Jesus’ water walk was not a stunt. It was an exhibition of what a son of God does. For those who live in the Son and not in themselves, all things are under their feet.
Life in the Spirit can be scary. Compared to life in the letter and the law such a life is to walk on water. Often we might fall in and like Peter, be pummeled by the waves. Yet Jesus is always there to pick us up, stand us on our feet and urge us enthusiastically to try again. The Father gave us His Son to walk in the Spirit. Man in his perverted wisdom substituted the church. We can try again and advance in the art (heart) of living in the Spirit. Or we can return to the law and bury our inheritance in the ground.
To reject our life in the Spirit is to turn our back on the excellence of being that is ours in Jesus. As the Spirit writes through Paul, ‘But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you’ Romans 8.10, 11 NIV. We need to cease applying this to the resurrection alone and begin living this reality every day!
Sure we may feel secure in the company of the religious. We might master those things that it would be possible to master even if Jesus did not exist. But this is to leave ourselves small people equipped with very small swords. There’s a comic scene in The Voyage of The Dawn Treader where a bunch of dwarves use big words and lots of bluff; bluff and big talk which includes standing on top of their partners to make themselves look taller. It doesn’t work and they are exposed as duffers – an apt image of life in the letter and the flesh where eventually our actions both fail to impress us or intimidate the Enemy.
In Jesus, filled with the Spirit of Sonship, we can live, move and have our being in Christ while bearing swords of incredible sweep and power. Or we can take our identity in religion and denomination. We can wax smug about ourselves and our beliefs while shouting and brandishing a butter knife.
Life in the letter may appear sound, secure and religious. But it can never produces those levels of authority and power that guarantee victory over the Enemy and His works. Life in the letter can seem ‘godly’ but it should be seen for what it is: Life in you, life in Adam, life in man. It does not afford any power to keep the law, unless we make the circumference of the law so small that even a robot could keep it. The tragedy is that we take our places among the lawless and those who oppose Jesus.
‘Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness’ Matt 23.28 NIV.
The grace of Jesus is a marvelous thing. Not only does it annul our sin. It fills us with a state of being and an un-polluted righteousness that is not ours. It is this state of being; a state of being a son of God that enables us to love ourselves, our wives, family, those we mix with and fellow believers. We are infused with the love that is God in us. This love, which is not our own, is a supernatural love that is the essence of God and is infused into us by the Spirit of Christ alive in our being.
‘And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him’ John 4.16 NIV.
So don’t give up. Don’t make do with a place of false security. Don’t substitute items of law and disciplined performance for the greater discipline of living in Christ who is the righteousness of God in you. Don’t substitute things like Bible study for a hunger for His manifest presence because you made a mistake or you have seen others stuff-up in some way. Don’t let your refusal to abandon the law prevent you from living the glory of a life abandoned to Jesus.
Determine to take your place in Christ’s being. Allow yourself to be drawn relentlessly into His Spirit by the Spirit. Know that nothing in all creation can separate you from the love of God. Live in the reality that there is no condemnation for those who live in Christ Jesus – and be drawn into the infinite life that belongs to the sons and daughters of God. Your skill in walking on water will increase and you will crush demons under your feet.
Keith Allen
