Sufficient in Christ / Mark 6:1-56
The Radical Call of Discipleship
Do me a favor: if you have a Bible with you, turn to Mark chapter six. That is where we are going to be this week.
Mark 6:1-56 (NASB)
Jesus went out from there and came into His hometown; and His disciples followed Him. When the Sabbath came, He began to teach in the synagogue; and the many listeners were astonished, saying, ’Where did this man [get] these things, and what is [this] wisdom given to Him, and such miracles as these performed by His hands? ‘Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? Are not His sisters here with us?’ And they took offense at Him. Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his [own] relatives and in his [own] household.’ And He could do no miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He wondered at their unbelief. And He was going around the villages teaching. And He summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits; and He instructed them that they should take nothing for [their] journey, except a mere staff– no bread, no bag, no money in their belt– but [to] wear sandals; and [He added], ‘Do not put on two tunics.’ And He said to them, ’Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town. ‘Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them.’ They went out and preached that [men] should repent. And they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them. And King Herod heard [of it], for His name had become well known; and [people] were saying, ‘John the Baptist has risen from the dead, and that is why these miraculous powers are at work in Him.’ But others were saying, ‘He is Elijah.’ And others were saying, ‘[He is] a prophet, like one of the prophets [of old].’ But when Herod heard [of it], he kept saying, ‘John, whom I beheaded, has risen!’ For Herod himself had sent and had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, because he had married her. For John had been saying to Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’ Herodias had a grudge against him and wanted to put him to death and could not [do so]; for Herod was afraid of John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. And when he heard him, he was very perplexed; but he used to enjoy listening to him. A strategic day came when Herod on his birthday gave a banquet for his lords and military commanders and the leading men of Galilee; and when the daughter of Herodias herself came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his dinner guests; and the king said to the girl, ‘Ask me for whatever you want and I will give it to you.’ And he swore to her, ‘Whatever you ask of me, I will give it to you; up to half of my kingdom.’ And she went out and said to her mother, ‘What shall I ask for?’ And she said, ‘The head of John the Baptist.’ Immediately she came in a hurry to the king and asked, saying, ‘I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.’ And although the king was very sorry, [yet] because of his oaths and because of his dinner guests, he was unwilling to refuse her. Immediately the king sent an executioner and commanded [him] to bring [back] his head. And he went and had him beheaded in the prison, and brought his head on a platter, and gave it to the girl; and the girl gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard [about this], they came and took away his body and laid it in a tomb. The apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.’ (For there were many [people] coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves. [The people] saw them going, and many recognized [them] and ran there together on foot from all the cities, and got there ahead of them. When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things. When it was already quite late, His disciples came to Him and said, ‘This place is desolate and it is already quite late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.’ But He answered them, ‘You give them [something] to eat!’ And they said to Him, ‘Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give them [something] to eat?’ And He said to them, ‘How many loaves do you have? Go look!’ And when they found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ And He commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass. They sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed [the food] and broke the loaves and He kept giving [them] to the disciples to set before them; and He divided up the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied, and they picked up twelve full baskets of the broken pieces, and also of the fish. There were five thousand men who ate the loaves. Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of [Him] to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away. After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land. Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them. But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and said to them, ‘Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.’ Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished, for they had not gained any insight from the [incident of] the loaves, but their heart was hardened. When they had crossed over they came to land at Gennesaret, and moored to the shore. When they got out of the boat, immediately [the people] recognized Him, and ran about that whole country and began to carry here and there on their pallets those who were sick, to the place they heard He was. Wherever He entered villages, or cities, or countryside, they were laying the sick in the market places, and imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe of His cloak; and as many as touched it were being cured.
Over the past few weeks, we have been trekking along in our study of what it means to follow the Servant, learning about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ through Mark’s gospel. We’ve seen this steady progression, starting from the initiation of Jesus’s baptism. Through these opening chapters, Jesus has been evidencing who He is, proclaimed both through His preaching and through His miracles, affirming His identity and what He has come to do. We’ve watched Him move powerfully—from healing a man with a withered hand all the way to liberating “Crazy Larry,” the demon-possessed man we looked at recently.
The entire time, His disciples have been right there with Him, walking in this radical call of discipleship. A few weeks ago, we looked at the calling of the twelve in Mark chapter three.
Mark 3:13-19 (NASB)
And He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He Himself wanted, and they came to Him. And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He [could] send them out to preach, and to have authority to cast out the demons. And He appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom He gave the name Peter), and James, the [son] of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (to them He gave the name Boanerges, which means, ’Sons of Thunder ’); and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot; and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him.
