At the end of this incredible sermon, Jesus says, "These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on (7.24)."
One of the greatest dangers of living in a "christian culture" is that we view the words of Jesus as nice little fortune cookies for life. They look good in a frame on a wall, but they are not engrained in who we are as a people. They sound good on Sunday mornings, but don't let them really effect my day-to-day life. Being a Christ-follower is invasive. Following Christ gets in the way, and in the middle of a lot of things. Think about a typical day. It gets into how we wake up and view the day ahead. It gets into how we wake our kids up, how we pack their lunches and how we send them off to school. It gets into how we sit in traffic on the way to work. It gets into the things we think about as we drive. It gets into how we perform at our jobs. It gets into the breaks we take, the emails we forward and the conversations we have in the office. It gets into our responses to traffic on our ways home. It gets into how we treat our families when we do get home. It gets into the activities our kids are involved in and how involved we are. It gets into how we help our kids with homework and how we tuck them in at night. It gets into what we watch on television. It gets into our relationship with our spouses - physically, emotionally and spiritually. It gets into our vacations and our weekends, our vehicles and our homes, our clothes and our toys.
"If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock...But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach (7.24-27)."
Being a Christ-follower impacts more of my life today than it did 5 years ago, but it's not near what it should be or what I want it to be. I still compartmentalize and I still work outside this standard of living. I still do things I don't want to do, and fail to do things that I do want to do. I don't think I am alone in this struggle, but I hope I'm not alone in saying it out loud...or typing it in the blog.
What hit you today? Did you make it through the chapter or did something stop you in your tracks?
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