Love, love, love this meme above …. It is a lovely image that goes along with God’s instruction to my heart (posted in my weblog) about maritime metaphors……
When I had read Johm 6, (right after the part about feeding the multitude), in my younger years, I always focused on the image of Jesus coming to the disciples, walking on the water in the storm. In John 6:15-17, the Word says THEY left. The disciples left. “Jesus therefore perceiving that they (the multitudes they had just fed) were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone. Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea and after getting into a boat, they started to cross the sea to Capernaum. And it had already become dark and Jesus had not yet come to them.”
However, reading Mark 6 adds another measure of perspective (vs.45-46). (That distinction is also noted in Matthew 22::22-24.)
“And immediately Jesus made His disciples go ahead of Him to the other side of Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the multitude away. And after bidding them farewell, He departed to the mountain to pray.”
It was THAT little detail…. that Jesus made them go…..Jesus knowing, no doubt, that a storm would come in their path while He went to pray that made me rethink the entire scene, the actions of Jesus, the outcome and what it speaks to my heart.
Speculating on Jesus’ thoughts and motives in any given situation can be a sticky mess. We don’t always get that direct information in Scripture. But realizing how He acts and what the impact is on those around Him is always worth meditating on. That distinction, between Christ’s thoughts and motives and His actions and the impact have helped me be more reflective about my own thoughts, motives, actions, and their impact.
It makes me shudder a bit to think how unacknowledged thoughts and motives can be, how habit-driven and “auto-mode” one’s actions can be, and how precarious the impact can be as a result.
It also gives me pause to consider once again the Lord’s Words in Isaiah 55:8. (read the entire chapter!) And follow the parallel of logic here:
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are your ways My ways,” declares the Lord.
It seems to me now, as I reflect for about the 40th time in recent years on that verse, the reason my ways are NOT His ways (the actions and impact) is BECAUSE God’s thoughts are not MY thoughts (the thoughts and motives.)
If I truly sought God’s wisdom, studied His Word, and obeyed His instruction more consistently would I THINK more like Christ? Would God’s thoughts become MY thoughts? As a result would MY ways become more like His ways???? Thinking (and proper motivation) precedes doing and more often results in positive impact, if done according to best practices.
If the “mind of Christ” is something to be sought and “put on” by believers today, as also we are to adopt the holy behavior and have the powerful impact of Jesus on those God “gave” to Him (as He says about the disciples in John 17:6 “I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou GAVE Me out of the world”), since I am a believer and follower of Jesus, one given to Christ by the Father also, and desiring the mind of Christ, as well as to follow His actions, and achieve the impact He desires, why would that not be God’s desire to give me?
1 Corinthians 1:30, “But by His doing YOU ARE IN CHRIST JESUS, who became to us wisdom from God (thoughts), and righteousness (motive), and sanctification (actions), and redemption (impact.)
John 14:26
Verse Concepts
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. (This is the MEANS.)
John 16:12-15
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine (MY LIFE, MINISTRY and GOSPEL, ALL OF WHICH HAVE BEEN GIVEN BY THE FATHER TO CHRIST JESUS) and will disclose it to you.”(MY BELIEVERS, ALL OF WHOM HAVE BEEN GIVEN BY THE FATHER TO CHRIST JESUS!)