Mark showed us that there are two primary reasons Jesus called the disciples—and why He calls us as His disciples today. First, to be with Him. And second, to be sent out on His behalf, under His authority, both to speak gospel words and to do gospel deeds.
In chapters three through five, we saw that first part in action. The disciples were with Jesus the entire way, attending both His “lectures” and His “labs”—observing, learning, being provoked by what they saw, and having their lives transformed.
Now in chapter six, that second part officially kicks in. Jesus commissions the twelve, places His authority upon them, and sends them out in pairs to preach the gospel, cast out demons, and perform the works of the kingdom, proclaiming to everyone that the kingdom of God is at hand.
Mark 6:7-13 (NASB)
And He summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits; and He instructed them that they should take nothing for [their] journey, except a mere staff– no bread, no bag, no money in their belt– but [to] wear sandals; and [He added], ‘Do not put on two tunics.’ And He said to them, ’Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave town. ‘Any place that does not receive you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off the soles of your feet for a testimony against them.’ They went out and preached that [men] should repent. And they were casting out many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them.
By verse 30, they return from this mission. They debrief together about everything that happened—what they saw, how the Holy Spirit worked through them, the mighty wonders they witnessed, and the persecution they felt. All of this is part of Jesus’s discipleship plan to groom them for the day when He will die, be buried, resurrect, and ascend to the Father, leaving them empowered by the Holy Spirit to continue His ministry on earth.
Mark 6:30 (NASB)
The apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught.
Sandwiched between their sending out and their return is the retelling of John the Baptist’s beheading. John was the forerunner of the Messiah, calling the nation to repent of their sin. What ultimately cost him his life was calling out King Herod for his unlawful, incestuous marriage to his brother’s wife. Herodias’s daughter asked for John’s head on a platter, and he was executed.
Mark places that story right here to show us that mission and martyrdom go hand in hand. Discipleship can cost you everything—it might even cost you your life. John prefigures Christ’s own sacrificial life.
Where we are going to drill down today is verses 31 through 52, which record two of the most famous miracles in all of the Bible: Jesus feeding the five thousand and Jesus walking on the water. These are not just notable miracles; they are massive turning points in the discipleship of these twelve men.
God wants us to see that when you find yourself in incredible circumstances, struggling under the weight of your own inadequacy, Jesus is who He says He is. Nothing can thwart His plans. In our inadequacy, this passage encourages us to bring our lack to Him—the substance, the author and perfecter of our faith.
The Demands of the Mission
Look at verse 31. After this long adventure, Jesus says to them, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.” There were so many people coming and going that they didn’t even have time to eat. So they went away in a boat to a secluded place by themselves.
Mark 6:31-32 (NASB)
And He said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.’ (For there were many [people] coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves.
However, there is always a “verse 33.” The people saw them going, recognized them, and ran together on foot from all the surrounding cities, getting there ahead of them.
Like any minister of the gospel, like any good shepherd, the work is never really done. Even when you try to get away and rest, it is waiting for you. That happened to me just recently. My family and I got away after Hume Lake to have a couple of days to unplug after a crazy week. We were up there, feeling totally safe and off the grid, until we were walking by the snack shop and—bam!—there’s church family. You can’t escape it!
The crowds were pressing in on Jesus and the disciples. It was getting late. Mark tells us they hadn’t even had time to eat a meal yet, and now this massive crowd surrounds them.
To understand the tension here, you need to understand who these people were. Jesus was in the northern region around the Sea of Galilee. That region, along with the Decapolis and the surrounding hill country, was known as a hotbed for the Zealots. The Zealots were Jewish revolutionaries who harbored an intense hatred toward Rome and Roman oppression. They despised Herod, who ruled Israel with Roman backing and oppressed the people. They longed for liberation.
Most of the Zealot movement originated in those very hills around Galilee. The historian Josephus tells us that a man named Judas the Galilean rose up as one of the first Zealot leaders to attempt an overthrow of Rome. Eighty years later, his grandsons would be among the last holdouts dying on the fortress of Masada.
Why do I think most of this crowd of five thousand were Zealots? Because John’s gospel tells us in John 6:15 that after Jesus performed this miracle, the crowd tried to take Him by force and make Him king. That is exactly what Zealots did.
John 6:15 (NASB)
So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.
Think about the environment: you are in Zealot territory, right after the beheading of John the Baptist—which infuriated the locals—and now this miracle-working leader appears, putting religious authorities in their place. They looked at Jesus and thought, Here is our military commander. Here is our guerrilla leader.
