STOP PRAYING AND RECEIVE

Mark 4:35-41  (NKJV)

³⁵ On the same day, when evening had come,He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side.” ³⁶ Now when they had left the multitude, they took Him along in the boat as He was. And other little boats were also withHim. ³⁷ And a great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that it was already filling. ³⁸ 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?”³⁹ Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace,^[a] be still!” And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ But He said to them, “Why are you so     fearful? How^[b] is it that you have no faith?” ⁴¹ And they feared exceedingly, and said to one another, “Who can this be, that even the wind and the sea obey Him!”

Hello there, thanks for stopping by my blog today. Recently God has been correcting my prayer pattern and challenging me to pray in accordance to His word not just in accordance to how I feel or what’s going on around me.

In the passage above,Jesus gave His word to His disciples. He said to them “Let’s go over to the other side”. We know that the word of God cannot fail, if Jesus says let’s go over to the other said, you can be rest assured that you are getting there.  The disciples got on the boat at the word and started sailing to the other side with Jesus. While on the journey, a storm hit the boat. The storm was so intense that the disciples thought they were going to die. In the midst of the storm they forgot the word Jesus had given to them.They were so focused on the storm that they believe they were going to die. So just like any Christian in trouble they cried out to Jesus in times of trouble.They said to Jesus –don’t you care that we are perishing?

There question or prayer to Jesus indicates they were in agreement with the storm, they agreed they were perishing.  Jesus being who He is, full of love and mercy heard their cry to him, stood up and rebuked the storm. Technically we can say Jesus answered their prayer. He showed up and saved them from the storm.

Then Jesus asked a really interesting question –  How is it you have no faith?  Hmmm no faith? But Jesus the disciples just prayed to you and got results, isn’t that a sign that they had some level of faith?   Well not really, in this situation we see that the disciples had no faith.  Let’s dig deeper to see why Jesus said the disciples were faithless.

Jesus had given the disciples His word – let us go to the other side. Regardless of what happened on that journey He expected his disciples to believe that word, He expected them to anchor their faith on His spoken word. But a storm came and spoke to the disciples, the storm said you will perish here on the sea, you are not going to the other side. And guess what? The disciples believed the words of the storm instead of the words of Jesus. They cried out – Don’t you care that we are perishing? Which means they agreed that they were perishing. They agreed with the contrary situation instead of receiving the Words of Jesus.

You know, I have done this so many times. God gives me a word and when a contrary wind blows I runback to the place of prayer crying and asking God to show, ignoring the word He gave before the storm came my way. Have you ever done that? For me I realized it took more strength to stand on the word in the face of contrary circumstance than it took to just go back and pray again. Going back to pray again when God has already spoken means I have not received and believed the word he gave.  Sometimes then faith means I stop praying and receive what God has given ever though my circumstances does not look like it. It means saying to the storm – be still, God says I’m going to the other side and you cannot stop me. It means declaring in the midst of the storm, I am not perishing, I am going over to the other side.

I ask you today, are you praying in faith or fear? Has God already spoken to you about that situation? If He has, are you anchored on what He has said or are you listening to what the contrary wind is saying? Before you pray today, give some thoughts to your request and if God has already spoken then receive that word, stand on it and refuse to ask God to do what He has already done.

Love Always. Obebi