REINFORCED

Our neighbor recently had her cement driveway replaced, giving us some instructional entertainment on how it’s done. So many steps! Breaking up and hauling away the old, broken pieces. Smoothing the surface, bringing in and leveling gravel, dividing sections, laying rebar and then more prep before the cement truck rumbled down our street and dumped the mix. Then stirring and smoothing to remove air pockets, final cosmetic touches, and a wait….at least four days…before it was cured enough to drive on.

The rebar step really spoke to me. The way I understand it, those strong steel rods help absorb and distribute the pressures from the weight of a car. They are the driveway’s foundation. Similarly, the apostle Paul (long before cement technology!) remarked:

For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 3:11 NIV)

In this section he was addressing church divisions that had resulted from following certain spiritual teachers. Paul made it clear that he put down the true and basic foundation of faith in Christ as Savior. Any teaching that deviated from that—such as trusting in works or peripheral ideas—didn’t belong in the church. And not just the “church,” as interpreted as a certain gathering of believers. Each of us who is connected to Christ in faith is where God’s spirit dwells—in Paul’s phrase, “a temple.”

Sometimes I wonder if we have the same problem as that early church, in following a leader, or an idea, or our own sense of how to be acceptable to God. Perhaps they shared a problem common today—of people who “profess” Christ but whose behavior reveals they serve other gods, like pleasure, retribution, entitlement, and convenience. Such are the broken-down attributes of the “self-life.” Jesus expressed a similar idea when He talked about the foolish building on sand, and the wise building on rocks. The rock, of course, was the rock-solid word of God through Jesus Himself (Matthew 7:27). The “house” of the other guy may have looked okay from afar, but it was as vulnerable as a shanty when life’s tsunamis came at it.

The apostle Paul took the idea of “firm foundations” deeper when he associated the life choice of following Christ with the lifestyle of generosity. He reminded his protégé Timothy to commend believers to be “rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life” (1 Timothy 6:19).

We all witnessed that spirit of generosity as the coronavirus pandemic changed and challenged lifestyles. I had some raised-eyebrow-moments when the media featured wealthy stars and business icons and the frustrations they had in staying home…in their multi-million residences. And then there were ordinary people who respected the “distancing” advice or, because of their occupation in health, safety or food services, had to mask- and glove-up to help those in need.

Such times reveal whether there’s spiritual “re-bar” for daily strength, courage, and grace.