Compassion in the Gut
With that backstory in mind, look at how Mark describes Jesus’s reaction when He stepped ashore and saw the crowd.
Mark 6:34 (NASB)
When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.
He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. When Moses was about to die, forbidden from entering the Promised Land, he prayed and asked the Lord to appoint a leader over the congregation so that the Lord’s people would not be like sheep without a shepherd.
Numbers 27:17 (NASB)
who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the LORD will not be like sheep which have no shepherd.’
When we think of compassion, we usually think of heartfelt emotion. My wife sees an abused puppy commercial on TV, and her heart immediately goes out to it. But the Greek word used here for compassion is splagchnizomai, which relates to the inner organs, the bowels or the spleen. It has everything to do with your gut. When Jesus saw their brokenness and oppression, it literally made Him sick to His stomach. It provoked Him so deeply that it bent Him over. That is the depth of His compassion.
If this happened in modern times, and you had a crowd of revolutionaries gathered in the hills angry at the government, what would a revolutionary leader do? Back where I come from in Texas, we’d start handing out ammunition and posting on social media that it’s about to go down!
Look at what Jesus does instead. It is completely opposite of what they expected. Out of His deep compassion, He sat down and began to teach them many things.
His response to their brokenness was His Word. He offered them a liberation they weren’t expecting—freedom that begins with a transformed heart. His word provides counsel for troubled souls, offering them bread they could never produce on their own.
The True Bread from Heaven
In John chapter six, right after this event, Jesus tells the crowd that the bread He gave them was temporary and could never ultimately satisfy them. He told them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in Me shall never thirst.”
John 6:35 (NASB)
Jesus said to them, ’I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.
This miraculous feeding points directly to who Jesus is. He was showing them, “You have a hunger deeper than physical food. You have a longing deeper than political freedom from Rome. Without Me, your soul will starve forever. I came to liberate you from the bondage of your sin, your shame, your fear, and your condemnation.”
Miracles in the Gospels do not exist simply for Jesus to show off His power. If Jesus just wanted to flex, there were far flashier ways He could have done it. Las Vegas puts on shows with higher theatrical production value than multiplying loaves of bread! He could have done a divine barrel roll out of the sky. But Jesus doesn’t do miracles for entertainment; He does them to reveal His identity and His mission of salvation.
The people were in a dire situation out in the wilderness. There was no food, and no human effort could fix their dilemma. The only way their situation could be transformed was by a miraculous act of grace.
Look at how Jesus works the miracle in verses 38 through 41. He asks what resources they have. Five loaves and two fish. Completely inadequate to feed five thousand men, not even counting the women and children present. He takes their inadequacy upon Himself.
Mark 6:38-40 (NASB)
And He said to them, ‘How many loaves do you have? Go look!’ And when they found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ And He commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass. They sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties.
Look at the wording in verse 41: He took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up toward heaven, blessed them, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people.
Mark 6:41 (NASB)
And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up toward heaven, He blessed [the food] and broke the loaves and He kept giving [them] to the disciples to set before them; and He divided up the two fish among them all.
Those are the exact same words Mark uses later at the Last Supper in Mark 14:22, when Jesus takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, saying, “Take; this is My body.”
Mark 14:22 (NASB)
While they were eating, He took [some] bread, and after a blessing He broke [it], and gave [it] to them, and said, ‘Take [it]; this is My body.’
His body would be broken on the cross so our sins could be forgiven, His righteousness credited to us, and the wrath of God satisfied through faith in Him.
Everything in this miracle points to Jesus as the Savior and the Sustainer of life. It was a divine act of grace where everyone ate and was fully satisfied.
Mark 6:42 (NASB)
They all ate and were satisfied,
This is a direct parallel to Moses in the wilderness, where God provided manna to sustain Israel for forty years. Jesus is saying, “I am the superior Moses. That manna was just a shadow pointing to Me. I am the true substance that gives eternal life.”
A Lesson in Discipleship: The Tennis Match
While this miracle was a sign to the crowds, there is another lens we must look through: the disciples. Every sermon and every miracle was training for these men who were being commissioned for ministry.
Notice the back-and-forth “tennis match” between Jesus and His disciples in this passage.
First, look at the contrast in responses. When Jesus sees the broken crowd, He is filled with gut-wrenching compassion. But how do the disciples respond in verses 35 and 36? When it grows late, they come to Jesus and say, “This place is desolate and the hour is late. Send them away so they can go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
Mark 6:35-36 (NASB)
When it was already quite late, His disciples came to Him and said, ‘This place is desolate and it is already quite late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.’
