I believe Jesus’s words in Matthew 7 are more about being wise or unwise in the way we live and I believe He’s showing us the difference between a life full of joy or a life full of misery. He’s pointing out the way to a faith and witness that endure and overcome no matter what comes against it compared to a faith that crumbles and collapses with the slightest resistance. Jesus said that it all comes down to two things: first, “You hear My Word”; second, “You live My Word.”

There is no way around the authority and the importance Jesus put on the truth of the Bible. In John 10:35, Jesus said,

“The Scripture cannot be set aside”.

In His ministry, Jesus pointed back to and affirmed the accounts of Abraham, Isaiah, Moses, and Jonah. He quoted the prophets and the law when He drove His points home. One of the major reasons we believe in the authority of the Old Testament is because Jesus testified to it. At least twenty times in the four Gospels, Jesus pointed to the Old Testament when He said, “It is written.” Isn’t it amazing that the One who had the power to cast out demons and to command them where to go and what to do used the words of the Bible to resist Satan?

This is a clear statement that’s being made for us when the One who had the power to just move a finger and bind Satan up for the rest of eternity or destroy him completely with a thought dealt with our Enemy three different times by saying, “It is written.” Jesus’s example shows us that the truth and power of God’s Word are the foundation for living our lives.

Hebrews 4:12 says,

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

God’s Word is the truth, but it’s a different kind of truth than something that just works or makes sense. Because it is breathed by God, the Word of God is a kind of truth that can cut spiritual chains that hold your heart. It can produce a fountain of joy deep within your spirit. It’s not just right or wrong. It’s an alignment with the Creator of the universe and the way He intends things to be. Therefore, it carries His power and authority.

One Truth and the Lies

There is so much power in the truth. The clearest way to see that is just to consider the destruction and devastation that come from a lie. Consider the lie that was penned by Sergui Nilus in 1905. He wrote down the lie that the Jewish people were conspiring to take over and corrupt the world. His lie was picked up and spread by the Nazi party, taught to their children in schools, and eventually led to the extermination of six million people. That’s the power of one lie. The truth changes everything.

Think about the power of this statement: “I was wrong.” Have you ever been wrong about a person? Wrong in your approach? When you finally understood the truth, not a single thing changed about your circumstances, yet with that one realization everything changed at the same time. The truth is beautiful. The truth is powerful. God has been so kind to reveal the truth you need for this life in the Bible. There are things you believe and hold onto that just aren’t true, if your told them for long enough.

For example, did you know that Napoleon wasn’t short? He was five feet six, which was average for a Frenchman in the early 1800s. Did you know that there isn’t zero gravity in space? There’s actually gravity everywhere in the universe, even in space. The reason astronauts appear to float isn’t because gravity is gone, it’s because they are farther away from large objects like the Earth, so the pull of gravity is weaker than what we feel on the ground. But even more importantly, Astronauts in orbit (like on Artemis II) are still being pulled by Earth’s gravity almost as strongly as we are on the surface. They feel weightless because they are in continuous freefall around the Earth. They’re falling with the spacecraft, so everything inside falls together creating that floating effect.

There are all sorts of little lies that attack us every day. Just look at your social media posts or the social media posts of some of the most powerful people in the world. Without the truth of God’s Word to show us differently, we feed on them, we believe them, we live by them, and we fall and fail because of them. But if we don’t get some outside help, we’ll never know any different. There are little things that you have taken to be true your whole life that God’s Word would say, “No, that’s not the way it is.” Here are a few you might believe: “I won’t ever really recover from this.” “I’m always one step away from it all falling apart.” “I can keep getting away with this, and no one will get hurt.” “I’m not as good. I’m not as lovable, pretty, capable, or godly as he or she is.” “God is boring.” “God is exacting, uptight, angry, unfair, uninvolved, unloving, and unkind.”

You see, God’s Word dispels every single one of those lies.

I think one of the greatest lines we’ve all had said to us or even said ourselves and feel like its Biblical is the line “God won’t give me anything I can’t handle!”

The truth is we will have things in our lives that we can’t handle! No where in the bible does this line exist.  The Truth is we won’t have to handle them on our own- He will walk with us! And when we hold onto the truth of God’s Word concerning all those things listed above and more and put that truth into practice, everything changes.

One of the complaints about the Bible is that it’s an old book. And if we were talking about a manual for building a computer, I’d be concerned. Because the manual would talk about all sorts of things & parts that don’t help at all today for today’s computers.

Because we’re talking about guidance for what we believe, how we live, and what’s always true, I’d actually prefer a guide that’s been tested and proven over time. The reason I’d prefer an old Bible is because I know every generation has its own biases and ideas. Culture changes so fast, but God’s written Word has been proven true for every generation for the last 3,500 years! 

Some complain that the Bible must have changed as it has been passed down throughout the years, like a high-stakes theological version of the child’s game Telephone. You know the game, kids sit in a circle, and the first child whispers, “I’ve got a new puppy named Willow,” and by the end of the circle the last child says, “Ima’s guppy sleeps under his pillow.”

Please understand that’s not how we got our Bible. While there are thousands of copies of the Bible, the scholars who work on our modern translations go to the very oldest manuscripts first. Fortunately, we have very ancient manuscripts to rely on for translations with some fragments that were copied in the same century that the originals were first written.

