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.
