His Encouragement #27

Good morning, and welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

Trisha, my blogger friend at Joy of Reading, and I decided on calling this post “His Encouragement” because our real source of peace, strength, and security can only come from Jesus Christ. He, and He alone, is our constant! We pray and hope that these Thursday posts become a real encouragement to you and help you end your week strong in God’s love and purpose for you. God bless!

Today’s Thursday Encouragement comes from:

Luke 8:25 (ESV)

He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and they marveled, saying to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even winds and water, and they obey him?”

I’ve been listening to an Alistair Begg sermon called “About 12 Almost Christians.” It’s a really excellent sermon wherein he asks the question, “Does the Holy Spirit reside in you?” It’s a great question. One that makes me think about faith. What does it mean to have faith? Which leads to Jesus’s question in Luke 8:25 — “Where is your faith?”

Where is my faith?

It’s a tough question. When I am safe in my comfortable home, when I am well-fed and clothed, when I have an excellent day at work, when my relationships are good, and when I’m curled up on the couch reading an excellent book, it is SO easy to say that my faith resides in Jesus.

But, when my daughter is sick, my husband is angry at me, my students are behaving like uneducated hoodlums, and my home has been threatened, “Where is your faith?” becomes a really tough question to answer.

I think the real question is — when life gets super hard and scary, HOW do you behave? Do you behave like you have faith in Jesus, or do you yell, scream, throw things, and cower in fear? Do you throw your fists up into the air and blame God for all the bad? Or do you turn to Him and ask for His guidance, help, and peace?

In Luke 8:25, the 12 disciples are in a boat with Jesus. Jesus is asleep, but the 12 are not. They are fearful for their lives because a windstorm has come upon them and they are afraid they will die. Naturally, they freak out, wake Jesus up, and cry out for Him to save them. Jesus rebukes the waves, things calm down, He questions the disciples’ faith, and then they feel a new fear — who is this person who can control nature?!

My husband likes to remind me that our hearts deceive us. Sure, with our minds we totally believe that Jesus walked this earth, healed people, calmed nature, died for our sins, rose from the dead, etc. But to believe these Truths with our hearts is another story. Our hearts can be fickle. If your world looked like it was ending, what would your natural recourse be? Where is your faith when life looks like a raging storm? Now more than ever before, it is imperative that you know the answer to this very important question!

NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?

And, check out more Thursday Encouragement from my fellow blogger friends:

Trisha @ Joy of Reading

Jacquelyn @ A Heavenly Home

Jessica @ A Baker’s Perspective

Becca @ The Becca Files

If you would like to join us: please contact Trisha or Nicole