IT IS HOPE THAT FLOATS

Jesus multiplied the fishes and the bread. They never said so, but Jesus took a little and made it much. He created food from just a ‘seed,’ so to speak. He did what gods do. Jesus worked a miracle to prove that He is God.

Then Jesus from dry land walked to his disciples on the water. He overcame the gravity of the world. Scientifically, Jesus would have sunk but His Substance was lighter than water. Scientifically, Jesus proved that He was not just a man but of another unworldly ingredient. Because of gravity, density, and displacement; Jesus should have sunk beneath the water.

Peter tried to emulate Jesus and did so for a time, but because of little faith, Peter proved that he was human; Peter sank because of lack of faith. It is unknown what went through his mind, but ostensibly, he suddenly relented to science and then he sank.

Peter was a Jewish fisherman from Galilee. He knew that anything cast into the water would sink unless there was a flotation device of lesser density than water. Peter, many times it is supposed, had jumped into the water to save his fish and would know that he had to swim to overcome the world. Peter knew that he could only perform that task for a limited amount of time, then he would give out.

Peter must have thought, I am walking on water, but I know the science; I can only do so for a short time. He failed to realize it, but Jesus was His hope, and as they say, “hope floats.” Rather than trusting Jesus, Peter knew by the miracles of Jesus, that He could overcome the world. That too is the ‘science’ because Peter saw Jesus do things that normal men cannot do! Yet, Peter trusted the science more so than he trusted Jesus to be God, the creator of the world and the author of the science!

Now let us consider ourselves for a moment. People are taught science from the time that they are born. Indeed, any good parent should teach their children that touching hot things will burn and hurt them. They are taught that water, if inhaled, will drown them, and make them die. Any good parent should teach children to stay away for deep water. Peter was no different. His livelihood was from the water and the same place from which is food came; knowing water can be very dangerous!

Fear of stormy water had been engrained into the mind of Peter, but for a moment, his mind was the Mind of Jesus. His thoughts had become the Thoughts of Jesus in contrast to the spiritual ‘science,’ namely, “’My Thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My Ways’, says the Lord.”

Now consider Jesus. He was not thinking about the water, but was focused on getting onto the boat to circumvent the fears of his companions. His focus was not on His own safety, but revealing Himself to mankind to save them, not from the water, but from the fire. Jesus could have said to keep clear of fire because Hell will burn, but He used water, as He did for Noah, to focus on God and then the water will never harm them.

Peter’s faith was measured. “The ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary” (Mat 14:24). If Peter remained on the ship, he might go down and die with the others. Peter would have feared the storm but then he saw Jesus walking on the water and overcoming the world. Safety would be with stable Jesus rather than on an unstable boat in turbulent waters. Peter knew that ships float on water but could go down in turbulent waters. That had been his thoughts taught to him since childhood. Then, he saw Jesus walking on water.

Now imagine yourselves there. You are on the ship being tossed about. Water is flowing haphazardly over the bulkheads of your ship. You fear that soon you will drown because the science is that many have done so before because turbulent waters are violent.

Now imagine, you see a ‘ship’ without a hull out there, and it is stable. The science is that safety is with the stable one. You would not see the Man walking on waters as a man but a Buoy, or a hope for safety. You could swim to it on your own, but you fear the waters because of their violence. You see the Hope that floats, would you walk on water to go to the Hope and disregard the violence of the storm? Peter thought he could and did so for a short time.

Hope does not come and go; it is maintained if safe haven is in sight. His hope would have kept him afloat if it had not dissipated. Although Peter had faith to get out of the boat, he had not enough faith to get all the way to Jesus. If only he had focused on Jesus rather than the world, Peter would have walked all the way to Jesus. The same goes for any Christian.

A child that rides a bicycle after many failures overcomes the fear of science. A child is taught that anything having two wheels should fall over. Their failures demonstrated that time after time, but once they take off, somehow their past is forgotten because now they remain upright. What they do not know is that an invisible principle is helping them to remain upright. Adults even fail to understand that as well, but trust what even they do not understand.

Jesus knew why He could walk on water; He made the water and for Him it was as solid as the ground. Why so? He trusted that He Himself was the Man who made it, and hence it was no object for Him to overcome it. Paul, if he had been there, could have made it clear for Peter; he wrote, “But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thes 5:8). That ‘helmet’ would conceal the world while at the same time, allow Peter to see Jesus overcoming the world. The world was the scotoma that stood in the way of Peter walking.

