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would you rather have? Would you rather have Jesus on the
mountain or Jesus walking by or Jesus in the boat?
Let me discuss each of those. The first one, Jesus on the
mountain, Matthew 14:23, “...and after He had sent the
multitudes away, He went up to the mountain by Himself to
pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.” Mark
6:46, “And after bidding them farewell, He departed to the
mountain to pray.” We have no idea what Jesus was praying.
Maybe He was praying that they would pass the test. They had
a great ministry that day and maybe Jesus was praying for them.
Maybe He was praying for the people He fed that day. Maybe
He was just having fellowship with His Holy Father God. We
do know that Jesus was praying and that at three o’clock in the
morning He looked out and He saw them. The Bible says that
He saw them struggling at the oars.
I’m suggesting that Jesus on the mountain praying is
pure faith because you can’t see Him. “We walk by faith and
not by sight.” Jesus was on the mountain praying, very much
like today as He’s in heaven praying and we’re on a stormy sea.
Jesus gave a clear word, Mark 6:45, “And immediately
He made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of Him to
the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the
multitude away.” They had a word that Jesus would meet them
on the other side. Hebrew 11 talks about “faith is the evidence
of things not seen”. In this first scene Jesus is invisible but He
knows everything that is going on. He sees them and He’s
praying and when He sees them struggle, He walks upon the
water.
It’s not easy to trust a God that you can’t see. So, they
failed that part. If they had called upon the Lord, they would
have learned the lesson of the loaves. Let me remind you about
the lesson of the loaves. Though it doesn’t feel like much and
it doesn’t look like much, if I keep coming back to Jesus, at the
end of the day I will see that I had more than enough for me and
thousands like me. That’s the lesson.
They didn’t call on the Lord when they were rowing.
They didn’t talk to one another and say, “We better not fail this
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