Building houses with no roof? EXCHANGE?
By Wade Martin Hughes, Sr.
Kyfingers@aol.com
TEXT:
Matthew 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Mark 8:37 Or what shall a man give in exchange of his soul?
Today, I ponder man gambling with his soul and with the souls of his family?
I ponder building a house on the sand.
We know the rains will come often?
We know the floods will come less often.
Wise building builds above the flood plane and lessen the chance of flood damage.
Then the wind storms come, we seek safety, and come out after the wind’s damage and survey the destruction, and count the cost, then rebuild.
I saw where a man loaded one bullet in a 357 and would spin the cylinder, place the gun to his head, pull the trigger and laugh real hard. His family said he had a habit of doing this.
Of course, you know the rest of the story.
One day, there was a loud blast and the gun hit the floor, and the man’s family saw his body fall in a terrible bloody mess.
The laughing was over.
Why would a man take such a chance?
The young boy slipped his dad’s cigarettes behind the house.
He would light them up, and feel so big. He would laugh.
Years later, fighting for breath, blue in the face and coughing up pieces of his lungs and blood, the laughing was over.
Why would a man laugh at the warning on the pack?
A beautiful young girl was so popular.
She learned to use her body to get things she wanted.
The girl gambled with her body.
One day while in the doctors office, the beautiful young girl heard she carried a terrible, not curable disease.
If she had children they would carry the disease all their lives.
The girl felt dirty and used ... the laughing was over.
A couple went from church to church.
This church was too hot, this one was too cold.
This one was just right ... until they found faults with this teacher and the pastor.
We can go to another church. Why not?
I don’t have to pay my tithes, do I?
They can go to a football game and get excited, but see that hypocrite in church?
I can’t go to church with them.
So they gamble and do not attend church any where? Why take a chance?
Let’s get house plans, let’s build a mansion.
Let’s build the walls, but let us save time and money and effort.
Let’s skip the roof.
A house that has no roof would be very limited? Agree?
A family without the shelter of God’s friendship and moral principles is much worse than a house without a roof.
A family rooted and grounded to the Bible and the Altar at church has a sense of care, guidance, and purpose.
What are you building today?
Are you gambling with your life?
Do you gamble that a baseball game is worth more than a church service? Do you wait for the undertaker to take your corpse to church?
Take a walk of faith down Memory Lane?
Walk by faith in today’s stresses?
Walk for faith as we plan tomorrow?...
The best heritage we can pass to the family, is a knowledge and trust that God loves us, and we love Him.
Abraham built altars every place he journeyed.
Abraham taught his son Isaac to build altars, and to dig wells...
Read Genesis 26, Abe would dig a well, someone would take it away from him.
Instead of a court case, Abe would dig again.
Angry neighbors threw mud in his well, Abe would dig again.
After many trials and hard times Abraham finds a "sweet water" well.
What a man?... What a father?
We need not gamble, someday, we will need the well, we better dig it before there is no water!
We need wells for dry times, springs only work in wet weather.
Abraham learned the value of digging wells.
Study Abraham’s wells, his wells sustained the lives of many.
How many parents have provided discouragement wells for their kids?
Why gamble?
Study the altars Abraham built and see his prayers from those altars, he interceded and blessed the whole world.
Look at Lot.
There is a sad lesson here, Lot visited Abraham’s altars, but we see no record that Lot built altars in his journeys.
The family records will vary, Lot could have built altar during his journeys, he appeared to build a house without a roof.
How sad?
In the days of Jesus a woman drinks from Abraham’s well, not Lot’s?
What a gamble?
I love to see an old barn not in decay.
There may be manure around it, but it has been a place of life and of giving life.
The old barn has also been profitable for the family and the animals around it.
Every storm the old barn endures ... it has sheltered and protected the crops and life that the life around the barn sustains.
In the heat the barns offer shade.
In the freezing cold the barn is a wind break.
Can the family afford the barn to decay and fall?
How much more beautiful than a barn, than a family that has with stood the winds and weathers of time.
I love to think about home, my long home.
I was pondering the movement of people in the church today, they love to drift from singing to singing.
They gamble that emotionalism is spiritualism?
They leave a trail of tears of pain and hurt from church to church.
They demand baby food and talcum powder?
They gamble and take the chance that God overlooks unfaithfulness?
They get mad at this pastor and people, but there is another that will baby them.
The more you baby adults the more babified they will become.
Do we gamble with accountability?
I so enjoy old trees.
I cannot describe the beauty of an old tree.
I was looking in awl at this old tree.
I enjoyed its beauty and while looking at it my sight dropped to view the dead limbs and dry leaves around the bottom of the plant.
I then pondered in my heart, that it was the new growth that caused the beauty of the tree.
My focus must be on the green life and the fruit, and for me to keep my eyes focused on the good, not the negative.
Any one can pick up the dead sticks and hit others, but this produces no fruit.
Work with the living, prune and prepare.
It is good for us to take a chance with the green, not the dead sticks.
I believe dry bones can live, but that is in God’s hands.
I must learn to stay focused on the deliverance of God.
Do you have a roof on your house?
What would you give in EXCHANGE?
His servant,
Wade Martin Hughes, Sr.
Kyfingers@aol.com
Enlarge my hands? Read and pass to others?
