The Storms of Life

The storms of life are an integral part of living on earth. The word of God tells us that since Adam fell from God’s grace through disobedience, the entire of creation is affected by sin. It too is cursed and as such it is deteriorating rapidly, causing death and destruction to countless lives ….and it will continue to worsen. Seas will rage and floods and Tsunamis will continue to destroy. Tremors and the splitting open of the earth’s crust are manifesting more and more in the form of many earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Stormy winds, disastrous rains, and ice are being released in the form of hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones, tornadoes, blizzards, wildfires, and many other natural disasters. Diseases and epidemics are rampant. All of these are evidencing the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ as spoken by Him, “And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven. (Luke 21:11). Many may argue that we have always had natural disasters but statistics show, for example, that the total number of earthquakes in the last decade outnumbers the total number of earthquakes in the last century. There is a great acceleration of natural disasters…a clear sign of the end times and there are many others. These natural storms we are well aware of. They are the physical manifestations of the destruction of creation which results from man’s sin against God. We live with these every day, trying to either manage the disaster itself, or manage the resulting destruction of lives.

But, there is a much more dangerous kind of storm that we need to be concerned with - the storms of the soul; indecision, unforgiveness, doubt, fear, lust, greed, pride, hate, sorrow, pity, depression, idolatry, unworthiness, gossip, back-biting, rejection, deception, lies and many more which manifest out of the wickedness and rebellion of our own hearts and torment us daily. These destroy from the inside and dictate our actions and reactions to God, people, circumstances, and situations around us. They control us and the lives we live, and they destroy others around us. The word of God warns us, “And be not afraid of them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28). These are the kind that can send us into eternal hell. We need to overcome these storms. We must overcome them. It is a matter of life and death…eternal.

The Bible tells us that the only way to overcome these storms is to fully surrender our hearts to the Lord and offer our lives to Him as a living sacrifice. When we are born again, we are crucified with Christ. Our life is hid in Him. The Holy Spirit begins to sanctify us and renew our minds until we possess the mind of Christ. We must allow Him. We must allow Him to deal with every area of our hearts and souls that are hindering Him from fully occupying us, and to saturate us with Himself. When we have totally handed over control of our lives to Him, then and only then will the storms of the soul no longer control us. When the fullness of Christ fills us, we overcome simply by possessing His mind through faith. Happiness is no longer about an earthly outward paradise (as in the days of the Garden of Eden), but about an inward righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost that does not depend on the people, situations, and circumstances that surround us daily or the battles we constantly find ourselves in. We realize we are not of this world but we belong to the kingdom of God, and the word of Gods says “For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”. (Romans 14:17). Happiness is no longer about ambition, success as defined by man, acquiring wealth and possession, or even doing good, living healthy, and finding love and raising a family. But happiness is in a life surrendered to God and His purposes, and being in the center of His perfect will. No longer do we labor to please others or self, storing up treasures on earth, but we rest in Him, loving and serving Him only, thereby storing up treasures in Heaven. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal”. (Matthew 6:19, 20). In this place, our soul is no more a prisoner of death and destruction, but it is filled with Christ. According to what is already in your soul, you will either command the storms of life, or they will command you, bringing daily torment, worry, defeat… and eventually death and destruction.

You may now say to me, “we are saved and we are filled with the Holy Spirit, yet still we are tormented day and night by the storms of life.” Then I must ask you this question… how much of your heart and soul have surrendered to Him? How often do you seek Him just to worship and adore Him…just to know Him more? How much of the Word have you meditated on day and night? Are you truly allowing Him to renew your minds according to the word of God? The Bible says you are what you think. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). Are you thinking negative, critical and worrisome thoughts? Or are filled with the word of God? How much have you allowed Him to convict you of your daily sins and strongholds, and cleanse you of all unrighteousness? Have you truly allowed Him to separate you from the world and sanctify and consecrate you to Christ? Or are you still constantly choosing the world with its pleasures, sins, and burdens over a life dedicated to loving and serving God only. The Bible is very clear. We cannot serve two masters. "No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24). Beloved if your soul is not renewed, the storms of life will control you via your emotions and dictate your choices in life (your will). They will torment you daily in one form or another with the sole aim of separating you from the Lord, then destroying you eventually. Ever situation becomes a battlefield. Every tragedy becomes a dark pit of sorrow and grieving. Every challenge becomes a struggle between success and failure, pride and pity. Every problem becomes a mountain too high to climb. Every unknown brings great Fear and bondage. Every opposition becomes a raging lion ready to devour and destroy. Every setback becomes a point of failure from which there is no recovery. Get the point?

