How is your peace

In Mark 4 we read of the miracle of Jesus calming sea. There is one fascinating aspect of this miracle that is our focus for today. Up to that point the disciples had seen Jesus perform at least 11 miracles. One of which was raising the dead son of a woman from Nain. They knew He had power over life and death, power over the sea and power over the sick. Yet, with all they had witnessed they were still fearful. They exclaimed “Jesus don’t you care about us”. This was the first time they needed Jesus to perform a miracle that directly impacted them and their fear. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to have faith for a miracle in the life of someone else? It comes out of our mouths so easily. Just believe. Never doubt in the dark what God has promised in the light. God is sovereign over all things. All of those are true but it’s much more difficult to believe when it impacts us directly. That’s why the father of the demon possessed boy declared “Lord I believe help my unbelief”. (Mark 9:24) I don’t want to be too hard on the disciples. They were faced with a life threatening challenge in their lives. They did, in fact, go to the right Person who could do something about it. What happened was their peace was upset. Jesus commanded their peace to calm down. Mark 4:39 Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace, be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. Is your peace upset jumping all over the place? Is fear gripping your life because now the miracle needs to be personal miracle just for you? Go to Jesus asking Him to declare “Peace, be still”. It’s really true that God is in control. I will close with a quote from Donald Barnhouse. He said this when preaching on Romans 8:28. No will or act of creatures, men, angels or demons can do other than work for our good. No dog can bark against us, no man or woman can speak or act against us, no sinister power or evil can be against us but all must be for our good. There is no phenomenon of nature fire, flood, storm or earthquake that can work us ultimate ill. The law of gravity cannot trip us up or cause anything to fall upon us unless first sifted thru the will of God’s purpose for our good. Every experience of our individual circumstances whether temptations or whatever concerns us humbles us will force us to rely on Him alone Who can satisfy. All things work together for our good otherwise the Lord would not permit it. You think about that.