Peter would have seen Jesus overcome the world on many occasions and had enough trust in Jesus to keep him on top of the water a short time, although if in full trust, Peter could have walked all the Way to Jesus. His thoughts should have remained on trusting Jesus and for him to have the same thoughts that Jesus Thought. The difference is in their degrees of faith. Jesus knew for certain that He could overcome the world because the seas were subject to Him. Peter surely realized that he could not control the seas and failed to trust Jesus all the way to his destiny.

Faith is scientific as well. In scientific terms, faith is trust in God over some amount of time. It is not one thought for one event but some degree of trust all the time. It is not just trusting God during the good times but in the stormy times as well.

One lady ceased to trust Jesus because her younger sister died. Rather than blame the world for maladies, she blamed God. She looked at death as a punishment all the while a Christian should see death as a walk toward salvation in the end.

Jesus had His own Thoughts. He knew that He is God with flesh that should by all rights sink, but sink He did not. He overcame the science of the world.

Paul pointed out that the Jews trusted circumcision as a measure of their faith. Indeed, that act is a measure of the faith of the parent; that it would ward off evil ones. They were committed to the oracles of God (Rom 3:2), or the sayings of the Word — those words that are the commandments.

Paul continued his argument, “What if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?” (Rom 3:3). He could have asked it this way, What you do not believe cannot cancel out God.  Trust that He is who He says He is?

Most people are skeptics. They doubt God because God does not ‘fit’ the scientific model. Why did Jesus perform all those miracles? To instill in their minds that what they could not see was realer and more powerful than what they could see.

God knows who He is. There is no doubt in His Mind at all. Jesus trusted Himself because He had no doubts that He is God! Peter knew who he was and that he is not God. Maybe he was right in not trusting himself to walk on water, but wrong in the sense that he mistrusted the water more than he trusted God. In effect, Peter trusted the science that he would surely sink, more than he trusted Jesus who did not sink! Jesus revealed that science can be overcome, and He did so when he divided the waters from the waters in the beginning (Gen 1:6).

Jesus created all things (John 1:3). Jesus knew the science because He made things scientifically; it was not all things from no things (alchemy) but all things from the Power of God. His faith was perfect and there was absolutely no doubt in the Mind of Jesus that He was God and demonstrated it by stepping on unstable water, making it not just safe but stable in all ways. Jesus could have sunk if He had any doubts. That is the ‘faith of God’ and means he had perfect faith and was without any doubt. Nobody else but Jesus “knows that they know that they know that they are saved” as some say.

While atop the water Peter could have said, “I am saved,” but after he sank, he yelled, “Lord, save me.” Because he was part way there in sight of Jesus, he was safe, but to be saved, he ceased trusting himself and called on the Name of the Lord. Too many Christians are walking the way of Jesus, all the while feeling as if they are already saved, but when things go awry, they may soon find themselves sinking, or ‘falling away’ (Heb 6:6) in apostasy. They have been deceived just as in the beginning. Salvation is not until you are all the way to Jesus. Peter was safe in the bosom of Jesus but Jesus. To be saved, he had to follow Jesus until his death to be with Jesus in Paradise. Paul wrote, “…now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Rom 13:11).

Peter first believed in Jesus when he stepped out of the boat. With each step he was nearer salvation. When he sank, Jesus kept him safe but later Peter denied him. He would have fallen all the way, but his life was preserved until the time of salvation. Peter was not saved until he died, then his soul was saved to Paradise. For him, just as with Paul much later, because he was in Christ; to die would be gain (Phil 1:21). Peter was not saved but preserved for a later time. He did say, “Lord, save me,” and surely Peter was saved in the end, not the end of that walk, but the end of the Way to Jesus.

During the storm, there was no sun shining, so a ‘shadow of a doubt’ would be irrational. Jesus, during the crucifixion, in the Light of God did reveal His Shadow — the Holy Ghost — but in the darkness, the men could only see Jesus for He cast no Shadow. They saw the only Man who was certain that He could walk on water and did so. I submit that ‘without a shadow of a doubt’ is irrational for even Peter soon faltered. He saw the visible Substance of the Man, Jesus, and still had his doubts. How would have Peter responded if only the Holy Ghost of Jesus could walk on water? He could have seen the invisible Image of God and would never have gotten out of the boat. Only if Christians can see the Holy Ghost as the Invisible Image of Jesus can anyone be saved.

