Let’s get back to Luke 6 for our study today.

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

This is one of the most direct passages about “being” a Christian found in the Gospels. When someone is a lord in your life that means that he has great authority over you. You listen to him and do what he says. The first sentence in this passage Jesus sternly tells us to do what he says and then he goes on to be more specific. What more could we ask for?

If we actually do what Jesus says we have a solid foundation for the rest of our lives. Whenever we question what we should do about any circumstances in our lives we are supposed to go back to Jesus’ words and commands to find the answers.

The problem with all of this is that we tend to pick and choose which words of Jesus we will obey. If we don’t like a particular part of his message we ignore that and concentrate on the words we like. I must also admit that many of the red letters are somewhat hard to understand. For instance when he tells us to chop off our hands if they cause us to sin. I don’t think he meant that literally but it seems to be up to us to determine that. I wish he had made things like that clearer.

But the words above could not be clearer. We must never ignore his words  and especially his commands just because we don’t particularly like what he said. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case with many Christians today. A partial reason for that is that we have watered down his words with so many of our own. Some theologians over the years have even relegated Jesus words to be no more important than any others found in our Bibles. Jesus and Jonah seem to be on the same plane to them. How sad is that?