We got up today and just on a random whim decided to take the boys to the beach. My youngest had been asking all summer to go and so we took him to play in the sand and waves. When we got to the beach there was a beautiful sandcastle right in front of where we chose to sit. The tide was coming in and it threatened to destroy the cool sand edifice and my boys decided to make it their mission to build a HUGE wall around the sandcastle in order to protect it, keeping it from being destroyed. For the better part of an hour, they worked and built. It was funny to see them work so hard to protect a castle that wasn’t even theirs. As I sat watching, I was proud of their efforts, but knew in the end it would be futile. The tide would take it.

That got me to thinking…

So many of us are like my boys. Trying to defend a KINGDOME, a castle bound for destruction because it is made of sand. We work hard to build walls, protect our “stuff” and to work diligently to spend our lives shielding the “beautiful edifices”. But it is inevitable. We can spend our days doing that, but IT IS COMING DOWN. We work so hard to put our money in purses with holes, build houses made of sand and invest in what will never last. We are just making castles out of sand and trying to protect it from the tide.

The wise man builds upon the rock. The catch to that passage of Scripture is that the wise man HEARS and ACTS, building his house on the rock so that when the rains come, it is not swept away.

Matt 7:24-27

24 "Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock.

25 "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and {yet} it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock.

26 "And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand.

27 "And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall."

The key to not being swept away is THREE FOLD.

HEARING, ACTING and WHERE YOU BUILD. So, the question for us is three fold.

Have you heard the Words of the Lord? Have you acted on them? And where are you building, sand or rock? Perhaps we are just building on sand and trying to build walls around what will inevitably fall? Perhaps we have heard, but haven’t acted?

This afternoon was a good word picture of what building in the wrong place, not listening to the Lord or acting on His Words can do for us.

ALL FOR YOU