73 FACING YOUR GREATEST FEAR IN THE FACE OF THE STORM
Psalm 46:10
KJV:Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.
A storm rages to test and prove your faith, but the first thing to consider is where you are standing. This has to do with our absolute focus, because storms are the real battle of life to be faced and cannot be avoided, but faced and overcome by faith in God. Even the Scripture made it very crystal clear and gave us perfect guidelines of which, I will start on the ground of battle and the weapon that we can use to overcome it. You do not step into the battle without a weapon, because what gives you a front is the equipments you are gagged with. The weapon of our warfare is not a carnal weapon, but spiritual one, which is our absolute focus in God by faith, depending on His grace to take us through.
Ephesians 6: 10- 20
Finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places! Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me, that utterances may be given me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
When we are not standing, we will be unstable and this will make us to trade the wrong direction that leads to destruction and this is because we becomes double minded (James 1: 8) and when we are double minded, we will be left in confusion, not knowing exactly the right thing to do, and this is exactly the devil's program, so that he will now start impressing us with current of thoughts that are far from the normal and in that state of uncertainties, we are easily led astray. If you give the devil a chance, you are doomed!
In the storm, when it rages adversely against you, the first thing to do, is to run to the LORD because, you cannot by your strength calm or overcome storms of life which are inevitable. If you try it by your strength overcome storms of life, not having an anchor to hold on to, you will flung to the other side of existence called DEATH. So when we run to Jesus, not for the fear of the storm, but for the fear of Him which is the beginning of wisdom, the love of our lives that nothing can separate us from, wisdom will be activated in us to wake Him up by crying out to Him in prayers. How do we wake Him up? By calling on Him with a sincere heart, and when we call on Him with a sincere heart even in our distresses, He will hear our voice, He will wake up and come to our rescue.
Mark 4:39
KJV:And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
The voice that calls Him is not just the literal voice, but the voice of true faith in Him, that directs us aright, to stand in the ways, and see and ask for the ancient path where the good way is....
(Jeremiah 6:16).
The paramount thing in the face of raging storm is standing in faith with God, seeing through His eyes, and asking in His will. The Lord does not see storm, what He sees is calmness, so when you see what He sees, what you will experience is stillness. When we don't see what He sees, we are selfish and proud because our concern is just all about us, we don't want to die, so we focus our energy on ourselves and become weighty and start sinking in the deep. But the moment we take off our focus from self and focus on Him, we will become weightlessly light not to sink in the raging water and carried away by the fierce wind because our anchor is dead to self and anchored on faith which cannot be moved by fear. The truth is, there is only one storm and that storm is FEAR which is only but false evidence appearing real. If you cannot stand, you will never see clearly and if you don't have true vision, you cannot ask correctly, because you cannot ask outside your knowledge. So your knowledge is dependent on your faith in Him and vision and this simply emphasize GRACE and TRUTH.
Luke 9:41
Then Jesus answered and said, "O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear with you? Bring your son here.
Fear is simply faithlessness and perverseness, whether you accept it or not, it does not change the truth. The problem has never been with the raging storm, but has always been with our mindset, thoughts to protect ourselves when we know we cannot protect ourselves. When Jesus was teaching the principle of self-denial, we were giving the life jacket against storms. Self-denial is the strong resistance to raging storm, because when you deny yourself, you project God, so the storm cannot see you, but the Maker who is above all, so it has no option than to bow in obeisance and this was evident in the wind and the wave obeying the voice of our Lord Jesus. God does not want us to be conscious of the raging storms; He wants us to be consciously focused on Him, because in Him there is no storm at all. There has never been a second without the storm, but because of our faith in Him, we experience constantly stillness, even if it rages, it is maximally minimized and suppressed by the love of God which has promised us with all certainty, that nothing can separates us from Him. Let's check it out!
Romans 8:18, 22, 35- 39
For I consider that the suffering of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or award? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Can you see that the storm have no power over you if you in Christ? Your greatest storm is ignorance which gives birth to fear and the truth is, ignorance is nothing but pride.
And the Lord was speaking to me correcting an impression, making it known to me that ignorance is not an excuse and when He got speaking; my mindset was immediately reset from my formal way of thinking that runs with a myopic thought lines. These were the words He spoke to me.....
Do you worship? No! You can only worship when you have been washed clean.
Do you preach? No! You can only preach when He preaches through you.
Do you love? No! You can only love when He loves through love.
Do you pray? No! You can only pray when He prays through you.
Have you found the Way? No! You can only find the way when you have stood, seen and ask correctly in His way.
Are you faithful? No! You can only be faithful when you are not doubtful, but doubt empty and have buried your faith and have it rest in peace in His faithfulness that exist as your faith.
You have no faith, what you call your faith is your complete reliance on His faithfulness, so it implies His faithfulness is your faith.
Do you run a race and win? No! You can only win a race by not running, but just standing still, because you standing still Is your running, because He runs for you when you stand still for Him, and when He runs, He runs with your form and keep you informed, such that you are getting there with an enormous speed, but you just know you are standing. I mean, holding your peace is your race and allowing Him to run you is your grease (GRACE: God in the Race).
Do you lead? No! You can only lead when he lead you. The reason why you struggle in everything you do; the position you are in, in the choir, in school, in your office and even in leading worship,; is because you are leading, but He is not. You cannot lead and He leads, it is either, you allow Him to lead you through and you have your peace and receive the glory, else you will struggle and things will just keep going wrong.
