| Whatsoever
Things Are True
by Dan Coburn Pastor, Emmanuel Baptist Church pastordan@mtida.net In Matthew chapter 14, we see the account of Peter walking on the water. We have talked about this at length. There have been countless sermons on this event. Most of us have been told and retold this story since we were very young. Yet, Gods Word is “living and active, and sharper than any double edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12), as evidenced by the fact that there are Always Nuggets to glean from even a familiar story. Just a couple of points to ponder. First, as we established earlier, the disciples were in a terrible storm even though they were exactly where Jesus had told them to be, doing exactly what Jesus had told them to do. Just because bad things/events come into your life, doesn’t mean you are necessarily out of God’s will; although it is likely. Secondly, they didn’t initially realize it was the Savior going about His business even though they were very familiar with Him. Thirdly, though they were all disciples, only Peter asked to join Jesus, and finally, a small little Nugget found in the parallel account. In Marks account, it says that Jesus would have passed them by, or better yet, that He intended to pass them by. Spiritual Switch. I wonder how many of us who know Jesus: but A) Don’t recognize Him as He works around us. B) Don’t have the faith or desire to call out to Him as Peter did, and plea for Him to give us a command. To beg to join Him on His mission rather than spending a lifetime trying to convince Him to “rubber-stamp” our agenda. And C), after receiving His orders, have the faith to abandon the safety of the boat, and not only get out, but turn loose and in faith, walk on water. I mean to totally trust in Him, to do something absolutely unexplainable by every worldly standard. Someone once speculated that there is an enormous warehouse in heaven filled with blessings, Spiritual Presents if you will, that God was never able to give to us, because we wouldn’t step out in faith, and allow God to bless us as we share in His plan for the world. I hear folks say when given an opportunity to serve in this capacity or that; “but I’m not comfortable with that”. Nowhere in the Bible when God chose a hero, did he pick them because of their abilities or talents. Just the opposite is true. “God chooses the foolish things to confound the wise, and the weak things to confound the strong”. He looked around for weak and foolish things and found us. Paul said “in my weakness He is perfected in a way that makes me strong”. See a pattern? God is looking for a few people to Get out of the boat. How about you? |
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