Why You’re Not Building Something

Jeremiah 42:10
“If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up: for I repent me of the evil that I have done unto you.”

A phrase in the verse above shows why people fail to build anything in their lives. That phrase is, “If ye will still abide in this land…” One word describes this phrase and that word is “stability.” To abide in spite of the tumultuous circumstances around these people showed the stability God wanted them to have. You will notice that the result of being stable was that God said, “…then will I build you…” The word “then” is the keyword to this phrase because if they were not stable, then God would NOT build them.

You will never build anything in life without stability. One reason teenagers become rebellious is because they live in an unstable environment. The instability causes them to react negatively because they don’t know how to handle this instability. A church that isn’t stable is a church that won’t grow. A business that is unstable in its practices is a business that will flounder and eventually be closed. If you want to build something in life, you must learn to be stable with all that you do.

I am reminded of my pastor for many years, Dr. Jack Hyles, who was not a man of change. I remember going to his church when I was a young boy and then returning to his church for Bible college, and the church was still the same church that it had always been. When I moved my ministry of evangelism to his church, one of the great comforts I had was that when I returned from weeks of meetings that the church would be the same that it had always been. The stability he provided as the pastor of his church helped the church to become one of the great churches of history.

My friend, you must learn to be stable in spite of an unstable society. It is easy to run to change when society around you seems to be changing, but you must not change just because everything around you is changing. For instance, when the demands to shut down churches and go virtual because of COVID happened, I determined not to shut down our church but kept our church running as normal. The result is that God protected our church, and our church has seen tremendous growth in spite of the fear perpetuated by government officials. What caused the growth? I believe one of the contributors to our growth was that we provided stability to people in an unstable time, and people wanted to come to a place that was stable because stability provides security.

Moreover, when everyone around you changes methods, you must be stable and keep working the same productive methods that have worked throughout the years. The quickest way to tear down the stability God has given you is to be quick to change to the “newest” method of doing things. Why change what is working? It is not that the methods of the past don’t work; it is simply that we are not working the methods. Keep doing what you know is right, and your stability will move God to build you.

Furthermore, when what you are doing doesn’t give immediate results, keep doing it because the stability of doing the same thing will reap positive benefits. If you jump from one thing to the next, you will create instability and destroy the ability for God to build what you are doing. Stability creates security, so don’t change what you are supposed to be doing just because it doesn’t seem to work.