Reclamation project

Reclamation project

 

Thought- “At salvation, everything we’ve built our life upon comes crashing down and is removed like rubble from a vacant lot. Then a new foundation is laid in Christ, and we begin building upon it day by day with our deeds and motives” – Charles Stanley

Scripture- “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 3:11

Thought- My family and I like watching fixer upper shows on T.V. where sometimes houses undergo such an extreme makeover that you can hardly recognize the new house from the old house.  The old house comes crashing down and the new house begins to take shape. This is how it is when Christ comes into a new believer’s life at salvation. The thought of the day quote from above succinctly points out that as believer’s, God in Christ must reorder our life in such a way that the old is literally torn down and cast aside like “rubble” and then we begin to reconstruct our life on the firm foundation of Jesus Christ, which is not circumstantially based, but stronger and more enduring and eternally based. Matthew 7:24 points to the wisdom of building our “life” houses on the firm foundation of Christ when it proclaims, “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.”

When I look back on my life before Christ, I can clearly see it was built on a faulty and weak foundation. It was circumstantially driven, which led to incredible highs and lows and always an inward fear and doubt about the future. Now, although life still has peaks and valleys, I can feel the undergirding strength of Jesus carrying me through all of life’s twists and turns and it gives me more peace and the ability to better withstand the storms of life that previously were so catastrophic to my emotional stability. In other words, my life is now built on a firm foundation, not on a pile of rubble. It doesn’t mean things don’t get hard; they do. It doesn’t mean I don’t have doubts; I do. It just means that Christ is now the foundation of my life, not myself and all the things the world says makes you happy but never did. I was previously living on shifting sand, but at salvation my foundation was built on the rock of Christ, who alone is the Cornerstone.

Prayer: Father God, thank you that at salvation you replaced my weak foundation with the solid ground of your Son, Jesus Christ. I didn’t know before how weak my foundation was, but at salvation you revealed it as the rubble it was. Thank you for the reclamation project you begun on my life and will carry on unto completion, as Philippians 1:6 says. In Jesus name, Amen!