This week’s reading: Matthew 14:22-15:20
Hi Friends,
Only Jesus is Perfect. Next time we get confused about this, and we think that we are perfect, we need to go to the nearest body of water and try to walk on it! As we sink, may we remember the truth above, only Jesus is Prefect. There has only been two people we know of that did this incredible, nature-defying feat. Yep, two. One was our Perfect Lord, and the other one was following Him by Faith. We will talk about that this week, as well as what makes a person clean or unclean. We are in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 14 verse 22 all the way through to chapter 15 verse 20. But here is the amazing gift of God to Peter:
“When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. ‘It’s a ghost,’ they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.’ ‘Lord, if it’s you,’ Peter replied, ‘tell me to come to you on the water.’ ‘Come,’ he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came towards Jesus.” Mt 14:26-29 NIV
Jesus walks on water, and so does Peter. What an incredible privilege to grant Peter this miraculous credential. We too often focus on the fact that Peter begins to sink, but man! He walked on water! I cannot even imagine how amazing that must have been. Yes, once he became distracted by the waves…and probably heard his comrades in the boat yelling to him, saying something like, “What in the world are you doing, Peter? Are you nuts?” Sure, when he took his eyes off of Jesus and focused on the things around him instead, he began to sink. But don’t we do this too? I know I can be super strong when I am sitting in front of my computer, writing articles like this, doing research and immersed fully in Scripture, but the moment I get up to do something else, the minute someone says something that annoys me, the second I let my mind wander off into all the things I don’t know, cannot fix, don’t want to deal with…yes, the moment I let my eyes fall from Jesus to this world, to others, or worse, to myself, then I can feel myself start to sink too. My thoughts can quickly go from glorifying God to becoming frustrated or depressed over some life situation. I sink…but just like with Peter, the moment I realize I am going down into that pit, I can cry out to Jesus and He brings me safely into His “boat”! Once again, I am in His Presence where I am secure in His Love. (Ro 5:8) Once again, I can capture my thoughts and make sure they line up with what God says about me. (2Co 10:5) Once again, I take control of my emotions and just breathe. (Ps 62:1) Once again, I remember this life is not about MMI and I can trust God’s Will for my life, as well as His Plan for this world. (Pr 3:5-6) I may not be able to walk on water, but when I am with Jesus this way, it sure feels like I am walking on the clouds! He makes all the difference.
Jesus calls out to Peter. Peter wisely does not step out of the boat until he hears Jesus tell him, “Come.” (v29 of our reading) And my Friends, Jesus is still calling out for us to come to Him too. Come, stay and abide. These are the three things God is always encouraging me to do, and they match up with each part of who we are. This is our human trinity: our spirit, soul and body. First, we must come to God spiritually when we have turned away. This will reconnect us with Him so that we may receive His Love, and whatever else we might need at the moment, like encouragement, insight, a creative inspiration and so on. This is a spirit thing because this is where the Holy Spirit resides, united with our own spirit. And praise God, He will never leave us, ever again! (Mt 28:20) As we come to God, we must also stay with Him. This is a soul thing which includes our mind, emotions and will. We must learn to keep our thoughts centered on Him and what He says is truth, instead of being distracted by, and believing in this world. We must learn to allow Him to help us use self-control to keep our feelings in check, instead of allowing them to control us and run rampant. We must learn to submit to His Will, instead of seeking, or demanding, our own desires. Connected with God in our spirit, we can continue to mature in Christ so that our soul will be ruled by Jesus and reflect Him, more and more. Then as we come to God spiritually and stay with Him soulfully, we can abide, or in other words, “remain in” Him by obeying Him with our body. Our body consists of our appearance, the words we speak, and the deeds we perform. You know, the things we display to this world that others can see. So our lives will reflect Jesus more and more as we come, stay and abide, because we will be connected to, learning from and obeying Him. For example, after my Beckie passed, I was pushing away from God in my grief and confusion and heartbreak. I was afraid I was going to say something disrespectful to God and I did not want to do that. I finally got so miserable and felt so lost that I came to God with all my pain. As I stayed with Him, I sensed His comfort, I felt His compassion and I was able to discern some lessons He wanted me to hold on to. Reconnected and with this new understanding, I was able to abide in Him so that I could obey what He was putting on my heart to do. The more we hear Jesus calling out to us, even in the midst of a storm like I did and like Peter did, the more our Faith grows so that we will not allow the unknown to cause us to fear.
