The challenge comes to Peter now, in another part of his vision, but about his faith: is your faith strong enough to slide over what other people sink under? Two challenges: one about vision and one about faith. Well, Jesus quickly gets them ashore, tells them to go home and catch some sleep, and then He wants to see them next morning.

Once it is the next morning, all the crowds gather around, they want to know where He's been, how He got there, but there are some "critics" in the crowd. The critics in the crowd begin to say to Him, "Listen, you are making some rather extravagant claims for yourself, and these people seem to think you are a sort of Messianic figure? Now if you're going to entertain those kind of thoughts about yourself, we demand that you give us a sign! Do us a miracle, otherwise we will dismiss these ideas out of hand." Now can you believe that these people would ask Jesus to do a miracle? What had He just done? Well, He just fed five thousand families with five loaves and two fishes, with twelve basketfuls left over. And what do they say? "Show us a miracle!"

This does seem a bit outrageous, doesn't it? What a demand they're making. Well, not exactly. You see, they had been taught correctly by the rabbis. "When the Messiah comes, He will be greater than Moses!" What had Moses done? Moses had led tens of thousands of people out of Egypt. He led through the wilderness to the borders of the Promised Land, they "chickened out" of going in, and for forty years they had stayed in the wilderness and every day, they had been fed with bread from Heaven. They said, "That's what Moses did, what have you done? All you've done is feed five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes, one time, big deal!"

Jesus concedes, He says, "You're absolutely right. I fed five thousand families with five loaves and two fishes, once. Moses was instrumental in feeding tens of thousands of people for forty years, with "bread from Heaven." But, listen up, I want to tell you something!" I AM the bread from Heaven! In the same way that Moses was able to feed the people with bread from Heaven in a barren wilderness, I have come to a world populated by hundreds of thousands people living in a spiritual desert, who down through the centuries will be multiplied to millions and billions of people who will live in an ever-increasingly barren spiritual desert. I have come to be the Source and Substance of Life for them. I AM the one who will be all that they need to be all that God intended them to be. For I AM the bread of Life!

An amazing thing happened, some of His disciples decided that was going too far, it was too extreme, and they walked away. Jesus turned to Peter and the rest of them, and He said, "Are you going to leave too? Are you ready to quit? Have you come to the point of hearing some things from Me that you don't like? So you will go along with Me so long as I tell you what you want to hear, but as soon as you hear something you don't want to hear, you want to quit. Because if you're thinking of quitting, now is the time; there's the door. Are you leaving?

Peter says, "Master, where can we go?" There are no alternatives. You have the words of Eternal Life.

The challenge here is the challenge to commitment. Is your commitment deep enough to keep on keeping on regardless of what you hear from Him? Regardless of what He leads you into? Or is your commitment a mile wide, and an inch deep, for you are totally committed to Him as long as He does exactly what you want him to do. As long as He delivers exactly what you expect him to deliver, and as long as He never demands of you anything that you're not prepared to do.

What a challenge to our vision, to be asked, "is your vision broad enough to embrace this principle?" Human resources, however limited, willingly offered, divinely empowered are more than adequate to achieve divine end. What a challenge to our faith to be asked, "is your faith strong enough to stride over what other people sink under?" What a challenge to our commitment to be asked, "is your commitment deep enough to allow you, regardless of where He leads you to keep on "keeping on?"

When Jesus met Simon, He took one look at him and said, "You're Simon, but you will be Peter!" Three years and personal attention, begins to turn Simon into Peter. It was a process. Part of the process was to deal with his vision, which was very myopic, to deal with his faith, which was very faint, and to deal with his commitment, which vacillated all the time. Until in the end, he became a man of vision and commitment and faith, a disciple of Jesus Christ. The challenges are still the same: the challenges to vision, to faith and to commitment. And that's the story of Peter.