Peter did not even trust the visible Image of God, but you say that your trust is so great that you fully trust the Holy Ghost to save you? How arrogant of you! Your faith is the faith of God, you think. The arrogancy is that the Devil is right, that you have become the gods, or so you think.

In humility, I submit; I do not have the faith of God (Jesus) because I am not God. Any sin that is done is evidence that you do not have the faith of God or why would you test God by sinning? It remains the Will of God that you do not sin, yet you sin.

Therein lies doubt. You either doubt that there is really an invisible God, or that He is not the ‘Judge’ that judges fairly. Fair judges have mercy, do they not? If they grant clemency that the trespass will not be repeated, then it will be forgiven. Although a Christian repent but repeats the sin time after time, then that makes the expensive grace of God (payment for our sins with His own flesh), cheapened as if it is a ‘ticket’ to sin again!

That you know that you are saved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, removes any further penalty; and then you can still sin with impunity just as if there is no God.

Peter was safe so long as his eyes were on Jesus and with no apparent sin. Then sin entered his mind as his trust fizzled in the troublesome sea. A good guess is that although he could see God, he still had some doubts that it was God that he was seeing.

Jesus validated that guess, Jesus said to them in danger, “Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid” (Mat 14:27). Peter either got brave or tried to convince the others, or even Jesus, just how much He trusted Jesus. He would show them that his faith was so concrete that he could walk on water like Jesus — that he trusted God so much that he too would be a god.

Peter left the boat to go to Jesus. He would show Jesus how intense was his faith and he would make a name for himself as the man who walked on water as if he was God, and then “he walked on the water, to go to Jesus” (Mat 14:29).

Unclear is how many steps that Peter took before he realized that he was not the god that he thought he was. 

But when he saw the wind boisterous, he (Peter) was afraid; 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?” (Mat 14:30-31)

 Peter, for just a few steps, perhaps did have great faith, but was the faith in Jesus or himself? However, Jesus came to him!

Peter had judged that his own faith would save himself, rather than the absolute faith of Jesus who knew Himself to be the God.

Peter was arrogant. He would show the others in the boat that He had great faith. Jesus humbled him. Peter soon realized that he was human and could not save himself. With that truth revealed, he said, “Lord, save me!” realizing that he had no power to save himself.

Peter had such little faith that he did not trust God in person, yet braggarts say that they “know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are saved” as if it is their minds that do the saving, in a ‘Peter’ sort of way.

If Jesus comes again, many will still doubt. Many who claim great faith now, when shown the sickle of death, they will do anything to save their heads!

Peter thought he had great faith, not even in the Shadow of Jesus — the Holy Ghost — but in God in real material Substance. Yet he doubted. His sinking in the water showed just how little faith he had, and Jesus called him out for his arrogance, “‘O thou of little faith, why did you doubt?” Peter was making a display of how great his faith was, and Jesus revealed to him just how little his faith was. Peter is still known for how shallow his faith in Jesus was. When Jesus said that Peter was the ‘stone’ on which the Church was built; it was the sinking stone, for the Church was built on the solid rock of Jesus, not the doubting Peter.

Peter was not the cornerstone of the Church, as Catholics believe, “The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner” (Mark 12:10). Peter was the sinking ‘stone” (Petra), but Jesus the Living Stone whose Substance can float on water. Hence, a church built on Peter is not the Invisible Church of God but the church that men built, and it was not built on faith is Jesus but faith in Peter… you know, the man that could not walk on water and the same man that denied Jesus.

The point to Peter’s failure to trust Jesus, is that we are all like Peter. It seems that our own faith is what saves, and not that Jesus is God. Overly stating your faith is as much a heresy as thinking moving water will save you!

Can you imagine how displeased that Jesus might be when we say, “I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am saved?” Jesus is the great ‘I AM’ and there you go, making yourself the ‘I AM.’

Peter’s failure to walk all the way to Jesus in a dangerous environ supports the notion that “by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephes 2:8). Peter’s faith was enough to get out of the boat and take the first steps, but he soon found out that his faith was not faith; it was hope. Hope indicates a future event and some doubt. Christians do not have the perfect faith that they claim, and when the crises come, they often sink.

A Christian must walk “through faith” just as it is written, but preservation is the gift of God that keeps a Christian afloat in times of turbulence and doubt!

The arrogance of it all; you think that it is your faith that floats, when it is the Holy Ghost of Jesus that keeps your heads above water. 

(picture credit; JW.org)