All !n with Jordan Easley

Unless the Lord Builds the House

What comes to your mind when you hear the word home? For some, it’s a warm kitchen, the smell of coffee, and laughter in the living room. For others, it might stir up pain, memories of fights, divorce, or absence. No matter your experience, we are all building something: marriages, families, and futures. The most important question we can ask is, what foundation are we building upon? You could build a house that impresses the world, like the twenty-seven-story, two-billion-dollar mansion in India, yet find it filled with anger and emptiness. A structure can collapse under pressure if God is not at the center. That is why we must start with the foundation. Psalm 127:1 gives us a warning and a promise rolled into one: “Unless the LORD builds a house, its builders labor over it in vain.” You can build a structure, but only God can build a family that lasts.

Mission to the World

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy toured NASA and met a janitor carrying a mop. When the president asked him what he did there, the man replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” That janitor understood that his role, no matter how small it seemed, was part of a mission far greater than himself. He saw beyond his immediate task to the larger, history-changing vision. In the same way, the Bible tells us that if you have been saved and made new by Christ, you are part of something much bigger than you realize. You have a purpose and a place in the mission of God. We are not just church members or spiritual consumers; we are participants in God’s plan to redeem a broken world. The question is, why do we so often live as if that is untrue?

From Curiosity To Conversion

Curiosity can be a powerful catalyst for change. Consider the story of a janitor at NASA during the 1960s space race who, through simple curiosity, overheard a debate between engineers and offered a groundbreaking idea that improved the Apollo mission’s fuel. His curiosity brought him close, his boldness brought him in, and his question led to a breakthrough. This is the power of curiosity, and it is the same force that led a man named Zacchaeus to the single greatest transformation of his life. In Luke 19, we meet Zacchaeus, a man whose intense desire to see Jesus outweighed his dignity, his reputation, and the obstacles in his way. His story shows us that when we are desperate enough to seek Jesus, we position ourselves for a divine encounter. Jesus is not looking for the qualified or the righteous. He is looking for the curious, the searching, and the lost, ready to call them by name and change their lives forever.

From Blindness To Boldness

Most people have heard of Colonel Sanders and his world-famous fried chicken, but few know his story of failure. After his restaurant business failed, he hit the road at age 65 with nothing but a social security check and his secret recipe. He was rejected 1,009 times before one person finally said "yes." That single encounter changed everything, turning a rejected recipe into the global empire of KFC. One moment can redefine a life. In Mark 10, we meet a man named Bartimaeus who also had a life-changing encounter. He was a blind beggar, sitting by the road as he did every day. But on this day, Jesus of Nazareth was passing by. Bartimaeus had heard the stories of Jesus’ power and compassion. That hope awakened his faith, leading to one desperate cry that would stop the Savior in His tracks and move Bartimaeus from a life of blindness to one of bold faith.

The Rich Young Ruler

Many of us can remember wanting something desperately as a child, like a prized toy or a rare collector's item. We might have even been willing to trade for it, but when the time came, the cost felt too high. We looked at what we already cherished, what we had worked hard to get, and thought, “As much as I want that, I just can’t let go of what I have.” In a similar way, we all come to Jesus with hands that are full. They are full of our achievements, our possessions, our plans, and our priorities. As we encounter Christ, He gently but firmly asks us to loosen our grip and let those things go. In Mark 10, we meet a man who had everything the world says we should want, yet he walked away from Jesus sad and grieving. His story is a powerful reminder that our relationship with God is not about what we can accumulate, but what we are willing to surrender to gain the one thing that truly matters: eternal life through Jesus Christ.