Relevant For Life-September 12 – Read: Matthew 8-10 Our Pattern —“Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” Matthew 8:23-25 NKJV. It is a common misconception that followers of Jesus Christ are perfect. But fear, anxiety, stress—these are all words that describe most people’s state of mind—and Christians have moments of this too, as God reminds us in the life of the disciples or followers of Jesus. They were the same as we are today, and like us—on more than one occasion. In this brief moment, this little snippet of the life of Jesus recorded for us—this four word sentence may be short, but it says so much about our Savior. We can miss it if we read too fast, but this is the only time that we actually see God sleeping—Jesus is God too. God came to this Earth as one of us—human flesh—John 1:1-5,10-15—He actually chose to leave Heaven, be born flesh and chose to feel pain for you and I—to pay our penalty for sin so we do not have too—John 3:16-17. This still baffles me. But I think it is more than ironic that He had this recorded for us—that Jesus is sleeping in the middle of what all of us would consider great turmoil—a storm on the sea. And notice, the word suddenly here—they got into the boat and suddenly a great storm arose—but Jesus was already asleep. I still remember the first time I read this—because I realized there was nowhere else recorded for us in His word that He is asleep. In fact, we will keep reading where everyone else goes home to go to bed and Jesus—He goes up on a mountain to talk to His Father. I wondered if He slept. As we read through the Gospels He wants us to remember that He has set a precedent of what our life should reflect—love, serving others. Jesus paid our price for us, and when we accept the full pardon He offers, setting us free from sin it does not end there. He asks us to follow Him—Luke 9:23. As Jesus said to His disciples, follow Me, He says to us also. How do we follow Him? We follow the urging of the Holy Spirit inside us and look to what His life looked like as a pattern of life for us. There are times that looking at what Jesus did not do that can be just as important to learn from as what He did. You see, if you look at what He did and you are honest with yourself, you will also notice what He did not do—and what we may have done given the same circumstances. Christians gasp when they see the disciples acting like this and we like to discuss how bad the disciples were in so many instances, but we forget that they were human just like us. God was working on them too—Ephesians 2:10—and they are one of His masterpieces as well. We should not think that we would not do what they did—we would. We would be like the disciples in the boat who were fearful of the storm and were baffled that Jesus could sleep through it. It is when we think we would not do as the disciples that we not only fool ourselves, but we give Christians a false reputation—and people think they have to be perfect to go to church and follow Jesus. So not true---and you only have to read your Bible to see His motley crew. As I read through today’s reading, the Lord showed me what Jesus was doing—healing, serving, looking for faith and loving others first—and also what He was not doing—not stopping because of opposition—Matthew 9. During the storm—Jesus slept. Jesus’ life was not driven by fear, anxiety, stress or what others thought of Him. Jesus loved first. He slept in the boat to show us what our life should look like during storms—the not so perfect, bumpy parts of our life—like Jesus, we should have His peace inside knowing He is always there—Deuteronomy 31:6,8—going before us. With His help and guidance, we too can sleep and go back to the One thing—Luke 10:38-42--that should be our focal point during any time in our life—Jesus and the freedom He gave us—John 8:36. We need to remember that because of Jesus—Acts 10:43—we are no longer slaves to sin—Romans 6:6. Christians have differences, but most are not salvation issues—I Corinthians 2:2—Christ and Him crucified is the key. And it is when we remember this, and the full pardon He has gifted us with, we can rest in Him. We can sleep during a storm. “Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” Matthew 9:2 NKJV.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 12:57:48 +0000
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