Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

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Praying the Psalms with Augustine and Friends

who are under the Law” (Rom 3:19). Israel would not submit to me. O ungrateful soul! So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts (v. 12), not according to the healthfulness of my commands, but, according to the affections of their heart. I gave them up to themselves. The Apostle also says, “God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts” (Rom 1:24). Therefore if you love something you possess, yet do not commit violence for its sake, or bear false witness for its sake, or swear falsely for its sake, or deny Christ for its sake, then you have a Christian foundation. But because you still love it and are saddened if you lose it, you have built on that foundation, not with gold, or silver, or precious stones, but with wood, hay, and straw. Therefore you will be saved, when that which you have built begins to burn. For let no one who builds on this foundation with adulteries, blasphemies, sacrileges, idolatries, think he shall be “saved through fire,” as though they were the “wood, hay, straw” (1 Cor 3:12). Since that person builds the love of earthly things on the foundation of the kingdom of heaven, their love of temporal things will be burned and they will be saved through the right foundation.