Walking on water

Matthew 14:28 - 31

And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it's you, bid me to come unto you on the water. And he said, "come". And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, o you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

 

 

So often we begin our journeys with much enthusiasm and faith. Either as new Christians, or as people who have been Christians for a while who begin a new year or a new season of their lives.

We start off radical and excited. Much like I imagine Peter was when he saw Jesus walking on water and he thought, "I also want to do that".

We start off passionate and wanting to save the world. And so with this passion and faith we take bold steps out of our boats, our own comfort zones, to pursue what we believe God wants us to pursue.

 

And then somewhere in the middle of the journey things start getting tough when the storms of life begin to rage.

During this time we are faced with challenges and unexpected things happen which catch us off-guard that begin to threaten our ability to achieve the goals we wanted to reach.

Even Peter experienced this. In the middle of his journey, while he was walking on water, a storm erupted and caught him off-guard. This brings fear into Peter's heart, and he begins to be filled with doubt, and the doubt filters through his heart so much that he totally forgets about Christ and begins to sink.

This is no different from what usually happens when we ourselves are faced with our own challenges. These challenges bring fear into our hearts and slowly the fear starts quenching our faith, and we begin to focus more on our issues than on the faith that we had in God when we first embarked on our journeys.

 

What Peter does when he begins to sink is that he calls on to Jesus and asks him to save us. Showing us what we need to do when we begin to feel like we are drowning in our journey of life. When everything that we were previously passionate about becomes a burden and begins to swallow us up.

We only need to call on the name of Jesus and He will immediately, as He did with Peter, stretch out His hand and save us.

 

We learn from this scripture that waiting to sink before you summon God for help is actually faithlessness, because after Jesus saves Peter He says, "O ye, of little faith. Why did you doubt?". Peter clearly did not begin to sink because of the storm, but because He lost His faith in Christ.

Therefore, to avoid sinking in the first place, it is important that we do not ever doubt God's ability to fulfill His purpose in our lives, no matter how strong the storms of life are.

 

Walking on water requires that we have faith to believe that God will bring to completion the work that He has started in us. This means that every desire we have to change the world, to build His kingdom and to transform our lives in the process will become a reality by the power of God.

We were born to walk on water the whole entire way and not to sink somewhere in the middle.

 

 

May your faith in God be restored, no matter what storms you face in your life.

May you have the courage to trust that He is still busy with your life, that He has not left you alone in the middle of the ocean.

 

 

 

 

love

Likeleli

 



Faith

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen
Hebrews 11:1

It is said that having faith is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights allow you but you keep driving on because somehow you know that beyond that the road still goes on.

My favourite song on the new Hillsong's Zion album is called "Oceans (Where Feet May Fail)"  and it goes as follows:

You call me upon the waters

The great unknown where my feet may fail

And there I find you in the mystery

In oceans deep my faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name

And keep my eyes above the waves when Oceans rise

My sould will rest in Your embrace

When I am Yours and You are mine

 

Your grace abounds in deepest waters

Your sovereign hand will be my guide

When my feet may fail and fear surrounds me

You've never failed and You won't start now

And I will call upon Your name

And keep my eyes above the waves when Oceans rise

My sould will rest in Your embrace

When I am Yours and You are mine

 

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders

Let me walk upon the waters

Wherever You would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Saviour

 

 

Even when we do not know where we are going, and fear has us believing that there's nowhere else to go except where we are, we can trust in the One who has our lives in His hands.

Sometimes He will lead us into unknown territory, and expect us to believe in Him, to believe that He knows what He is doing.

 

May we obey His voice, and have faith so that we may grow closer to Him and closer to our destiny.

 

love

Likeleli

08/05/2013

Chimoio, Manica, Mozambique

 

 

February reflections: Relationships

As we bid farewell to the month of February, the shortest month of the year and the month of love. I thought it was important that I reflect on the most important lesson that I learned this month, and that is the importance of relationships.

In reading the March issue of Destiny Magazine, I was reminded of the fact that it was important that an individual be able to function in relationships, to be comfortable being in a group and to be able to cultivate and mantain good relationships with the people that are around us, be it colleagues, friends, church-mates and most importantly family.

The truth is, the people around us play a very important role in who we are and in the realisation of our destinies. Being successful in life is not only about working hard and having big dreams but it is also about being able to surround yourself with the people that will "water" your potential and help you (by challenging you and otherwise) to be the best that you can be.
Relationships are very important in shaping who we are and in how successful we become in reaching our potential.


In John 13:35, Jesus Christ says, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another".
This highlights the importance of good relationships as fellow Christians and also as fellow human beings.

