Stress and the Christian
Do you remember the story of Mary and Martha when Jesus came to visit them? In that story Martha is running around like any typical housewife today, trying to get her house in order and dinner ready for all her company, most especially for Jesus as He’s a very important person. While Martha is doing all of that, Mary simply sits down with Jesus and listens to every word out of His mouth. She doesn’t want to move for fear of missing something He might say. Martha of course realizes that she’s not getting any help and goes to Jesus to complain. She’s probably thinking that Jesus will not only back her up but that it will cause her sister to feel guilty enough tat she’ll get up and help her. But Jesus once again does the unexpected and says:
Luke 10:41-42 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
I can just imagine the look on Martha’s face at that moment! Pure shock! And Mary was probably in the process of getting to her feet even as He started to speak, and her face probably was a mirror of Martha’s as she sank back down to the floor! Now the Bible doesn’t tell us anymore of what happened, but we know for sure that Jesus made sure Mary was allowed to learn all she wanted to. My guess is, since they both remained close to Jesus is that Martha also realized what was important and joined her sister at least for awhile.
More importantly though, exactly what was it that Jesus was saying was important here? What is the thing that was “needed” and “better” that our Lord said would not be taken from Mary? It was “listening to His Words”. That is what is so much more important then any of the daily busyness of life. Jesus talks about this same thing in the parable of the sower that I believe we looked at earlier.
Luke 8:14 The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life’s worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature.
This is showing the trap that Martha had started to fall into. Martha was being more concerned about life’s every day busyness and worries rather then being concerned about what was much more important, the Word of the Lord. We know from the Bible that she changed her ways because she continued on with Jesus and matured. Those who don’t make their relationship with God and His Word their priority in life, putting Him above everything else, won’t mature. Their spiritual life is choked by life’s worries, and every day activities. Jesus warns us of this again in Luke when He’s talking about the end times. He says:
Luke 21:34-35 “Constantly be on your guard so that your hearts may not be loaded down with self-indulgence, drunkenness, and the worries of this life, or that day will take you by surprise like a trap. For it will come on all who live on the face of the earth.
He’s telling us that if we don’t examine ourselves regularly, and make sure that nothing has inadvertently become a higher priority for us then Himself and His Word, that we can wind up not being ready for His return and instead be taken by surprise. He is not saying that we’ll lose our salvation, but that we won’t be as prepared as we would have been otherwise. Let’s look at how He puts this elsewhere:
Mark 13:35-37 “Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back—whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn.If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping.What I say to you, I say to everyone: ‘Watch!’ ”
Jesus is quite obviously telling us that we need to stay alert, pay attention and keep ourselves “in the faith”, by keeping Him and His Word as our number one priorities in life. When we don’t do that, it doesn’t affect our salvation but it does affect our future rewards and what our place of ministry will be in His coming Kingdom. When we are saved, God commands us to be faithful to Him. He is is our husband and when we put anything in our lives above being in communication with Him, and studying His Word, then we are committing spiritual adultery; we are allowing the cares and busyness of life to come between us and Him just as Martha did.
2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?
Haggai 1:5 Now this is what the Lord Almighty says: “Give careful thought to your ways.
Bible Studies, Friends and Fellowship
Friday, March 19, 2010
Stress and the Christian
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Stress and the Christian
Stress and the Christian
Let’s take a look now at what God says our response to the storms in our lives should be.
Romans 8:28-31 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?
2 Corinthians 5:7 We live by faith, not by sight.
I know we’ve all heard and read those words many many times, but today let’s see what they’re really saying to us. There are really only two ways we can choose to react or respond to any situation in our lives. We can respond with fear or we can respond with faith. The problem lies in that until we really and truly know in our deepest being that God really does love us, care for us, and will provide for us no matter what, and that He would never ever do anything to cause us harm, then we will act out of fear. For us humans, living in this world of sin, many of us didn’t have good earthly fathers or even a father figure to learn what paternal love really is, and so that also makes us fearful of the Lord. It’s not the good kind of “fear of the Lord” that we are supposed to have though—it’s the bad kind because it’s saying, “I don’t trust you”. All fear and worry have their roots in a lack of trust in the Lord and that lack of trust has it’s roots in not knowing Him very well. Even stress is a form of fear.
