SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/28/2022 9:22 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 “Proof of His Divine Love”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Matt 14:28-31
Message of the verses: “28 And Peter
answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on
the water." 29 And He said, "Come!" And Peter got out of the
boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But seeing the wind, he
became afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, "Lord, save
me!" 31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took hold of him,
and *said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’”
We have been talking about Peter as he is walking on
the water and have stated that this was not something prideful that Peter was
doing, and I think that this is verified due to the answer that the Lord gave
to Peter as seen in verse 29 where He says “Come.” Jesus in this answer confirms that Peter had
right motives as He never invites, much less commands, a person to do anything
sinful. Jesus would not be a party to
pride or presumption. It was with the
greatest compassion, that Jesus told Peter to come, and was highly pleased that
he wanted to be with his Lord.
I
think that our Lord chose Peter to be the leader of the Twelve because of his
great love that Peter had for the Lord, as seen that his name is always first
in any of the lists of the disciples that are listed in the gospels. By the way Judas is always listed last. Peter appears to have been the closest to
Christ, even though at times he seems to get himself in trouble. We know that the Lord never rejects weak
faith but accepts it and builds on it, He also will never reject weak and
imperfect love. It was with His great
patience and care, that He takes the love of His children and, through trials
and hardships as well as successes and victories, He builds that love into
greater conformity to His own love.
It
was in an act of love He declared, that our Lord told Peter to come. MacArthur writes ‘We have come to know and
have believed the love which God has for us.’ “In fact, he goes on to say, “God
is love” (1 John 4:16; cf. v. 8). It is
God’s nature to be loving, just as it is water’s nature to wet and the sun’s to
be bright and hot. He loves His own with
an infinite, uninfluenced, unqualified, unchanging, unending, and perfect love.
“Christians
most perfectly reflect their heavenly Father when they are loving especially to
each other. ‘If someone says, ‘I love
God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar,’ John continues to explain, ‘for the
one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has
not seen’ (1 John 4:20).”
I think that as we look what Peter wanted to do
in walking on the water we can see that he was sincere, however he did not
comprehend the reality or the extremity of what he was asking to do. He was in the relative safety of the boat but
it seems that the feat did not seem so terrifying; but once Peter got out of
the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus, the situation appeared
radically different, which is understandable.
We read that Peter temporarily took his eyes off the Lord and, seeing
the wind, he became afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, “Lord,
save me!” The faith that Peter had was enough to get him out of the boat, but
it was not enough to carry him across the water.
MacArthur
writes: “Faith is strengthened by its
being taken to extremes it has never faced before. Such strengthening is basic to Christian
growth and maturity. ‘Blessed is a man
who perseveres under trial,’ James says, ‘for once he has been approved, he
will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love
Him’ (James 1:12). The Lord takes us as
far as our faith will go, and when it ends we begin to sink. It is then that we call out to Him and He
again demonstrates His faithfulness and His power, and our faith learns to
extend that much further. As we trust
God in the faith we have, we discover its limitations, but we also discover what
it can yet become.”
Peter
was probably fully clothed when he began to walk on the water, and then began
to sink, and so that would have made it much more difficult to just swim back
to the boat as the waves were very high at this point. In the fright that Peter was experiencing
because he began to sink he could think of nothing but drowning. However as soon as he cried out...Lord save
me.” He was safe, because immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and took
hold of him.
MacArthur continues “When Jesus rebuked him, saying,
O you of little faith, why did you doubt? Peter must have wondered at the
question. The reason for his doubt
seemed obvious. He was bone weary from
rowing most of the night, scared to death by the storm and then by what he
thought was a ghost, and now it seemed he was about to drown before he could
reach the Lord. He had never been in
such a situation before, and it may be that his actually walking a few feet on the
water added to his shock.”
Now
as we think about this we can come to the conclusion that Peter’s weak faith
was better than no faith; and, as in the courtyard when he denied the Lord, at
least he was there and not holding back like the rest, which is similar to the
eleven disciples still in the boat.
Peter at least started toward Jesus, and when he faltered, the Lord took
him the rest of the way.
Now
remember what our Lord was doing before He came to them walking on the water,
and that was He was interceding for them in prayer. Now He came directly to their aid in the
midst of the storm. The Lord goes before
us and He goes with us and that is, when you think about that is great
encouragement. There are times when we
get frustrated, anxious, bewildered, and frightened, then Satan tempts us to
wonder why God allows such things to happen to us, His children. And if then we keep our attention on those
things, we will begin to sink just as surely as Peter did. But if we cry out to the Lord for help, our
Lord will come to our rescue just as surely as He did to Peter’s rescue.
MacArthur
concludes by writing “Peter would one day write, ‘In this you greatly rejoice,
even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by
various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold
which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in
praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1 Peter 1:6-7).”
6/28/2022 10:08 AM
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