Breakthrough Miracle Power: A 3-Day Plan by Passion Sample

BREAKTHROUGH

PASSAGE // Mark 4:35-41

Days can be tough. Storms come and storms go. There are moments that will stop you in your tracks. What we need in these moments is a breakthrough. If anyone knows what it was like to need a breakthrough, it was the disciples in Mark 4. They found themselves on a boat in the middle of a storm, fighting to float, taking on water, and wondering if they were going to make it out alive. Right there, in the chaos, they were left with the looming question… where is Jesus? In searching around the boat, they found Him… sleeping.

In the middle of our storms, when we’re taking on water and crying out for help, it can feel like God is sleeping. It can lead us to ask with the disciples, “God, don’t you care?”

How does Jesus respond? He commands the sea to be calm. He can quiet your storm in a second. But that’s not where He stops. This isn’t the full breakthrough He has in mind. He asks a surprising question: where is your faith? The disciple’s primary problem was placing their ultimate trust in the storm and not in the one who was unbothered by it. What scares us doesn’t scare Him. What shakes us leaves Him unshaken. God isn’t intimidated by our storms; He can quietly command them.

We know He cares for us, not because He calms our circumstantial storms, but because He calmed our ultimate storm.

This is seen through the intentionally similar structure to the book of Jonah. Jonah begins on a boat. There’s a violent storm and the crew searches to find him, and Jonah is found asleep. Similar to Jesus, he wakes and calms the storm. But there’s a difference. Jonah didn’t calm the storm with his words, the raging sea was calmed when Jonah was cast into it. Why are these stories so similar? Because Jesus is our true Jonah. At the cross, Jesus was thrown into our storm. Jesus calmed the ultimate storm of our sin with His life. We had no greater obstacle than wronging God. But Jesus gave us the ultimate breakthrough. The raging sea of sin was stilled, leaving us safely on the boat of His mercy.

Jesus is the God of breakthrough. He did it on the cross, and He can do it in your life. True breakthrough isn’t found in the changing of our circumstances, but in the presence of a Person. His name is Jesus. He is strong enough to give you a breakthrough in your storm by commanding your storm to stop. If not now, then surely in eternity. However, He can also provide breakthrough by sustaining you in His strength within your storm. Your breakthrough is found in Christ. The good news is, He’s on your boat.