Faith – Page 3 – The Word Worker

Enough

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The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy about the contrast between those who pursue earthly wealth vs those who are content. His words have been used to justify hatred for those with wealth as well as to excuse laziness and irresponsibility. The popular maxim that money is the root of evil is twisted from this conversation. But what was the real message Paul wanted the young man to understand?

The word “content” or “contentment” literally means “enough.” Paul said that reverence (godliness) with enough was provision for our lives. We have provided nothing for ourselves and are nothing within ourselves alone. Timothy lived and taught in a city famed for its wealth; the focus of its citizens was to maintain and grow that wealth by any means necessary. Idolatry and vice was big business for the Ephesians, and conversion to faith in Christ meant not only a loss of wealth but a loss of livelihood for many. It would have been difficult come to terms with for people whose entire lives were wrapped in opulence.

Paul wanted Timothy to help the Ephesians understand who truly provided for them and why. He told them that those whose lives revolved around getting money, who saw that as their purpose, lived in a prison of dissatisfaction. Because their purpose was getting more for themselves, they could never have or be enough. Life would be miserable, wasted chasing what could never be obtained.

Timothy was to remind the Ephesians that God Himself provided whatever they needed. If they possessed monetary wealth, God had provided it. If the most basic of needs were met, God had provided it. Every person’s job was the same: share what they had, work at things that embodied good (God), and to set their hearts toward attitudes that reflected the heart of God. If they did that, if their faith settled on the power greater than themselves, if their purpose was to serve rather than to gain, then it would matter to them whether they were rich or poor.

God’s purpose for man has never been to pursue personal gain, monetary or otherwise. His purpose for humanity is to love Him, be like Him as our children are like us, share Him with those who don’t know Him. For some, that will involve rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful of this world. If wealth, respect, or fame are required to accomplish that purpose, God will provide. Others are called to reach the poverty-stricken, pain-drenched, forgotten masses. For them, money and power may mean far less than the ability to empathize. Paul told Timothy that whatever God chose to provide would be enough to fulfill His purpose. Even if all that He chose to provide was food and clothing, the person who received those blessings would be enough, not for themselves, but for God.

The Faith of Free Will

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The story of Abraham and Lot is well known to many. When the herds grew too large to be supported together, Lot moved to the green river valley while Abraham continued to travel in the wilder, less fertile areas. There’s more to this story, however, that we should take the time to consider.

Abraham, in the culture of the time period, was head of the clan. Although Lot had his own household, he still lived under the authority of his uncle. Probably the closest comparison in our western culture would be the mayor of a small town, although theirs would have been a town composed of family and their employees. When the need for separation arose, Abraham had the right to rule as judge on the future of both his and Lot’s households. He could quite easily have ordered Lot to take his herds in any direction, ensured that Lot’s future took an approved form.

Instead, Abraham gave Lot not only a choice, but the first choice. Given the types of choices we see the younger man making after this moment, it’s likely that Abraham knew Lot’s penchant for bad decisions, but he still respected Lot’s need to choose. The reputation of the inhabitants of the river valley was well known and Abraham must have worried a great deal about the outcome of his nephew’s choice, but he knew that choice was out of his control.

We live in a society full of people trying to make other people’s choices for them. Each is convinced that his or her own choices are the right ones. If we didn’t think our own choices were right, we wouldn’t have made them, so this attitude is not a negative trait. It’s how we were designed. The problem only arises when we forget the simple fact that every other individual was designed the same way.

Abraham could not stop Lot from making the wrong choice. By doing so he would have denied God’s design of free will, of individual responsibility to choose. I’m sure, like all who have raised children to adulthood, he agonized and prayed for Lot’s heart to be more eternally focused. We know that he did his best to provide opportunities for his nephew to redirect; he even went so far as to raise an army to rescue Lot from being the spoils of war. When God made the decision to destroy the cities of the valley for their hardened rebellion, Abraham pleaded for Lot’s life despite all his nephew’s mistakes. But not once did he run in and drag Lot away or take control of his life.

