In the world of physical exercise, it’s a known fact that if your core muscles are strong, you can perform at your best. The core is the whole system of muscles that include the lower back, pelvic area, stomach, and hips, and when these are functioning the way they should, our bodies are strong and stable. When the core is weak and unstable, we have problems with things like walking, exercise, and keeping our balance. Pain in those areas can also persists as a result of a weak core. In the spiritual sense, a strong physical core paints a picture of what it looks like to have a strong relationship with God. A weak core demonstrates what happens when we don’t do what is necessary to strengthen and maintain our relationship with the Father. We have problems walking by faith. We don’t exercise it the way we should, and we lose the wonderful balance that helps us to live a life that is pleasing to God and fulfilling to us as well.
To a person that is not destined to ever be born-again through Jesus Christ, explaining faith is useless. They won’t get it because they don’t have the Holy Spirit to teach and help them comprehend God’s truth. To the person who has accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior, faith is everything because we know that we cannot please God without it. As believers, we know from God’s Word that faith is a potent and dynamic reality, and it requires the person exercising it to possess a solid foundation. The only way a solid foundation can be obtained is by reading, studying, knowing, and following God’s Word. As we move throughout life, going through both tribulations and triumphs, we need to be steady and stable, so that we are not rocked by anything the enemy throws our way. This level of steadiness and stability will require a continual diet of God’s Word so that our relationship with Him grows deeper, and we become increasingly anchored in faith.
A worker of God’s Word
2Timothy 2:15(ESV) instructs us to “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” God would not tell us to do something we’re incapable of doing. He has equipped us through His indwelling Holy Spirit to present ourselves before Him, and to do so in a way that He stamps us “APPROVED!”. He grants this approval when we rightly handle His truth.
What does it look like when we rightly handle God’s truth? Well, we can’t just read a verse or two and think we know all there is to know about what we’ve read. No, that’s not the way. The first thing to do before reading God’s Word is to pray. We should ask Heavenly Father for divine revelation and understanding about what we’re going to read. For instance, Mark 12:12(NLT) says, “The religious leaders wanted to arrest Jesus because they realized he was telling the story against them—they were the wicked farmers. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him and went away.” If we read this verse without knowing the context or the circumstances that would give us greater understanding, we might think Jesus is speaking to all religious leaders. We might also think that the religious leaders he is referring to in this verse are wicked farmers. If we read the preceding chapter and verses, we’d learn that Jesus Christ had given a parable about wicked farmers. He is using the parable to describe the Jewish leaders and teachers that opposed him.
To handle God’s truth rightly, we must study the scriptures, not just read them. We can also use aids like other scripture references, concordances, and commentaries that relate to the passage we might be studying. God calls us workers of the Word and using all these quality biblical aids demonstrate our intention to be approved before Him. The Holy Spirit will help us as we are motivated to know the truth and to understand the message that God is communicating through the scriptures. So, we must be committed to study God’s Word diligently for the rest of our lives because this is what pleases Him and increases our faith.
You might think, “Studying the Word a lifetime, that’s a tall order.” Well, consider the world and its demands. When it comes to making money and getting a paycheck, we understand that studying is a requirement, and we get it done. As a modern society, we automatically connect studying with success, no matter the area of expertise. Many of us have careers and jobs that require us to study for years. In a general sense, most of us have already spent at least 12 years, fall through spring, studying for eight hours a day. After graduating from that, some of us then went on for even more studying for hours each day. We do this because the desire for success and all the goodies that come with it motivates us. So, as members of society and earth dwellers, we understand on a very fundamental level that in order to grow in knowledge about any subject, studying is necessary. We shouldn’t think that growing in spiritual authority, strength, and power in Christ requires any less.
In Hosea 4:6(NLT), our Heavenly Father said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” This is a piece of wisdom that applies to us today. People can be destroyed or severely harmed by what they don’t know. We have an enemy, the devil, and he counts us to have a weak core, and have no solid foundation. Being ignorant of God’s Word is the condition that the enemy uses to steal from us and cause destruction in our lives. In fact, ignorance is the number one weapon that he uses against us, because he is a deceiver, and when we don’t know God’s Word and don’t rightly handle it, we can be easily deceived.
The war
There’s a spiritual war going on right this very moment in the spiritual realm. There are also wars happening in our natural realm. War is conflict between kingdoms, entities, people, nations, or states, and it’s a reality that most of us know well. We understand that in war, someone wins, and someone loses. The one that loses is generally the weaker of the two. God wants us to understand that He won the spiritual war that was waged against us by satan, and He did this through the sacrifice and resurrection of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. We have the victory in Christ! Our issue is that we’re more than conquerors and don’t know it. We’re trying to fight a spiritual enemy with flesh and blood weapons because we haven’t learned how to use God’s fail proof weaponry.
1John 4:3-4(NLT) tells us, “3 But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here. 4 But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.” Through Jesus Christ, we have nothing to fear, because the Holy Spirit lives in us, and there is no match for his power.
Our hearts will believe greater in the reality of all that we have received in Christ when our minds become more and more saturated with the truth of God’s Word. Knowing the truth of God’s Word is how we build our lives upon the solid foundation of Jesus Christ. Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Faith is found in the message of Christ. Spiritual power, profound wisdom, and extraordinary faith in God all rest on the foundation of His Word. As His children, we must be about the business of building our lives on this solid foundation by living according to the example of Jesus Christ. When this is our commitment, we will be anchored in Christ, who is the Rock of our Salvation, and we will walk through our lives with a fearless confidence in God, and a never-ending desire to please Him. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.
“Building a Solid Foundation”, written for Springfield Fellowship © 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.