And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith? And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him (Mark 4:37-41)?

What manner of man is this? At that time there had been no Crucifixion, no Resurrection, no concrete victory over sin. Seeing Jesus in action only at times, the disciples were unaware of being bound by a lack of faith. When Jesus calmed the storm with such a great display of His mighty power, they were shocked. It seemed unreal. In their wildest dreams they had never imagined what they were about to see. In fact, Jesus was so calm in the face of disaster that they asked, Master, carest thou not that we perish? This should teach you something. Just because the Lord is quiet, just because He does not always make Himself known, it does not mean He is not on board your ship or that He does not care. He is there, and He does care. He is ready to help you do that which you cannot do for yourself—but He waits for your call.

The storms of life can be just as ferocious for you in this final hour as they were for the disciples. Like the disciples, you need help. Make sure Jesus is on board your ship; make sure you really believe in Him and what He has said. Every word He speaks contains all might, all strength, all courage, all power to defeat whatever adversity that may come against you daily.

Jesus, the One foretold by the prophets, the One holy men of old longed to see, came into bondage that we might be delivered from bondage, that the captives might be set free.

Many do not realize they are bound. They, like the disciples on the stormy sea, fail to consider that lack of faith is a bondage. Recognize your bondage and know that through the promises of God you have liberation. No power can defeat you when you claim His promises. Jesus has only to say, “Peace, be still,” and deliverance comes. Again and again, the Lord has brought those words to me: Peace, peace be still. All deliverance is in those words. Peace, be still.

Great conflicts in the mind can rage as the devil battles against what God has promised, what He has said He would do; but Jesus said, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you (Matthew 7:7). When you seek, ask and knock for faith in His words, “Peace, be still,” He is always there to help you.

Peace is the undisturbed state of mind that we need for the Word of God to take over and bring mighty results. Peace is an absence of mental conflict.

To be calm is to have harmony within, quietness, tranquility, freedom from petty disagreements and quarrels. When you allow Jesus to speak those words of peace and calm to you, you are in harmony with Him and the peace of God, in one mind and one accord with Jesus.

On the Day of Pentecost, all in the Upper Room were in one mind and one accord. They had come into that place that the Master could at any time speak the words, “Peace, be still.” No longer did they fear the storms of life, the prisons, the whipping post, the Roman lash. Jesus had conquered death. What was left to fear? Jesus triumphed with peace, be still. Now it’s ringing in their hearts: Peace, be still! That victorious voice of the Lord sounded in their minds, in their spirits; and they found great strength, great courage. No power could stop them now; no power could defeat them. It was victory in Jesus. We sing “Victory in Jesus,” but all too often we don’t act it out because we don’t really accept it in our hearts.

Some of your bondages have been of your own creation, your own doing, your own thinking. Are you causing the storm yourself? Is the storm in your imagination? Do you imagine people do not like you, that God doesn’t really care for you as much as He cares for others? Do you really count yourself in with God? Insecurity can cause raging storms. Whenever you look to man for acceptance and approval rather than God, you will be insecure. Let God control you so that the love of God can flow out through your spirit until you are secure in Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God. If you are not secure in Him, you will have no real security in this final hour, saith the Lord. Find your place in Jesus Christ, for your insecurities of the past must be melted away through the pure love of God.

Are you your own trouble, your own despair, your own doubt and fear? Are you your own frustration? I see self-bondage so many times, and I want to cry to the person, “You are your own destruction! You are your own despair, your own doubt, your own fear, your own disobedience! You are your own trouble! The devil has convinced you that you cannot be free.” The indulged whine of self always drowns out the “Peace, be still” of Jesus.

