I’ve figured out THE MOST IMPORTANT action to do every day, indeed, every hour, i.e., continually:  simply to FOCUS on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 12:2 puts it like this:  “FIXING OUR EYES on JESUS, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Earlier in that very same book, Hebrews 3:1 puts it like this:  “CONSIDER JESUS”  (almost as though the next phrase could’ve been “Nuff said.”)

And 1 Corinthians 11:24-25 says not once but twice to “do this in remembrance of Me.”  But those first two verses and a third I’ll share in a minute make clear that this should not be relegated to once every month or few when we partake of corporate communion at church.  It should be constant.  Continual.

Just ask Peter.

Matthew 14:22-33 recounts that amazing event.  The twelve disciples got into the boat to cross the sea, to Gennesaret on the other side.  Jesus bade farewell (Mark 6:46) to the multi-thousand-strong multitude He had just (now-famously) fed with nothing more than two fish and five loaves of bread (another amazing event described in verses 14-21) then went “up to the mountain to pray alone” – clearly one of His very favorite locations and activities.  The wind picked up big-time as is common for a body of water around 700 feet below sea level loomed by a mountain nearly two miles high (that’s right, around TWICE the altitude of Denver, Colorado) and Mark 6:48 adds the tidbit that Jesus actually saw them struggling with the oars to keep from tipping over and sinking.

Jesus saw them.

And proceeded accordingly to not just save but comfort and teach them.  Verse 48 provides another tidbit, that He was planning on “just passing by”, to “just say hello” as we might put it today, knowing they’d be meeting Him on the other side of the sea shortly, safe and sound.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the bank of that body of water.  He saw that they were frightened.  His perspective is always perfect and in this case entirely understandable, too.  I mean, He had just fed thousands of people with nothing more than TWO FISH and FIVE LOAVES.  A true miracle, demonstrating His deity, that He was indeed God.  God in flesh appearing.  God with us.  Immanuel, as the hymns and Christmas carols echo.  So of course  they wouldn’t freak out when they saw Him demonstrate mastery over another law of nature, walking on water, right?  Wrong!  Because as Mark 6:52 clearly concludes, they didn’t connect the dots:  “for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves” – so Jesus had to connect the dots for them.  A second time.

And in so doing, one of the most well-known events recorded in the Bible and for that matter in all of human history occurred.  Jesus told them to “stop fearing.”  He surely said it with a lot more compassion but it reminds me of when a parent might say to a child “Stop pouting” or “Quit your whining.”  It was definitely a rebuke which survives to this day:  “O you of little faith” (Matthew 14:31).  (Two thousand years later and we still  hear that being said regularly.  Amazing.)

Anyway, upon hearing that first statement to not be such scaredy-cats as we might put it today, true to form and nature Peter sought to take control of the situation (like when he later cut off someone’s ear, ewww, yuck, come on, Peter, come on, man!) and told the Lord, the God of all creation (Genesis 1:1,26; John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2) to prove it to him.  (Again. =)  Jesus indulged him, knowing that He – and he – was about to make a point that would last forever.  Jesus, by His command, by His word, enabled Peter to WALK ON WATER.

Wow!  He’s so powerful and full of deity (Colossians 2:9) that not only could He walk on water but He could even enable a mere mortal to do likewise!

Matthew 14:29 says that Peter “walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”  Absolutely stunning, beyond amazing.  Then comes the next verse, then came Peter’s next action:  “But SEEING the wind [i.e., the effects of the wind, i.e., the whirling waves whipping up, the boat and his fellow disciples therein being tossed about, etc.], he became afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!'” (Matthew 14:30)

I’d like to make a few quick observations and then finish up with an application and that above-promised third verse.

First, that word “seeing” stands out to me.  First referring to Jesus (Mark 6:48) and then to Peter in the just-quoted Matthew 14:30.  Sight, insight, vision, understanding, wisdom, (or as a prior post poignantly put it) perspective is everything.

• “The lamp of the body is the EYE; if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light.  But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness” (Matthew 6:22-23)
• “Where there is no VISION, the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18, KJV)
• “Haughty EYES and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, is sin” (Proverbs 21:4)
• “And if your EYE causes you to stumble, pluck it out, and throw it from you.  It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into the fiery hell.” (Matthew 18:9  – which is speaking figuratively in this case so please, no actual eye-plucking =) (conversely, there is a literally aspect to this in the Bible but it’s God  who orchestrates the plucking, not man…)
• “The eye that mocks a father, and scorns a mother, the ravens of the valley will pick it out, and the young eagles will eat it.” (Proverbs 30:17)

I’d say the Bible does indeed put an enormous emphasis on eyes, insight, perspective, focus.  And circling back, things went south for Peter when he turned his eyes away from the Lord and onto the physical realm.  Away from the vertical and onto the horizontal.  BIG mistake, HUGE!  Bad judgment.  (Or as my dad and I would often exclaim while playing a game of strategy – usually backgammon, sometimes chess or a board game – and the other person made an error which would lead to sure defeat:  “Bad move!”)

