Matthew 14:31 “You of little faith,” He (Jesus) said, “why did you doubt?”
Peter was excited when he saw Jesus walking on water and he put his hand up to walk with Him. Jesus said “Come”, But when he (Peter) saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” (Vs 30). Jesus did not say “Why did you look around?” or “Why did you allow the winds and the waves to intimidate you?” He said, “why did you doubt?”. When Peter looked at Jesus, his faith surged within Him and he readily jumped into the water, but when he took His eyes off Jesus and looked at the raspy raging sea, he started to sink. Our faith is at its crescendo when we are in an awesome worship service or when we are listening to a powerful inspiring message but shrinks when our focus is distracted from the power of God to the problem, phenomenon or the predicament. Shriveling faith will sink us into the rut of doubt.
‘Doubting’ and ‘disbelieving’ are conceptually similar but materially different. Disbelief distrusts the omnipotence of God but doubt disqualifies our place of security and shelter in Him. Disbelief is distrust in the miracle working power of God but doubt is qualm that disqualifies us from receiving a miracle from God. The doubtful are pumped with the theoretical knowledge of Christ but have no practical application in their life. Disbelief kills the soul but doubt poisons the heart.
Three predispositions that insidiously injects poisonous doubt into our heart:
- Qualify: Doubt brings the ‘measuring scale’ and loads the scale with our past failures, unanswered prayers and concludes that we are debarred from divine blessings. When we try to outweigh our bad deeds with good, we are sure to fail on the divine scale. All our righteous acts are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). Our best behaviour is only dirty garbage. The wind of self-righteousness will topple the flagpole on which faith is hoisted. It is not our righteousness but His righteousness that qualifies us. If the Indian team wins the cricket world cup, the country wins. Similarly, Jesus won over sin, so we win. We are qualified by faith so stop doubting.
- Quantify: Doubt does not disqualify God but delists us that we have not prayed, served or fasted enough. Doubt tries to understand God’s Word through human logic. Humanity can never comprehend divinity until it is accepted through faith. When the wind of doubt and logical synopsis of ‘walking on water’, started eating into the faith of Peter, he sank. His faith shrunk into “little faith”. Doubt will make us ponder more about the probabilities than the potency of God. So, stop analyzing and start believing.
- Magnify: Doubt magnifies the problem and drains faith. Doubt exaggerates and amplifies the intensity of an issue. Doubt will say, a sneeze is a symptom of the deadly virus or a headache could be a tumor. Defeat doubt by starving doubt and feeding faith. Doubt doesn’t leave without a fight. Doubtful thoughts must be fought back and replaced with positive promises. Repeating the promises will strengthen faith and destroy doubt. Stop magnifying the dilemma and feed faith.
Doubt kills faith. So starve doubt and feed faith.
Matthew 14:32 When they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, give me the strength to defeat demeaning doubts that disqualify me to come to your throne room with boldness. I’m qualified by your blood. Amen.
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