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For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1 Cor 3:11 NKJV

John Wooden, the legendary UCLA college basketball coach is credited with saying, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

We are all familiar with the story of the Three Little Pigs.  The great moral of the story has stood over time and through thick and thin.  One pig builds his house with hay, another builds with sticks and the last one builds with bricks.  The wolf comes and blows the first two down, no problem!  He meets his match with the one made of brick, however. — Building with solid stuff around you, if you expect it to weather a serious life storm, makes sense. The representative of a good education, wholesome family, financial resources, reliable friends, and physical well-being all unpack as life’s quality building components.  The lesson is obvious and seems to rank beyond debate. The better each are developed and coordinated, the better we’ll be!  Let’s remember what John Wooden said, so we don’t wrap it up here.  There’s more that counts!

So what’s missing?  As a Christian, Jesus sheds the light we need.  In John 18:37, Jesus said “He was born to come into this world and bear witness unto the truth and that everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”  He gets even more specific when He said in John 14:6 that “He was the way, the truth and the life and that no one could come to the Father except through Him.”  In other words, truth according to Him is more than an idea, external material, or the moral of a compelling story. The Truth is a Spiritual Person, and His name is Jesus.

So on the one hand we have the lasting story and “moral” of the Three Little Pigs and the outside strategy of how to protect ourselves in this life.  Jesus, The Truth, comes along and uses another “eternal and internal parable” about houses being built either on sand (shifting and relative) or on a rock (i.e., Him). Jesus looks beyond the importance of the material of the house or what it may represent to what is most critical – it’s foundation.

No one would suggest that a good education, wholesome family, financial resources, reliable friends, and physical fitness are not components worthy to pursue.  What we must know, if we don’t already, is the necessity of choosing Eternal Truth or Almighty God Himself as our trust worthy foundation.  After all, without Him, nothing can even be, much less stand forever.

2 Cor 5;1; 1 Tim 4:8; Psalm 127:1; 1 Cor 6:19