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Going Deeper

How many here know how to swim? When I was growing up, I wasn’t afforded the opportunity like many to take things like swimming lessons and the such. That means today, as an adult, I’m not very comfortable around deep water. When I was a young teenager I was playing out on the docks of the local bay. A friend, not knowing my lack of swimming ability, pushed me into the water. I can still remember looking up at the dock as I scrambled to get back to the surface.

My inability to swim has always been an issue. When we used to visit Tracey’s dad, our family would like to go and use his pool. It was great to splash around, to see how long you could hold your breath and to see how many underwater somersaults a person could do. But for me, this was all done in the shallower end. If I ever ventured into the deeper end, which was only 8’ deep, I had to be near the sides just in case… not being able to swim very well prevented me from experiencing the water as much or as well as most people.

This reminds me of one of the most important and neglected needs in the Church today. There is a crucial need within the Church and that need is for Christians to go deeper into the spiritual realities of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Too many of us have said the prayer or even gotten baptized, but have never gone beyond that in their relationship with God.

There are several occurrences in the New Testament that show us the value of venturing out into deeper water which leads to deepening our relationship with God.

Deeper water is “faith territory.” The blessings are out where you are over your head and Jesus must be trusted to get you through whatever the situation may be. The Scripture says…”the just shall live by faith”, and that says that the self is given up and placed in the hands of Jesus Christ. And, really, this is the safest place to live. Only after your feet don’t touch bottom will you truly have to trust the Lord completely.

Most people want to be satisfied wading around where the only blessing is cool feet. We must learn and desire to launch out because the fish are in the deep water. We’ve been watching a number of BBC DVD series on the Earth. Some of the most fascinating ones are what they find when they do deep sea dives. The diversity of life you find thousands of feet below the surface of the sea is amazing. There are fish that glow in the dark and others that have jaws that can open larger than their body size. Many of them are the inspirations to the alien creatures we see in science fiction movies today. If humanity didn’t venture into deeper waters, we would have missed seeing and experiencing wonders that go beyond imagination.

In the Christian life, our assurance and faith are also built out in the deep water. But our problem is we like things easy. If life is easy, God is good and we can trust Him. But whenever life throws us a curve ball, we lose faith and God is no longer trustworthy. But I would challenge that assumption and say that our faith only grows when we face trials in life. Why is that? Because trust is only gained and grown when it is put into practice. As we grow deeper and learn to live in that environment of risk, our assurance grows stronger.

In Matthew 14, we find the story of Jesus walking on the water. Matthew writes, “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” Can you imagine if you were there?

Now it is easy to focus on the obvious here. Yes, Jesus walked on the water because He was God’s Son. Of course. Next, we focus on the fact that Peter sank in the water because he didn’t have faith. Of course, Peter sank in the water… he’s human. But when we make these observations, we forget the one important fact from this story… Peter did walk on the water!

It was a miracle no one else has ever been able to do. But, his survival still depended on Jesus. The truth we often neglect about the Christian life is the necessity of Jesus for our survival as well whether we are in shallow spiritual water or whether we are out in the deep continuously growing closer to Him in actions and understanding.

Here is a lesson to learn: Jesus is a good Man to have on board on the ship of your life. Let me ask this question: “Where is the ship of your life sailing to?” “How dependent is it on Jesus for survival?” Most people today think they can make it on their own, but the reason we have the biblical examples we have is so that we can readily see that our course in life is a disaster unless He is on board and unless we are yielding to Him from day to day.

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