Faithbase

In the gospel of Mark chapter 4 verse 1 we find this moment where Jesus is teaching a large crowd of people and in verse 1 it says Jesus began to teach by the lake. The crowd that gathered around him was so large that he got into a boat set it out on the lake while all the people were along the shore at the water's edge. And so we see right there's this large crowd that's gathered Jesus needs some distance so he gets in the boat gets in the water and creates that distance and for us we have the the privilege right of being able to read the entirety of the Bible and read the entirety of the Gospels and so we read in Matthew 15 about this moment where Jesus walked on the water right and we see this moment where Peter with an increased level of faith he also walked on the water towards Jesus and so I was thinking about that story and and then reading this here in Mark 4 and it's interesting to me because the crowd that gathered around Jesus they had enough faith to come see Jesus right they had the faith to come see to come here they wanted to see who he was here what he was all about but they didn't have the faith to walk on the water and get as close to Jesus as they could and and I want to be extremely clear here right based on the timeline of the Gospels we know that the story in Matthew happened after this story in Mark so it's very possible right that the crowd didn't know that they could walk on water but but we know we know through reading the Gospels that with an increased level of faith we can have an increased level of intimacy and get as close to Jesus as we want we know in James 4 verse 8 as well it says as we draw near to God he will draw near to us and so I want to ask you today you know what in your life might be distancing you from God might be distancing you from Jesus maybe you know maybe it comes up right away for you in your mind and you know what it is or maybe it's something that's a blind spot that you're not quite aware of yet is distancing you from God but I want to encourage you to not let that distance discourage you but actually see it as an opportunity to increase your level of faith and get as close to Jesus as you can and so I want to encourage you with that today let us live with that increased faith let us get as close to Jesus as we can and know that as we draw near to him he will draw near to us