfair to allow all the evil that came on him but when he repented God turned his captivity and gave him twice as much as he had before. Job 42:6 Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. We have far greater revelation than Job had concerning the work of satan and his cohorts. Jesus put satan underfoot and gave us authority to use His name! No where in the New Testament are believers instructed to pray and ask God to make the devil stop harassing them, however, we do have four witnesses that tell us that we are to do something about the devil. ( Cast out – Don’t give place – Resist the devil – Resist in faith )
Mk. 16:17 . . . In my name shall they cast out devils . . .
Eph. 4:27 Neither give place to the devil.
James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
1 Pet. 5:8&9 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith . . .
2 Tim. 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
