Lord, You are the Builder. Today is the day I throw away my own plans and return to the master plan of Your kingdom. Forgive me for wandering from Your blueprints. From this day of new beginnings, I will build only upon the solid Rock of the kingdom, Jesus Christ, and every word that proceeds from Your mouth.

Why do you call Me “Lord, Lord,” and not do the things which I say?

These are strong words, but we are skilled at dismissing them with unspoken thoughts such as, He sure was tough with those disciples, wasn’t He? (This implies that the Lord’s question does not apply to modern-day disciples.)

The Bible is not “literature”; it is eternal truth. You cannot read it merely as something to evaluate, critique, catalog, and conveniently forget. The words of Jesus are as alive, vibrant, and penetrating today as they were two thousand years ago. They still have the supernatural power to cut to the heart and convict us of sin. The Master is still asking you and me that painful question: “Why do you call Me ‘Lord’ when you do not do the things I say?”

I do not want you to get bogged down in your recent sins of omission. He knows we are incapable of fulfilling all of His commands in our own strength and righteousness.

I want you instead to major on the majors, and the greatest theme Jesus preached throughout His ministry was the gospel of the kingdom. God is saying some vital kingdom things that we have not been doing. We have chosen to operate by a different set of rules and values, and they are killing us! Why? We cannot break God’s laws; His laws break us. Jesus illustrated the importance of His question by comparing two men who built houses on different foundations: one on a rock and the other on shifting sands. We have tried to throw away the blueprints and building codes of the Father, and we are building our kingdom on sand with disastrous results.

There is no way that kingdom people can say, “Lord, Lord,” and not do what He said to do. We have kingdom work to do. We must be about our Father’s business, and we must go about it His way.