If Peter had wanted to walk upon the water he would have sunk like a rock. It is the directions of Jesus that carry power. Whenever He directs us to do something He enables us. The glory is always His yet the first step is always ours. It is true that Peter, at least for a moment, walked upon the water. Imagine the madness of people all over the world attempting to do the same thing with the reasoning “well, Peter did it.” Yes he did, that is an abstract truth. There is no power in abstract truth. You say you believe in Jesus as the one and only begotten Son of God? So does the devil.

Giving a mental assent to an abstract truth is devoid of any power. It cannot save you, it cannot change you. It never has and it never will. Only an encounter from God can save you. Only a response to a direction from the Holy Spirit can save you. Only a response to the Holy Spirit can change you. A head knowledge of the Word of God without any relationship or intersection with the Spirit of God produces broken disappointed people. One can say they have food, but your wasting body belies that fact if you do not have any. Christendom starves while claiming to be well fed. It is the spiritual equivalent of anorexia.

This world that we call Christendom is full of anemic starving people. Their claims about themselves are merely smoke and mirrors. They say that they are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing. Yet, they are clearly wretched, miserable and poor, blind and naked. The good news is that Jesus still knocks upon the door. To open this door is to encounter the true and the living God.

Unless their lives intersect with the living God then they cannot be saved, they cannot change. For them, to walk upon the water is to drown. What elevates one man, drowns another. True and living faith manifests itself and the fruit of that manifestation is Christlikeness and holiness. For who God saves He changes and He does it by the power of the Holy Spirit.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” And “Every block of stone has a statue inside of it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” “David was always there in the marble, I just took away everything that was not David.” These are quotes from Michelangelo. The block of stone is the old you. Jesus is the sculptor. Pain and suffering are the hammer and the chisel. Circumstances are the blows. God is in charge of it all and He will shape you.

We who know Jesus are a work in progress. Paul says in Ephesians that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. This word perform means to complete. The work that He has begun in you, He is faithful to complete it. I want you to sit for a moment and ponder the magnificence of that. Rest in the truth that the greatest artist of all, the one who hung the stars in the sky, the one who laid the foundations of the earth, the one who created you and breathed life into you has not finished His work with you but will finish it.

The Lord has a hammer and He has a chisel. In the process of freeing you from your former self there must be the blow of the hammer down upon the chisel and we must yield to it. The Scriptures also tell us that the steps of a righteous man are ordered of God. Your life is not some series of random events that somehow hold you capture to its surrounding circumstances. No, your life is His and He is faithful to you. The swing of His hammer is the process whereby He is setting you apart. When Jesus cried to Lazarus to come forth, the coming forth was not all that happened. Lazarus was bound hand and foot with grave-clothes. He had to be set free from them. The grave-clothes had to be taken off so that the Lazarus that was brought to life would no longer be bound by death, but released and free to live.

In 1 Peter chapter 2 Peter says that we are stones being built up into a spiritual house. Every stone is shaped by the Master. Peter also says in the same chapter that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation a peculiar people who have been called out of darkness into His marvelous light so that we may declare the praises of Jesus. When the religious men of the day plotted to kill Jesus, they also plotted to kill Lazarus. Why? Because his very life testified to the Master, the creator of life, the one who rolls the stone away, the one who shines light into the darkness, the one who bids us come out of the darkness and join Him in His marvelous light.

You are such a one saint. Dont let the enemy fool you or lie to you. You are His creation. He created you, He breathed life into you, He called you out, He raised you up, He healed you. He forgave you, He restored you, he reconciled you. When you passed through the waters He was with you. While you were being refined by the fire He was with you, when you were down He raised you up. He died for you, He rose again for you and He ever intercedes at the right hand of the Father for you.

He has not finished with you but He is faithful and true to complete which He has begun in you. He does it all for His good pleasure. You are His, you were bought with a very expensive price. He has not forgotten you. Lift your hands towards heaven today and open your heart and let this truth flood into your very being. God bless you my brother, God bless you my sister. Keep on going, there are a cloud of witness cheering you, you are God’s work of art and all other works of art are but a mere shadow, a pale imitation at best of what the Lord is creating in you.