Abraham recognized something that many of us have forgotten. Every choice carries its own consequence. God designed humans to learn through our choices. For example, if we touch something hot, it burns, and we learn not to touch hot things. No parent wants to see their child in pain, so often we go out of our way to prevent our little ones from the possibility of touching hot things. Sadly, our efforts fail, because ultimately choice is impossible to deny. Ingenuity and determination will only strengthen until the burn has been experienced and the lesson learned.

Abraham trusted God’s design of His children more than he trusted his own choices to be the right ones. Abraham had seen God use his own bad choices to teach him, help him grow into a stronger relationship with the Creator. Abraham had the faith to know that the God who created the free will of humans knew how to show Himself to us even through our poorest choices.

Free will, the responsibility of each for our own choices, is a frightening reality to accept. It requires accepting true individuality, the absolute certainty that every other person in the world will make choices that are different from ours. It requires accepting that every person in the world will make both right and wrong choices. Even more importantly, accepting free will requires the recognition that as a person my own choices will certainly not always be good ones. Free will requires faith in the One who created it. It requires certainty that He is greater than any human choice, and can use even our worst choices to call us closer to Him. Indeed, He already has.

Isaiah 53:7 (CSB): He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth.
Like a lamb led to the slaughter
and like a sheep silent before her shearers,
he did not open his mouth.

Luke 23:34 (CSB): Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.”

“They”

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We live in a society driven by the concept of “they.” When a problem arises, it’s “their” fault. When disagreements occur, “they” are wrong. When we feel insecure, “they” are oppressive. When we don’t get what we want, “they” are selfish. When dangers appear, “they” cause them.

Certainly there is fixed right and wrong, good and bad, so “they” seems to most a given separation. The problem with “they” is a deep desire for control born just after the beginning of time. “They” must believe what I believe, make me feel safe, give me what I want, do the same things I do, like the same things I like. If “they” are different from me in any way “they” must be immoral and immorality must be eliminated. “They” can’t have choices if “they” choose differently than I do.

God, the Creator of all things, gave us the ability to make choices. He also made each of us unique. That same Creator called for unity among His people, but that unity wasn’t to come from within ourselves. Because of His design, unity from ourselves is impossible.

At the beginning of time, when His children still had intimate connection with His spiritual realm, He imposed only one law: don’t eat from that tree. It wasn’t imposed to control His children; it existed to remind them to trust Him, to appreciate His love and provision. During the years following their failure of trust, His inspired writers recorded no laws set for humanity. Rather, those who longed for the intimacy that had been broken were rewarded by direct communication with Him, and sincere efforts at humility and commitment were accepted with great love.

Eventually, God set His people up as a physical nation, a country with physical boundaries. For them He set a system of laws, a structure. Most of those laws protected innocent life and property, and provided for the health and prosperity of the people. Although it was intended to be a theocracy, laws were even provided to govern the behavior and power of a king, because God knew humans would not be able to hold onto the idea of a King they could not see. The provisions made for worship rituals were not laws in the way we think of laws; they were instructions, provisions for the people to be able to approach a King who was beyond their reach. Indeed, all of the laws given on Sinai were for the purpose of education, a means of demonstrating the character of God for imitation by His people.

Throughout the history of that physical nation God continually spoke with grief of how its citizens misunderstood and mistreated that law. Instead of learning its deep principles of character, they treated it as arbitrary and inconvenient, even when they outwardly followed it. At times they even weaponized it against each other and against non-citizens of that nation, adding specifics and ignoring depth in order to gain power for themselves. When God Himself came in human form He broke the human misinterpretation of His law often, repeatedly emphasizing the lessons it was supposed to have taught. Then He performed the self-sacrifice that had always been the intended end of the physical country and its system of laws.

That sacrifice reinstated the intimate connection enjoyed in the beginning. It tore the curtain between the physical and the spiritual, allowing anyone willing to see the truth to participate in the spiritual while bound to the physical world. Such faithful individuals became citizens of a spiritual nation, a nation that exists as part of God Himself and therefore above the need for physical boundaries and laws. It simply is what it is, and it’s citizens are purified by it.

Sadly, the concept of “they” pervades the human organization perceived as the nation of God. Just like the citizens of the physical country, people today desire control, our own idea of order. Like children, and with a similar lack of experience, we organize a fictional world that makes us comfortable and assume that God agrees with us. Then, in our mistaken fervor, we weaponize our construction against “they,” and weep in confusion and frustration when our weapons backfire.

