Today, Monday November 22
“Building on the Firm Foundation”
Jude 1:20-21 “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”
If we are to stand and not stumble over the lies and deceit of the false teachers it is very important for us to “build up ourselves on our most holy faith” (v. 20). Jude started out this letter by stating his reason for writing it and said he “found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (v. 3). The “faith” Jude is speaking about is of course the Word of God. This “faith” is the firm foundation upon which we must build.
The Apostle Paul wrote about this to the church at Corinth in his first epistle to them. “For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:9-15)
I love how Paul said, “You are ….God’s building”. And he made it clear that Jesus Christ is the only foundation that our lives and churches should be built on! Jesus is the Living Word! A building without a good, firm foundation will not stand the test of time and storms that might hit it. Our lives will not stand the storms of life, the deceitfulness of the false teachers and the lies of the devil if we are not daily building on the right foundation!
And as Paul points out, we must make sure we are building with the right materials. One day what we have built, will be tried by fire as to what kind of life and ministry did we really have! For sure the building programs of the apostates and false teachers will be expose as wood, hay and straw and will be burned up!
The only way we build with gold, silver and precious stones is by staying connected to the foundation of Jesus Christ and totally depending on Him and the power of the Holy Spirit for any deed or work that we do!
God Bless!