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If you’d like to join us in our journey reading all the way through the Bible this year, drop me a line at reid.ferguson@gmail.com, and I’ll be glad to email back a copy of the reading plan we are using. It’s never too late to start.
But I’d like us to briefly look focus on the account of Jesus calming the storm in Mark 4.
In reading this account I am reminded first that Gal. 5:6 says “Faith works by love.”
Our faith, our trusting God is directly proportionate to our perception of His love toward us. When we are sure of how greatly and how perfectly He loves us, we have great faith equal to it – that He will meet our needs.
When we have little sense of His love, our faith will be likewise little.
This is why faith comes through the preaching of the Gospel – it is an announcement of God’s love toward us and His willingness to receive us and forgive us based upon the sacrifice given – Jesus Christ on the Cross.
So it is here the Disciple’s statement “do you not care that we are perishing?” is the root behind their little faith. And, the root behind our own.
They questioned His care for them. His love for them. They thought Him indifferent and thus did not trust Him.
The key to great faith then, is to gain a greater and greater sense of His great love for us. And if we do not see it in the Cross – where will we see it?
And, if we call into question God’s love for men, how can we then ask them to believe the Gospel? Such preaching is counterproductive, and contrary to God’s own design.
We must give them reason to believe His love for them, and then we have made a great inroad into seeing saving faith arise in their hearts. As
Rom. 10:17 says, this is the product of hearing the “word of Christ.” If our Gospel, the “word of Christ” does not contain an announcement of His great love – it fails to be the Gospel in full.
Back to the Disciples: They do not see their own lack here and a lot of the time neither do I.
Think about it, Jesus had just given them numerous parables about the Kingdom; How it would grow, it’s longevity and it’s simple beginnings but great end.
But all they can see is the immediate storm.
The far off reality of the promises yet to be fulfilled are all eclipsed by the present trial.
May the Father, forgive us for our short-sightedness. For our profound lack of faith in His unfailing Word by forgetting the surety of His promises in the midst of present storms or trials.
Lastly – and we really need to see this because this is where there is SO much confusion about what faith is and how it works – the faith they lack at this point is not some subjective faith that in storms they will be OK. The faith they lack is that in the prophesied Word that told of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
They had no faith in His person and work based upon the Scriptures.
Due to their lack of understanding their Old Testament, they neither really knew Him, nor His mission.
And so they could not put their present circumstance into that context. Real faith requires the Word of God, not mere conjecture, feeling or desire.
Theirs was the same problem Nicodemus had in John 3.
This is why studying God’s Word is absolutely vital. For if we neglect His self-revelation there, then we will be ill-equipped to see Him with the eye of faith as He Shepherds us in everyday life. We too will be quick to cry out: “Do you not care that we are perishing?”
Oh Christian, His care for us greater than we can conceive. Stop and look at the Cross again today.
Truly let that soak into your soul Beloved.
God bless, and God willing, we’ll be back tomorrow.
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