Second, when we do that, when we lower our gaze and focus from the heavenly to the worldly, THAT is precisely when fear creeps in.  “But seeing the wind, he BECAME AFRAID.”  Indeed.

Third, it wasn’t until AFTER he began to sink that Peter acknowledged his need for the Lord to save him.  Talk about ringing a bell, talk about hitting home – isn’t that exactly how we are?  Far too much of the time, we only acknowledge our need for the Lord when we begin to sink or falter or realize that we’re NOT in control.  I’ve found that it’s far wiser, far better to express our need for and utter dependence and reliance on Him BEFORE any of that happens.  It’s far better to thank Him not just for the “favorable” things that come our way but also for the “unfavorable” things that DON’T!  Not just for the presence of the positive but also the absence of the negative.  Right?  RIGHT!  What you’ll find is that the latter often only comes IN ORDER TO get our focus and our conscious, active dependence back ONTO HIM.  Meaning that if we practice the former, the latter won’t be called for, won’t be needed, because our focus is ALREADY (staying) on HIM!  Or as my mom would surely have put it when I was growing up, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  So true, even spiritually.  (I intend to do a future post on her other common sayings, too, I think you’ll find it to be a real blessing.)

Fourth, as referenced in the past, I absolutely LOVE the exclamation mark in the original!  I didn’t add that, it’s actually in the Bible.  Of which EVERY SINGLE sentence is equally divine (2 Timothy 3:16), equally living and active (Hebrews 4:12), living and abiding (1 Peter 1:23), infinitely important.  BUT BUT BUT for me personally, there’s just something special – NOT “better”, just special  to my heart – when the human author (often the supremely passionate Apostle Paul) and (get this) the Holy Spirit chose to use an exclamation point, opted for that emphaticness to coin a word.  Not emphasis, not that concept, but actually being emphatic… I love that!  [In the spirit of 1 John 4:8, anyone who doesn’t think that God and His Word are (perfectly) emotional must not be very familiar with either.]

But I’ve saved perhaps my favorite observation for last.

Fifth and finally, as alluded to above, Peter has certainly brought a lot of “guff” or derision upon himself:  by “testing” or seeking to instruct the Lord, by his pervasive impetuousness, by his apparent control issue, by denying the Lord Jesus not once, not twice, but three times – but he’s one of my favorite people in the Bible.  Not like Paul or David or Daniel or Abraham or Joseph, but probably the second  tier.  For three reasons.

• He was chosen by the Lord to be such a major, massive part in the nascent Church.  Indeed, he was the primary human vessel for taking the Gospel to the Jews (like Paul to the Gentiles) and exhibited such great leadership (one of his great and very obvious traits) in those crucial early years of the Church, the very body of Christ.  Talk about a high calling!  Wow.  Wow.  For this alone he’d be among my favorites.  We, the present-day Church, no doubt drink from the fountain he helped found as it were.
• He, by his own actions, has indeed brought quite a bit of derision upon himself:  along with said triple denial of Jesus or cutting off the ear of the High Priest’s servant (methinks the emotion of the moment affected his aim, I don’t think he was likely going for the ear) that has been most due to his near-drowning described in Matthew 14 and discussed in this post.  But I see that from a very different angle altogether.  As noted above, Jesus rightly rebuked him for having “little faith” – but what does that say about the rest of us, about everyone else?  If you saw Jesus walking on the water amid a horrific storm, would YOU have the faith to attempt to, you know, WALK ON WATER?!  I don’t think I would.  If I KNEW it were Jesus then yes, absolutely, but per Jeremiah 17:9 and frankly just common sense based on things we see on the news every day, the human heart, fallen flesh is “deceitful above ALL THINGS and DESPERATELY SICK” – so how could Peter be S-U-R-E that really was Jesus and not a figment of his imagination or a vision brought on by extreme stress, like, oh, I don’t know, trying NOT TO SINK AND DIE?  Just sayin’.  In 2001, three months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a woman named Andrea Yates sadly and very infamously drowned all five of her children in her bathtub – because she thought that’s what God wanted.  So again, how could Peter be absolutely certain that was really Jesus and not a machination of his inherently “desperately sick” and on top of that  very stressed human mind at that imperiled moment?  And if he were wrong, if it were just his imagination or a vision and not truly Jesus there telling him to “Come!” out on the water with Him, he would surely have died.  And not just died, but along with crucifixion or burning, probably the worst kind of death, drowning.  My point is that, compared to the rest of us, Peter exhibited ENORMOUS faith, like few people in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD.  Right up there with Abraham, who found himself in a similar situation when he heard God tell him to sacrifice his son, his ONLY son who was born by way of miracle when he was ONE HUNDRED YEARS old (Genesis 21:5), or as Hebrews 11:12 puts it, “as good as dead” in terms of fathering a child.  And now he hears a voice he believes is God telling him to kill, to sacrifice that child, that son on an altar – and HEEDS IT?  [For the record, those were very different times than now, in that God ONLY speaks to us “in His Son” (Hebrews 1:2) via His Word, the Bible, NOT an audible voice in our heads – but that doesn’t take away at all from the enormous amount of faith both of these men exhibited.]  In other words, while Peter has routinely been derided or mocked or roundly looked down upon for that near-drowning, the way I see it, how many of us  would’ve even had the faith to GET OUT OF THE BOAT AND ONTO THE WATER?  So while Peter’s faith was indeed “small” in God’s eyes, I think it’s now clear that it was gargantuan compared to the rest of us.  And for that demonstration of faith, to literally put his very life on the line in response to the Lord’s word/Word, he is among my favorite people in all of history.
• He who was so impetuous and proud became so humble  that when he was crucified for the name of Christ, he is widely reported as requesting to be crucified UPSIDE-DOWN, feeling unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as Christ.  I’ve always loved that.  To humbly and so accurately and rightly and properly perceive and view oneself in light of the greatness of the Lord Jesus.  I can use more leadership skills, I can use more faith, and I can certainly use more humility like those which Peter prominently demonstrated, and for that he is indeed in my personal “hall of fame” as it were.

