They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.
1 Corinthians 10:3-4

When we look into the gospels we see that out of all of the disciples, Peter seemed to be the stand out disciple. When his relationship with Jesus began, Jesus said something very interesting. He said to him:

“Your name is Simon son of John, you will be called Peter.”John 1:42

One of the interpretations of the name Simon is ‘reed’. A reed is very fragile; it is easily blown about in the wind. Peter means ‘rock’. A rock is strong and solid, it stands firm. What Jesus could have been saying to him was “you are insecure and easily shaken, but I will make you stand firm.” It is interesting how he interpreted that moment. Jesus meant that he was going to make him a rock through the finished work of the cross, but he interpreted Jesus’ words through the focus of ‘self’ and spent the rest of his walk with Jesus trying to make that word come to pass in his own strength.

From that time on Peter was always trying to be the rock for Jesus. When Jesus asked a question, it was always Peter who tried to answer it first. When Jesus was walking on the water, it was Peter who stepped out of the boat and walked on the water with Jesus. Yet, in his zeal to change himself into a rock for Jesus, he found himself time and time again failing! The more he zealously tried to be a great Christian, the more he felt he was not good enough. More than that, Jesus himself seemed to be the one who kept pointing out that he had such little faith.

‘Come’ he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink cried out. ‘Lord, save me!’ Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. ‘You of little faith’ he said ‘why did you doubt?’ Matthew 14:29-31

The first few steps he took when he walked on the water happened while he was looking at Jesus, but he quickly turned away from him and started looking at the wind. He became scared and began to sink. At this point Jesus reached out and saved him. In that moment Jesus made an incredible statement. He said to Peter “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”

You can just imagine Peter thinking to himself, ‘little faith? Are you being serious Jesus? I have huge faith, and I just walked on water by faith. What else do you want me to do to prove to you I have faith!’ However, Jesus was not asking him where his faith was to walk on water; he was asking Peter why he had such little faith to keep his focus on him.

It is easy as Christians to think that we need faith to do things, but actually faith is not needed ‘for’ things, it is needed ‘in’ Christ. We need to have faith in the greatness of Christ. We need faith to believe the fullness of what he has accomplished for us, not faith to merely do great things for him.

Peter spent three years walking with Jesus trying to change himself by his efforts and his works into the ‘rock’ Jesus said he would be. What he eventually discovered was that he would never become the rock Jesus called him to be by his own will. He became a rock when he gave up trying to live the life of faith in his own strength, and allowed Christ to transform him by his Spirit.

Jesus died for all of us, to guarantee we would all receive the Holy Spirit, and it is this Spirit that makes all of us firm and secure in our faith. It is a gift from God based on the perfect finished work of Christ. We are all made rocks in Christ when we are made into new creations. God doesn’t expect us to change ourselves into rocks for him; he expects us to live in the one true Rock—Jesus himself. With this focus we give access to the Spirit of God to transform us into rocks for God—firm and secure in the covenant of grace that we have with him.

Keep your eyes on Jesus and rest in the understanding that God will transform your life to be one that reflects his great love and grace. From God’s perspective, the way to have great faith is not by doing great works for God, but through beholding the greatness of Jesus. If you do this, you can be sure that the Spirit will do his part and finish all of the good works God has prepared in advance to complete through your life.

(This blog post is an excerpt from my book “Look! The finished work of Jesus”. You can download a free copy here. or order a copy on Amazon here.)

Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom! Luke 12:32

It really is beyond imagination. That the Almighty creator of the heavens, who designed the entire universe in all of it’s majesty as well as the earth in all of it’s detail, would offer us a better best friend, a better leader and a better hope than ourselves. He has given us his very own Son.

All of us share a similar moment in time. It was the moment we heard the good news of Jesus, and having believed, we were included in Christ. In this moment we went from being distant in our minds from God to being even more than a friend, we became children of God! We didn’t earn our salvation, but Christ earned it for us. We didn’t deserve to be favoured because of our own works and effort, but we were included in Christ who has earned God’s full favour on our behalf through his perfect atoning sacrifice upon the cross. As Christians, we do not boast in our own goodness, we boast in the goodness of Christ. Our boast is not that we have earned our holiness, righteousness and redemption. Our boast is in Christ, who has become for us, our holiness, righteousness and redemption.

Everything that we have is a gift from God based on our belief upon Jesus. It’s amazing to know that even our holiness is a gift. We are not just holy, but we have actually become the holiness of Christ. That means that when God wants to define his holiness he simply points to you! If you are in Christ then you have become his holiness, his righteousness and his redemption.

This blessedness is not only for the moment we are included in Christ, but for every day we walk on earth and for eternity to come. You are forever in the position of blessing. You are forever loved. You are forever forgiven. You are forever favoured. You are forever accepted. You are forever credited as righteous, holy and blameless in God’s sight. You are forever set free. Not by your efforts, but because you belong to Christ. This is the good news for your life!

For many believers, when we first believed in Christ we were so in awe of his greatness. As time went on we began to take our eyes off of Jesus and place them back onto ourselves. This is a common process that has a domino effect which leads a believer back into a false religious mindset, instead of remaining in our glorious new covenant reality. When we do this, we become self- focused (or ministry-focused, or church program-focused) and not Christ-focused. The result of changing our focus is a change in our relationship with God.

Instead of thanking God that we are included in Jesus, our prayers become consumed with how sorry we are to God. Not sorry that we have sinned, but sorry that we are just not better Christians. We work harder for God, but feel less worthy of his presence. We begin to believe that we have to do everything for God (work harder in our ministry, work harder to build the church programs, work harder in our prayer life!)

When we begin to believe that we have to earn everything from God we start living by worldly principles instead of by the reality of Christ. Instead of remaining in the truth that we receive all things from God because we belong to Christ, we begin to believe some other fine sounding argument that doesn’t depend on the reality of Christ at all. It is this very problem that the Apostle Paul addresses with the Colossian church.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and decep- tive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. Colossians 2:8

We can’t earn anything from God for the very fact that Christ has earned it all for us already. Christ now gives everything to us as a gift from God. As Christians we need to remind ourselves why God sees us the way that he does and why God favours us the way that he does. It is based on Christ’s finished work, not our unfinished work.

The simple gospel truth is that we have not earned any of the blessing and benefits of God, but we have freely received them from God because we belong to his Son, Jesus Christ. We, as the church, need to take our eyes off of ourselves and place them once again upon Jesus and his perfect life and sacrifice. When we do this, suddenly everything starts to make sense; we begin to accept that we really are loved, accepted, holy, righteous, blameless and favoured.

All of these blessings belong to Christ, all of the promises belong to Christ, the fullness of the Holy Spirit belongs to Christ, and the kingdom of God belongs to Christ. It all belongs completely to Christ. No one else could ever earn, buy or deserve them. By the grace of God when you believed in Christ you were placed in him and you were credited with all of this.

The good news of Jesus Christ is that in him and through him we can rejoice that God has now given to us his kingdom of peace, righteousness and joy in the Holy Spirit! Rejoice, the kingdom is yours!

(This blog post is an excerpt from my book “Look! The finished work of Jesus”. You can download a free copy here. or order a copy on Amazon here.)