There are just so many things in our lives that are based on fear that it can be mind boggling when we begin to realize it. For example, many relationships are based in fear—they are based in the fear of being alone, or the fear of not being able to make it financially alone. Vanity is the fear of being unwanted or unloved, the fear of being alone because no one will look at us because we’re “ugly”. Greed and/or hoarding things come from the fear of being poor or not having enough when you need it. Even anger is often really just fear disguised—fear that the person doesn’t love us or trust us, fear that they will leave us and we’ll be alone; etc. On and on it goes. Fear is not from God, we can know that for sure because He tells us so.
Romans For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
2 Timothy 1:7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Fear is sin as are it’s complements- worry and stress. They do not come from God, they come from our flesh, our sin nature and even sometimes attacks on us from Satan and his demons. How can I say for sure that they are sins? Simply because they do not come from God and also because they are the outward sign that we are not trusting God 100% and that my friends is a sin. The Lord tells us though that when we know Him well we will know His love and His love will cast out that sin of fear.
Romans 8:12-17 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
1 Corinthians And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Do you see that He is saying that we have an obligation once we are saved to live each day, each moment, in the control and power of the Holy Spirit? There is only one way we can do that, and that is to be in constant communication with the Lord all the time. (and to have time daily that we can study His Word) It is our relationship with the Lord and knowing His Word that gives us the victory over fear, worry and stress. It is knowing Him intimately.
We all know that the difference in being a real Christian and a fake one is that the real Christian has a personal relationship with God while the fake Christian is just going through the motions of ritual, tradition and religion. The difference then in someone who is born again and living their life in victory as opposed to one who is floundering is the depth of their relationship with Him. It’s how much they trust Him.
I haven’t reached that prize yet myself, but as Paul says,
Philippians 3:13-16 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
Stress and the Christian
Stress and the Christian
So we’ve learned now that in order to have a strong foundation it’s imperative that we are in constant communication with the Lord. I know I often use the term “spend time with the Lord daily” but I realize now that’s really misleading because it gives the impression that there are times during the day when we’re not in communication with Him. I think I first became aware of what Paul meant when He said “pray continually” when my oldest daughter was diagnosed with Hepatitis and was fighting for her life. I literally stayed in contact with the Lord every waking moment from the time I was given that news until the day when her life was no longer in immediate danger. Two years after she was first diagnosed, she discovered she had been miraculously healed by the Lord and that was the day she recommitted her life to Him. For me however, having spent several weeks in contact with Him every waking moment was a real revelation. I grew more in those weeks then I had in several months before that, so I knew I had hit on something and I (of course lol) talked to Him about it. He then continued to teach me why staying so close to Him was important in my every day life. That’s what I’m trying so hard to share here with all of you.
You see, for some reason we humans simply refuse to really learn things when times are good and everything is going smoothly. If we do happen to learn something (which isn’t often) it’s not a well remembered lesson and is often forgotten later. However, when we are in the midst of a storm and we see the Lord sustaining us, working in our lives, then we learn and we remember! It’s the storms of life also that bring out who we really are inside. I know we’ve all heard and probably experienced the fact that when the times are really hard is when you find out who you’re true friends are. Well it’s when the times are really hard that you also find out what you’re really made of and just how much (or how little) you really trust the Lord and rely on Him. It’s during these hard times that we also discover just how good a friend (and sometimes the ONLY friend) that the Lord is to us as well.
These storms in our lives wash away any pretense in us or in our relationship with the Lord. We’re given the choice of trying to stay afloat by our own power or by climbing into His arms where it’s safe. These storms that the Lord allows into our lives either will make us pliable, soften our hearts, make us merciful and allow us to empathize with others, and increase our faith and trust in God, or they will cause us to become bitter, harden our hearts, angry, full of doubt and unbelief. Both ways of reacting are entirely up to us. It depends entirely on which way we choose to react as the storm rages on around us.