I think the crux of the above scripture is that, the quality of the relationships you have say a lot about you as a person, and it is a testimony of the fact that you indeed follow Christ and know Him as your Lord and saviour.

This morning, a friend of mine tagged me in this picture on facebook and I just had to share it.

I also have a number of testimonies of instances where my friends helped me revive my dreams and work even harder in achieving what I needed to achieve this month.

I am truly grateful for good relationships and I trust that reading this will inspire you to work on building, maintaining and pursuing good relationships with the people around you.

 

See you on the ther side of the month...in March.

Lots of Love

Likeleli

I know You're with me

I know You're with me...

These words may seem easy to say when times are good and everything is going very well in our lives.
Yet they become so difficult and painful when everything in our lives seems to suggest the exact opposite of these words.
It is in these times that these words are the most powerful.
To declare them is to make a statement, not only of faith but of total trust in the knowledge that God daily fulfills the promise He made when He said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" Deut 31:6.

May you have the boldness to say, "I know You're with me, Lord" even when you feel alone, exposed and vulnerable. Because truly, He is always with us.

lots of love
Likeleli

 

God has the final say

Hi World,

I am so excited to be sharing my first blogpost of 2013 more than a month into the year. It might seem a bit late but I believe this post will be right on time for whoever gets to read it whenever they do.

I spent the past month studying for my exams, and catching up with some admin tasks at work so I didn't get the chance to write as early as I would have liked to. However, I also spent the time praying and meditating on the word of God and I believe I am more ready now than ever to be sharing this special blogpost with you.
I hope you enjoy it and that you leave this page with motivation to take 2013 by the horns and make the best of the year.

Tonight I just want to write about the power of the word of God. This is probably a topic I have written about before, but I feel so strongly about it that I feel it's worth repeating every single day.

 

"For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

So shall my word be that goes forth from My mouth, It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it"

Isaiah 55:10-11

In the above scripture God describes the power of His word very clearly, stating that it will accomplish what He sends it forth to accomplish. In simple terms God is saying, "If I say it is done, then it is done".
If you have any idea of the blessings and the promises that the word of God contains then I believe you are already jumping up and down at this point because what this scripture confirms is that all that God has ever promised mankind is ours to receive.

It is because of this scripture that since the year began I have been meditating on the promises and the blessings of the word of God, because we cannot have what we do not know belongs to us. So I realised that in order to recieve the blessings and to walk in His promises I have to know what they are.
I will share a few scriptures that I have been meditating on:

- John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life"
- John 15:16, "You did not choose me, I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name"
- Genesis 1:28, "And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.

I will be sharing more of these promises in my next blogposts and I will elaborate more on the above scriptures that I've shared to explain why they mean so much to me.
The purpose of this blogpost was to remind you that everything that we need is contained in the word of God. The answers to all our problems are to be found there.

So I hope 2013 will be a year in which you read, meditate on and declare loudly the holy word of God, in order to establish it in your life and to plant the seed so that you may walk in His blessings and promises all the days of your life.
I know that the more you seek Him, the more He will bring revelation in your life through His word and the more you will grow in Him.

Until next time (hopefully next week), keep your head buried in the word of God.

lots of love
Dkee Inspire-d!!!

 





God is ABLE - to make a way where there seems to be no way

Today i read the most amazing scripture ever:

 Isaiah 43:18-19
"Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold I will do a new thing...I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the dessert"

How amazing is it. That God challenges us to forget the past (we are a new creation in Christ - 2 Corinthians 5:17). If God forgets our past, how dare we revisit it and allow it to stop our growth in our present???

How amazing that God makes a way where there seems to be no way, that He even makes rivers in the dessert (where there's not supposed to be water)...God is a God of the impossible.

Will you dare to forget your past? will you dare to invite Him into your present? will you dare trust Him with your future?

In the presence of God (overflow)

In Your presence I am made whole

I am emptied to be filled again

With fresh waters flowing from the river of life

I am filled so that I can go out into the world

And share from the overflow

I need your presence

Everyday

so that I can be filled with blessing after blessing

for I am blessed to be a blessing

In Your presence I am made whole

When life has worn me out

And taken little pieces of me

I am filled again

In Your presence, God.

In Your presence I drink of Your Holy Spirit

Refreshed to the depths of my soul

Every yoke broken and burden removed

In Your presence I am made whole

Lord, I love to dwell in Your presence

Sometimes I sing

Sometimes I pray

Sometimes I meditate on Your word

And sometimes I just sit silently

To be filled

In Your presence

- Likeleli Tebello Mphutlane