Each person must be careful how he builds on it.

1 Corinthians 3:5-23 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. ⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. ⁷ So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. ⁸ Now the one who plants and the one who waters are one; but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. ⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

¹⁰ According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each person must be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹ For no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, ¹³ each one’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each one’s work. ¹⁴ If anyone’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet only so as through fire.

¹⁶ Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.

¹⁸ Take care that no one deceives himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the sight of God. For it is written: “He is the one who catches the wise by their craftiness”; ²⁰ and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are useless.” ²¹ So then, no one is to be boasting in people. For all things belong to you, ²² whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come; all things belong to you, ²³ and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

In today’s text it says: According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each person must be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each one’s work. It is not just our work or our words, what we do and what we say for and about Christ that must be built on that foundation, it is also everything we do, our very lives need to be built on the foundation of Christ. In Luke 6:46-49 Jesus says: “Now why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when there was a flood, the river burst against that house and yet it could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who has heard and has not acted  accordingly is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation; and the river burst against it and it immediately collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

Colossians 3:23 says: Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.  We cannot continue in sin and say that we live for the Lord.  In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; leave Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”   Today’s text says:Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.  Psalm 127:1 says: Unless the Lord builds a house, They who build it labor in vain. In Matthew 21:12-13 it says: Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’”  In the same way, Jesus wants to cleanse our temples and drive out what should not be there. He wants to overturn what should not be set up.  In Luke 11:24-26 Jesus says: “When the unclean spirit comes out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it then says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they come in and live there; and the last condition of that person becomes worse than the first.”  When Jesus has cleansed us and removed what should not be in our lives, we must be certain to fill the void. In John 14:15-23 Jesus says: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, so that He may be with you forever; the Helper is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him because He remains with you and will be in you.  “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. After a little while, the world no longer is going to see Me, but you are going to see Me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I in you. The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him… If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.”  We must be filled up with and built up in Christ. He is the foundation, the cornerstone and all that we are.

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

On Christ, the solid rock, I stand;
all other ground is sinking sand,
all other ground is sinking sand. Amen.