Jesus in the boat

There are two stories in the bible that all Christians should read. The first story is about Jesus and the disciples in a boat when a storm almost sinks them. The second story happened a short time after that event and also is a story about the disciples in a boat that almost sinks but in this story, Jesus is watching from land.

Reading one of the stories without the other is like reading half of the story. If I spent the needed time on these two stories it would take 10 pages to really dig into it, therefore I will deal with one very important overview point to consider.

The two passages are Mark 4:36-41 and Mark 6:45-51

In the first story Jesus is in the boat with the disciples when a huge storm threatening to sink their boat. Jesus is asleep in the back of the boat and when the disciples do all they know to do to keep from sinking, they go and wake up Jesus and he calms the storm and saves the day. The main point is that Jesus will wait on you to call on him, before getting involved. In that story, the disciples had to go get Jesus before he would get involved.

The second story takes place, I would guess, a few weeks or months later. In this story Jesus is on the mountain praying while the disciples leave in the boat. A storm comes up and the boat is sinking and Jesus is watching them from the mountain, sinking, waiting for them to call on him for help or do what he taught them to do in the first story themselves. Finally at the 4th watch of the night (probably 2-4am) Jesus realizes that the disciples are going to drown and die if he does not go help them. In the bible account, it says that Jesus was walking on the water where the boat and the disciples were and it says in the King James Version (Mark 6:48) “and he would have passed them by.” The disciples were going to sink, drown and die so Jesus goes near them walking on the water but would have walked right by their boat without helping them unless they called on him for help. What an astounding image of Jesus!

Get that image of the disciples sinking in their boat, afraid of dying and Jesus coming to help them but being prepared to walk right by the boat unless they had called to out to him for help? The story ends well with them calling out to him when he got close to the boat and he of course, saved them again. This is one of the most powerful passages of scripture in the New Testament because it describes how Jesus looks at you and me. He will not come to our rescue uninvited. We have to call on him before he will get involved in our situations. Let me say that again, we have to call on him before he will get involved in our situations.

You have heard people say “God let me get all the way down here to teach me a lesson?” That is simply not true. The truth is that in most cases, the person got all the way down there themselves because they waited until they got to the bottom before they called on God. It is my experience that once you are of a certain age and maturity, God won’t come and get involved in your life uninvited. He waits for you to open the door first.

So in summary, my advice is to call him early and call him often. KT

2 thoughts on “Jesus in the boat

  1. Keith,
    This is my favorite Sunday School lesson you taught at The Rock Baptist. I still remember it. It is so easy to get caught up in life and forget that help us right there for the asking with even the small things.
    CA

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