Life Application is Crucial

Life Application is Crucial

Father,
Thank you that you sent Jesus to not only show us what it means to live in communion with you, and to give his life to ransom us back. Thank you that we get to partner with you to build your Kingdom here. Thank you that we don’t have to do it on our own. Help us to be aligned and stay in alignment with you so that we can do what you do, when you are doing it. Help us to build wisely by staying in alignment.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.

Matthew 7:24-29 (TPT)
“Everyone who hears my teaching and applies it to his life can be compared to a wise man who built his house on an unshakable foundation. When the rains fell and the flood came, with fierce winds beating upon his house, it stood firm because of its strong foundation.
“But everyone who hears my teaching and does not apply it to his life can be compared to a foolish man who built his house on sand. When it rained and rained and the flood came, with wind and waves beating upon his house, it collapsed and was swept away.”
By the time Jesus finished speaking, the crowds were awestruck by his teaching, because his words carried such great authority, quite unlike the religious scholars.

Are you the wise person or the fool? Which am I? How often have I gone off on my own and tried to build something that was not of God? How often has it worked out for me? What is the teaching Jesus is referring to, here? This comes on the heels of his teaching about discernment, and telling the good teacher from the false prophet, and before that, the Golden Rule, and prior to that, faith as shown by persistence in asking for, seeking, and knocking on the doors that you want to enter, before that, he taught us about being overly judgmental of others. So, what is the thread between these teachings? When we judge, we miss out of blessings from others. When we give up prematurely, we short circuit God’s desire to bless us and the lessons that we need to learn from persistence. When we fail to treat others well, we miss out on the blessing of knowing them and things they could have taught us. When we fail to discern a good teacher from a false prophet, we get stuck in bad situations and miss the blessing of being under a good teacher.
So, what is the thread here? What is the teaching that we need to apply here in order to be wise? What is wisdom? Wisdom is the humble fear of the Lord. Wisdom is living a life submitted to His Way, so always checking with Him in all we do. As we walk with Him, His Way becomes our way, and we become wise as we walk in right relationship with Him, and that will show up in how we treat others, how we discern places we should or shouldn’t be, etc. As we walk with and learn what pleases Him, we will grow wise, able to detect patterns sooner than others, so that we can avoid bad situations and not waste time in the same ways that we used to and that others do.
That is the life application that we need to draw from this parable and from this chapter as a whole, it is a primer on walking with God. As we learn to walk with Him, not lag behind, or run ahead of where we think He may be going, we will walk out of the hyper critical patterns that used to run our lives, we will persist in asking for the good things that we KNOW He wants to give us, we will treat others well, and we will discern which bodies we should be members in far more quickly, which will all amount to a much healthier life for us, all around. That is the fruit of wisdom in our lives. That is proof that the Holy Spirit is in us, as it will cause the Fruit of the Spirit and the Gifts to become more distinctly manifest in us as well.