Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Matthew 7:24

[H]e is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built.

Luke 6:48

Growing up, spending a lot of time in Matthew, I sort of got the impression from Matthew 7:24, that listening to and following Jesus was kind of like considering real estate on the beach.  You have sandy portions and you have rocky portions.  In some places, there are only dunes, and in other places, namely, upon Jesus, there is a rock sticking out, and it is at this place that one should build their house, rather than upon the sand.  The “choice”, if you will, was simply to follow the instructions or to live a different way, which, of course, would be wrong, and result in failure.

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