WAKE UP TO THE POWER IN YOUR BOAT

Mark 4:38 NLT Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

We’ve probably all had to try to wake someone up in the morning when they’re sound asleep or experienced it ourselves.😊 But here the disciples are desperate and they know they need to wake Jesus up to help them. 

Psalm 121 tells us that God never sleeps or slumbers. In other words He doesn’t doze off for two minutes!😊 But what occurred to me is that we can sometimes forget Jesus is even in our boat when the pressure is on and circumstances feel like they’re ganging up on us, or even when the mundanity of life is just jogging along quietly.

We can become complacent doing things in our own way, in our own strength and in a sense we’ve allowed our awareness of Jesus and His power to go to sleep in the back of our boat. We may have allowed His power to become dormant in our lives! If so, I’m here today to wake us up to the fact that the living God is alive in us and wanting to be active in our daily lives.😊

God wants us to wake up to the power within us! Recognise that the same power that brought healing to all who were sick lives in us. The same power that raises the dead lives in us. The same power that holds the universe together lives in us! Jesus wants us to wake up and use His power, release it by faith, by speaking His words, His promises, into our lives.

The disciples said, “Who is this man? Even the wind and the waves obey Him?” We know who He is - the Lord, strong and mighty and He is in us by the power of His Holy Spirit!😊 Glory to God!

Can you feel the Holy Spirit giving us a nudge? Jesus is wide awake but we need to wake up and go to the back of the boat where we may have left Him, and allow Him to be released into our lives, into our storms, our daily routine, in order to bring us His love and peace, His joy, His presence and His life changing power.😊In Jesus name. Amen.

Photo: Laura Chouette on Unsplash

HEAR AND ACCEPT

Mark 4:20 NLT And the seed that fell on good soil represents those who hear and accept God’s word and produce a harvest of thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted!”

I have a Camellia bush which used to flower like this picture but it’s now looking very poorly and has no flowers. The cause is probably the soil being poor and I need to move it or feed it! 

In the same way, the soil of our lives is very important and Jesus told us how to produce a good harvest and what prevents it. None of us would like to be thought of as stony, thorny or poor soil so there are times when we need to do a soil check!😊

He gives us the secret to having good soil in our lives when He tells us they are the people with believing hearts who hear and accept God’s word, who want to produce a good harvest by obeying it. The key is not just hearing, because we can all do that, but it’s in the accepting what He says by doing it!😊

Sometimes we find ourselves standing in poor soil when we’re depressed or discouraged because we forgot to hear and accept what God has said about us, or to us. We’ve listened to the wrong voice or become distracted with other things which fill our lives with thorns and thistles that choke His word!

When that happens we have to make a decision once again to listen, to really hear what God is saying in His word and accept it; not argue with it, reason it out, find out everyone else’s viewpoint, or phone a friend!

No, we’re told to simply hear His word and accept it - end of!

So next time we hear something, let’s check it against God’s word and if it contradicts it, then dig it up and accept and believe what God says instead. If we do that Jesus said we will receive a rich harvest, and remember to keep digging up the weeds of doubt and distraction as we go along.😊 Amen.