Those who have constant communication with the Lord as their anchor will always choose to be pliable, bending under the weight of the storm and leaning on the Lord, counting on Him to get them through it no matter the outcome. Those who don’t yet have that anchor of constant communication with Him are often tossed back and forth by the wind and rain of the storm just as this verse tells us that this is what happens to those who are still not mature in Christ:
Ephesians 4:13-14 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
Yes, that passage also brings us right back to studying God’s Word as well as being in constant communication with Him. Both are vitally important and those who start out with just the communication part are inevitably pushed and prodded toward His Word by the Holy Spirit because that’s often how He chooses to speak back to us and it’s an invaluable tool for learning more about the One we love and owe our very existence to.
I still have much I want to share although I realize that this is getting long already, so those who need to can stop here and take up the next portion after a break. I will make the next part of this a separate post, although I’ll post them both today.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Stress and the Christian
Stress and the Christian
I hope though that everyone is beginning to see that the transformation that was begun at salvation is continued daily as we interact with Him, and study and reflect on His Word. As we are transformed, we begin to feel our sins more deeply. It begins to hurt us more when we sin and because of that we are quick to confess them and repent. Pleasing Him becomes more and more important to us and the world in general becomes less important. Each day as the Lord teaches us, we realize that we are absorbing more in a single session with Him then we did in years of sermons or Sunday School! Another part of the transformation is the transformation of our emotions. We discover that we are now having strong reactions to things that never bothered us before, or that we never really thought about before. One day when we are confronted with circumstances that would have worried us in the past, or stressed us out, we discover to our amazement that we aren’t worried about it! Instead when we analyze our feelings we discover that the reason we’re not worried or stressed is because we know it’s going to be ok, because the Lord is in control. It’s no longer “just words” to us, it’s reality! This doesn’t happen overnight, but it does happen. It comes from knowing God personally, and knowing His Word and understanding it. Of course the only way we can really know and understand God and His Word are to spend time with Him and to really study His Word with His help every day. Jesus talks about this in the parable of the sower too, so let’s look at that today.
Matthew 13:18-23 “Listen then to what the parable of the sower means:When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path.The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy.But since he has no root, (foundation) he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away.The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful.But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
Did you notice right away that the seed that fell on the rocky places failed because it had no foundation? Jesus is giving us a huge clue right there on how to be spiritually healthy. He says that when trials came these people floundered because their faith had no foundation. They hadn’t dug deep, and they therefore didn’t understand why these bad things were happening to them or what God expected of them. They fall away because as far as they’re concerned, God didn’t give them what they wanted and it wasn’t worth any effort on their part to look any further.
His next clue comes with the seed that falls among the thorns. He says it is the worries of this life that make it fail. He isn’t saying that worry, in and of itself, causes us to fail, it’s when that worry stops us from making Him our priority, or when that worry causes us to doubt, that it makes us fail. When we allow “the worries of this life” to take precedence and then say we’re too busy to take time to study His Word with Him every day, then again the foundation can’t be built, the transformation isn’t complete and we fail.
The seed that falls on the good ground however is the seed that produces much fruit because that is the person who hears and understands God’s Word! That is the person that spends time daily studying His Word with Him and stays in constant contact with Him throughout the day. It is only through His Spirit that we can understand His Word. Therefore, those who spend time with Him daily studying His Word, are the ones that “hear His word and understand it”. Not only that though, God loves to give us more then we ask for even so to those who respond to Him in this way, He gives even more understanding! That is what He is saying here:
Matthew 13:11-12 He replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them.Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.
God is promising us that if we will make Him a priority in our lives and spend time with Him in His Word that He will give us an abundance of understanding. The opposite also holds true however and that is another reason why so many fall prey to false teachers today. Those who don’t spend time with Him this way, will have even their initial understanding taken from them. Our Lord has never been one to tolerate apathy or being lukewarm, but He always gives us more then we deserve, ask for or earn. This abundance of understanding is what will build that strong deep foundation for us and what will make us stand firm and strong during trials. This is what will keep us from being worried or stressed out, and will make our faith become stronger every day.
Please feel free to ask questions and we'll talk more about it tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Stress and the Christian
Stress and the Christian
Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
As we study and reflect on God’s Word, we are changed, we are transformed. The transformation that began with our salvation is continued as we study His Word. The study alone isn’t what does it though, it’s the study of His Word along with spending time with Him.