There are undoubtedly many applications we could draw from all of this.  But the strongest one in my view goes back to those first two verses quoted at the beginning of this post:  to KEEP our eyes, our FOCUS wholly, fully, and solely on the Lord Jesus Christ, and everything else – our hobbies, jobs, friends, and even family and even ministry – underneath  that umbrella.

The hymnist famously wrote, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus.”  Those two verses in Hebrews instruct us to KEEP our eyes upon Jesus.  In my firm view, NOTHING is so important as THAT.  Nothing.  And the very best way by far I’ve found to do so, to make that an actual and daily and indeed hourly reality in my life is Bible memory.  Makes perfect sense that the best way to keep our eyes, our focus, our minds on Jesus “the Word” (John 1:1-3,14) is to put the Word, the Bible, in our minds via memorization and regular recitation and mediation leading to obedience.  And I can hardly wait to share with you the method which the Bible itself has been revealing to my mind’s eye ever since this journey began as described on this website’s About page.  Because I already know the massive, indeed incalculable, indescribable benefits it will bring to your life – soul, mind, and even body (Proverbs 4:22; 1 Timothy 4:8, 6:6).  But in the meantime, let me just encourage you to actively focus more and more each day on the Lord Jesus Christ.  His Person.  His completed work and current ministries.  Like interceding (praying) for us (Romans 8:34; Hebrews 7:25).  Advocating for us (1 John 2:1) like a defense attorney as discussed in a prior post.  Who is also the greatest shepherd ever, breaking our legs when we need that but lovingly carrying us on His shoulders while we heal.  He who died for us “while we were still helpless, at the right time” (Romans 5:6), He who “reconciles us to God” and “saves us” (Romans 5:10-11) so that instead of fearing and facing the Father’s righteous wrath we will experience “no condemnation” (Romans 8:1) but rather enjoy “peace with God” (Romans 5:1).  He is worthy of our constant attention and focus and worship and praise and thanksgiving and obedience.  “Times infinity” as we might’ve said as kids.

Lastly, that promised third verse, and I wanted to save this until now because not only is it the perfect “bow” with which to wrap up this post but it’s one of my very “favorite” verses in all the Bible.  Specifically, the first three words of this verse.  Three of the most succinct but beautiful and blessed words I dare say human language has ever written or heard.

“Remember Jesus Christ” (2 Timothy 2:8).  It melts my heart every time I hear that.  Simple but far from simplistic.  Simple but, given all the distractions of life and especially modern-day life, far from easy, far from a cakewalk, far from automatic.  And while it’s crucial to “not forget” Jesus Christ – to not forget what He accomplished, what He did for us  on the cross and in the grave and in His victory march through the abyss of permanently-bound demons to crash their short-lived and very ill-informed “victory” party which they quickly learned was anything but  (1 Peter 3:19; Ephesians 4:8-10; 1 Corinthians 15:55-57; Romans 16:20) – let each one of us go beyond  ”not forgetting” and be the very picture of active remembering.  Memorizing and reciting Scripture will absolutely accomplish this, but as a first step something which has been a huge help and indeed life-changer for me is when I got the idea to set a “reminder” in my Outlook (fittingly named in this regard, eh?) email app to “Remember Jesus Christ” just like this verse says, starting early in the morning and after I take some time – five minutes, ten minutes, sometimes just one minute, whatever I can at that time, at or just before the top of every hour of the waking day – I simply click the button to “snooze” for “1 hour” and so on.  Every day.  Every hour.  And thanks to Bible memory and recitation, usually multiple times throughout each hour but at least  once an hour, every hour, and it has changed my life in a way which few other things have, probably second only to Bible memory itself.  Because as Peter famously found out, focusing on Jesus prevents the presence of fear and absence of faith.  And besides, He is worthy of no less.  The Lord Jesus Christ.  Amid our seemingly ever-increasingly busy and full lives, through 2 Timothy 2:8 He calls out to us each and every day, “Remember Me.”

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