The Old Testament perhaps highlighted mostly clearly in De 28 speaks in a conditional/if sense of fellowship since humans ruptured that chance of freely moving with the Loving Creator. One might still have fellowship and blessings, but the determining factor was “if, if you obey…” Please see vss 1 and 15.

There had to be such a sigh of relief as the requirements of His Law that none could attain were completed in the Beloved Lord Jesus. We were now joined to Him, righteousness included, One Spirit and so bound together that nothing can separate us from the love of God which in Christ Jesus the Lord (Rom 8:31-39).

So has “if” (whether, provided that, unless, except you, should you, as surely as you)…of our actions now been removed?

Our land is bearing under the weight and repulsion in almost every neighborhood, every committee, every family, every church, every office, every workplace marred by the behavior of one speaking belief in Jesus. This could be the greatest single plague of our land truly.

Francis Chan, David Platte, Paul Washer among a few have arisen to seemingly reinsert the “if” into the ears of the American professing Church. There is a warning by one’s fruit…if truly we are a child of God. Is John saying in 1 John that the practice of sin keeps one from being a child of God or that the fact of not truly being a child of God issues in the practice of sin?

There seems to be a conditional quality Voiced upon the Seven Churches of Revelation (cf 2:5,2:26,3:3).

Can we accurately assess this in-between day of grace of many conversions and yet so lacking in fruit of self-denial? May we tremble to ever minimize the completeness of the Cross of Christ. If some conclusion must come, the finished Work of the Perfect Sacrifice of the Unblemished Lamb is FULL. Yet to our eyes, like the words of John the Baptist preparing the way right before the Harvest, the fruit of repentance must be brought forth. “If” there is no fruit, the “if” may remain.

Romans 14:7 For none of us lives for himself and none dies for himself. 14:8 If we live, we live for the Lord; if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.

I believe we are seeing our personal experiences set up to see this. Our experience reflects this for the sake of the whole, because we are no longer to live or die to ourselves.

So many believers are thinking their lives are micro, just about them: my pain, my hurt. No longer. The aerial view yesterday on the airplane opened SO much before the Lord. Gary, IN became a transitor radio data board; the mountain ranges became a wrinkle on a shirt. His order, His parallels from macro to micro. We must feed into the bigger picture. (Henry Blackaby speaks to this in Experiencing God.)

The power of God is when we realize we are a part of the Large Gospel Story.

Scripturally (Matt 14), this plays out as Jesus CAME to the boat tossed by the contrary winds in the middle of the sea. Peter saw the COMING. He wanted to do what Jesus was doing. If this WAS Jesus, tell me to do the SAME thing. (It IS Jesus.) This is a Kingdom yearning in Peter and starting to open much pleasure in Jesus for Peter to rise up beyond his own circumstances into the realm of what Jesus is doing. Jesus did command/order him to do the SAME thing. So Peter started the “CAME” to Jesus (same Greek word). Peter then saw the earthly wind and fright filled him. Jesus could have seen this fulfilled in Peter, doing the SAME thing as Jesus, but Peter got caught up in the micro. Peter did fall short (yet ventured out). I feel in Jesus’ words of disappointment in WHY do you doubt, not have more faith/trust, that He wants us each inevitably to fulfill the BIG picture, not just the micro picture of our own wounds.

I believe our times are speaking: there is no longer just a micro version of life, living or dying merely to ourselves.

Jesus’ amazing answer in vs 26 has astounded me every reading to the point that I accepted always being astounded. “Yeah, that’s Jesus. I will never understand how He looks at things.” In this last reading, I can’t get over this. It has stayed with me for days. What was His perspective to speak of their little faith when water was literally going over the boat to drown and bury these seasoned fishermen?

Where I go with this below may seem way too far, but this whole passage fits under the theme of following. There is no break, I believe, as the commentaries did above. The Disciples FOLLOWED Jesus onto the boat after the two previous witnesses not following Him. I can now picture Jesus beholding these who would follow and trust Him so. I believe He beheld them and longed to impart to them a Revelation of Himself in the magnitude of later letting Lazarus die and raise him up. This could be a revelation to equal The Resurrection and the Life. I believe the magnitude of what Jesus wanted to show them who followed Him onto the boat was widened in loving them.

