On What Foundation Are You Building?

THE durability of a building depends largely on the strength of its substructure, or foundation. The Bible sometimes uses this principle in a figurative sense.

The prophet Isaiah, for example, refers to Jehovah God as the one “laying the foundation of the earth.” (Isaiah 51:13) This foundation consists of the unchangeable laws of God that control the movement of the earth and hold it in its place. (Psalm 104:5) God’s Word, the Bible, also speaks of “the foundations” on which human society rests. These are justice, law, and order. When they are “torn down,” or undermined, by injustice, corruption, and violence, there is a breakdown in social order.​—Psalm 11:2-6; Proverbs 29:4.

This principle also applies on a personal level. Concluding his famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus Christ said: “Everyone that hears these sayings of mine and does them will be likened to a discreet man, who built his house upon the rock-mass. And the rain poured down and the floods came and the winds blew and lashed against that house, but it did not cave in, for it had been founded upon the rock-mass. Furthermore, everyone hearing these sayings of mine and not doing them will be likened to a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain poured down and the floods came and the winds blew and struck against that house and it caved in, and its collapse was great.”​—Matthew 7:24-27.

On what foundation are you building your life? Is it on the unstable sands of godless human philosophy, which will result in structural collapse? Or are you building on the solid rock-mass of obedience to the sayings of Jesus Christ, which will help you to weather the figurative storms in life?