Each morning I ride my bike over to our workout center here at Stone Creek a little before 7:00. I put my helmet in my bike basket as I go in to workout. One morning when I came back out, I found a few small oak twigs in the basket. I picked them out without much thought. The next morning the same thing happened except that there were a few more. On the third morning there were even more. I’m pretty dense, but I finally figured it out. A bird was trying to build a nest in my bike helmet. Even though a nest in a bike helmet would never work, I still felt a little guilty as I dumped out the poor bird’s effort. The poor bird needed to find a permanent place with a solid base on which to build its nest. Since this episode, I’ve put the helmet bowl side down in the basket and have found no more twigs.

We know that to build a safe house we need to build it with a solid base, a firm foundation, and our local building codes are designed to insure that this is the case. The structure of our spiritual life is the same; it needs a firm foundation. This foundation is Jesus and His word. In that well-known hymn How Firm a Foundation we sing “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent word!” To see how Jesus described this, read Matthew 7:24-27 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Jim

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” Matthew 7:24-27