Jesus, “Bid Me Come”

The story we are about to look at is indicative of how Jesus wants us to experience the supernatural life. He actually bids us come to depend on His Word. One day our Lord Jesus told His disciples to go to the other side of the sea after which Himself went into a mountain apart to pray.

Let’s see the story in Matthew 14:22-33 – “And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.”

When Jesus was done praying He approached the sea in an attempt to perhaps take a boat to meet His disciples. By this time the commercial boat services had shut down for the day because we are told that, “when the evening was come, he was there alone.” The statement isn’t referring to being alone on the mountain because we had been told earlier that “…he went up into a mountain apart to pray”; which meant that He had been all by Himself already. So being there alone was not referring to when He was on the mountain but when He got to the sea’s shore in order to take a boat. Anyway, everyone had closed for the day and had all gone home with only their boats and ships sitting on the water. That the boating companies had closed for the day did not stop Jesus from His intention of meeting up with His disciples. When Jesus got to the shore and found that the shipping companies had all shut down for the day He simply continued on walking on the sea, as on dry land. It didn’t matter that the land had finished. He trod on, on water as on dry land. Jesus just went on walking on water as if it didn’t matter. To us Jesus walking on water is a miracle but not to Jesus. He simply walked on because the supernatural is natural with Him. Our Lord Jesus invites us into the supernatural. Jesus is not afraid to invite us into the supernatural at all because our destination is His territory. He is there and waiting for us to venture. We don’t run on our terms because we exist by Him. When Jesus got to the ship in which His disciples were and while He was still on the water He had a conversation with Peter. Notice the conversation between Jesus and Peter in verses 28 and 29, “And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come…”

Peter desires to walk on water and requests that Jesus invites him. He says, “bid me come unto thee on the water”. Without hesitating and I can imagine that Jesus didn’t even think twice about it, He said to him “Come”. Scripture says at the beginning of verse 29, “And he said, Come…” You see, Jesus invites us into the supernatural. He expects us to handle the supernatural as well as we do the natural. This is a clear example of how we are and ought to operate. We are actually supposed to learn to switch back and forth from the supernatural realm. We should learn to switch modes as I always prefer to call it, when the natural fails. There is a point we get to, there is a stage, a maturity level we attain and we can get in and out of the supernatural when required and this then becomes normal.

The Word as the Bridge The Word of God is the bridge between the natural and the supernatural. There is a deep gully between the natural and the supernatural – the Word bridges it. The two major challenges with living and experiencing the supernatural are ignorance to its reality and faithlessness in the Word of God. Like we said earlier, we must learn to do the Word. We must be Word practitioners to see the supernatural happen.

Peter started off walking on water when the word “come” was fed into his spirit. The moment his eyes saw the “storm” he began to doubt the Word “come” that he had heard spoken by Jesus. Jesus sometimes calms our seas abruptly when we become frightful. It is when we fear that Jesus often ends our storms prematurely without us fully gaining the experience He wants us to glean if the storms of life were allowed to linger. This is always when Jesus speaks the word “calm” to our “storms”. But He doesn’t always want to speak “calm” to our storms before we learn what He intends for us to learn. He expects us to sometimes, actually, calmly walk through our life’s storms, in their rage as if nothing matters – exactly what Jesus did here as He approached His disciples. He was walking on water while the storm raged. Sometimes, He ignores the Devil while he’s raging as if to say, “Bring it on…do your worst”. Sometimes, we are unable to continue to hold on to the Word because we doubt the Word, still the Word reaches out to us and holds us up. This is exactly what Jesus did here. He reaches out to Peter, gets a hold of him and places him on the water. Interestingly, Jesus doesn’t carry Peter back to the boat. Peter still walks on the storm back to the boat where he came from because Jesus wants us to experience the supernatural for ourselves.