Upon This Rock

Jesus said to Peter, "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18, KJV).

Two distinct rock formations are mentioned in this Scripture verse that speaks of the church. Peter (or petro meaning a boulder but in comparison to the Rock, a pebble) and Christ is who is the head and corner stone of the church (Greek uses petra which means "a mass of connected rock") [Biblos].

In other words, Christ is our foundation and we are "pebbles" not only cemented together to form a spiritual house but we are connected to the chief corner stone (Ephesians 2:20). As such when the storms of life challenge us, we are not a house built on shifting sand that will fail but remain structurally sound.

Over the weekend my wife and I had the delight of staying in a bed and breakfast. This was one of our first experiences in spending an overnight in an old house with a hot breakfast served in the morning. The first thing I noticed when entering the front door was the cracks in the wall. My keen host caught my eyes trace quite a number of cracks running from the ceiling down to the middle of the wall. "It was built around the Civil War," she said proudly.

That night I turned in bed to see a crack like a scar run over the door post. I smiled thinking of how sound this building remained over a hundred or so years later - full of stories and rich history - the foundation was solid, the walls built most likely from field stones and coated thick with plaster.

Jesus tells us the house will stand in times of storm if it's foundation is built on Him (Matthew 7:24-27). It doesn't mean we won't show a few "cracks", lose a few shingles or break one or two windows during the years of weathering life's storms.

That includes the church who through the centuries remains sound and strong because no storm will prevail against the house of God even if she is built on "pebbles" that rest on a sure foundation.