When your mind is renewed and the Lord now possesses you spirit, soul, and body, then what is filling your mind are the words of Christ, the promises of God and the knowledge of who He is and who you are in Him….more than a conqueror, the head and not the tail, a High Priest, sons and daughters of the most High God. Your trust based on your deep inner knowledge of God will dictate all of your responses to any attack of the enemy, be it though natural disasters, people, or situations and circumstances engineered to tear you down and destroy you. You will speak to the storms in the authority and power of the Lord. Words such as “Peace be still in the name of Jesus” will become the order of the day for every adversity you are facing. Your circumstances and situations will bow to the authority of the Name you are standing upon…the name of Jesus. They have to. Demons will begin to tremble as you walk into a room and flee when you command them to leave in the name of Jesus. The sick will be healed when you either lay hands or send the healing word. Whatever the Lord allows you to go through; you will go through knowing He is with you as He promised. “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. “ (Isaiah 43:2). And that He is using these to bring you into a place of greater glory.. refined as fine gold. These are the storms the Holy Spirit uses to renew our minds and teach us obedience, making us more Christ-like daily, filling us with the fruits of the Spirit.

Now you will know there is nothing impossible with God and every mountain and valley has to level at the sound of His voice. Every storm has to calm itself. Every tragedy presents an opportunity whereby you run into the Lord and experience Him with an intensity of intimacy that is unlike any other times. You will understand that weeping endures through the night, but joy will come in the morning. You will know that every trial is a growing pain which comes with an expectancy of great glory at the end. Every struggle becomes a place of surrender, allowing the fullness of the Lord to enter in and dwell within us freely. Every weak area becomes a place of great strength for then He is strong in us. In this place, our praise will always be greater than our pain, our peace surpassingly greater than any trial or tribulation, and our destiny in Him our only goal. One that we are constantly reaching for.

Today many Christians are resisting the work of the Holy Spirit, but they still expect a victory in every area of their lives. They do not realize that the victory comes from inside them and is totally dependant on how much of their soul they have surrendered and allowed the Holy Spirit to renew. They continue to look for treasures on earth to validate their Christianity, instead of looking within and allowing the Lord to uproot that which brings defeat and death, and implant His life. Thus, they regard every trial as a very physical and undefeatable giant and constantly cry out to the Lord for help instead of standing upon the authority the Lord has given them over all powers and principalities, rulers of darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places. They still depend on Pastors and Elders to constantly pray for them instead of realizing that the same power is in them as well, if only they would surrender their minds to Christ and give Him their hearts completely. All believers have the same Holy Spirit. All believers have the same anointing and gifts. In Matthew 28:18 Jesus says to His disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Then in Luke 10:9, He turns around and gives us that authority “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” The Pastors do not have anything more than you have. It is simply that they have accepted their call, surrendered their hearts to the Lord, allowed the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, and leant obedience through suffering. This allows the anointing and gifts to fully manifest in their lives. We may not all be Preachers and Teachers, Apostles and Prophets, but we are all Disciples and we all need to surrender to the Lord and be sanctified through suffering. The way of The Cross is the only way. We cannot expect another to take up our cross and follow the Lord for us. We must do this for ourselves. Our teachers can encourage us from time to time, teach us and help us now and again when we take a detour or stumble, and pray for us when we are going through a trail, but we must learn the way of the cross for ourselves. We must walk our own walk. We must apprehend our own purpose and destiny in Christ.

The manifestation of what God has placed inside of you is wholly dependant on your level of surrender to the Holy Spirit and what He wants to do in you and through you. It is by grace that we are saved, and it is by grace that we filled with the Holy Spirit…Power from on high. No one has more than another. No one can earn more power through fasting and praying, preaching or teaching, laying on of hands or commanding devils to come out of the Oppressed. We all have the same power and the same authority. How much of it manifests in your life and the life of those you come into contact with depends solely on how much of your heart and soul you have surrendered to the Lord and how obedient to His commands you have become. Do you love the Lord with all your heart, all your soul and all your might? and do you love your neighbor as you love yourself?. Finally, are you going into all the nations and making disciples of every nation, starting in your own home and neighborhood. NOTICE, the Lord did not ask us to make believers of every nation, but to make disciples of every nation. Are you a doer of the word and not just a hearer? If you are doing these things then His power and authority will manifest in a mighty way in your life and victory will be yours in every area of your life. Righteousness, peace, and joy will fill your heart and cause you to overcome every battle and every hardship, not because the attacks decrease in severity or intensity of suffering, but because the pain and hurt can no longer measure up to what you hold within you…the matchless glory of God, His peace and joy. They will no longer have much of an effect on you, for you no longer hold the physical realm in any esteem. Like Paul, you now count it all dung. You now fully understand that you are part of a larger than life plan of God’s and that life on earth is temporary and the things of the world will pass away. There is an eternal purpose that you need to focus on and fill your heart with. There is a heavenly perspective that is now yours, and temporal things will cease to matter to you. You will understand, as the Word of God says, that the only things which will survive this world and enter into eternity are the love, faith and hope in your hearts. “So these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the best one of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13).” Do you have this perspective?

