A 40 Day Journey to Becoming Like the One We Follow
Day 17: Wisdom (Matthew 7:24-25)
When we're watching renovation shows on HGTV, everyone wants to skip right to the finishes - the paint color, the furniture, the light fixtures, the flooring - everything that makes a house feel like a home. But none of those things matter if the foundation is crumbling and the floor joists are rotting.
Home inspectors on TikTok are really unveiling the ugly truth of most flipped homes. Short cuts, shoddy craftsmanship, neglect for following codes, and even support and foundation issues. These houses may look bright and new and stylish on the outside, but their insides are crumbling.
That's what it's like, Jesus says, if you only listen to what he has to say without putting it into practice.
Strong houses start with the foundation. Strong lives are built from the ground up.
Jesus' teachings fall well in line with Jewish Wisdom Tradition. The Sermon on the Mount is a masterclass in wisdom literature. It's not just about knowing all the right things, its about putting that knowledge into practice to gain life experience.
I truly believe the way of Jesus is the best way to live my life, and yours. He is so full of wisdom into the human condition - our modus operandi, our idiosyncrasies, our cognitive distortions, our logical fallacies - that he knew precisely how to interact with any given person on any given day.
But it isn't just what he says or even what he does. Wisdom is who he is. Jesus is the embodiment of God's wisdom. When he says, "I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," that's wisdom language. When John describes Jesus as "The Word," that's wisdom language.
The earliest Christ-followers were known as The Way before they were known as the church or called Christians. They knew The Way of Jesus was the best way, the wise way, the way that leads to a strong foundation and a sturdy frame on which to build your life.