Now, I’m not talking about carving out 15-30 mins a day to pray when I say “spending time with Him”. That’s often what others will tell new Christians but unfortunately it becomes a “duty” or a ritual way to often and there’s little feeling or companionship in it. It becomes a dry recital of a list of wants way to often. When I speak of spending time with the Lord, I mean for us to interact with Him all the time throughout the day just as though He actually was with us. The reason for this is because He really IS with us, and most of the time He’s pretty much ignored or treated like an unwelcome guest at best.
So when we’re studying His Word, we should be talking to Him as well, at the same time. Who better to get understanding of the Bible from then the one who wrote it? Then as we continue our day, we should continue to converse with Him throughout the day about what’s going on with us—again, just as though He was really with us—because He really is!
It’s this combination of interaction with Him and the study of His Word that brings about our transformation to be more and more like Jesus. Our lives do not belong to us any longer as we were bought with a price. So our lives now are our sacrifice to Him, which He purifies and transform daily so that we become more and more like Him, making us holy, sacred and acceptable to Him.
1 Peter 2:5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Each day as we interact and study His Word with Him, deepens and solidifies the foundations of our faith so that when the storms come, we can stand firm, and we won’t collapse under the stress. It’s as though He makes His Word a part of us as He transforms us.
Are you wondering what all this has to do with overcoming worry and stress? Think of it this way; have you ever noticed God being worried or stressed out over things? Of course not! In fact, He’s the one that tells us not to worry! So you see, the more we are transformed by Him to become more like Him, the less we will worry and the less we will be stressed out. Things like worry, depression, stress, and fear won’t be an issue for us anymore because we will have built such a strong solid foundation on the Truth that the lies of the enemy won’t be able to take hold of us like they do unbelievers.
We’ll discuss this a little more tomorrow.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Stress and the Christian
Yesterday we discussed that the secret is that the foundation has to start with Jesus, and must be dug deep. We learned that digging a deep foundation requires time and commitment from us which is why Jesus told us to “count the cost” before beginning. Digging a deep foundation isn’t something that can be done easily or quickly, it’s something that takes time, and a lot of it. Let’s take a closer look at some of those other verses we had yesterday to see what else we can learn about the foundation. I’ll post them again for you:
Ephesians 2:19-22 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
From the passage above we learn that although Jesus is the cornerstone of our foundation, it’s also built on the apostles and prophets. This lets us know that we need to turn to both the old and new Testament to gain the materials we need for our foundation.
Isaiah 33:6 He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.
This next verse is talking about Jesus and it says that He is a rich store of salvation, wisdom and knowledge. It also indicates that this treasure of salvation, wisdom and knowledge can be ours if we have a way to open it. It sounds like it would be the perfect material for our foundation, but how do we get it? We’re told the way to get that treasure is to have the fear of the Lord. We’ve discussed this in other studies so we won’t go into it at length in this one. However I do want to say a little about it as it pertains to this study. Let’s look at a few other verses that speak of this.
Proverbs “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
Here we see that knowledge of God can help us understand things.
Proverbs 2:3-6 and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
Ahh! Now here is what we’re looking for! How to get the fear of the Lord! We need to seek it as hard as we can and we know that the place to look is somwhere we can attain knowledge of God and then He Himself will give us the wisdom and knowledge we need to build our foundation. It reminds me a lot of the verse that says that when we seek for the Lord with all our heart, then we will find Him and He will answer us. So this is beginning to sound to me that the material we need for our foundation is only going to be found if we put all our hearts into the search and look in the right places. This leads us right back to one of the other passages from yesterday:
Hebrews 6:1-3 Therefore let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And God permitting, we will do so.
