Scripture
When Peter looked down at the waves churning, he lost his nerve and started to sink: He cried out, “Master, save me!” Jesus didn’t hesitate…He grabbed Peter’s hand and said, “Faint-heart, what got into you?”
~Matthew 14:29-31, MSG
Quote
Faith makes things possible but not necessarily easy.
~Image Quotes
Most of us grew up on the King James which reads…O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? Sounds like something out of a Shakespeare play. The AV translation reads “little faith” and Eugene Peterson translates it, “Faint-heart” which I like. What you need to understand is that is untranslatable in a sense because it is one word in the Greek. The word is oligopistos. Oligos means small and pistis means faith. I think it is Chuck Swindoll who says this was Jesus nick name for His disciples–“Little-Faiths.” I like Peterson’s word, it has a ring to it, “Faint-Hearts.” This is not the only time Jesus uses this word; He used it 13 times because the disciples were creatures of habit and they kept making the same mistakes over and over. They would momentarily take their eye off of Jesus and then lose their courage: once courage is gone, fear takes over and our faith evaporates. Thus Jesus questioned Peter, “Why did you doubt?” It’s a good question: why do we doubt? Why are we so faint-hearted?
The first thing we must confess is that this is a common problem for all believers. If Peter had doubts–guess what–you will have them too. If Peter’s faith lapsed and caused him to have a moment of weakness, we can expect the same. Jesus put this infamous nick name on all the disciples, not just one. So understand this, we are all in the same boat; we all suffer from too little faith and it leads to doubt and fear. So none of us wants to be a “faint-heart,” we all want to be a “Brave-Heart,” a Richard the Lion-Heart so to speak. You would be a pure idiot if you wanted to live under the tyranny of fear–it is the worse possible way to live. How do we get from point A to B, from being faint-hearted to brave-hearted? There is only one way–GRACE. You cannot get there on your own. If you need encouragement: look at what Jesus did with the eleven, via the process of sanctification, He made all eleven lion-hearted. We can’t count Judas because technically, he was never a believer so Jesus sanctifies 100% of His true followers. WOW!
Old Gregg was 76 yesterday or maybe I got that backwards. He is old enough to draw his pennies. Congrats Gregg, I hope you had a “Pretty good” birthday.
Small group went well: I love the food and fellowship and we have a great host. We just need a better facilitator.
I had some things I had to do and didn’t get to see the second half of the FB game but I understand King Henry and the Titans lost. Hey, it was a good season. They will be back: they have a good coach.
God Bless You: hope you have a great week. Stay warm!