The unknown. These disciples cry out in fear when they see Jesus walking towards them on water…and I am sure we would too. When we face anything in life that is uncertain, we tend to allow fear to set in. Sometimes it takes us a while to realize that Jesus is in the midst of our situation. But the moment we recognize Jesus is with us, hopefully, we can begin to walk by Faith again instead of fear. The enemy means for fear to keep us from God, not trusting Him, maybe even running from Him in the opposite direction. But Faith in God, joins us to Him so that we can rest in Him, trusting that whatever is going on, God is still in control. Here Peter walks on water, and even when he sinks, he trusts enough to cry out to Jesus for help. One of the interesting things about reading the Bible ourselves, is that, the inflection in our voice as we read the words of Jesus will reveal how we view Him and Christianity as a whole. For instance, depending on your viewpoint, we can read the following verse different ways. Someone who thinks Jesus is always serious and strict, and maybe even thinks following Him would lead to a hard and empty life, might say, “Oh YOU of LITTLE FAITH, why did YOU doubt?” Ahh, but I know my Lord to be kind and good and understanding, and following Him to be an opportunity to live a life full of good things, even in the midst of challenges, so I can hear the joy in the voice of Jesus as He says, “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” The way we view Christ and the life He offers, whether we are still living by fear or have started walking by Faith, changes everything, even our perspective of what is going on in Scripture. You see, Jesus was not angry with Peter. He was so pleased that Peter got out of the boat, that he took some steps on the water, and that he turned back to Jesus when he got into trouble. These are all examples of Faith, not fear. Faith always pleases God. As a matter of fact, hear what the Book of Hebrews has to say about this: “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Heb 11:6 NIV) How generous a God do we have!?! When we step out in Faith, and do only that which we should be doing, He plans to reward us on top of it! The only way to combat the fear of the unknown is to dig in deeper with our Faith in God. As we understand that God is Omniscient, He knew whatever is happening, was going to happen, and has made a way out of the hardship for us. (1Co 10:13) That God is Omnipotent, He is stronger and greater than everything and anyone, seen and unseen, so no one can defeat Him or His Love for us. (1Jn 4:4) That God is Omnipresent, He goes before us, is with us and will stay behind to settle anything that still has to be done. (Ps 139:7-12) The more we begin to get a glimpse of how majestic, sovereign, wise our God is, we can let go of fear and begin to live by Faith, more and more. My Friends, God is so powerful that those who were coming to Jesus knew that if they could just touch the edge of His cloak, they would receive the power to be healed. Praise God He does not want us to merely touch a tiny part of His hem, but we can be fully embraced by His Love! He can, and will, heal the real disease that we have been infected with, and it is not located on our outside.
Clean and unclean. Our real illness lies deep within our fallen nature. In our dead spirit, we have been contaminated by such ugly selfishness that only Jesus can purify us. Listen to these two lists of what Jesus says lies in the dead, unsaved heart, the first is from Matthew: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts–murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Mt 15:19 NIV) The second is found in Mark: “For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person.” (Mk 7:21-23 NIV) These wicked attitudes and mind sets are what make a person unclean, that is, immoral. This impure nature leads to the behaviors that cause us to become tarnished, polluted, tainted, filthy, unhealthy and so on. It is only after we become born again, that the healing begins. We need Jesus within, to clean out this unclean heart of ours. This is a huge part of the process called Sanctification. As we grow in Christ, we let go of these evils and begin to think more and more like Him, which causes us to act more and more like Him. Our belief influences our thoughts, which affect our emotions, which inspire our will, which directs our actions, which give us results. I call this the Cascade of Life. If we ground ourselves in our Faith in Jesus, then He renews our minds which helps us control our emotions, which transforms what we want, which helps us act more and more like Jesus, which gives us a more fulfilling life. Understanding this all starts with allowing Jesus to make us clean, is so key to living the Abundant Life Jesus wants for us, and died to give us. If you want to be clean, then stop trying to wash your outside, and start coming to God, staying with Him, and abiding in Him, so He can cleanse you.
Religion vs relationship. It all boils down to this, my Friends. These Pharisees had all sorts of religion, but they did not even recognize God when He was standing right in front of them. May this not be the case with you or me! Religion is you and me trying, on our own, to be holy, which we cannot do since we are born unclean. It is only having a relationship with our Father, through Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, that can clean us so that we can then work with God to follow His Way. First relationship, then religion is fine. But religion apart from relationship does nothing for us at all, except maybe pump up our Pride. This is the problem Jesus has with the religious of His Time. They were all about following rules, but not following God. There is a huge difference, my Friends. The more we focus on our growing relationship with God by doing those three vital things- come, stay and abide- the more of His goodness we will experience here, no matter what is going on a round us, and the more we can share this goodness with others too. It is my heart’s longing to tell the whole world about my Jesus, and even though it is just me and this computer with my little website, for now, I choose to trust Him with the unknowns. I do not fear, but have Faith that God will do what only God can do. In the meantime, I continue my journey of Faith with my God, by obeying Him and enjoying this Abundant Life as much as I can. That’s my plan. How about you? Then won’t you join me?
Until we meet again, keep lifting your eyes to God, He’s closer than you think.
<>< Peace, Diane
That was a beautiful hopeful peaceful message.
God bless you Sister