One important thing we must discuss in talking about building upon God is the tactic the devil uses to get us to build upon man’s ideas of God, rather than God Himself.

We talk of being jealous over our own souls, how the worldly person can so easily give themselves to worthless things, and yet this is just as true with believers. We too easily give ourselves over to the ideas of men about God, failing to see how this is merely giving ourselves to some philosophy of man, and we let our lives be wholly guided and decided by them. We should have a far greater caution and resistance to such things.

The enemy works a great deal of spiritual pressure along these lines, to make a person feel like they are resisting God, disobeying God, being rebellious, and sinful if they feel a desire to resist these things. And therefore many Christians give themselves over to be led by men, they follow the traditions and doctrines of men, not seeing just how truly dangerous this is.

Every person in the world is setting themself upon something to live by, and we are too easily enthralled by some philosophy. We set up pillars of ideologies and they are as gods to us. We do this without fear, failing to see how this leads to an outcome of vanity. Yet the Christian is not exempt from this. We can have our own little systems of philosophy in our religion, easily building upon these instead of truly abiding in Christ.

The devil works much harm in the church in this very place. He gets people to not truly build upon God, to be truly abiding in Him, but to imagine they are abiding in Him when they are really abiding in the mind of men about God.

We must understand that God makes no promise to us if we walk in this. The promises of God are made to us if we abide in Christ and follow Him. This is why we must very carefully check that we are truly abiding in Christ Himself, and not merely the traditions about Christ or doctrines of men.

When we are not truly abiding in Christ, the evidence is in the fruit we produce. The great truth we need to learn and accept is that it is not simply that the seed of Christ is pure and good, but it equally matters how we receive that seed.

The assumption in the church today is that being a Christian means we are automatically on a path to what is good and right, failing to see that all along the way we are choosing what to believe and do, even as Christians, and the outcome of our lives will be based upon this. When the fruit is bad in us, the Lord teaches us how this is a sign of the sin and error in us that still needs to be corrected.

One of the great examples the Lord gives of this is in the parable of the sower (Luke 8:4-15). In this parable Jesus shows us that the seed is good and true seed, but that this doesn’t mean its reception is always good.

Many are loud and profess “glory” for God, who do not endure the important work of His discipline and obedience to Him. They do not develop a right root in themselves because they do not endure the Lord’s chastisement of them, correcting their errors and sin, but endlessly justify themselves (Job 32:2); and they also do not bear up under the labor of true obedience to Him. The outcome is that they have no real substance in them that can endure the true heat of the day, the true reality of life.

Others do not take the seed as they should, they are far more busy with the care and pleasures of life. They are spiritually lazy, or they are running around in passions and works that are not truly of the Lord (but done in His name). These have a fruit that never reaches maturity. It is bitter and undeveloped.

In all of this we see that the seed of God is good, but the reception of it might not be. That people can receive the seed in sinful ways, and it’s not as simple as some fully rejecting the seed and some fully receiving it. The Lord shows us that it matters so greatly how we receive the seed of Jesus, and what ground we choose to be, that bears good fruit “As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.” (Luke 8:15)

The devil works to blind Christians away from this great purpose in Christ by causing them to believe the lie that because God is true, because the Gospel is true, somehow this just makes them “true” when they become Christians. To believe they can never really go astray, to believe everything in their lives is divinely ordained and all has a promised outcome for good, when all of these things depend upon a right reception of Christ in our lives.

And part of this is ensuring that we are truly building upon the ground of Christ, and not some false ground. The secret of many people’s hearts is that they are not truly willing to do the work of being built on Christ, and so they compromise with the commandments of men. Believing these to be some easier ledge to live upon and feel they are still right with God. They do not do the hard work to sincerely know Christ for themselves, but they live upon the faith and “understanding” of others, blind to how childish and weak this makes them.

It is because so many abide in the doctrines of men, and not truly in God Himself, that the fruit of our ways is so much foolishness, oversimplification, half truths, and blindness. So many boast of “God” and profess His light and greatness to be over them, but this light and salt is only with those who truly abide in Christ Himself.

The sad truth is that many people serve these commandments of men because they have rejected the true work of righteousness. Because they refuse to be slaves to Christ and His holy law (Tit 2:11-14) they become slaves to these inferior “gods” of man made commandments and the fruit of them.

Part of God’s warning in Deuteronomy 4 to Israel for their disobedience was, “And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.” (v27-28)

When we refuse to serve God and walk in a right obedience to Him, often the outcome is that we serve false gods, and are made to reap the fruits of sowing to what is lifeless and false.

The truth for many people today is that they desire to serve their prejudices, pride, and twisted “understandings” instead of truly only seeking to know God and obey Him. The proof of this is in the fruit of their ways. Their fruit proves the god they serve and are actually built upon. They remain in the law of self, in their pride, prejudices, and unreasonableness. Whereas when we truly humble ourselves and seek the Lord, He will faithfully remove these sins from us.

Many people fall into obeying these false gods that such people carry about in God’s name. And what is worse, is that so many people are willing to serve Christ, are willing to walk in a true obedience to God, and yet their obedience and faith are hijacked by the commandments of men, and they do not understand how they are being taken as slaves.

All of this is the devil’s twisting, deceiving people away from truly building upon God, just as he attacked Eve in the garden, trying to sever her from the great foundation of her life.

Many Christians lie “for God” (Job 13:7), and are endlessly trying to prove that these “commandments of God” are good when only the true commandments of God are. Always refusing and unable to see and hear how these commandments are terrible oppression, starvation, and darkness. They do not see that what they really defend is the commandments of men, and not the true commandments of God, just as that is what they have been deceived into serving.

Yet the devil makes full use of this darkness, blaspheming God with these evil ways, and driving people away from God: “For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.'” (Rom 2:24)

What happened in the garden is that Eve and Adam began to build upon the “word” of another. They went outside of God and were deceived into building upon another’s word. They did not realize the cost of this, and neither do we.

The whole entire world does not realize the cost of this. The cost of living to the god of our ambitions and desires, the gods of man’s mere philosophies, of other people’s words and wishes. How easily we give ourselves over to these while equally resisting the only true One who is worthy of us. Worthy because He is pure and good, fair and righteous.

To set our souls/lives upon the “Gentile’s” idol or the “Jew’s” idol makes no difference, it doesn’t matter if our vanity is outside of religion or inside of it, all of these are deception from the enemy. All will fail us and be empty, vain, and lacking.

The great proof of what we are built upon is the lack of a real substance in us. Unreality and sin remain in us. Darkness instead of light. Nothingness rather than salt.

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.” (Mt 5:13)

“If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Mt 6:23)

“Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.” (Lk 8:18)

The Gospel is about bringing us back to God. About repairing this great damage that the devil has done. To find the true way of life. To learn real righteousness, wisdom, truth, and godliness. A mere pretense of these is never the true substance of them.