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!

“I have put off my robe-how can I put it on again? I have washed my feet-how can I soil them again? (S of S 5:4)

Out of life’s necessities we erect artificial boundaries. We can only go this far, we think, and there stands our limit…until One mercifully comes along beckoning us to open to Him at that point of boundary.

In this Scripture this sentiment seems respectfully bestowed upon the Shulamite. As her lover comes to her door, Solomon’s maiden says “HOW CAN I put on my coat?” She has spent her day. The putting off of her coat means a cessation of weary duties and errands. “HOW CAN I” dirty my feet now that I have bathed? The evening has brought the washing away of the day’s sweat and grime. Please leave her short-lived cleanness untouched.

Even Martha can be heard to be saying “HOW CAN I”…sit in repose when much is to be done. I even wonder if we can hear it in the heart of Lot’s wife: “HOW CAN I leave my life here? This is the home my children were raised, filled and decorated with cherished memories. This is the town I have prayed for…these are the relationships cultivated, growing deeper roots as each season turned.”

“How can I?” In His mercy, there will be a softening going on at the edges of these long-guarded limits. And it will happen by the One who draws near out of the evening with his “head filled with dew, his locks with the drops of the night” (vs 2). He leaves some of His fragrance by the handles of the door, and we begin to repent. Will we still refrain because of well-established excuses? Or will we soften? If we shall not, won’t we too learn the lesson of such starvation for His fellowship, roaming through the streets to find the true worth of the things we held at bay.

We will be “sick of love” (vs 8). ————————–

A few things come to mind, but do they take our heart to a world outside its own? Or do they not rattle our own confines? Are these things truly “the beautiful”?

Asked, “Is Jesus ravishing your heart?” Is that even expected? To ravish means “TO TRANSPORT with emotion, esp. joy and delight.” Rather, unstirred, comfortable, not wishing to be transported, wanting to be just left alone.

But He will ravish. The heart is created place to be filled with delight for Him – that pliable place that has become a heart of flesh (Ez 11:19). How sad to waste the occupancy of the heart in the marathon of life void of such a relationship!

He will ravish our heart (S of Song 4:9). And tasting we will become pliable and “fleshy,” and desire to return again and again.

A B Simpson’s experience overflowed into opening an unexpectant heart…”Do you see the glory of God in the face of Jesus? The glory of God’s compassionate grace, the glory of His conquering love, the glory of His constraining mercy, the glory of His almighty power, the glory of His sanctifying truth, the glory of His satisfying beauty, the glory of His all-comforting tenderness, the glory of His sufficient strength, and the glory of His all-glorious Person.”

This be Jesus, ours. Let us turn in unto Him again, flexible to see what may….—————————

How human we are to try to keep many options open! By that we can resist putting it all, our faith upon that one line. But God in His wild desire for us to come through that “curtain” will orchestrate circumstances that will cause us to put it all on the line. It isn’t natural to continually demand a pinpointing from God, there are those times so obvious that we must: a rising child’s temperature in the middle of the night, a diagnosis, the news from a phone call and no one to shoulder it, the suddenness of a calamity. He is either going to move expediently or He won’t. We are brought to the crux of that entryway to the Holiest.

Many of us are finding as we go on in life how often such incidences can seem to come at us daily!

Life has taught us such things are orchestrated that we might penetrate IN! The tear for penetration has already occurred!! The Son of God has let His flesh become that curtain that separated the most Separated place from us.
Even without the force of crisis, the Father beckons us in many ways from behind that curtain, and if we will hear, it will be irresistible not to bring all of us through it.

“having boldness” – means (all + speech) all speech, freedom, unreservedness of utterance, cheerful courage. He wants our every unhindered word.

“new and living way.” The way is in place, dedicated, perfected. “New” – originally meaning freshly slain. “Living” – preserved, alive, to come to be, to become. It has become for us. The Way is now there to walk upon.

“true heart” – unconcealed, manifest (negating to forget, to escape notice), actual, true-to-the-fact. He wants all us our heart facing Him behind the curtain.

Can we see? He wants all of us BEHIND THE CURTAIN and has pulled out all the stops that withhold us. Come! Plant yourself. Full frontage, centered. Come to be fully viewed.

The setting is established. The excellent timeliness of putting it all on the line has come.——————–