Building your house in the Spirit is paying attention to how you live your life. The words you speak, the thoughts you think, and the things you do all come together to shape your lifestyle. Who you are and what you believe show up in how you live, not just in what you say.
If we obey the Lord’s command to love Him and obey Him always (Deuteronomy 11:1), then we make the time and effort to build our houses wisely. And because our house is our life, it helps to know how to build it to last.
Your HOUSE is your
Hope
Obedience
Understanding
Strength
Eternity
Here’s how this looks for you.
1. Put your hope in the Lord.
Where you put your hope is where you put your focus.
When you hope in Jesus, you focus on Him. When you hope in someone or something else, you focus on them. Paying attention to the wrong thing gives you a shaky foundation and an unstable hope, because putting your trust in man or anything man-made will eventually fail you.
When I’m distracted by life and trying to figure it out on my own, I forget or fail to do what Jesus says, and it costs me. Not only do I lose opportunities and blessings, but I also drift away from Him. And if I continue, I risk building a house that falls because it’s built on sand, not on the Rock (Matthew 7:26-27).
Everything that seems so urgent and engrossing today will fade tomorrow. My expectations need to come under Jesus, not over Him. Whatever I hope for can’t become bigger than He is, because expectation alone can’t meet my needs, but He can meet my every need.
The Bible says, “Do not put your trust in princes, nor in a son of man in whom there is no help. His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; in that very day his plans perish. Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God” (Psalm 146:3-5).
Where is your hope today?
2. Obey the Lord.
Who you obey is who you truly love and respect.
Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). The word “keep” is the Greek word tēreō, pronounced tay-reh’-o, which means “to attend to carefully, take care of” (blueletterbible.org). Jesus equates love with obedience because you pay attention to who or what you love.
If I say I love Him yet fail to obey His Word, how can my love be true?
The Lord emphasises obedience because of the heart posture it reflects, which brings great reward. “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he loves Me. And he who loves me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21).
The word “keep” there is tēreō, the same one from verse 15. If we love Jesus, we will obey Him. When we do, He manifests himself to us, which means He reveals Himself to us. We don’t get to know Jesus and be known by Him if we fail to do what He says.
Love in the Kingdom is active, and obedience expresses that action.
Where is your obedience today?
3. Surrender your understanding to the Lord.
How much light you have in your mind determines how you live your life. Paying attention to your mind and giving it to God allows His light to come in and brighten it.
Psalm 119:130 says, “The entrance of Your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple”. Exposing your mind to the Word is exposing your understanding to the light in the Word. Increasing the light in your understanding helps you see how to better live your life on a straight path, which is how the Word is a lamp to your feet and a light to your path (Psalm 119:105).
If you want to “think different, build different”, you need the Word brightening your understanding, not the world darkening it (Ephesians 4:17-18). Getting caught up in the temporal tempts you to forfeit the eternal.
Getting caught up in the temporal tempts you to forfeit the eternal.
An all-consuming focus on the details and comforts of your life blinds you to the light in the Word. But paying attention to Jesus first frees you to live a life free of unnecessary worry, stress, confusion, and exhaustion.
How do I know this? Because the Bible says so.
“You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You” (Isaiah 26:3).
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
Having an enlightened understanding steeped in the Word is how you position yourself for favour, abundance, success, and security (Ephesians 1:17-18; Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:1-3).
Meditating on the Word is how you grow the light in your mind.
Is your understanding lit up by the Word yet?
4. Rely on the Lord’s strength.
All human strength fails in the end. There are pressures and burdens simply too great for us to carry, and that’s where the Lord comes in.
We serve a God strong enough to vanquish our strongest enemies. We have a Saviour powerful enough to be seated “far above all principality and power and might and dominion” (Ephesians 1:21). Nothing we face is too great for Him to conquer.
When you find yourself doubting if He can come through for you this time or take down whatever giant you’re facing, remind yourself of these truths in Scripture:
God is “the Strength of Israel” and “the Rock of Israel” (1 Samuel 15:29; 2 Samuel 23:3).
God is “my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust” (Psalm 18:2).
And “In God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God” (Psalm 62:7).
So you see, you can safely rely on the Lord’s strength for your life because He is your Strength (Psalm 18:1). And building your HOUSE in the Spirit is depending on His strength, not your own.
Where do you need the Lord’s strength in your life?
5. Focus on eternity with the Lord.
Ultimately, everything you do here ought to prepare you for eternity.
Eternal life doesn’t begin when you die; it starts as soon as you’re saved, but the quality of it here on earth is up to you. Knowing who the Lord is and being obedient to His will sharpens your vision of eternity because your eyes are on Him, not on you.
Being consumed by life and its pleasures distracts you from eternity because you’re wrapped up in keeping your life running smoothly. But when you break that attraction to this world and focus on Jesus instead, you start to want what He wants, think what He thinks, and love like He loves.
So, your foundation shifts from you to Him, and your destiny bubbles up to the forefront of your mind. Where you’ll be for eternity and how to prepare for it becomes natural to you because it’s part of your daily walk with Him, which is about relationship and not rituals. You make the time to be with Him and follow Him because you want to be there, not because anyone’s forcing you to. And the more you do that, the deeper your roots grow, and the more prepared you are for eternity whenever you take your last breath.
How’s your focus on eternity?
There Is Grace for Today
I want to encourage you today. God isn’t looking for perfection; He’s looking for availability.
It’s OK if you feel overwhelmed and too broken to do any of this. Bring Him the broken pieces, and He’ll shape them into a beautiful whole.
Life is a journey. Your race is your own. Build your HOUSE to last, and keep your eyes on Him.
Otiti,
Thank you for this sharp acronym –
‘ Your HOUSE is your
Hope
Obedience
Understanding
Strength
Eternity’ ……
Oh yes, I’ll memorise it and when life’s pressures and burdens seem unsurmountable, I shall remember that…… “Life is a journey. Your race is your own. Build your HOUSE to last, and keep your eyes on Him.”
Hallelujah!!!! 😁