“Why are you gripped with fear? Where is your faith?” [Matthew 8:26 TPT]
Jesus and his disciples are in a boat on a lake when a violent storm assaults them.
The disciples wake Jesus up from a nap saying, “Save us, Lord! We’re going to die!”
Christ rises, rebukes the storm and instantly it becomes perfectly calm.
Before he rebukes the storm Jesus rebukes the disciples for reacting in fear and not faith.
His reprimand seems to question whether they have been paying attention to him at all.
In the days prior they watched Jesus do all sorts of miraculous acts.
He healed a leper, healed the Centurion's servant and healed Peter's mother-in-law.
He cast out demons with a word and healed many others who were sick.
They saw all of this, every miracle, and still cowered in fear when water entered the boat.
These could not imagine that Jesus had power over the weather.
They had a limited view of who Christ was and they were gripped with fear.
Both their faith, and their understanding of Christ, was small and needed to grow.
I too have seen miraculous things in my life.
I too have seen the faithfulness of God in the hardest of times.
It is not for a lack of evidence that fear has gripped me when life's storms have assaulted me.
I've had the same problem the men in the boat had when fear gripped them.
I think that storms come into our lives to give us an opportunity to exercise our faith.
And exercise will make our faith muscles stronger.
A good thought to remember when the storms come and we are tempted to yield to fear.
Forgive me Lord when I give in to fear. Author faith in me today.
... this devotion is part of the Red Letters series. Click here to read more.
No comments:
Post a Comment
I love to get comments and usually respond. So come back to see my reply.
You can click here to see my comment policy.