Is Jesus in Your Boat?

 

John 6:19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened.

Matthew, Mark, and John all wrote about their experience of Jesus walking on the water. You remember that account of the disciples all in the boat during a bad storm and seeing Jesus walking toward them on the water.

Although they all told about the same experience, what stood out in that experience was different for each person.

For example, only Matthew talks about Peter joining Jesus on the water. That has always been the emphasis in the story when I have heard it taught or preached about.

Neither Mark nor John saw that as the most important part of the story. Neither one mentions Peter getting out of the boat, walking on the water toward Jesus, then looking at the waves and starting to sink!

What is the same in all the accounts is that they were all afraid.

They were all glad to have the presence of Jesus in their boat when He got there. His presence gave them comfort. It took away their fear.

All three men recount that Jesus calmed the storm as soon as He entered their boat.

And this is a key truth we can learn from Matthew's, Mark's, and John's accounts of their experience in that boat.

The most important thing in any experience we have is not what miraculous things happen or what we can do (even with God’s help). 

No, what is important is whether we have invited Jesus into our boat. 

That is when He will bring calm in us no matter what storm we are going through.

Is Jesus in your boat?

Just Do It Afraid

 

Ezra 3:3 Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the Lord …

I suppose that as long as we live on this earth there will always be someone or something around to cause us to be afraid, or to feel fear or feel threatened.  

But fear should not, it cannot, be allowed to keep us from doing the right thing.  Sometimes we have to do what is right even if we feel afraid.   

Fear can paralyze us, but only if we allow it to do so.  If our desire to please God and to honor Him is strong enough it will give us the extra courage we need to overcome our fear and do what needs to be done.  

I remember reading the story of a little girl who felt afraid to go to school for the first time. He mother said to the child, 

“Just do it afraid.”   

 It happened that way for those Jews in Ezra’s time.  

That is what the Jews did when they rebuilt the altar in Jerusalem.The passage does not say why they were afraid of the people around them, but it does not really matter.  The important thing is that they went ahead despite their fear and did the right thing, the thing they should do.   

They did it because of “what is written” (v.4).  After they took that initial step, they presented regular burnt offerings (v.5).

The first step was the hardest, but it got them going on the right track and in the right direction.

They did it afraid. 

"And when the builders laid the foundation of the temple of the Lord, the priests in their vestments came forward with trumpets, an the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with cymbals, to praise the Lord. ... And all the people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation  of the house of the Lord was laid." ~ Ezra 3:10-11

Fearful Words

 

Isaiah 37:6 Do not be afraid because of the words you have heard…

 I have always felt afraid of bad news, but then again, who does not fear that?  

 I remember well the day the doctor said to me, “Your father is dying.”  Even though it was almost 30 years ago now, and more recently (some 10 years ago) when the hospice nurse said, “Your mother has just  a few more hours,”  the memories of both events stays vivid in my memory. Both were fearful words to have to hear and yet, as the prophet Isaiah told King Hezekiah in this verse, I was not afraid of those words when I heard them.  I knew that God was going to take care of them and of me and our family and that my father's and later my mother's “fate” was already a secure one. Their faith in the work of Christ on their behalf was an accomplished fact; their salvation and future in heaven was secure. So, when my father took his last breath, I felt a blanket of peace fall over me, and when my mother breathed her last some 20 years later that same comfort arrived in the room.  I did not have to be afraid because of any mere words.  God had all in control.  They were just words and words cannot do any permanent harm. I did not have to be afraid of the fearful words.