“Keep Your Shoes On, The Terrain Is Dangerous…” ((DTFD, December 10))

(from “Daily Thoughts for Disciples” by Oswald Chambers, December 10th entry)

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“Whoever hears these saying of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man.” — Matthew 7:24

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We speak of building castles in the air; that is where a castle should be — whoever heard of a castle underground! The problem is how to get the foundation under your castle in the air so that it can stand upon the earth.

The way to put foundations under our castles is by paying attention to the words of Jesus Christ. We may read and listen and not make much of it at the time, but by and by we come into circumstances when the Holy Spirit will bring back to us what Jesus said — are we going to obey?

Jesus says that the way to put foundations under spiritual castles is by hearing and doing “these sayings of Mine.” Pay attention to His words, and give time to doing it.

Our spiritual castles must be conspicuous, and the test of a building is not its fair beauty but its foundations. There are beautiful spiritual fabrics raised in the shape of books and of lives, full of the finest diction and activities, but when the test comes, down they go. They have not been built upon the sayings of Jesus Christ, but built altogether in the air with no foundations under them.

“Build up your character bit by bit by attention to My words,” says Jesus, then when the supreme crisis comes, you will stand like a rock. The crisis does not come always, but when it does come, it is all up in about two seconds; there is no possibility of pretense, you are unearthed immediately. If one has built oneself up in private by listening to the words of Jesus and obeying them, when the crisis comes it is not one’s strength of will that keeps him or her, but the tremendous power of God.

Go on building yourself up in the Word of God when no one is watching you, and when the crisis comes you will find you will stand like a rock.

All you build will end in disaster unless it is built on the sayings of Jesus Christ; but if you are doing what Jesus told you to do, nourishing your soul on His Word, you need not fear the crisis whatever it is.

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Taken from Daily Thoughts for Disciples, © 1976, 1994 by Oswald Chambers Publications Association, Ltd., and used by permission of Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids MI 49501. All rights reserved.

[[Some words Chambers uses are not used often today — click [here] to look up difficult words.]]

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Brief commentary:

James put it this way:

“For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.”(James 1:23-25)

There are lots of people who’ve been present in church buildings over the millenia, listening to sermons and preaching of varying degrees of ferocity. Some have been unbelievers, some have been devout in their faith. Some grew up in the church and left, some never stepped foot in a church building until that day. Some were curious, some antagonistic, some hesitant, and some only showed up because a friend bribed them with a free lunch after.

The words spoken from the pulpits isn’t always Biblical instruction; some — strike that, many — over the centuries have preached soothing, feel-good topical discussions geared more towards pleasing the ears of the attenders and boosting church attendance than actual discipleship. But in the cases of actual Biblical doctrine going out and being taught well, what happens at the other end of the sound waves?

When we, sitting in the pews, benches or chairs, hear the messages, hear the words of Jesus being taught, do we accept them and say to ourselves, “wow, that’s good stuff,” only to walk away and do nothing with it? Or do we let it sting us, let the words pierce us, so that they can be used by the Spirit to stir up in us a greater resemblance to Him?

I’m a dad; before I was a dad, I was just a guy. I love doing things with my hands, building and working and creating and forming. As such, places like Home Depot are very, very dangerous territories. Why? Because there are lots of wonderful tools everywhere the eye can see, scores of useful doodads and gizmos that can do this or be helpful with that. And if a man (or woman) is not careful, it’s easy to spend a small fortune buying things you think you need — or at least, things you might need someday (but you have to buy it now, because it’s on sale, of course).

The danger isn’t in buying the tools; the danger is in filling  your garage with tools that just sit and collect dust. And that’s exactly what happens in the minds and hearts of far too many Christians today — they “buy the tools” in Sunday morning and Wednesday evening services, but then those tools just sit unused in their daily lives.

As noted, you’re not going to use every tool every day, simply because we typically will experience different things each day. New trials, new challenges, new people, new interactions, new circumstances. There will be some tools we use frequently, and some we use rarely, so some might need to be fastened to our “tool belts” while others can be left in the “tool box” for more occasional use, but hopefully, at some point every so often, all our tools will come into usage.

It never ceases to amaze me how many believers fill their lives with spiritual junk, then wonder why, in times of spiritual hurricanes (or even in times of just a soft breeze blowing), their world seemingly falls apart. It’s always difficult to counsel someone who’s going through the wringer on the outside, only to find out their wounds are largely self-inflicted through simply not doing the things they’ve been taught (in some cases, taught repeatedly over the course of many years).

Too common an example: “What do you mean, you didn’t know what to do when the guy (or gal) at work started flirting with you? Haven’t you heard like a bajillion times that the remedy is to flee youthful lusts, confess your situation to a believing sister (or brother) for support and Biblical advice, and stand apart from that behavior? So why then are you now saying you want to leave your husband (or wife) for this guy (or gal) that you ‘just happen’ to now have feelings for after reciprocating those flirtations?”

If you see a dog leave a land mine in your yard, you don’t take your shoes off when you start up the lawn mower. Common sense, people…we need to put His words into practice.