Step Out of the Boat

May 16 - Step Out of the Boat Dear Randall, "And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water." (Matthew 14:28-29) It's easy to be so afraid of making a mistake that you never get around to stepping out on faith. You can spend all your time wondering, "Is this faith? Or is it presumption? What if I exercise my faith for something and find out later I've missed God's will?" Don't worry. God can handle any mistake you can make. I know because I've made plenty of them. When I did, I'd just go to the Lord and He'd tell me, "Stay on the Word, son. Together we'll overcome this thing." And we always did. If you act on the Word out of the sincerity of your heart and you steadfastly stay with the Word, Jesus will never let you down...no matter how many dumb mistakes you make. He proved that the night Peter jumped out of the boat in the middle of the lake. Have you ever stopped to think about that incident? Peter hadn't been praying or seeking God's will before he did that. On impulse he just blurted out, "Lord, if it's You bid me come." What was Jesus supposed to say? He couldn't very well say, "It's not Me." I suppose He could have said, "Wait a minute now. You don't have the faith to get out here. You'd better stay in that boat or you're going to drown for sure." But He didn't say that to Peter--and He won't say it to you. If you want to get out and walk by faith, He'll get out there with you and pick you up when you start sinking. He'll walk you back to the boat if He has to. It's better to risk being presumptuous than to waste your life in the boat of unbelief! If you have to, just dive into the water and say, "God, help me!" Don't let fear keep you from taking that step of faith. Come on, get out of the boat today! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scripture Study: Matthew 14:22-33 USED BY PERMISSION, KCM.ORG

Randall, I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your devotional posts! This one and the one you posted today on the Bama board (5/23) have been especially helpful to me in our current situation. Our pastor, who married me and Will in Feb, stepped out on faith about 6 weeks ago and resigned from the church he has pastored for 31 years to build a new church. Many of us have gone with him to build this new church, but some from our old church have been very angry and hurtful toward him and us. I know that Bro Sid is doing what God wants him to do, the way God has worked things out for us over the last 6 weeks is confirmation enough!!! The first Sunday of our new church we had 179 people join and took in over 19,000.00 in tithes!!! We are meeting in the local High School for free, have office space, equipment and a 25 passenger bus!!! And we left with NOTHING!!! God is so great!!! Stepping out on faith, getting out of the boat and trusting God to provide is scary, leaving what is familiar, leaving friends and family, the comforts of a nice building with all the luxuries to make things easy...well, God has rewarded us for our work and our faithfulness with blessing beyond anything we ever thought possible. I have rambled on long enough, but I just had to share! Your posts have encouraged me and I have shared them with our pastor and many others who are currently "boatless"!!! Thank you for being you! God bless! Susan

Praise God Susan! I always love to hear it when people do step out on faith and trust God. Sounds like your Pastor really stepped out of the boat and above that, it sounds like he heard the One that told him to step out! What faith! God loves to see our faith in action and when we do, He's surely going to be faithful and do His part! I'm so excited for you, Will, and your Pastor. The whole church. You know that God is in control when you have 179 people on the 1st Sunday and $19,000.00 in tithes! That's beyond awesome! That's miraculous! You know God is in control. I'd love to sit down and talk to you and hear this whole story! God is good all the time, All the time God is good! I get these daily devotionals from Kenneth and Gloria Copeland's website. It's kcm.org. You can go there and sign up to get one. I use them by permission. Thanks for taking time to tell me about your Pastor and church! I got a real blessing hearing this! Thanks for your kind words! I just want to do His will and what He'd have me do. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS! God bless! Randall

By the way, where do you get these???