The enemy is lying to you who are in mind bondage, telling you that you cannot think straight, that it is impossible to be all God wants you to be. You trust things you should not; you doubt that which you should be trusting—and you feel you cannot change. That’s what the devil wants—bondage, bondage, bondage. Mind bondage is a terrible thing. You can think yourself into bondage and then decide trying to come out of it is useless. In your heart you believe that the Scriptures are not really for you, that God’s promises will never work in your life; and you’re cast down instead of being elevated into the greatness of God. Your own tongue, your own mind can put you into bondage; but that same tongue, that same mind can be used to liberate you and to keep you liberated when you reach out for Peace Be Still.

What kind of mind do you have; what do you think about? The Bible tells us that as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind (I Peter 4:1). Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). But we have the mind of Christ (I Corinthians 2:16). The Lord has made it possible for His children to have the mind of Jesus, but using the mind of Jesus is a part-time thing for many.

You will never find peace with others until you have peace on the inside. You will never have that mind you need until you take on the mind of Jesus. The self-mind that puffs up, that always pouts and feels hurt about something is caught up in a destructive bondage. Have you ever used hurt feelings to punish or manipulate another? You don’t really want to let go of those hurt feelings because they can be such a handy tool to control someone. Of course, if that someone doesn’t want to play the game, you can always try anger. It’s bondage all the way, destructive to yourself and to others.

In this final hour we must stand like soldiers to be counted for the Kingdom of God. That means we must be delivered from the bondages of self.

Do you sink into self and then reach out for that same old mind that operated when you were in bondage? The mind of self goes into depression, despair, resentment, envy, insecurity. When you operate in self, you may feel as though people are against you, that they are talking about you, planning to exclude you. Everything bothers you, everything causes stress, pressure. Self does not want the Word of God to free your mind nor to allow Jesus to exchange your burden for His. The love of God is blocked from you because self has taken over your thinking. You want vengeance for every slight, real or imagined. The devil loves it.

Some people easily doubt God because they don’t really know Him. God is not a man; He does not think like a man. Unless you really yield to His Word and learn about Him, you tend to expect God to behave the way man behaves. God tells you about Himself in His Book.

Learn to know God in His great work—God who waited over one hundred years for a family to build an ark. Become aware of the patience and love of God. Learn to know a God who told Abraham to offer his son as a burnt sacrifice on Mount Moriah, a God who said, “Moses, here is a rod; take it and stand before Pharaoh, and you will see miracles.” When God was ready, He separated the waters of the Red Sea; and people walked through on dry ground. He didn’t build bridges; He didn’t provide ships. He performed a miracle.

No, God is not a man. Who would send birds to feed a human being the way God sent ravens to feed Elijah? Who would do such a thing? My God would. Who would send a man to the River Jordan to dip seven times to be cured of his leprosy? My God would do it. He has the ability; He has the power, and He can move any way He wants to perform miracles.

You cannot judge God by the strength of man; you cannot judge God by the wisdom of man, and you must not doubt God with the spirit of man. Trust Him with His Spirit which He freely gives to all who call on the name of His Son.

Will a man judge God? Will a man doubt his Maker? The God who sent a man into a den of lions—but who also sent an angel to protect him—is not a man. He is Lord God Almighty. You can trust Him; you can depend upon Him; but you must know your Lord and the power of His resurrection so that you will recognize when He is working, when He is on board your ship—even though it may seem to you that He is asleep. When you really need Him and call upon Him, He will be there saying, “Peace, be still”; and your bondage will be conquered through Him.

We cannot break the bondages of life in our own strength; but through Him there is power, strength to conquer. Through the sacrifice of Jesus on the Old Rugged Cross, provision for our deliverance from sin was made. No power can defeat this power—and we have it, we have it! It is available to all. He lives and dwells on the inside of His obedient ones; the great I-Am is ours to do battle, to love us, to care for us, to lead us into the secret place of the Most High.

In this Holy Ghost dispensation the Holy Ghost blows the love of God and the humility of Jesus upon us daily. The wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing today with the same power it had on the Day of Pentecost. The Bible tells us in Acts 2:2, And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. The glory of the Lord was there, great action. With forked tongues of fire this mighty wind blew upon those faithful saints who were waiting in the Upper Room for the promise of the Father. It filled the whole house—the wind of the Spirit. Tabernacles of clay were baptized with the good Holy Ghost then, and tabernacles of clay are baptized with the good Holy Ghost today.

