to whom he is like: He is like a man which
built an house, and digged deep, and laid
the foundation on a rock: and when the
fl ood arose, the stream beat vehemently
upon that house, and could not shake it:
for it was founded upon a rock. But he that
heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that
without a foundation built an house upon
the earth; against which the stream did beat
vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the
ruin of that house was great" (verses 47–49).
Notice, the man who built his house on a
rock built it himself. God didn't build it for
him. Neither did his wife or his pastor or
anybody else. He was the one who spent the
time it takes to get solidly grounded in the
Scriptures. He was the one who put forth the
e ort it takes to dig deep enough to develop
a life founded on God's Word.
With so much darkness around, you have
to dig deep to operate in the laws of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus on this earth. You can't
do it by just coming to church on Sunday
morning. The people I know who are living
free from debt and lack dig into the Word
daily. They read it, listen to it, talk it and act
on it all the time.
When you do that, although the storms
of life will still come, you'll be like the
fi rst man Jesus talked about and not the
second. Those two men faced the same
circumstances. The storm was no fun for
either of them, but they got very di erent
results. For the man who had no foundation,
the outcome was catastrophic. He caved in
under the pressure of the storm, it had the
last word, and he lost everything.
The man who built on the rock, however,
had a strong foundation. When the winds
of recession came, they couldn't blow his
house down. When depression and infl ation
came, they couldn't destroy him fi nancially
because he was ready.
He had the Word in his heart in
abundance and was already in the habit
of acting on it, so he triumphed over that
storm with the victory that overcomes
the world. By faith, he came through it in
triumph—rock-solid, and secure in the
kingdom of God.
B V O V
:
9
WHEN YOU'RE
TEMPTED TO
Quit!
Everyone experiences failure. But
I learned a long time ago, even in the midst of failure,
don't quit. When you get knocked down, get right back
up—every time! It's a lesson I've learned well. In fact, it's
become the theme of my life.
Years ago, right after I started my ministry, a church
invited me to preach at a ranch in Hot Springs, Ark.
The members sat on lawn chairs in front of a makeshift
platform so small the church's drummer had to sit on
the ground beside it.
Nonetheless, I was so excited to have the opportunity
by Jerry Savelle
