Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 66 · March 7
Foundation and Fire
“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”
"Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it." Psalm 127 opens with those words, and Scripture keeps coming back to the picture of building. Isaiah is given a promise from God: "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation." Tried means tested, a stone already proved before anything is set on it. Jesus tells the same truth as a story about two houses. The same rain falls on both, the same floods rise and the same winds blow, and only one of them stands, because "it was founded upon a rock." By the time Paul writes to Corinth, the question of what lies underneath is settled: "For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
Keep reading past that famous line, because the next verses add something it leaves out. Paul separates the foundation from what is built on top of it: "gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble." That is six materials, and the builder chooses every one of them. Then "the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." The fire tests what is built on top, because verse eleven has already settled what is underneath. Paul is plain about how the test ends for some builders: "If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." Picture a man standing safe in the smoke of everything he built.
That makes the question for today sharper. The foundation under you is Christ Himself. It was laid before you arrived, and nobody can lay it again or take it away. The materials, though, are yours to choose. Think of the biggest thing you are building right now. It might be a ministry, a reputation, or a family project that takes your evenings. Ask honestly which of the six it is made of, and ask God to help you build with what will last. Do it now, while there is still time, before the fire does the testing.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 66 is Come as You Are (Matthew 11:28).