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do! Peter had absolutely no ability to do it.
Yet, Jesus said to him simply, "Come," and
Peter jumped over the side of that boat and
started walking. When he did, sure enough,
the power of the word of Jesus took hold of
him and held him up.
But then something happened. Verse 30
says, "But when he [Peter] saw the wind
boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to
sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me."
Take note of that. Peter was walking on the
water just fi ne until he took his eyes away from
Jesus and started looking somewhere else. He
started looking at the size of the waves. He
started looking at the circumstances. And he
began to sink.
Every failure you've ever had in your
Christian life has come exactly that way. It has
come because you quit looking at who called
you, quit trusting in His Word and started
focusing on the problems around you instead.
That is what stops the people of God. It's
not the lack of God's power. It's not that He
is unwilling to move and do supernatural
things on our behalf. What stops us is taking
our attention o• Jesus and putting it on our
circumstances.
"Oh, but Gloria," you may say, "you don't
understand how really bad my circumstances
are."
It doesn't matter how bad they are! For years
the Apostle Paul was faced with the worst
circumstances you could imagine. He was
imprisoned, beaten, shipwrecked and abused
in almost every way imaginable for preaching
the gospel. But those things didn't stop him.
At the end of his life he was able to say, "I have
fi nished my course."
Paul fulfi lled an impossible call in the
midst of impossible circumstances. How did
he do it? He tells us in Philippians 3:13-14:
"This one thing I do, forgetting those things
which are behind, and reaching forth unto
those things which are before, I press toward
the mark for the prize of the high calling of
God in Christ Jesus."
Paul had his eyes on the prize. He was
looking ahead. He wasn't looking at today. He
wasn't looking at his problems. Paul focused
his eyes on Jesus and on the goal Jesus had set
If you're a child
of the living God
you are a born
overcomer! Even
if you don't feel
like one right now,
as a believer you
have within you
the overcoming
spiritual substance
that comes from
God. You have in
your spirit His life,
His divine nature,
and the dominion
that makes
Him God.
AS YOU FEED
ON GOD'S
WORD YOU
LEARN TO
OPERATE LIKE
HE DOES AND
ESCAPE THE
DESTRUCTION
THAT IS IN THE
WORLD.
(2 Pet. 1:4)
WORDS OF FAITH WORDS OF FAITH
W
