Alternate Plans
Bible Order: Exod 14–16
Chronological Order: Gen 28:1–30:24

 

Jesus Revealed

Matthew 14:22–15:9

We saw yesterday Jesus withdraw from the crowds to mourn the loss of His relative, John the Baptist.  Unfortunately for Jesus the crowds followed Him and upon arriving at His get-away He was compelled to minister to their physical and spiritual needs.  The point of my post yesterday was that we need to persevere through our difficulties and pain in order to meet the needs of those that need us.  I made the point that it was perfectly acceptable to mourn our losses but we must not do so excessively.

Today we see that after meeting the needs of those that depended upon Him, Jesus finally did send the people and His disciples away so He could be alone to pray and restore His soul.  We absolutely need these times of restoration in the presence of God.  To truly be restored we need to withdraw from the hustle and bustle of life, we need to withdraw from all distractions, and spend quiet, one-on-one time in the presence of the Father.

Now Jesus had sent the Disciples out on a boat ahead of Him but the wind was against them and so while they had been gone a while, they hadn’t gotten all that far.  Jesus came to them walking on the water.  Imagine your response had you been there and looked out to see Jesus walking toward you on the water.  I would think each of us would be filled with conflicting feelings of awe and dread.  People don’t walk on water.  Jesus was giving His disciples a powerful demonstration of His power, His deity.  Jesus showed that He had authority over creation itself.

Now most of us focus on the part of this story where Peter has enough faith to step out of the boat and walk on the water to Jesus until he becomes frightened by the wind and the waves.  This is an important part of the story but it isn’t the most important part.  The important part is that Jesus is the Son of God, that He has authority not only over human kind but over all of creation.  It was Jesus who walked on water and made it possible for Peter to do so as well.  It was Jesus whose presence calmed the sea.  This is the important part to remember.

We must start with who Jesus is.  If Jesus is not who He says He is you should not submit to Him, you should not worship Him.  If He is who He says He is then we know that He has the power to do what He has promised to do.  We know that we have hope.  Having settled the issue of who Jesus is we can now look at the lesson of Peter.  Peter desired to come to Jesus and Jesus made that possible, but when Peter took His eyes off of Jesus he began to sink.  What was Jesus’ response?  Jesus took hold of Peter.  Peter let his eyes lose hold of Jesus but Jesus took hold of him.

Jesus tells us later that no one who God the Father places in the hand of Jesus the Son will be lost from His hand.  Even when we stumble and lose hold of Him, He will retain His hold on us.  Jesus’ words here are important as well “You of little faith, why did you doubt”?

Why do we doubt?  Why is our faith so little?  It is because we take our eyes off of Jesus.  In that moment we forget who He is.  Brothers, our time in the Bible, our time in prayer, our time in worship are all intended to help us keep our eyes Jesus.  This time is intended to help us grow our faith.  It does so with revelation of His power; revelation like we see in this story where He walks on water.  Has He revealed who He is in your prayer life?  He has in mine.  Has He revealed Himself in your time of worship?  He has in mine.  I am not bragging.  I’m attempting to assure you that Jesus does reveal Himself for who He is.  He is God incarnate.  As the disciples said to Him after he revealed Himself in such a powerful way “Truly you are the Son of God”.

Never forget who Jesus is.  Don’t take your eyes off of Him!

Have a blessed day!

Your brother and servant in Christ,

Bill

Dying to self, living to serve!

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