Do you find yourself constantly setting your eyes on the storm like Peter then when you are sinking? Do you cry out “Lord help me”, or do you keep your eyes focused on Jesus and walk on the stormy seas by faith? Do you throw others into the storm to save yourself, like the men who were in the ship with Jonah did when the storm arose, or do you, like Paul, listen to the voice of the Lord in the midst of the Storm and help others with calm confidence in the Lord and the power of His might, assuring them “But now I urge you to keep up your courage, because not one of you will be lost; only the ship will be destroyed.” (Act 27:22) Do you panic when the storm arises, like the Disciples of the Lord when they were at sea, or do you rest peacefully like the Lord, knowing who holds your life? Even when it pleases the Lord to have us go through the fire and the flood, knowing we will be perfected in the midst, do you trust Him or do you loose faith? Can we like Ester, say “If I perish, I perish”, or like Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego say. ”If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” (Daniel 3:17-18)? Beloved our minds must be renewed and our faith full in order for us to withstand the storms of life, both in the natural and of the soul. This is the true victory of every Christian. 1 John says, “For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” (1 John 5:4)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox writes on true faith in a poem entitled…

Faith

I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea
Come drifting home with broken masts and sails;
I shall believe the Hand which never fails,
From seeming evil worketh good for me;
And though I weep because those sails are battered,
Still will I cry, while my best hopes lie shattered,
I trust in Thee.

I will not doubt, though all my prayers return
Unanswered from the still, white Realm above;
I shall believe it is an all-wise Love
Which has refused those things for which I yearn;
And though at times I cannot keep from grieving,
Yet the pure ardour of my fixed believing
Undimmed shall burn.

I will not doubt, though sorrows fall like rain,
And troubles swarm like bees about a hive;
I shall believe the heights for which I strive
Are only reached by anguish and by pain;
And though I groan and tremble with my crosses,
I yet shall see, through my severest losses,
The greater gain.

I will not doubt; well-anchored in the faith,
Like some staunch ship, my soul braves every gale;
So strong its courage that it will not fail
To breast the mighty unknown sea of Death.
Oh, may I cry when body parts with spirit,
I do not doubt, so listening worlds may hear it,
With my last breath.

If you are a Christian and your life is filled with trails, suffering, and pain, it does not mean you have no power or authority. It only means you are not rising up in the authority the Lord has given you, and you are not using the power He died to give you. You do not need to seek out men and women who are sacrificially serving God to encourage, pray for you, and constantly lift you up. All you need to do is to surrender your heart and soul fully to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit just like they did. Reach out by faith and take hold of what the Lord has placed inside of you. Humble yourself before the Lord and learn how to use the authority and walk in the power God has given you and you will overcome. The Lord promised we will be persecuted for His name sake. We will have trials and tribulations since we are still living in a fallen world. But, He also promised we will overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, the blood of the Lamb, The Word of God (sword of the Spirit), and the name of Jesus. We need to surrender our souls to the Holy Spirit and take hold of these weapons the Lord has given us by faith, and we need to use them in order to overcome.

If you do not know Jesus Christ and would like to come to Him by faith, repent of your sins, surrender your life to Him, allow Him to sanctify and renew your mind, and receive the abundant, overcoming life He promised…pray this prayer in your own words with all the sincerity you have within you. “Lord Jesus, I believe you died and rose again on the 3rd day. I am sorry for my sins Lord. I turn away from them this day and all the works of the devil. Forgive me. Cleanse me. I invite you into my heart Jesus. Be my Lord and Savior. Help me to live my life for you Lord” If you have prayed this prayer, call us at Torah Ministry. We would like to pray with you and assist you in finding a bible believing church closest to you where you can worship, fellowship, grow, and serve the Lord. We rejoice with the angels in Heaven over even one soul who is saved today.