Year: 2023

”… and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?“ Matthew‬ ‭14‬:‭30‬-‭31‬ ‭KJV‬‬. One of the wonderful things when we begin to live the supernatural life is, we discover the One Who walks with us is unfailing and His power never diminishes. When Peter got his eyes off of Jesus, he discovered that he had no power in himself to walk in a supernatural way. He learned what we all must learn, “Without Jesus, we can do nothing”. But how wonderful that Jesus was right there to rescue Peter and lift him up to once again walk in the supernatural. And we should thank God, that in our times of failure, when we get distracted and our faith weakens, Jesus is always there with the same supernatural power to reach out His mighty hand and lift us up once again! Let us rejoice in the supernatural power of our Lord and Saviour! When all of life seems to be crashing in and it seems that we will be brought back down to the natural life, Jesus is there to pick us up and teach us to walk in the supernatural. By God’s grace, let us keep our eyes on Him Who never fails.

”But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.“ Matthew‬ ‭14‬:‭30‬ ‭KJV‬‬. As Peter first began to walk on the water, going to Jesus, he was experiencing the reality of the supernatural life. But then, rather than keeping his eyes on Jesus, Who is the only Source of supernatural power, Peter began to look at the forces that were against him. Doing this caused him to fear and he began to sink. This scene has been repeated on a spiritual level for almost all of God’s children. When we respond to the call of Jesus obediently and step out in faith, we take our first steps in the supernatural life. And how amazing it is, that with our eyes on Him, we can go forward overcoming whatever is against us. But then, like Peter, we soon get distracted and began to focus more on the things against us than on the One Who is with us. And certainly those opposing forces are real. We feel the power of the world, the flesh and the devil, which all come to war against our souls. And when we become fixated on them, more than Jesus, we will begin to sink. By God’s grace, let us recognize, the key to the supernatural life is to always keep our attention on Jesus. He is far greater than anything that is against us.

”And He said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.“ Matthew‬ ‭14‬:‭29‬ ‭KJV‬‬. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the stormy sea, they were frightened at first because they knew it was a supernatural thing. They knew that no man had this power on a natural level to walk on the water. And when Peter responded in faith, to come to Jesus, walking on the water, that also was a supernatural walk. Too often, we tend to focus on the next verse, where Peter got distracted and began to sink. We identify with that because it seems to be the normal way of living. But the reality is, he walked on the water! He walked in a supernatural way. He walked as no natural man can walk. May God help us to realize that the Christian life we have been called to is a supernatural life. The walk of faith is not a walk on the natural level, being overcome by natural forces as normal people are. This life is a supernatural walk with Jesus. And because we are walking with Him, we also will have power to overcome the spiritual forces that are against us. Too often we settle for the natural. By God’s grace, let us rise up to live the supernatural life God has for us.

”He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭32‬ ‭KJV‬‬. There are times in our lives in which we wonder, “Why doesn’t God give me this or that? Why does this person have it but not me?” And of course, many religious people twist these words trying to say that God will give us everything we want. But let us understand, the words ‘all things’ does not mean everything we want or selfishly desire. Rather, it means all things that we need, all things that are spiritually good for us. It includes all things that benefit us eternally. We should understand that while our Heavenly Father is very generous, He is also a perfectly wise Father. He does not give to His children according to our fleshy desires. He certainly does not give anything that will harm our souls. But He always gives what is best and what we need. And what great assurance we have here that He will! If He was willing to give His only begotten Son for our salvation, then how much more is He willing to provide all things that we need. Let our faith in God be strengthened. Our Father will give all that we need.

“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.” Psalm‬ ‭122‬:‭1‬ ‭KJV‬‬. This should be the testimony of every true child of God. We should be glad when the time comes to gather with God’s people and worship Him. We should look forward to these times and prepare our hearts and minds for worship. And our attitude should be: “I am going to meet with my God. I am going to be in His presence and listen as He speaks to me. I am going to worship and offer praise and thanksgiving to God because He is worthy”. But far too often, people stay away from God’s house because they are more focused on human failure than they are on God’s goodness. They complain about this one not doing right and that situation not going according to their idea. They focus more on the problems than they do the One Who is the Solution! And then they make time for everything that is important to them but always find an excuse to stay out of God’s house. But when we truly love God, we will want to obey Him and gather for worship as He calls us to. By God’s grace, let us get our attention more upon God and His great faithfulness, and then we will be glad when we enter His house.