The wind of the Spirit blows the great love of God into your heart—there is no lack of God’s love. After the cold, cold winter, you rejoice in the warmth of a gentle spring breeze. The wind of the Holy Spirit feels even better, for it is much greater. It warms your spirit and helps you yield to the Lord, makes you more conscious of Him.

The wind blows, we feel it, we sense it, but from where it comes, we don’t exactly know. The wind of the Holy Spirit pours from Heaven and brings one fantastic change within. In the Scripture a comparison is made between the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit’s wind and the blowing of Earth’s wind. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit (John 3:8). The wind of the Spirit, of course, has a different feel and a different work from Earth’s wind. Just as man cannot restrain the power of the wind, neither can he restrain the power of God. We have no authority over either one. Although we cannot see the wind, we see its changing effects on the earth; we cannot see the Holy Spirit, but we see the changing effects He has in the lives of people who yield to Him. What a difference the wind of the Holy Spirit brings about! We can’t really comprehend it all, there are no words to adequately explain it; but we know it’s a life-changing wind.

God gave David this message: And it shall be, when thou shalt hear a sound of going in the tops of the mulberry trees, that then thou shalt go out to battle: for God is gone forth before thee to smite the host of the Philistines (I Chronicles 14:15). The going in the tops of the mulberry trees, the wind of the Spirit, was David’s sign. Like a wonderful, mighty wind, the Holy Spirit began to blow. David knew it was time to move, and the Lord delivered the Philistines into his hands. Take note of the fact that David waited for the wind of the Spirit, and then he went to claim the promised victory. Be careful to wait on the Lord.

The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Romans 5:5). For the Holy Ghost to shed abroad the love of God in our hearts is wonderful, indeed. The blowing of the Spirit is the signal to every true believer that Jesus is soon coming; it gives us strength and vision to take Jesus to the whole world in this final hour. We will not fail. All nations must hear this marvelous plan of salvation, a message confirmed with signs, wonders, miracles and healings; and then the end will come. As the wind of the Spirit blows upon the nations, we are seeing the results. Miracles bring people to God. We have had over one hundred thousand people saved in one service; the evangelism spirit, the blowing of the Holy Spirit was upon the people, revealing Calvary to them, delivering them as the love of God poured upon them.

When God’s love-wind blows upon people in the crusades, we see them change; the wind of the Spirit rushes in and the devils flee before that mighty power. In one overseas crusade service, almost 30,000 received the Holy Ghost. The Lord prophesied that it was just the beginning. Then in a service in Uganda, we saw 64,574 numbered by God and baptized in the Holy Spirit. I was almost in Heaven that evening! The crowd was estimated to be over 200,000. Never has it been known in the history of man that so many people received the baptism of the Holy Ghost in one service. Thousands of miracles and healings took place as the wind of the Spirit kept blowing. What love, what greatness!

We have record of only a few of the miracles Jesus performed when He was on Earth. John wrote: There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written (John 21:25). Such deliverances Jesus brought, thousands and thousands of them, I’m sure! How wonderful it would be to know them all! Jesus, through the power of the Holy Ghost, is still offering miracles today as the wind of the Spirit blows across the land.

When the wind came on the Day of Pentecost it brought every bit of power that the Lord spoke of. All the love of Calvary, all the love that went into Christ’s death on the cross was in that wind, the knowledge and power of His resurrection.

Paul wasn’t in the Upper Room with the rest of the apostles; at that time he was still persecuting believers. But after his conversion we read these thrilling words: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death (Philippians 3:10). Those in the Upper Room weren’t praying that they might know the power of His resurrection; they knew it. It was in the wind. When they came down from the Upper Room, they staggered, fell under the power of the Holy Ghost until the people outside thought they were drunken. The prophecy of Joel came breezing through the wind of the Spirit and fell on Peter, and he began to quote prophecy. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh (Acts 2:16,17).

