A question that I ask myself occasionally is this: "What have I done recently that I didn't want to do for no other reason than He told me to do it?" That's the essence of compelling them to get in that boat! And when He puts His foot in His voice, they get in that boat knowing full well what they're heading into, and they start pulling at the oars for the other shore. Jesus goes and has His quiet time.

In the middle of the night, he says, "I better go and see how the boys are doing," which is a good idea because the wind has come up, the waves are rising, and the storm has arrived. Now Jesus decides that He has to catch up with them, and He doesn't have a boat, so He walks. Now you must gather the importance of this. Jesus does not walk around the side of the lake, He takes a shortcut. If you read in the book of Psalms (Psalm 77:16-19), and you read the Book of Job (Job 9:8), you have the references in your outline, you will find two references to God who does something remarkable like "walking in the paths of the sea, and not leaving His footprints."

Now, obviously this is a poetic, dramatic description of the way God works. But isn't there in what Jesus says here, an indication of His Deity. In the Old Testament concept of God, He is the One who walk in the paths of the sea, and doesn't leave His footprints, and here Jesus is doing precisely that, He is walking on the water!

A very interesting thing happens. As He draws near to the boat, this gives you some idea of how difficult the circumstances were, He overtakes them when they've had a few hours start, and He's only walking. As He draws near to the boat, the men in boat were absolutely petrified because the boat is shipping water. They look, and to their horror they see a Ghost! Now, it wasn't a ghost, it was Jesus walking on the water. But there's an interesting little lesson here, an interesting little insight. Have you ever heard somebody say, seeing is believing? Have you ever heard somebody say that? Have you ever said that yourself?

Hello! Anybody ever said that? Okay, well be careful now in light of what I'm going to tell you. Seeing is believing is the way we operate now. Now I understand why we say that!

Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps the opposite is true? The men in the boat do not believe that people walk on water. Number two, the people in the boat do believe in ghosts. People don't walk on water and there are such things as ghosts. So, when they see somebody walking on the water, what do they see? They see a ghost. What they believe determines what they see!

Or to put it in slightly different language, it is our presupposition that determines our conclusions. This is rather important, because in actual fact, when we talk to people about deeply important issues, we usually get into a debate about conclusions when in actual fact what we should be doing is exploring the presupposition. The simple fact of the matter is this: your conclusions will already be determined by the presuppositions upon which you base your reasoning.