Ok, so here’s a forward that really pushes a person and forces us to ask some hard questions.
In all honesty, sometimes I kind of resent forwards like these. They’re so confrontational and ask us to get into hypothetical or night unrealistic situations.
But during my devotions today, I was reading something by a Daniel T. Niles and as he was discussing Peter walking on water, he had this to say- “And the moment Peter jumped into the sea Peter was faced with two alternatives, either to look at Jesus or to drown. . . . Don’t deceive yourselves into believing that you have faith in Jesus Christ unless you know the experience of having been at a place where you were faced by two alternatives: death or faith.”
Now that’s challenging too, and again, I reacted against it for a little. Then I started thinking a little more. Just becuase this sounds extreme doesn’t mean that it’s something we can’t relate to. In reality we all have to make this decision, and not just once. It’s not really a conversion thing. The reality is that we’re confronted with situations in our lives on a daily basis that are serious- will we jump along with Jesus and the life he has been showing us or will we walk away and choose death, death wrapped in temptation.
That’s some pretty tough stuff, but as we journey through Lent, I think this kind of introspection is helpful. Are we making decisions right now, especially now, that say, hey God, I’ll trust you, or are you trying to sit in the boat, or maybe even grasping at temptations and their false promises?
