What Are We Building, and Will It Matter?

A Reflection on Wisdom, Repentance, and Living Before Christ

I’ve been reading Contend by Philip Anthony Mitchell, and several passages have brought me back to something the Lord has been impressing upon my heart through my own study of Scripture, writing, and teaching over these last several months.

At our Mom Fight Club retreat, we spent time in Proverbs 14:1, considering the woman who builds her house through wisdom and the woman who tears it down through folly. We talked about how wisdom is not simply knowing what is right, but living in reverence and obedience to the Lord. How the things we do quietly, consistently, and sometimes without anyone noticing are shaping our homes and our lives.

I’ve also been thinking about Paul’s warning in 2 Timothy 3 concerning those who are “always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth” (verse 7).

What a sobering description of something we can recognize in our own generation.

We have access to more sermons, podcasts, Bible studies, teachers, books, and Christian content than we could possibly consume in a lifetime. Yet access to biblical information is not the same thing as spiritual maturity. We can know what everyone is saying about God while spending very little time actually listening to what God has said in His Word.

We can become experts in controversy and remain novices in obedience.

And perhaps most concerning, we can become so preoccupied with the sins of the world, the failures of church leaders, and the deception we see around us that we neglect to examine the condition of our own hearts.

In Jude 3, believers are urged to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. That is a necessary charge. Truth matters. Doctrine matters. We are not free to reshape Christianity around our preferences, feelings, or the changing convictions of the culture.

But contending for the faith must never become a substitute for actually living the faith.

Jude doesn’t merely warn against false teachers. He goes on to instruct believers to build themselves up in the faith, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep themselves in the love of God, and wait for the mercy of Jesus Christ (Jude 20–21).

Notice how much of that instruction requires our own faithful participation.

And this brings me back to Proverbs 14:1.

What are we building?

What are we allowing to shape our thinking, our affections, our conversations, and our homes? What are we teaching our children about what matters, not merely through the things we tell them, but through the things they watch us pursue?

Are we becoming more patient? More humble? More generous? More acquainted with Scripture? More willing to confess our sins and turn from them?

Or are we simply becoming more informed, more opinionated, more distracted, and more comfortable with the things God has called us to put away?

I ask these questions of myself as much as anyone else.

Because repentance is not merely the doorway through which we entered the Christian life. It ought to remain an ongoing posture of the Christian heart.

Not because Christ’s sacrifice was insufficient, but because His grace is continually teaching us to renounce ungodliness and live godly lives (Titus 2:11–12).

We should be growing in our willingness to be corrected by Scripture. We should be quicker to recognize our own sin, quicker to confess it, and increasingly unwilling to make peace with the things that grieve the Lord.

And we should never confuse repentance with despair. The Christian does not turn from sin toward hopelessness. We turn toward Christ, whose mercy is sufficient and whose grace continues to transform us.

Lately, I’ve been thinking more about the judgment seat of Christ.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:9–10 that his aim is to please the Lord, because we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ and give account for what we have done in the body.

One day, we will stand before Him.

And I wonder how much of what consumes us today will seem terribly insignificant in that moment.

The arguments we felt compelled to win. The opinions we needed everyone to hear. The endless hours spent consuming information that did little to make us more faithful. The comforts we protected, the distractions we justified, and the opportunities to love and serve that we allowed to pass us by.

How differently might we live today if we remembered that our lives are being lived before the Lord?

Not every faithful act will be impressive to the world. Much of it may look like ordinary obedience. Loving our families. Speaking truth graciously. Repenting when we are wrong. Praying when no one sees. Refusing to compromise. Opening our Bibles when something else would be easier. Serving faithfully in the places God has assigned to us.

These things matter.

And none of this is about earning our standing before God. Our salvation rests entirely upon the finished work of Jesus Christ. But the grace that saves us is also the grace that changes us.

I don’t want to spend my life collecting Christian knowledge while resisting the very transformation that knowledge ought to produce.

I don’t want to be so busy identifying the foolishness around me that I fail to recognize the foolishness I am allowing into my own home.

And I certainly don’t want to stand before Christ having devoted more attention to the temporary things of this world than to the eternal things He entrusted to me.

Psalm 1 describes the blessed person as one who delights in the instruction of the Lord and meditates on it day and night. That person is compared to a tree planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in its season.

There is something encouraging about that picture.

The tree does not produce fruit by chasing every passing thing. It bears fruit because it is rooted, nourished, and sustained.

Perhaps that is where we need to return.

Not to another personality, another controversy, or another endless stream of content, but to the Word of God. To prayer. To repentance. To the ordinary, often unseen work of faithfully following Jesus.

Are we allowing biblical truth to govern the way we actually live?

Because one day we will see our lives in the light of eternity, and I pray that what matters to Christ will have mattered to us.

May we be women who build wisely, repent readily, contend faithfully, and rest wholly in the grace of our Savior.

We do not need to wait until eternity to begin caring about the things that will matter in eternity.

“So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.” — 2 Corinthians 5:9

The Meek Momma