Conversing in Truth

That’s why we will always be encouraging you that if you are a follower of Jesus, you need to be in the Bible every single day. Imagine eating only on Sunday and going with nothing except water the other six days every week. You might survive, but you wouldn’t be very healthy, and I don’t think you’d be very happy. Just ten minutes every day in God’s Word will make all the difference in all you do. It will even change the way you pray. God speaks to us through His Word. Prayer, of course, is simply us speaking back.

In John 14:13–14, Jesus told us,

“And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”

Aren’t we blessed that we get to have a two-way conversation with our Lord whenever we want to?

Did you know that when you pray in Jesus’s name, this is not just to tack on “In Jesus’ name, amen” to whatever you’re praying. It’s to try to understand and know what Jesus’s will is in any situation and to work and pray toward that will. The clearest and most complete way to know God’s will is to regularly be in His Word, to have a two-way conversation with God through prayer centred on His Word. God’s Word and prayer work together to mold us and then to help us to change the world around us through truth.

Jesus reminded us of this amazing combination when He prayed for us and for His disciples in John 17:16–17. He prayed,

“They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”

The Greek word translated as “sanctify” is hagiason. It means to be holy and set apart for a special purpose.

One thing you must remember is that as a follower of Jesus, you are not of this world. You’re different. The world continues to move away from God’s plan. It is building on a different foundation. It holds different values. It longs for different hopes. And it aspires to different goals. Remember that foundation is ultimately a sinkhole that will swallow people up. Jesus doesn’t ask for us to be taken out of the world. Rather, He declares that we are not of the world. He urges us to seek the truth in His Word, to declare and ask for the truth in our prayers, and to build with the truth in our lives. Let me give you one last example. One of the shifting and shaky foundations our world is currently building on is the weight and emphasis it puts on our experiences and our feelings. We have to realize that our feelings shift daily, and our experiences are so limited. One of the many differences between God’s Word and our word is that from our perspective we have at best seventy to ninety years for our words to be proved true. From His perspective, He has generations, millennia, and really all of eternity for His to prove out. He can make a promise to you and fulfill it through your great, great, great grandchildren, and He will still be proven true. “The rallying cry of our culture often sounds like this: ‘That’s how I feel, you can’t tell me my feelings are wrong.’

And to be fair, feelings do matter. They’re real, they tell you something about what’s going on inside you in that moment, but here’s where we need to be careful. Just because a feeling is real doesn’t mean it’s always right and just because you feel something doesn’t mean you’re meant to be led by it. We don’t ignore our feelings, but we also don’t build our lives on them because if feelings become the foundation, then every time they shift everything shifts. The goal isn’t to say, ‘I shouldn’t feel this.’ The goal is to ask, ‘What do I do with what I’m feeling and what am I building my life on?’”

So which is it? Feelings and knowledge are not the same thing and one is not based on the other. If your feelings don’t line up with God’s Word, I can tell you that whatever feelings you are having, they’re not based on truth. “I don’t like how it feels.” “I don’t like what it says.” “I don’t agree with it.” “I don’t want to.”

These are not sufficient answers for us to contradict or ignore what God says in His Word. His Word is truth. And our responsibility to the truth goes beyond any feeling we have at any given time. Our responsibility even goes beyond just hearing it or even accepting it. It is a truth that is bigger than us. Fortunately, it is also a truth this is always working in our best interest for long-term growth and for life.

Jesus said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who build his house on the rock” (Matthew 7:24). The Word is the primary way God talks to us. We need to be people of the Word. Read the Word. Memorize the Word. Study the Word. Know the Word. But above all, do what it says “Feelings come and go, they shift like sand beneath your feet. And the truth is, the wisdom of our culture shifts just as quickly. What one generation builds on, the next one tears down.

But God’s Word?

God’s Word endures and stands firm. God’s Word has never failed and it never will. So don’t just hear it, Build your life on it. Get into His Word. Pray through His Word. Let it shape the way you think, the way you respond, the way you live. Because when the waters rise, and they will, when questions come, when doubt creeps in, when life hits harder than you expected you won’t collapse, you’ll stand.

Here’s the challenge, for some of you, maybe starting today: Be in God’s Word every single day this week. Not occasionally. Not when it’s convenient. Every day.

Maybe that means setting your alarm ten minutes earlier. Maybe it means opening your Bible on your lunch break. Maybe it means turning off something else to make space for what matters most. And we want to help you with that.

If you don’t know where to start, jump onto RightNow Media where there are incredible studies there that will walk you through Scripture in a way that’s clear and practical. We will send you an email this week to help you get connected if you are not.

Or better yet, don’t do this alone. Join one of our weekly Bible studies. Sit with others. Open the Word together. Ask questions. Grow together.

Let me put it this way: If you had the opportunity to sit down with God for ten minutes every day to hear His voice, to receive His wisdom, to anchor your life in something unshakable Why wouldn’t you take it?

So, try it. Just one week. But I’m telling you, this won’t just be a one-week experiment. This is how foundations are built. This is how lives are anchored. This is how you stand when everything else starts to shake.