From words of Jesus to works of!

Matthew 7:21.24-27

"Knowing the correct password, saying 'Master, Master,' for instance, isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience, doing what my Father wills. "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. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. 25 Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit, but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. 26" 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. 27 When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards. "

Food for thought!

Jesus was in a double sense an expert. He was an expert in scripture. He is referring to Proverbs 10:25. "When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established for ever" (Prov.10:25). But Jesus was also an expert in life. He was the craftsman who knew all about the building of houses, and when he spoke about the foundations of a house he knew what he was talking about. He was a son of a carpenter.

There are two great permanent truths within this passage. There is only one way in which a man's sincerity can be proved, and that is by his practice. Fine words can never be a substitute for fine deeds. So often we confess God with our lips and deny him with our lives. It is not difficult to recite the creed, to say the prayers, even to go to church or to Bible study meetings.

So as we go to church, go to Mass, kneel down to pray, as we read the Bible, we should remember that it is not enough; it is just the beginning. The second part is to act as the Lord has told us in the prayer. But the intriguing question is, why don't we take Jesus'  words that much serious? Why don't we build our whole life on Jesus' words? I can only think of a few reasons.

The first, and may be the only reason why we don't take him serious, is that we think that his words are only good for the soul, not for the body too; we think that what Jesus tells us serves only for our spiritual life and not our whole life; we think that his words don't serve for our business life, our social life, our family life; we think that his words serve only inside churches not in the market place, not on the Main Street.

But this is not true. Jesus says very clearly that "If you work these words into your life" he does not say your spiritual life, he says your LIFE, all of life, whole life. In other words, Jesus' words serve not just for the soul, not just for a part of us, but for the whole of us, both body and soul. What Jesus tells us is as good in our private lives as in our public lives; they are as good inside the church as outside the church, on the Main Street. In other words, we can and must build our whole life on the words of Jesus.