What is Your Foundation?

I was talking with my friend Aaron yesterday about the importance of building a good spiritual foundation. I was reminded that when I worked in San Francisco, as I walked to work, I would pass these construction sites where a high rise was going to be built. These huge cranes would be pounding steel supports deep into the earth to support the structure that would be built. The principle is this: the higher one builds, the greater the need for structural integrity, which begins with a solid foundation.In his book Become a Better You, Joel Osteen challenges his readers to aim “higher.” While thus encouraging his readers, he does not, however, tell them that they must take the first step. A step that lays the foundation. What is the first step?

Jesus says the first step in laying a foundation is to: “deny yourself.” This is repentance! One time a “rich young man” comes to Jesus asking to be a disciple. Though he was successful, still there was something he knew was missing. “What do I lack?” is the cry of his heart: he knows he is yet imperfect. Jesus responds that in order to be perfect (fulfilled, mature, complete) the rich young man must abandon everything he is attached to.

That first step of obedience—to follow Jesus—is denying yourself, or repentance. It is a turning away from one’s self to God. Repentance is the confession of our failure and inability to do the things we want. Repentance is turning away from my own will to follow Christ. Jesus is saying this is the first brick of the foundation upon which we build.

Significantly, when the writer of Hebrews exhorts the believers to “press on to perfection [maturity, fullness, excellence],” he points out that repentance is the beginning; he calls it a “repentance from dead works [like the rich young man, it is one's own successes and accomplishments].” Until one realizes his abject poverty of spirit and failure of self, one cannot be expected to press on. “Let no man lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11).