They were hungry, tired, and getting irritable—they were “hangry.” Jesus looks at broken humanity and leans in with compassion, while the disciples say, “Send them away. Let them fend for themselves.”
Then comes the next serve in verse 37. Jesus looks at them and says, “You give them something to eat.”
Mark 6:37 (NASB)
But He answered them, ‘You give them [something] to eat!’ And they said to Him, ‘Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give them [something] to eat?’
That sounds like an absurd command. In John’s gospel, we are told Jesus said this specifically to test them. The disciples immediately respond with sarcasm: “Shall we go and spend two hundred denarii on bread and give them something to eat?” Two hundred denarii was roughly eight months’ wages. They were saying, “Are you crazy? You want us to blow eight months of salary on one meal for these people? It’s impossible!”
Jesus responds by asking, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”
Mark 6:38 (NASB)
And He said to them, ‘How many loaves do you have? Go look!’ And when they found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’
He makes them count their resources. He forces them to look at their inadequacy and bring it to Him. They return with five loaves and two fish. Seven small items against five thousand men. Those are terrible odds.
Then Jesus commands the people to sit down in groups on the green grass in fifties and hundreds, just like Israel was organized under Moses in the wilderness.
Mark 6:39-40 (NASB)
And He commanded them all to sit down by groups on the green grass. They sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties.
The disciples represent us so well. Their worldview was: I can only do what I am able to do with what I have. That was their ceiling. If you ask me to go beyond what I can personally manage with my own resources, I can’t do it.
Jesus counters their perspective with a radical kingdom principle: You must do what you cannot do with what you do not have.
How is that possible? By taking what you are inadequate for and placing it in the hands of Jesus so He can make it adequate.
The point of this entire passage is the sufficiency of Christ in our salvation and our sanctification. In salvation, we cannot look to our own works, which fall woefully short. We look to the finished work of Jesus Christ alone. He is the only one who can forgive our sins, ransom us, and liberate us. Faith in Him, not faith in ourselves, is what saves.
The exact same truth applies to our sanctification and ministry. As we partner with Christ as ministers of the gospel—right here at The Well Community Church—our efforts cannot flourish in the power of the flesh. We are inadequate. If we only take on tasks we feel naturally adequate for, we have missed God’s call on our lives.
It is an impossible human task to transform a broken soul. It is impossible for us in our own strength to heal marriages, restore families, impact our businesses, and transform this city. We are totally inadequate. The church is not a corporation, and we are not mere business professionals. Real transformation only happens when we surrender our inadequacy to the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
What hinders us from living this way? We often try to rely on clever programs and innovations to keep up with culture, thinking we are being “contextualized,” when in reality we are just operating in human effort.
Years ago, a Korean pastor toured several churches in the American Western church. When someone asked him for his impressions, he said, “I am absolutely amazed at how much the American church can accomplish without the Holy Spirit.”
That cuts straight to the heart. We naturally gravitate toward self-sufficiency. We say, “I’ve got this handled.” It’s the same problem Jesus addressed with the church in Laodicea in the book of Revelation, where He is standing outside knocking on the door of His own church, asking to be let in.
Revelation 3:20 (NASB)
’Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.
Why aren’t we driven to our knees in prayer? The absence of prayer is the presence of pride. When we don’t pray, we are telling God, “I don’t need your help; I can manage this myself.”
Utterly Astonished in the Storm
Why do we struggle with this? The answer is revealed in the very next miracle.
In verse 45, right after the feeding of the five thousand, the crowds were trying to seize Jesus to make Him king. Mark uses one of his favorite words, immediately. Jesus makes His disciples get into the boat and head out across the Sea of Galilee toward Bethsaida while He dismisses the crowd.
Mark 6:45 (NASB)
Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go ahead of [Him] to the other side to Bethsaida, while He Himself was sending the crowd away.
After saying goodbye to them, Jesus went up on the mountain to pray. When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land.
Mark 6:46-47 (NASB)
After bidding them farewell, He left for the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and He was alone on the land.
You can see the setup coming. John tells us this was another test. Jesus was up on the hillside praying, looking out over the Sea of Galilee. It was late at night, and a fierce northeastern gale whipped up on the water.
This was not their first storm. They had already been caught in a life-threatening storm back in Mark chapter four!
Here they are again, stuck in the middle of the sea, straining at the oars against a headwind. Around the fourth watch of the night—between 3:00 and 6:00 in the morning—Jesus came toward them, walking on the sea, and He meant to pass them by.
Mark 6:48 (NASB)
Seeing them straining at the oars, for the wind was against them, at about the fourth watch of the night He came to them, walking on the sea; and He intended to pass by them.
That phrase “pass them by” is divine language. It is the same language used in the Old Testament when God revealed His glory to Moses as He passed by. It is the language used in Job when describing God alone trampling the waves of the sea.
Job 9:8 (NASB)
Who alone stretches out the heavens And tramples down the waves of the sea;
Jesus was revealing His divine sovereignty over creation. Would the disciples recognize Him? Would they remember what He had just done on the hillside with the loaves and cry out to Him in faith?
When they saw Him walking on the sea, did they fall down and worship Him? Not at all. They thought He was a ghost, and they screamed in terror.
Mark 6:49-50 (NASB)
But when they saw Him walking on the sea, they supposed that it was a ghost, and cried out; for they all saw Him and were terrified. But immediately He spoke with them and said to them, ‘Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.’
Look at the beauty of Jesus in that moment. In the middle of their terror, He immediately speaks to them: “Take courage; it is I, do not be afraid.” He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped.
Mark tells us their reaction: they were utterly astonished.
Mark 6:51 (NASB)
Then He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped; and they were utterly astonished,
That phrase “utterly astonished” does not mean they thought, Wow, cool trick! It means they were in a state of terrified disbelief. They could not wrap their minds around what they were seeing.
They had been with Jesus for a year and a half. They had just watched Him calm a storm in chapter four. They had just watched Him multiply bread in chapter six. Yet here they are, completely shocked that He has authority over the wind and waves.
Why? Mark gives us the answer in verse 52, one of the most sobering verses in the Gospel:
Mark 6:52 (NASB)
for they had not gained any insight from the [incident of] the loaves, but their heart was hardened.
“For they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, but their heart was hardened.”
They completely missed the lesson of the loaves. They didn’t understand that when you bring your inadequacy to Jesus and surrender it at His feet, He is fully sufficient to sustain you. Because their hearts were hardened, they couldn’t see Him clearly in the storm.
Surrendering Our Inadequacies
When our hearts become calloused, doubt and disbelief set in. We start looking inward at our own limitations. That leads to two dangerous places: either despair and self-pity, where we give up because we can’t fix it, or self-sufficiency, where we frantically try to solve everything in our own strength.
When we rely on ourselves, we push the sufficiency of Christ aside.
Jesus is not merely a moral teacher showing us how to live a better life. Jesus says, “I am the bread of life. I am the living substance that saves you and sustains you every single day.” He is not just an inspiring example to follow; He is the source of our spiritual life and power.
None of us can save ourselves, and none of us can sustain ourselves. The odds will always be stacked against us. But when we face our inadequacy, rather than retreating into pride and self-reliance, the Lord calls us to run to Him, lay our meager loaves and fish at His feet, and trust in His sufficiency.
This is not a one-time decision. We have to preach this gospel to ourselves every single day.
I remember preparing for my first mission trip, and people told me, “Don’t worry, bro! God owns the cattle on a thousand hills; He will provide!” Then the next year, when funding was tight, panic set in all over again: “What are we going to do?” We forget so quickly.
The disciples did the exact same thing. They saw Jesus calm the sea, and then panicked in the next storm. Later in Mark chapter eight, after Jesus feeds four thousand people, the disciples get into a boat and start arguing with each other because they forgot to bring bread! A hardened heart produces the same rerun episodes of anxiety and doubt over and over again.
Praise God that His grace is sufficient for us. Day by day, He patiently weans us off self-reliance so we will learn to depend entirely on Him.
I don’t know what storm you are walking through right now. I don’t know what impossible situation is on your horizon. But His Word tells us that He has granted us everything we need for life and godliness.
2 Peter 1:3 (NASB)
seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
When we learn to surrender our inadequacies instead of trying to carry them in our own strength, that is where abundant life begins to flourish.
Closing Prayer
Father, we ask that You would pour out Your mercy upon us to soften our hardened hearts so that we might truly believe. Remind us right now that You are sovereign over every storm and circumstance. You are supreme, and You are completely sufficient for all of our needs.
Lord, chisel away the pride and self-reliance in our hearts. Open our eyes in the middle of the wind and the waves so that we might see Jesus for who He is. Help us to let go of the oars of our own self-sufficiency and cling to Christ, knowing that in Him alone is true life.
We pray this for Your glory and for our good, in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.