"Let us go over to the other side." Mark 4:35. Jesus beckoned his disciples to cross over to the other side, the side after the middle ground. We all get excited when God says something to us which appears will lead to progress for us. This is what happened with the disciples, and by Mark 5:1 they had reached the other side. The actual middle ground was not nice, it was the hard part but they had Jesus to guide them over. Many of us never react the far side, our destination because we don't know what to do in the middle ground. What we need to do is seek God and He will lead the way. Mark 4:35-41 tells of Jesus and the disciples journey over the middle ground. We learn of a "storm of wind", in other words, strife. We worry and seek advice from anyone. We ask others for help to solve our problems when most of the time they don't even know how to solve their own. The person who we should be asking for guidance is God and God alone.
In Mark 4:39-41, Jesus calms the wind. The disciples are amazed that not only people obey Him but the weather does too. Their faith in Him is questioned by Jesus. It's one thing to have faith in Jesus but another matter entirely to take it into your daily life and let it keep you calm in a storm. There will always be a storm going on in your life, we need to go out there and live it. Whatever good things you learn in church, the devil will test you on. The church will sow a seed in you and the devil will immediately come to try to steal the seed that was sown. He does this by testing you on what you just learnt or heard. Jesus asked where the faith was in the storm. We have an obligation to God to act as Jesus did as we are the modern day Jesus that people are looking at. We are His ambassadors and witnesses and He does not want a group of sour faced Christians having that huge responsibility. Jesus needs joyful peace loving people who show the true faith to represent Him.
Joy too should not be contained to within the church. It should be out in your life even when you don't particularly have anything to be seemingly joyful about. Joy is not always extreme, it can be a calm delight. Delight in finding joy in perhaps a bee on a flower. On the other hand, true, great joy would be experienced when you realise how much you love your life and that is a wonderful feeling. It's not ok to just attend church and be joyful, bold and obedient there. We need to do it out of church too. We need to live God's Word, grow it and spread it. It's so easy to keep it confined to church as it takes so little effort but we need to put the effort in and let the world see God.
Jesus left us a huge legacy which includes many awesome things, including peace. But before you get peace into your mind you need to make a decision that you will have peace and forgiveness in your life by getting rid of blame, condemnation and anger. Make this decision and do not let anyone rob you of that whether that be the person or the devil.
So, Jesus provided the peace. It is up to us to maintain it and that takes effort. Effort that far too few people are prepared to make. You need to thank Jesus for the gift of peace and ask Him what you need to do to help keep that. We ask God for a lot of things we already have but don't realise that we do and it is only by stepping out in faith that those things will be revealed to us.
If we want to keep peace in our heart, we need to stop worrying. Worrying stirs you up, robs you of your peace and you will often find that in the end you are actually worrying for no reason. Therefore worrying is a complete waste of time. It never solves your problem, all worry does is torture you and torments you. Worry has no link to faith other than that it shows a distinct lack of faith.
One of the reasons why we worry is that we think that we can solve our own problem and we haven't realised yet that that won't happen as God wants us to lean and rely on Him to solve it. As soon as we start to try to solve a problem you will become aggravated and tormented, and the more you try to change something, the worse the problem will get. People who you may be trying to change do not want to be put under the law, and nor should you as that brings sin into the equation and the person will just get more determined not to change or conform to your standards. They need to have their own change of heart and only God can help a person to do this. Let people do what they want, don't try to change them in order to retain your peace. Worry can make you sick in so many physical ways. Refuse to worry anymore, tell the Holy Spirit within you then prepare to battle with the devil.
Your whole life could be turned around if you changed your attitude, accept that you have a lack of knowledge and start to wholly rely on God.
Fight the good fight and speak the Word out loud regularly to combat worry. Get some humility and realise that the things that you can and can't do. Stay away from anything that God didn't tell you to do and be sure to do all things he tells you to do.
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