Matthew 14:29 “So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.”
Passionate, genuine affection for Jesus will lead to all sorts of vows and promises which it is impossible to fulfill. It is an attitude of mind and heart that sees only the heroic. We are called to be unobtrusive disciples, not heroes. When we are right with God, the tiniest thing done out of love to Him is more precious to Him than any eloquent preaching of a sermon….
We all have a lurking desire to be exhibitions for God, to be put, as it were, in His showroom. Jesus does not want us to be specimens, He wants us to be so taken up with Him that we never think about ourselves, and the only impression left on others by our life is that Jesus Christ is having His unhindered way.
The true test of a person’s spiritual life and character is not what he does in the extraordinary moments of life, but what he does during the ordinary times when there is nothing tremendous or exciting happening. A person’s worth is revealed in his attitude toward the ordinary things of life when he is not under the spotlight.
Discipleship is built entirely on the supernatural grace of God.
Walking on water is easy to someone with impulsive boldness, but walking on dry land as a disciple of Jesus Christ is something altogether different. Peter walked on the water to go to Jesus, but he “followed Him at a distance” on dry land ( Mark 14:54 ). We do not need the grace of God to withstand crises; human nature and our pride will do it. We can buck up and face the music of a crisis magnificently, but it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of the day as a saint, to go through drudgery as a saint, to go through poverty as a saint, to go through an ordinary unobtrusive, ignored existence as a saint, unnoted and unnoticeable.
The “show business,” which is so incorporated into our view of Christian work today, has caused us to drift far from our Lord’s conception of discipleship. It is instilled in us to think that we have to do exceptional things for God; but we do not. We have to be exceptional in ordinary things of life, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, surrounded by sordid sinners. That is not learned in five minutes
One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.
