The Bible starts out in Genesis 1:1 with these words “In the beginning, GOD…” I don’t think that is just a coincidence, because God does everything perfectly and on purpose. Not only are those four words the foundation for creation, they are also the foundation for the TRUE Christian life. In the beginning of a successful Christian life – GOD must be the foundation! When we try to build our lives on what we want, or what the latest religious fad is, or what our flesh desires – we are bound to fail. GOD must be the beginning. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 9:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
In my job as a web developer, one of the things I hate the most is when people come to me and say, “Joshua, I want to use this tool or program to accomplish this.” And I’ll tell them that the program/tool they are using wasn’t made for that. And then they will say, “I know that, but can’t you MAKE it do this?” And sometimes, one can add certain pieces of special code or something to force a program/tool to act in a way in which it was not created to act, but usually this ends up causing problems down the road when they want to change something or update something. But so many people try this, and when I tell them that program or tool is NOT meant for this, they say “I know – but I like this tool/program, and I don’t want to use a different one.”
That’s what many people try to do with God and His Word. They like a certain sin or fleshly pleasure or they don’t like one of God’s commandments, and so they try to find someone who will agree with them that God doesn’t REALLY mean it when He says DON’T DO this or DO that. However, that NEVER works. We MUST put pleasing God and obeying God as the FOUNDATION for our lives. NOTHING else matters! Until you get that settled in your heart and life – you will NEVER be successful as a Christian.
Jesus used the illustration of building a house on a foundation when He spoke in Matthew 7:24-27 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
In the beginning GOD! That’s the foundation. That’s the starting point on which everything else in our life MUST be built.