Day 8: Jesus, Saviour, and Solution II

Jesus is the solvent required for the solution to every problem imaginable. That may sound farfetched and overly simplistic to the academic mind. However, that is where we as believers and followers of Jesus must anchor our faith. Jesus does not want to be just one other person in our lives. He wants to be “The Person.”

 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. ¹⁸ And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

Colossians 1:17-18 NKJV

In Mark 4:35-39, the story is told of Jesus and His disciples confronted by a dangerous wind on the sea. Where was Jesus? Alas, He was asleep in the stern. The disciples had to wake Him up with desperate complaints of “master do you not care that we perish?”

In life at one time or another, we will be confronted with what I call drown size problems. These are problems just like this one the disciples were faced with at sea. The boat was almost drowning from waves sweeping over it and they felt for sure that the end had come. Have you been in such a situation yourself, where you felt there was no hope? Maybe not very recently, but in the past? I believe that every human being has an experience in their lives where our default setting of crying out to God kicked in. For some people, it is when they had their first child. The pregnancy was very difficult and somewhere along the line, they called out to the creator. For other people, it was that first job opportunity, or that financial quagmire that has now been resolved. It may well be that marriage that almost got destroyed but somehow that midnight cry to the God of your salvation turned things around.

A solvent is actually “something” that provides a solution. And Jesus wants you to learn how to use His name as a solvent. In this sense, we see Jesus’s name as the thing that invokes His presence, as the solution equation to problems that are otherwise unresolvable. I can for sure deduce this from the discourse in Mark 4:40. Jesus asks the disciples “why are you so fearful?” Do you see what I see? Of course, they should be afraid. Who would not be afraid? I recall one time being on a paddleboat on a lake with a family friend from Church Matt Bordush and his family. This was on a Manitoba shallow lake. There were no frightening waves, I could have walked in the lake, I had a life jacket on, yet the fact that the boat felt like it would tip from time to time set my heart racing. See that picture? Now how much more such a real situation out at sea. And Jesus said

“Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?”

Mark 4:40 NKJV

You see He wanted to teach them something important. The further and deeper our faith grows the less we entertain fear even in the face of storms that threaten us. It is so important that we build our faith because that is where miracles are made. That is where we find His name becoming “the Solution” because we call out in faith. He is calling us to become miracle workers working alongside Him. We are truly called to be co-laborers in His vineyard.

Thanksgiving and Prayer

• Thank God for day 8 and pray for stregnth for the remaining days
• Praise God for answers to our prayer requests. Psalm 6:9
• Give thanks for the revelation you have received from the word of God during this fast. Psalm 119:130
• Invite Jesus into your circumstances as the Solution
• Pray that we grow in faith through prayer and the word of God. Jude 20
• Pray as you are led for other matters on your heart.