23/01/2013 - Two commandments

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But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.

Matthew 14: 27

Those who serve God are always on the expectation of learning good lessons. Jesus, for instance, forced his disciples to go into the sea and when they were facing a critical time there He Himself taught them even more important lessons. That shows us that The Lord always has fresh lessons to teach us which will be of good usage for us later on. It’s a twofold secret: firstly, being of good cheer and secondly, fearing not. We’re not entitled to any other option because that would be another lie from the devil. In fact, we must only keep those words given to us by The Almighty.

God shall always give good instructions to those who serve Him in truth; now, that doesn’t mean that their lives will always be a bed of roses, instead it means that on and off The Most High will have them experience some trials which will surely be very useful for them. Shortly after The Lord Jesus was baptised by John in the Jordan river, The Holy Spirit took Him into the desert to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4) – nobody feels at ease whenever tempted but it’s something necessary for our spiritual growth.

The Lord Jesus Himself urged His disciples to get on the boat and row towards the other side of the sea. By the way, He knew very well that they were going to face a headwind as they were going across and that other navigational difficulties would come. The same can also happen to us because it´s part of His teachings. If things are not as you expected you mustn’t get desperate nor should you be intimidated; the best thing to do now is turning to The Lord and wait for what He will do.

Once Jesus had finished off doing what He had proposed to do at start He then came to rescue His disciples. They should have trusted that He would never leave them on their own; after all, if God allows men to face problems we must remember that He will never fail to give them the solution to them. Once He had prayed He went to meet them; yet, when He got there His disciples thought they were seeing a ghost. Sometimes we happen to get things the other way round and we too might even compare the appearance of our Master with a quite meaningless scenario now and then.

Let The Lord teach you! You must always pay heed to the words of The Scriptures because that’s how you will avoid making mistakes. All those lessons given to us by God are to be considered as true treasures. If He happens to place us right in the middle of a headwind you can be sure that He Himself will come and change its direction. You must never get desperate! Do not let your heart faint! Otherwise you will also see ghosts just like the disciples of Jesus did.

For those men to calm down The Lord gave a shout saying the two secrets of victory: “Be of good cheer and fear not!” Those who follow suit will never lose any battle. The person who trusts in what the Lord says to his heart must never lose faith. Those who fear are, in other words, actually confessing that they don’t trust The One who has never said any lie – our Father.

Don’t accept any option offered to you by anybody else. You must just wait for the fulfilment of The Divine Word even though that might cause you any sort of uneasiness or any apparent harm. You must always keep The Word of The Lord and then when the storm is over you’ll see that those difficulties and obstacles that got in your way turned out to be the best option for you considering that now you’re stronger and even more blessed.

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares