The Gift Of The Sleeping Christ

Look for a photograph of "Jesus calming the storm" on a quest machine and you will see many depictions of the dynamic Son of the Living God towering over the wind and waves and showing His great authority. It is much harder to find the scene that took place only seconds before. A sleeping Saviour, genuinely aware of the difficulty, but not allowing it to affect His peace of mind.

As I pondered over that in my morning's devotions, something inside went yes! That's the gift from Jesus I so long to have, and the gift I wish for my brothers and sisters in North Korea today. Oh don't misunderstand. I desire deliverance. I'd like it even great if there were no storm from which to be delivered. But I read of no such promise. And since storms last longer than the deliverance from them, I want a gift that covers the great majority of my time on earth.

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It's relatively easy for a man to receive an outpouring of grace that so confounds the enemies of our soul as to hear them say the word "miracle." How easy is it to sit for genuinely years, as Richard Wurmbrand of Romania, Haralan Popov of Bulgaria, and a host of others, knowing God is noteworthy but that He is doing something separate in your life, in accordance with His eternal purposes?

We must be honest with ourselves and honest before God. All of our deliverance prayers, personal or for others, are not going to be answered the way we want. In the Scriptures there is a Peter who was delivered but we know that at last there was one who was tortured and killed. There is a Paul who with Silas was miraculously set free. There's also the Paul who from Jerusalem to Rome to the end of his life was a prisoner of Christ.

There was the great success of John the Baptist, then the waning ministry, the jail cell where doubt entered, the end by decapitation. And must we not add Christ Himself to this difficult list? astounding miracles, constant fly from death experiences, then betrayal, crucifixion.

There's a pattern here. We see it in the boat. A Christ who is unruffled by anyone Hell can stir up, and a Christ who when He needs to, can do the stirring Himself.

Many and high-priced are the stories of suffering saints from Jesus' day to the present who looked death in the face and received deliverance. Only recently a brother was arrested in Chosun, prayed for by believers all over this world, and released! What rejoicing, what relief. But it does not all the time happen that way. Oh we need the gift of the sleeping Christ. Absolute excellent peace.

Then join me today in prayer for the land of morning calm, that its citizens will know the peace that only Christ can give. Oh how we long for the day when peace will decide over that whole nation, when Christ is Lord over all Chosun, when the Gospel is preached freely to every citizen. But until the deliverance comes, may God touch His own with the peace that He promised:

"My peace I leave with you... Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

The Gift Of The Sleeping Christ

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