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Peace and Stillness

 Peace and Stillness

Mark 4:36-40
Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also with Him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. But He was in the stern, asleep on a pillow. And they awoke Him and said to Him, “Teacher, do You not care that we are perishing?”
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. But He said to them, “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”
Notice exactly what Jesus did. First He is sleeping in the middle of a storm. A storm that has experienced fishermen who probably had experienced a storm or two in the life to become afraid. In the middle of this very bad storm what awakens Jesus isn’t the storm but the disciples.
Next let us focus on what Jesus said to the sea. “Peace, be still” He spoke what He had and was living in. Think about it. It is kind of hard to speak peace and stillness over something or someone when you don’t possess it. Jesus spoke from what He possessed within Him.
John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
If you are born again you have the same peace Jesus has.
The next thing Jesus says is to the disciples. “Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”
To be in fear is to agree that what we are afraid of is greater than or possesses power that is greater than our own. Fear causes us to operate under the authority of what ever it is that we are afraid of.
Faith is our agreement with what God has said and done. Faith doesn’t produce something new. Actually faith recognizes and allows us to operate in what already is through Christ.
Both fear and faith are come from our choice of what we are going to agree with. Do we choose to agree with the chaos of the storm or the peace and stillness of Jesus?

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