Here we have another good hint at what we need for our foundation. This is telling us that the foundation needs to include the basic principals of our faith. In other words, we need to know what we believe and why we believe these things. We already know that God has called us into a relationship with Him and isn’t interested in us just having “book learning” and head knowledge. So this in turn brings us full circle right back to Jesus:
Matthew 11:27-28 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
The long and short of it is that our foundation is our relationship with the Lord and our knowledge of Him and His Word. Both these areas of the relationship take time and energy. We are told over and over in the bible that we are to study to show ourselves approved, study to become mature in Christ; that we are to pray continually, and give thinks in everything. This then is our foundation. It’s more then just “reading the bible every day”. It’s reading, studying, and reflecting on the bible every day and spending time talking to the Lord (prayer) every day. It’s talking to Him when you’re studying His Word, talking to Him when you’re at work, when you’re at home, when you’re at a ball game, etc. It’s knowing that He really IS with you all the time and it’s not polite to just ignore Him. It’s wanting to know Him better so you read and study all about Him. That my friends is our foundation.
It’s not easy. It take a lot of time and commitment from us. The cost is high the way the world sees it, but is it really so much to give to the one who died to give you eternal life in a perfect body with no sin nature? I don’t think so! Now tomorrow I’ll try to explain more of how and why this foundation is so necessary and how when we have this foundation and build on it, things like stress and worry become less and less of a problem for us.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Stress and the Christian
Stress and the Christian
Luke 6:46-49 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
1 Peter 2:5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:13-16 Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
I’d like to start this study looking at the above scriptures and discussing what they mean to us. Once we are saved, we are told that we are being built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood for God. Often we are told to “be holy” just as God is holy. Usually we brush over those verses though because we know that’s impossible for us. Unfortunately when we do that, we often wind up not even trying, and when someone calls us on it, we get indignant and tell them they’re being legalistic, and that we’re not under the law anymore. Of course that’s true, we’re not under the law anymore, we’re under grace, what we fail to realize is that God can and will give us the grace we need to do what He has called us to do. In this case, the calling is high—to be holy. It’s much easier to deal with though when we realize that being holy is the outcome of many little steps. It’s the goal, it’s what we are to strive for each day, one little step at a time, one decision at a time.
Now let’s look at what Jesus said in the passage in Luke. He asks His disciples why are they calling Him Lord when they’re not obeying Him. He then proceeds to explain to them and to us, why we need to pay attention to Him and obey Him. Notice that He gives two examples in this passage; and example of the person who obeys Him and an example of the person who doesn’t obey Him. In both examples however the newly built house is hit by a flood and torrent! So obedience doesn’t mean that we won’t have problems, that’s for sure! The obedient one’s house was hit just as hard as the other one! So what was the difference? Keep in mind now that we are the house. The house of the person who is disobedient collapses and is totally destroyed while the house of the one who obeys wasn’t even shaken!
So now we have to ask ourselves, which ones are we? Are we collapsing? Are we shaken? Or do we stand firm when the flood of hard times or calamity hits us? I’m afraid that I had to admit that I was someone who pretty much collapsed. I still believed, but I was always worried and stressed out. This told me that I had some work to do and so I began to pray. The first thing I wanted to know and that we all need to know is what do we do if we realize that we’re not able to stand firm during the storms of life? That same passage gives us that information too. Read it one more time.
Luke 6:46-49 “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
Here we see that the secret is the foundation has to be right, the foundation must be built on Jesus and must dug deep. I don’t think it’s a surprise to any of us that Jesus is the foundation and that it must be Him or it won’t work, but what does it mean to “dig deep”? To answer that, let’s look at the opposite first, which would be shallow. Something done shallowly is something that has been done in such a way that it lacks depth of intellect, knowledge or intelligence. So to dig deeply we need to supply knowledge and intelligence.
Let’s look at what a couple of other verses say about this first before we get into it so we have a little more to go on:
Ephesians 2:19-22 Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.
Isaiah 33:6 He will be the sure foundation for your times, a rich store of salvation and wisdom and knowledge; the fear of the Lord is the key to this treasure.
Isaiah 28:16 So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed.
Digging a deep foundation on Jesus requires time and commitment from us. It’s not something done quickly or with little thought. That really does make sense though since the ultimate outcome is quite important. In fact, it’s so important that Jesus tells us to count the cost of it before we begin.
Luke 14:28-30 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
Since this is already getting quite long, I’d like to stop here and let you reflect on all of the verses we discussed today and all that’s been said so far before we continue tomorrow.