Up to code

 This week's verses are Luke 6:43-49:

“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from brambles. The good person out of the good treasury of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury produces evil, for his mouth speaks from what fills his heart.

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do what I tell you?

“Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and puts them into practice—I will show you what he is like: He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep, and laid the foundation on bedrock. When a flood came, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the person who hears and does not put my words into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against that house, it collapsed immediately, and was utterly destroyed!”

These verses are about how to tell if you're faithful or not, and about how the architecture of our faith determines whether we produce its fruit or not.

Here Jesus is telling us that a pure and righteous heart produces pure and righteous actions, while an impure and corrupt heart produces impure and corrupted actions. By looking at what your life choices produce, you can get an idea of what your heart may be like. If we faithfully follow Jesus, our lives will look like his. If we don't, it will look very different.

Do your thoughts and actions align with how Jesus taught us to live?

Why do we attest to being Christians but don't live that way? Could a construction company get away with building a building that looks nothing like what the architect drew? Could we get away with saying that we comply with a safety standard but just do whatever we want? If your faith is not solid, you are like that careless person paying lip service to the rules while creating an ugly deathtrap that will collapse in on itself at the first sign of trouble.

Can you say Jesus is your boss if you don't do what he says?

 Following Jesus is hard work. He compares it to a guy who takes advice and digs all the way down to the bedrock to build his house. There were no building code officers and planning committees back in Jesus' time. If you wanted to cut corners, that was a valid choice. A house anchored to the rock looks the same from the outside as the house that's just built on the surface. And the surface house costs a lot less! Or at least it does at first.

But much like the guy with the surface-deep house, we try to take the easy road by not putting in the work. We cut corners. We spend our time and resources on other things. Things seem to be working and we justify our cut corners. But then the storm comes and it becomes clear how shallow our foundation is.

 Jesus is asking us to put in the work and build on the rock that can't be moved.

We can start by doing a quick survey of things. What fruit is your life producing? What do your relationships look like? What does your work ethic look like? Is your mouth building others up or tearing them down? Take a good look.

Then we can open the Bible and have a look at what we're asked to do. Are you loving others as yourself? Do you put God's commands before your own desires?

We are lucky to have Jesus' words at our disposal. There is still time to make course corrections and get digging to build that foundation of faith. Do you want Jesus to be your Lord? Then start doing what he says and living like he is your Lord.