Page 4 - Of Course You Can Walk On Water - eBook

water."

"Come!"

And Peter stepped out of the boat onto the water and began to walk toward Jesus.

In doing so he did what was utterly impossible. He accomplished what no human being
ever had done before or has done since. He was going against a physical law that is
absolutely unvarying, from the scientific point of view. No man can walk on water. The
law of hydrodynamics unbendingly forbids it. So unthinkable is the concept that the
ancient Egyptians, in representing in hieroglyphics the idea inherent in the word
impossible, used the symbol of a man walking on water. But Peter walked on water.

What made it possible for him to do that? What supported the weight of a full-grown man

on a surface that invariably ruptures under the weight of a tiny frog?

The answer is, faith. Faith, not as a self-fulfilling force that creates its own reality from its

own assurance, but as an unflawed confidence in Christ's word that permitted Him to
bring about that wonder.

Here is a lesson that we Christians must learn: The basis of faith is that through Christ we
do what it is impossible for us to accomplish-on our own.

We shall see that the implications of this statement are more profound, more far-reaching,
than we generally recognize.

Whenever a person genuinely becomes a Christian he has, in effect, said, "Lord, tell me to
do the impossible. Bid me come to You on the water." The truth is, unless this is his
understanding of the Christian life he does not adequately comprehend that life.
Christianity is doing the impossible. The person who is not seeing the impossible take
place in his experience is not truly living as a Christian.

If my Christianity is a sort of life style I can maintain myself simply by a bit of self-
discipline from time to time, then it is not really Christianity at all. It is like telling myself

that my twenty-dollar glass bauble is a $20,000 diamond. What I own is essentially a
valueless substitute for the real thing.

Think about that again: If we can actually carry on our religion on our own, simply giving
God a little lip service from time to time, but maintaining no vital connection to Him,
then we are not really Christians. A genuine Christian is one who is being something he is
not able to be, doing things he is not able to do. And he knows it. In a spiritual sense, he

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