Daily Journal: 28 September

Do You Know

How To Use Your Anchor?

There is a science to anchoring that can help save your life out on a boat. That’s the beauty and design of an anchor. To keep you safe. To keep you secure. To keep you from drifting.

Apparently, many boaties aren’t sufficiently familiar with how they should use their anchor and their rode (the chain or rope attaching the anchor to the boat), and the tension necessary in different situations to save their life.

In my Daily Journal: 26 September I wrote:

Love is God’s motivation for our salvation but righteousness is the anchor.

I’ve been thinking about that and how righteousness holds me secure, stops me from drifting, holds me safe in open waters where the waves of life get choppy and sometimes dangerous. And that anchor stops me from living out of fear, even if I feel it. That anchor gives me courage, and hope.

Do you know how to use your anchor of righteousness sufficiently in the waters of life?

Matthew 14:24-31 (NLT)

Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves. About three o’clock in the morning Jesus came toward them, walking on the water. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified. In their fear, they cried out, “It’s a ghost!”

But Jesus spoke to them at once. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here!”

Then Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.”

“Yes, come,” Jesus said.

So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink. “Save me, Lord!” he shouted.

Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?”

Peter was the only courageous disciple, moved to put his faith into action. Perhaps, for a few moments, due to the wind and the movement of the waves, he lost sight of Jesus, and he began to sink because it was then he doubted out of fear. But immediately, Jesus was by his side, grabbing him - and questioning why he doubted.

When we see the swirl of evil around us, and the noisy, angry, anti-righteous movements around the world, it can be easy to get caught up in a swell of fear or doubt.

Remember this one thing: The life of Jesus lives in you. He is your anchor of righteousness that holds you. If you doubt, you will become afraid. When you learn not to doubt, you are using your anchor of righteousness, trusting in the faithfulness, the love and the justice of Jesus Christ to hold you secure.

Reading the bible, learning how it instructs us in all our different life situations and applying it without reserve is how we hold on to our anchor of righteousness.

Hebrews 13:5-6 (NIV)

because God has said, “Never will I leave you’ never will I forsake you. So we say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?”

Further reading: Psalm 23