The apostles were put in jail, but that didn’t stop them. The more they were persecuted, the more they told the story of Jesus. Stephen, the first martyr, gloried in the wind of the Spirit as he told his accusers about Jesus. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God (Acts 7:54-56). Stephen’s forgiving spirit praised the Lord as the stones pounded down on him.

When the wind of the Spirit is blowing, you have no trouble loving everyone. Keep that wind of love and grace moving upon you daily, the wind filled with the grace of God, the strength of the Almighty. Be conscious when the Holy Spirit is moving for you and upon you, conscious of the wind of the Holy Spirit.

You can hear Earth’s wind at different times—when it blows hard, when it dies down. You feel that wind, use it in different ways and at different times. You don’t know the total strength of it, and so is it with the wind of the Holy Spirit. Its strength is beyond understanding, but you use it.

People use the wind on Earth to generate power, and the wind of the Spirit furnishes power for us, power from On High to do the work God has planned for us to do. Some people have never felt the Spirit even though they have been going to church for years. If you have never experienced the wind of the Spirit, it’s time to seek Him with your whole heart.

First Kings 18:45,46, And it came to pass in the mean while, that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. And Ahab rode, and went to Jezreel. And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. It had not rained for three-and-a-half years, and Elijah on Mt. Carmel sent his servant seven different times to check for a sign of rain. Finally the seventh time, the servant saw a cloud the size of a man’s hand. Who let him see that cloud? Who put it there? The Holy Spirit. Then the Holy Spirit took over Elijah, giving him supernatural power to outrun King Ahab’s chariot. Think of the fine horses dashing before that chariot, yet Elijah outran them. It wasn’t an ordinary rainstorm that day; the wind of the Spirit was blowing, unlocking the heavens that it had kept closed for three-and-a-half years.

The Earth’s wind alone blowing on Elijah could not have given him the power to run before Ahab, but the wind of the Spirit could. If this were an ordinary run, the Lord wouldn’t have put it in the Bible; however, it was a miraculous flight. Elijah was exuberant, running in the Spirit, caught up in the glory of what wind.

With the help of the wind of the Holy Spirit in this last and final hour, it’s time to run. Thrill to the voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills (Song of Solomon 2:8). Let Jesus carry you from mountain to mountain, skip with you upon the hills.

In this wind of the Spirit is found the same greatness that separated the waters of the Red Sea so many, many years ago. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left (Exodus 14:21,22). It was no ordinary wind that blew all night on the sea; it was a wind with the power to separate the waters, hold them back and make a dry land highway right through the Red Sea. Then the wind of the Spirit with all the power of Heaven let the waters close in on Pharaoh’s army. Like iron, that army sank and was drowned.

By faith the Israelites crossed, and by sight Pharaoh’s army tried to do the same thing; but they didn’t know the meaning of the wind of the Spirit, and were unable to do what God’s people had done. Trying to do by sight what others are doing by faith simply will not work. Using sight rather than faith has caused many to doubt God.

Like Pharaoh, some see God moving for faith people, and think they will have the same results. When it doesn’t happen, they blame God. They take note of the faith people walking in the love and greatness of God, and wonder why that greatness is not in their lives. The waters close in on them, and down they go. They are at fault, for they don’t use God’s faith. They need to learn about the Holy Spirit. More and more people are learning about Him and going beyond their own human spirits into the Spirit of God.

In the wind of the Spirit, ears are opened to what the Spirit is saying. There is no room for doubt and fear in the warmth of the Spirit, no room for oppression and depression. The wind of the Spirit is blowing more and more into the house of God where true believers are shouting the wonderful praises of God and being separated unto the Lord. Drawing people with His mighty power, the Holy Spirit is separating them through the blood that stained the Old Rugged Cross, separating the very dedicated, the very consecrated unto Himself.