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Christian Network

1. Eat dinner together as a family for seven days in a row.
2. Memorize the Twenty-third Psalm as a family.
3. Give each family member a hug for twenty-one days in a row (that’s how long the experts say it takes to develop a habit).
4. Pick a night of the week in which the television will remain unplugged.
5. Go out for a non-fast food dinner as a family.
6. Pray for your spouse and children every day.
7. Plan and take a vacation together.
8. Read a chapter from the Bible every day until it becomes a habit.
9. Sit together as a family in church.
10. Surprise your teenager. Wash his car and fill up his gas tank.
11. Take a walk as a family.
12. Write each member of your family a letter sharing why you value them.
13. Give your spouse a weekend getaway with a friend (same gender!) to a place of their choice.
14. Go camping as a family.
15. Take each of your children out to breakfast (individually) at least once a month for a year.
16. Turn down a promotion that would demand more time from your family than you can afford to give.
17. Make sure your family car is safe (tires, brakes, etc.) and get it tuned up.
18. Attend the parent/teacher meetings of each child as a couple.
19. Help your kids with their homework.
20. Encourage each child to submit to you his most perplexing question, and promise him that you’’ll either answer it or discuss it with him.

I will admit that being a father is perplexing and difficult. We men are not trained to be expressive and in touch with our feelings. We work long hours and we never seem to have enough time. But I am convinced that if we want to have the best families, then fathers must take a leading role. Building the best family begins with the proper foundation both for us as fathers and for our families. I believe that means heeding the words of Jesus. Jesus said that everyone who comes to him and hears his words and acts upon is like the man who built his house upon a rock.

In that day, there were many places that were open, flat land and were ideal for farming and grazing sheep. They were dry most of the time, but in the fall and winter, torrential rains would fall and these dry beds became raging rivers. If your house was near a wadi, you were in danger.

The man who comes to Jesus and hears his words and acts on them is like a man who builds his house near a wadi, but he digs deep into the sand until he finds the bedrock. He would carve out deep holes and set the posts of the house into those holes and his house would be built on a firm foundation. The rains came and the wadi turned into a river, out of control, and the water dashed against the house, but the house stood. It could not be shaken for it was on a firm foundation.

But the person who hears God's word and does not act upon it is like the man who built his house on the sand without any foundation. The torrential rains came and the floods burst against the house and the house immediately collapsed.

All around our community are families that lay in ruin. They are the ones who built their lives with no foundations and when the storms of life came, they collapsed into rubble. They might have played at following Christ. Some never gave attention to the things of God. Others made a nominal attempt to go to church. If asked they said they believed in God and they lay their Bible on the coffee table so that all can see it, but they never read it. They think that the words of Jesus are great and when they get the time they might find out what it all means. But the storms come and their lives crash and they see it as God's fault. They never see that they failed to build on a firm foundation.

If we are to build our lives on God's firm foundation then there are three things we must learn from this passage. First, we must come to Jesus. We will not find salvation any place else. There are all kinds of voices who are trying to tell us that they know the way to salvation. We are told that if we get our thinking right, know our sign, if we read the stars, if we have the right politics, if we have the right connections and get the right education we will have a successful life. There are all sorts of saviors, all of them easy and attainable. But God became flesh only once. And He died for our sins only once. And only God is capable of redeeming us from our sin. There is no other way. Jesus said that "I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but through me." We must come through Jesus.

Secondly, Not only must we come to Jesus, we must hear his word. We treat the Bible as if it was a stagnant, antique book. It is the living, dynamic Word of God. It is the revelation of God's will to mankind. As one person put it, it is earth's instruction manual. If I was having a problem in my home, if my marriage was falling apart, I would make sure that I was in God's house every time the doors were open that I might hear God's word taught and preached. Paul wrote that "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ." We must read scripture, but we must also hear it proclaimed.

Finally, if we stop at the hearing of the word and do not act upon it, we are no better than the man who built his house without foundations. That is the way it is with so many of today's church members. They come to Christ and they hear his word, but they do nothing about it. I have heard it estimated that as many as 90% of all church members in all churches are lost and hell bound. Why? Because they heard the word but did not act upon it. Christianity is not a philosophy, it is not a way of life like environmentalism or materialism. It is new life. When we hear the words of Christ he bids us to come and die. In fact, he demands it. We die to our sins, we die to our will. We are called to die in order for us to be made new. This means that we so identify ourselves with Christ that we accept his death as our death and that we accept his resurrection as our resurrection. Admittedly, we spend a life time dying to ourselves and living unto Christ, but that is how we build strong foundations. That is the deep digging and boring of holes into the bedrock so that our house does not wash away when the storms break against us.

Do you want to build a great family? Then build on the firm foundation which is Christ Jesus.