“Go to the other side” is very key and takes us where we don’t think to venture.
To enter a boat with another is binding your destiny with theirs. You will sink or swim with them. Definitely this is called following.

The tempest began immediately. Supernaturally coming on. So quickly they were getting buried with water.

Could not Jesus’ original intent for these Disciples right now been this? :

Rom 6: 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Or Colossians 2:12: having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

Didn’t He mean to entrust this revelation to them? If they would follow Him in baptism to death, they would be raised up on the OTHER SIDE in newness of life!! Were they ready for this?

They were apparently not ready for this. They got short-circuited in their physical, earthly life and began seeing their individual survival apart from Jesus. They were going to perish. This short-changed the message Jesus had intended to give to them. It was like Peter following Him on the water, but becoming aware of his self-life and sinking. In both accounts we know it did cause at least minor grief in the Lord Jesus, as He expressed their lack of faith. It caused the moment to fall short of the intended revelation of Himself.

If we take the nosedive to go under with Him, we go under as followers to the other side.

He loved these ones to the end and would have to let them learn what this burial with Him means at a later time. And they would.

Though every people group on this earth would and should desire the American freedom we enjoy in religion and choices, there is that one backdrop of kingly excellence, and even kingly demands that seems to leave us absolutely lacking in experience about the reverence the King-dom of God is built.

The Biblical story of Queen Esther can be put into a sterile, idealistic environment. It is about the worthy cause of saving the Jewish people. But behind this is the unrealized reality of a forced grouping of the most precious virgins scarfed UP and taken to be a harem for ONE KING for one night (for many of them)…undergoing a YEAR of treatments and training to give ONE King pleasure for that one night, tested if he liked the pleasure they gave him. He apparently had male boys he could choose from, too. Such an “ick” factor. Can we imagine the loss of dignity, especially for those who were severed from their fiances’ arms all for one king!! They could never go back to life as usual, because of the every slight chance the king might want them one more night on a whim of his indulgent pleasure-seeking. So, each worthy maiden would give every part of focus and go into his inner chamber and lose all their treasure.

Can I share something else about a king and his chambers? While the shudder looms above of the plight of Esther and her contemporaries with King Xerxes, the Lord brings to light Song of Solomon 1:4 and 2:4a. “The King (Jesus) brought me into His chambers…He brought me to His banqueting table.” In our busy and full minds, Jesus must initiate in our experience the way to the Secret Place spoken throughout the Bible as we are exhorted to ever draw near (see Heb 4, 6 and 10). This being “brought” is like the Shepherd bringing the lost sheep in from upon His shoulders. These passages say that He indeed does and will initiate bringing us there.

Yesterday, I read the stone cold words “they crucified Him” in Luke 23:33. I sense that for all of us He brings us to His chambers where we deal with the Crucified One. The depth there. While life may push us to occupy a smaller place, in there is our largeness to experience. May the depth of Christ in His Place engulf us so we can become true lights in the world.

When we consider the honor of the Real King’s chambers, how much more does this require of us to enter a Kingdom with a King and give every ounce of ourselves for the pleasure, not of an pleasure-seeking temporary king, but the King WHO GAVE HIMSELF for us!

We have an agile God! Presently we should look and listen for Him. He’s not restricted by our problems or our efforts. He moves and roams in His own arena. Even to our thoughts and prayers, He is acting out-of-proportion: that’s where He moves!…”immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine” (Eph 3:20).

As Peter’s stormy problems splashed up his legs while walking on the water with Jesus, he found he had a Savior who STILL intended on meeting him, problems and all, and wasn’t getting wet. Jesus would walk on top of them and would raise up Peter in faith to walk where He Himself was walking: over them.

Our efforts are merely overtaken by this great One who moves “like a gazelle or a young stag” (S of S 2:9), moving according to His own realm. “It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy” (Rom 9:16).

Like the takeoff of a plane on gray day and soon bursting through the thick cloud cover into that “celestial land” above. Immediately we are brought into a new setup where the sun always shines. There are no obstructions. There is freedom of movement.

Somewhere today His agility is being expressed. In some area of our life or another’s He will express His own free movement. Look for it. There, we will stop as the maiden and say “He…is leaping…and bounding.” There, the glory of His movements unfold to more in us. The One who moves as this is the One whom enraptures our soul. In adoration: “my Lover!” (vs 8).———-