Mensa Otabil - Rebuke the Wind (10/27/2025)
Thank you. Welcome to day number 29 of our 40 days of power. God is our help, our strength, and our guide. Each day, as we seek Him, as we fast, as we pray, we are getting stronger and stronger; our faith is growing bigger and bigger. This week, we are looking at exercising dominion, so we look at Matthew chapter 8, verses 26 to 27: «But he said to them, 'Why are you fearful, O you of little faith? ' Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.» So the men marveled, saying, «Who can this be that even the winds and the sea obey him?»
Winds represent powerful forces that blow against us; sometimes the Bible calls them storms. When a person has a storm, it means that something is coming against them. The disciples of Jesus Christ, and Jesus himself, were in a storm. The wind was blowing against them; they were in a boat. Strangely, Jesus was sleeping in the boat, and when the disciples became overwhelmed, they went to wake him up. They said, «Lord, don’t you care that we’re perishing?» Jesus woke up and dealt with the winds.
In our life, there will be storms; there will be winds. There will be things that come against us and wish to destroy us, but we have to take instruction from Jesus on how to deal with the storms of life. So what do you do when the storms of life rise up against you? Well, we learn from Jesus. The first thing he says to his disciples when the storm was against them is, " Don’t be afraid.» Don’t be afraid! We hear it over and over in Scripture- don’t be afraid! It is our first response to crisis: don’t be afraid, don’t panic, don’t make it worse. Don’t run helter-skelter; just relax, trust God, take a deep breath, and have your peace. Don’t be afraid. I don’t know where you are in life, but don’t be afraid.
Then Jesus says, «O you of little faith.» So Jesus is equating their faith to their action. If they had great faith, of course, they would not be panicking in the storm. That means when you are in a storm and look at the storm, or the wind is so big, you have to grow your faith. Little faith can become great faith. How does little faith become great faith? By focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ. When we see him through his word, through his works, when we keep our attention on him, he is magnified, and our problems become smaller. But when our eyes are on the storm, then Jesus becomes little, and we don’t see him. Even if God is with us, we don’t see that God is with us.
He says you have little faith because your eye is on the wrong thing. Your eye is on the storm and not on Jesus Christ. We grow our faith by reading the word of God, meditating on his word, thinking deeply about the works of God, and the more we think about him, the greater our faith grows. Then Jesus Christ, when he woke up, rebuked the storm. He didn’t pray to the storm; he didn’t pray about it; he spoke to it. When you have great faith, you can speak to storms; you can speak to situations: «Shut up and move away from my life.» The Bible says Jesus rebuked it-a rebuke is a sharp word you speak against something-and the storm ceased. They said, «What kind of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him?»
I pray to God that will be the testimony people will give about you. They will watch you and say, «What kind of a man is this? What kind of a woman is this? Things come against them, and those things don’t hurt them because they are able to rebuke the storm; they are able to rebuke the wind, and the wind will disappear.» That is the victorious life of the Christian. It is what Christ has called us into; it is what he has given us the power to do. Each one of us can rise up with Jesus with strong faith, and we can rebuke every wind and every storm that rises against us-and the winds and the storms will obey you. This week, take charge of your life and have dominion.
Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, my faith in You is strong. I command every storm in my life to be still right now in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.