#ThinkingTuesday – Change your thinking; Change your life.

Have you ever imagined Jesus, our Lord and saviour as your insurance? Now I’m not saying back up plan for when things go wrong, I’m saying the person who comes in and makes everything new when the old is damaged. For the disciples, Jesus was a walking, living breathing insurance: It is never recorded that any of the disciples were sick while they traveled with Jesus and did His work, whenever they were hungry, Jesus fed them. He healed their sick, cast out demons and raised the dead.

Let’s look at a few passages:

Matthew 8: 14 – 15 (NKJV)

Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them.

Oh Peter would have been so overjoyed, and so would his wife (if she were present at the time), and they would have been feeling pretty much on top of the world and the woman (the mother-in-law) was obviously very appreciative, and wasted no time serving them!

Matthew 8:23 – 27 (NKJV)

Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”

At this point the all the disciples must have been feeling very great because they had a powerful man with them, their confidence levels would be greatly boosted, and we know the other wonderful miracles Jesus did in their midst so you can imagine how shocked they were, particularly Peter when Jesus began to say that He would die, Peter had to rebuke Him because it didn’t make any sense!

Matthew 16:21 – 22 (NKJV)

From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”

The same Peter who had declared that Jesus was the son of God was here again, rebuking Jesus because of His foretold death, you know why? Nobody wants to lose a good thing, nobody. Peter did that out of love and fear, and later on Jesus was able to explain that it is important that He leaves, so that the Holy spirit can come.

Brethren what I’m getting at today is, I want you to think, how many times have you fought God over leaving your comfort zone or comfort person, or comfort job. Whatever it is you feel is your insurance, it cannot be greater than God almighty himself. Why do we fight God when He tells us to do something that seems like bad news? like give money away or start a difficult project with no funds, or sell some of your stuff to raise money for charity?

We need to understand that having the true love of God in our hearts will eventually drive us to do crazy things, how long will you fight before you give in and obey God? Remember delayed obedience is still disobedience. We see in Acts 4: 32-35 that people sold their belongings, houses, land or brought things to be given to the needy. The first century believers were filled with the love of God and doing crazy things out of love! If you are motivated by love, when God asks you to step out of your comfort zone, you shouldn’t put up too much of a fight, you shouldn’t put up a fight at all. Ananias and his wife were not motivated by love and they paid the ultimate price.

The 21st century system pushes us to acquire the world and can it, so nobody has access to it, the problem with this is that we were born with nothing and we’ll die with nothing, so if you don’t give away, it will eventually be given away for you. We all tend to respect the rich who give away, why don’t we do the same even if we are not as wealthy? The woman who gave her 2 pence was regarded higher than the rich pharisee who was making a big deal out of his offering. The kingdom system is a system where nobody is supposed to lack because we are all supposed to look out for one another. Imagine God decided not to give Jesus, His only son, He would not have the millions of sons and daughters he has today!

God should be every believer’s insurance; if you haven’t, make God your insurance today, the disciples didn’t regret it and neither will you, do not be afraid to step out of whatever comfort zone or hidden corner God is is calling out out of, Go out and shine, God is your insurance.

Selah!