“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” – Matthew 7:24

The world can be a shaky place. It can seem perfectly solid for long periods of times before – BOOM – everything you thought you could count on is shaken. An accident, illness, disability, disaster, economic downturn, war, political upheaval, or cultural shift can strike without warning and wipe out everything you thought would last forever. What you believed to be stable quickly turns out to be built on shifting sand when those storms come. Event can quickly follow disastrous event leaving you feeling lost, trapped, confused, and hopeless.

However, there is a stable, unchanging foundation upon which you can build your life. That foundation is Jesus and obedience to His commands. If your life and its meaning are rooted in the world, it will always be on shaky ground. If your life, identity, and being is rooted in the unchanging love of Jesus Christ and His union with everyone Who believes in Him, then you’re building on something that will never fail you. When you build your life on obeying all that Jesus commands, you will remain firmly rooted in the Sustainer of the Universe.

The world will continue to change. Disasters will continue to happen. However, if you’re committed to obeying Jesus, your life is on an unshakable, unbreakable foundation of His love, grace, and ongoing presence with you in every situation. Hear the words of Jesus AND do them. Build your life on the bedrock of the Son of God! #FollowJesus

“But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” – Matthew 6:30

Jesus doesn’t want you feeling anxious about the basic necessities of life. The world seems to want you anxious, but Jesus doesn’t. In His kindness, Jesus works to set our minds at ease. Pointing to the beauty of nature, He highlights how careful and wonderful God’s care is for even the humble things of the earth. Flowers live only for a short time, yet God cares and provides for them. They don’t have to be beautiful but God makes them extraordinarily beautiful. Birds are not particularly important and yet, God provides everything they need. They don’t need to worry about anything. They’re free to simply focus on being what God made them to be.

The point Jesus is making is that if God is so faithful, good, caring, and generous toward even the smallest things in His creation, how much more does He care about you? If He sees the need of the smallest flower and bird, He absolutely sees your need. After all, you’re made in His image. You are the crown jewel of His creation. God cares deeply about you.

If you’ll focus your time, energy, and attention on being what God made you to be: a servant and citizen of His Kingdom, He’ll take care of you. You don’t need to be anxious about the basics. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to work for what you need or want, but it does mean that you don’t need to be worrying about those things which you can’t control. Worry and anxiety distract and consume you without producing anything useful. Jesus wants you to be at peace in Him.

Pursue God’s Kingdom. Let your mind be at peace. #FollowJesus

“For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” – Matthew 5:20

It’s impossible for us to imagine how shocking this statement would have been to the original audience. Jesus said that nobody could enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless they were more righteous than the most righteous people anyone in the audience had ever met! The scribes and Pharisees seem like cartoonish villains to us today but they were the people most zealous for God, most respected by the people, and most likely to fulfill all of the Law of Moses. And Jesus said we need to be more holy and righteous than that! Impossible!!!

How could there be any hope for people like us? We’re nowhere near as concerned with personal holiness as the scribes and Pharisees. How could we ever be perfect in righteousness? We can’t. That’s the point. We have no hope of getting into God’s Kingdom on our own. There’s absolutely NOTHING we can ever do to earn our way into God’s Kingdom. We are born sinners and will never be righteous enough to match our perfectly holy God.

Thankfully, Jesus was righteous enough for all of us! Jesus alone lived a sinless life of perfect righteousness. Jesus alone perfectly fulfilled and completed the righteous requirements of God’s Law. Jesus alone was infinitely more righteous than the scribes and Pharisees. Jesus is the only person who deserves entry into God’s Kingdom.

However, because God is gracious, the righteousness of Jesus is credited to everyone who believes in Him. When you trust in Jesus, all your sinful unrighteousness is nailed to the cross with Him. He already suffered all of God’s righteous wrath for your sins. Your sin was credited to Jesus and His righteousness was credited to you. That happened the moment you your faith in your risen Savior.

The only way out of the utter despair that logically follows from these words is to trust in Jesus and let Him save you from your sins. He’s already purchased your righteousness with His blood if you’ve trusted in Him. Have you? #FollowJesus

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;
fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
– Proverbs 1:7

As a culture, we’re literally drowning in information! Have you noticed? News feeds, social media feeds, 24 hour cable news, emails, newsletters, and notifications inundate us with information. Some of it’s true. Some of it’s false. We’re learning and producing information at an ever-accelerating rate (this is true). But what good is all that new information doing? Are we happier, healthier, wealthier, kinder, more loving, or more satisfied? Is all that information helping us become wiser or just making us ever more foolish?

All truth comes from God because He is truth. All wisdom comes from God because He is wisdom. That means that we’ll never be able to turn the flood of information into life-changing wisdom apart from God. As good as it is to discover and learn new things, the reality is that most of us need more wisdom in this new year rather than more knowledge.

What are you doing to cultivate wisdom? What’s your plan to slow down what’s coming in (and out) of your head and intentionally reflect on it… To sift the good from the bad, the true from the false, the wise from the foolish… To apply the information you receive so that it becomes wisdom? Are you making time to root your mind, soul, and heart in God’s unchanging wisdom?

True wisdom and learning comes from knowing God and being in awe of your Creator. As a follower of Jesus, His Holy Spirit will help you turn knowledge into wisdom. So, make space in your daily life to spend time with God, to read and contemplate Scripture, and to be in awe of your Creator. #FollowJesus

“Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.” – Matthew 3:4

John the Baptist certainly had a unique fashion sense and diet! You probably don’t want to imitate that as your New Year’s resolution. He dressed like the old-time prophet Elijah to help Israel understand that God had sent His first prophet in four centuries. John was all about the authentic word of God, not appearances. Listen up, he announced…

John offered Israel good news and bad news. The good news was that God’s Kingdom was about to break into the world. The Messiah was coming soon to a countryside near them! The bad news is that they were deeply sinful people who needed to get onto God’s agenda if they were going to receive the Messiah and enter the Kingdom.

Many did. God drew enormous crowds to this wild man with the wild diet. They came to repent of their sins and be baptized as a sign of spiritual cleansing. They came to prepare their hearts to respond to Jesus, though they didn’t yet know His name. Unfortunately, many didn’t come. Many of the most “religious” people of the day wanted little to do with John the Baptist. They valued their religion over the authentic word of God. They did the same when they encountered Jesus.

John prepared the way for Jesus. Jesus came in a very different style, but He certainly got people’s attention. Some embraced Him. Most rejected Him. That remains true today. Have you embraced Jesus? Is He your Savior? Your Lord? Your King? If not, what’s stopping you from believing in Him and entering God’s Kingdom? #FollowJesus