”To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.“ Luke‬ ‭1‬:‭79‬ ‭KJV‬‬. In these words, which Zacharias prophecied concerning Jesus, we see a great contrast. We see those sitting in darkness and those who have received light walking in the way of peace. Those in darkness cannot make progress but those receiving light can. This should remind us that when we choose to settle in darkness, we will not be able to make spiritual progress. In many ways the enemy tries to bring darkness upon our lives, even as christians. There are dark valleys we must walk through. There are dark times of loss, suffering and discouragement. But while many of these times are unavoidable, the truth is that we have to make a choice to settle down there, or to go through it by God’s grace. If we sit in the darkness, we will become stagnant in our souls. We will not make progress and actually begin to spirituality wither. But thank God, when we look to Jesus and open our hearts to receive His blessed light, we can be led out of the darkness and make progress in His way of peace. Let us be those, by God’s grace, who walk THROUGH the dark valleys and continue pressing towards the goal.

“Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” Psalm 55:22 NKJV. What a great privilege is ours to be able to bring our burdens to Jesus, our merciful High Priest. He is our great Burden Bearer. He is the One Who invites us to ‘Come to Me and cast all your cares on Me because I care for you’. And may we be humble enough to recognize, that we need to cast our burdens on Him. The burdens of this life can become so heavy at times that we feel them weighing us down to the point we don’t know how to go on. They will crush the peace and joy out of us. But our Lord calls us to bring our burdens to Him because He knows we were not designed to carry them alone. He Who created us knows that only He can bear the load of sin and sorrow. Only He can handle the pressures of this life. Only He can sustain our weary souls! And thank God, He will for every soul who comes in faith to Him. Today, as we come to our Burden Bearer, let us know that no one cares like Jesus. May we be willing to let go and let Him bear our burdens. He will lighten our load.

“But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art Mine.” Isaiah‬ ‭43:1‬ KJV. In reading this chapter it is easy to become focused on the next verse. There our Lord encourages and reminds us “when you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fires, you will not be burned…” And certainly those are wonderful words that bring comfort to our souls. But do we ever pause to ask “Why?” Why does God promise us such marvelous things? Why does He promise to be with us and keep us through the worst places of this life? Then we realize the answer is already given in verse 1. It is simply because we belong to Him. Our Creator God, the One Who is our Heavenly Father says, “Thou art Mine”. It is because He cares for His own and we have been bought with a price. So whatever you are facing today, whatever is going on in your life, however difficult your path may be, remember these words: ‘I belong to God. The Almighty Creator of Heaven and earth, the One Who keeps His promise, He has said to me, “You are My child. And because you belong to Me, I will always be with you and take care of you. And whatever you face, My grace is sufficient for you”.

”LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; That I may know how frail I am.“ Psalm‬ ‭39‬:‭4‬ ‭KJV‬‬. Most of the time when people read this passage they think the writer, David, was speaking only about the brevity of this physical life. But let us open our hearts to see this in a spiritual light. Because of the many troubles and adversaries David faced in life, he was often confronted by his own human limitations. While he was a mighty man of valor, he also knew that his resources all had an end. He is asking God to help him recognize the limits of his own strength and endurance. He wanted to understand that with all of his abilities and resources, they all had an end. Only in coming to this understanding, could he see how frail he really was and in constant need of God’s help. This is very important spiritually, because until we understand the limits of our personal strength, we will never be able to lay hold of God’s divine strength which has no end. Until we come to the end of our resources, we will not be open to the unending resources of our Heavenly Father. This request is not something merely for older saints as they near the end of life. Rather, it is for every true believer to humble themselves and be willing to see, that all my resources have an end. And in that discovery, they can open their hearts to the unending, inexhaustible resources of our God.

”Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God…“ John‬ ‭4‬:‭10‬ ‭KJV‬‬. Let us consider Jesus’ words here, about knowing the Gift of God. He explained to the woman of Samaria that everything will change when we truly know the Gift of God. It is clear from scripture that Jesus is God’s greatest Gift to this fallen world. He is the Gift that makes every spiritual blessing possible. We know that God so loved this world that He gave His only begotten Son. But too often, religious people accept intellectual knowledge alone as being sufficient. They hear the Christmas story and learn a few things about God’s Gift. They listen to things said about Jesus and accept them as historical truth. But this kind of information does not change the heart and life. The knowledge Jesus is speaking of here, is the knowledge based on personal devotion and relationship. We cannot truly know Jesus apart from devoting ourselves to Him. Knowing a few things about Jesus will not cause a person to devote themselves wholeheartedly to Him and center their entire life around Him. Believing a few facts about what Jesus did will not reset your priorities and cause you to seek those things above that are most important to Jesus Christ. But when you truly come to know the Incredible Gift of God in your heart and trust Him as Saviour and Lord, THEN, all things will become new! And then, you will forever thank and praise God for His Unspeakable Gift.