Physical Rest: Spiritual Rest, seeking the Lord: 2. We also face a danger the disciples faced, and that is not letting ourselves learn the lessons that God wants to teach us. Warren Wiersbe warns us about that danger, and what it may take for us to let the lessons He wants us to learn to sink in through our thick skulls: The scene illustrates the situation of God’s people today: We are in the midst of this stormy world, toiling and seemingly ready to sink, but He is in glory interceding for us. When the hour seems the darkest, He will come to us—and we will reach shore! Even a disciple of Jesus Christ can develop a hard heart if he fails to respond to the spiritual lessons that must be learned in the course of life and ministry.[xvi] What are some ways that this week’s study has helped you think about how you can learn from your experiences and grow in your faith as a result, before you have to learn it the hard way like these guys did? Please share some of your thoughts here. 3. At the time of this writing, September 3, 2005, this has been a very fitting passage for the believers of our nation and this writer personally. Disaster has struck our nation, perhaps the worst to ever hit us in our history. The shadow of September 11, 2001 still looms large in our minds, and our nation had best never forget that day. Terrorists seem to be able to steal, kill and destroy at will. Our young men and women give their lives daily on foreign soil without any hope in sight of the end of the current conflicts. We don’t know what the reasons are for these things, nor their outcome. At times it seems as if we are those disciples, hopeless and about to succumb to the attack of the enemy, and then we see Jesus... but it seems to us that He’s passed us by as He walks on the water of the storms we face! Yet we mustn’t miss an important aspect of the things the disciples faced. The Greek word used about their struggle, basanizo, not only means to be vexed and tormented by an enemy, but it also means “to test (metals) by the touchstone, which is a black siliceous stone used to test the purity of gold or silver by the colour of the streak produced on it by rubbing it with either metal.”[xvii] Jesus is using the hard times like these to test and purify the quality of our lives and effectiveness for Him. It is in these times that we’ll hear Him say to us, “Take heart! I AM! Stop being alarmed and afraid” (Mark 6:50, amp). The great I AM will be to us what we need in every situation we face, and we can trust Him no matter what our eyes see and emotions feel. Let’s close out this week by considering these great meditations of Oswald Chambers, and then please record below how this study has helped you to face the hard times in your life: We are apt to imagine that if Jesus Christ constrains us, and we obey Him, He will lead us to great success. We must never put our dreams of success as God’s purpose for us; His purpose may be exactly the opposite. We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end... What is my dream of God’s purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process—that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God... God’s training is for now, not presently. His purpose is for this minute, not for something in the future. We have nothing to do with the afterwards of obedience; we get wrong when we think of the afterwards. What men call training and preparation, God calls the end
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 12:37:11 +0000
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