“MY BOAT IS EMPTY, BUT I TRUST YOU

Proverbs 3: 5-6 (NKJV)

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding.

6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He shall [a]direct your paths.

Trusting in Him

In the beginning, it says, ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart.’ Now, if you will turn to your neighbor and tell them to trust Him. 

Turn to the other and say, ‘Trust Him.’

You know, sometimes it’s hard to trust in God. Sometimes it can be hard to surrender all to Him and say, ‘I trust you, Lord.’ 

Hallelujah, because Satan sure does test you sometimes, doesn’t he? And sometimes, as your flesh gets in the way of surrendering all to the Father.

‘God, you can have it all, except for that.’

‘Oh, you were gonna take that too? I need that. That helps me get through my day.’

That’s how our flesh gets in the way of us fully trusting in Him and fully committing to Him.

See, sometimes we don’t even realize that we get in our way, and we don’t realize that we lean more into earthly things than we do into God.

AMEN

Because the Bible says, ‘Lean not on your understanding, in all ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.’

You see, church, whenever we lean on ourselves, we are sure to fall. But whenever we lean on God, we will surely flourish because God is my strong TOWER.

Let nothing I build be built in vain, but let it be built in the will of my Father.

You gotta learn, church, to lean on Him.

TRUST HIM

Luke 6:4-11

Let me tell you a little bit of background. Simon, who was a fisherman, was in great debt, and his due date was up. 

He had been fishing all night with his colleagues, but he couldn’t get a bite, not one. Now, where they were when Jesus told him to cast out was the shore of Galilee. 

The deepest part of where they were was knee-level. But Simon trusted Jesus.

Now, Simon’s brother, Andrew, heard John the Baptist when he was talking about Jesus; he was there and he went to Simon and told him, ‘We have found the Messiah.’

I will say this, but if you watch the series, ‘The Chosen,’ what I am explaining to you is putting a visual on the story.

In the show, when Andrew comes to Simon, saying they found the Messiah, Simon almost seemed like he didn’t believe Andrew, and what’s funny is Andrew didn’t have to show Peter or Simon that Jesus was the Messiah because Jesus did.

When Jesus told him to cast out the net, it was a miracle; like I said, the water had to be only knee-deep. Jesus performs miracles with all amounts of water, but Satan will leave a trap and try to drown you. Sin will take you further in, to the point of drowning.

Let Jesus rescue you.

Satan will not only drown you with sin, but he will put weights on you so you can never return to the surface for air.

Jesus breaks every chain that has shackled you.

Let Jesus pull you out and breathe life back into you. Lean into Him.

Church, I have come here to tell you that your boat may be empty, but God can fill it to the brim where there’s no place to sit, no place to stay in it, and it’s sinking.

You may feel like you have nothing to give to God.

But let me tell you something; you are perfect in His eyes.

Peter walking on water.

It’s like when Peter was walking on water. It was his journey, and he was almost through the trial, but then he stopped, looking at the prize. 

Please stop looking at Jesus. He was so focused on the storm around him, on the trial around him, on the heartbreak around, on the suicidal thoughts around him, on the lies of the enemy around him, on the loneliness around him, on the death around him.

Hey, stop looking at His God because there were so many other things to look at. Show me the other stresses that he could. Wait so many times tend to get knee-deep in our situation; we stop looking at the prize. 

We don’t focus on it because Jesus wants success in our lives. Jesus wants us to live on love’s best. 

That does not mean we won’t have hard times, but it means that Jesus is with us in the hard times.

Your pain is not your past, not your future. Stop looking at the storm around you and start looking at the prize in front of you.

Because whenever you look at the storm, you get your eyes off Jesus, and when Peter got his eyes off Jesus and stopped trusting in Jesus, he fell in the water and began to drown.

While he was drowning, Jesus put his hand in the water, and all it took was for him to give his hand to Jesus and trust Him.

Do

 you know that’s how it starts? It starts with looking around at the sin and trials in your life, all the pain and all the regret, and you find yourself drowning with no hope. All Jesus wants to do is put His hand in the water and say, ‘Follow me. Trust me.’

God, my boat’s empty.”