I recently wrote a post challenging the notion of so-called “pro-choice Christians.”
I was dismayed by one Facebook response to that post.
It involved a casual, “This doesn’t change my mind.”
Followed by a shrug.
I think it was the shrug that hurt the most.
Not because I was personally acquainted with this woman.
I wasn’t.
And not because her comment was particularly insulting.
It wasn’t.
It hurt because I suddenly found myself face-to-face (virtually speaking) with a person who claims to be a Christian but is completely missing the point.
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.
Matthew 7:24-25
Dear Christ-following friends, we’re immersed in a land where millions of people want to be like the wise man who builds his house on the Rock.
They want the security of the Rock.
They want the stability of the Rock.
They want the status of the Rock.
But they staunchly refuse and stubbornly reject God’s explicit instructions for how to build there.
Because building on the Rock isn’t just about calling yourself a Christian.
It’s not about believing in God or even that Jesus existed or that He died on the cross.
It’s not about living a moral life or accepting some of Christ’s teachings.
And it’s not about being baptized or growing up in church or claiming a certain political party.
What does the passage in Matthew 7 tell us? How do we become like the wise man who built his house on the rock?
By hearing His words and doing them.
Period.
Regardless of what our culture tells us or what’s politically correct.
Regardless of how others might misinterpret our beliefs and how we might suffer for them.
Too often, people who claim the name of Christ are guilty of picking and choosing which Scriptures to obey, and which ones to ignore.
We freely point out the passages about sexual sin…
but we conveniently ignore the ones about gluttony.
We’re quick to quote the parts about loving our neighbors as ourselves…
but we just can’t manage to forgive the person who wounded us so deeply.
We don’t hesitate to accept the commandments about stealing and killing…
but we’re not so sure about the Bible’s teachings on divorce.
We’re eager to laud Jesus’ example of love for sinners…
but adamantly refuse to accept His definition of marriage.
We’re definitely in favor of our government enforcing God’s command against murder…
but we reserve the “right” to decide which lives are worth protecting and under which circumstances.
James tells us that those of us who have access to the Bible and hear it and read it but don’t do it are victims of the worst kind of deception: self-deception.
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
James 1:22
Let’s be doers of the word.
In a way that makes a difference in the way we think and speak and behave.
In a way that impacts our relationships and our social media and our recreation.
In a way that affects our politics and our pocketbooks and our…
everything.
Because that’s what it means to build a house upon the Rock.