God addressed the concept of “they” throughout scripture. From that first breach in relationship, He told humans that one day He would restore it for any who wanted it. For the hundreds of years of the physical country He established, He told them over and over that His purpose was to restore true unity of purpose between Him and all of His creation. Even after He had torn the veil, He had to remind confused humanity that in His nation “they” does not exist. He is the unity, and all those who seek Him honestly and long to be a part of His character become citizens of His spiritual nation. These individuals reflect His perfection, the immutable Law of good without need of laws or rules. It is beyond our human understanding, a nation built on complete trust in Him and complete surrender of our own childish worlds.

When we surrender and step into that unity, we begin to understand the love God has for humanity. His children have never been “they,” an enemy to be destroyed. The only enemy is evil, the confusion that Satan seeds in us to pull us away from God and from each other. “They” is simply anyone who succumbs to confusion and forgets Him. “They” could quite easily be “me.”

The Judgment Sacrifice

“Be silent in the presence of the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is near. Indeed, the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; he has consecrated his guests.”

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Zephaniah wrote these words to a people oblivious to God, a people nearing a time of judgment and discipline. The people God had chosen to represent him had instead chosen to mock Him and rebel against Him. Though they would be disciplined in the short term, another five hundred years or more would pass before the day of the promised sacrifice.

When it came, the sacrifice proved far different than any nation had ever offered. God Himself hung on a criminal’s cross, while the curtain that had come to prevent the people’s recognition of their own corruption ripped in two. That moment began a judgment that will continue until the end of the world. In that moment the final victory of good over evil was revealed.

This judgment, this victory, is far from obvious to the wicked. Evil continues to be promoted, horrible acts continue to be perpetrated. The father of lies will never concede defeat as long as he sees opportunity to sow chaos and doubt. Self-absorbed humans will always fall for any excuse offered for refusal to acknowledge God. And always they will attack the faithful, the ones whose unwavering reflection of goodness and truth serves as an uncomfortable reminder of their loss.

Yet Zephaniah says that God’s people cannot be shamed. They are safe and separate from those who practice evil. They are exalted throughout the earth, victors and rulers where their enemies would make them slaves. They have no fear of enemies, and live in a peace their enemies will never experience. They are surrounded by a shield of living water born of that sacrifice; washed clean of evil as they stepped through it, they can no longer be stained by it.

For those who cling to evil and mock victory, however, that shield is made of impenetrable stone. They bash themselves against it with useless howls of pain, fear, and anger, destroying themselves with their own frenzy. Or they stand forlornly with their backs to a wall of water, besieged by their own army and doomed by their own fears.

The victory has been won. The judgment has been pronounced. Whether we suffer destructive defeat or celebrate eternal and perfect conquest depends on the side we have chosen. There is no neutral territory; we are either good, made perfect by the Judge Himself, or we are evil. And as Zephaniah warned the scornful people of Judah, our time to choose has a swiftly approaching end.

The Choice of a Servant

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In the law given at Mt. Sinai, God set economic rules for physical Israel to follow. These rules included a form of servitude designed to pay off a debt. This servitude was completely voluntary, and when the time allotted for the debt had expired, the individual returned to full freedom. On occasion, however, the servant would build a life in servitude based on love and respect for his employer, a life that being released would destroy. In that case the employer would take the servant before all the people and stamp a hole through the servant’s ear against the employer’s doorframe, symbolically binding the servant with the employer’s household forever. Some would say that this binding was a sacrifice of freedom, a sacrifice of choice, but in reality it was the ultimate choice.

On a warm starry night many hundreds of years later, the God of Heaven arrived on Earth as a baby, completely dependent. He would live thirty-three years within restrictions vastly smaller than His own nature, serving His creation, paying a debt to them that they owed to Him. When the time of His earthly servitude expired, he allowed His creation to pierce Him, much as the servant’s ear was pierced, symbolically binding Him to His creation as He was bound to a wooden cross. Some would say that this binding was a sacrifice of freedom, a sacrifice of divine choice, but in reality it was the ultimate choice.

My ear has not been bored with an awl, my body has not been nailed to a cross. These are pictures, symbols, provided to help us understand our purpose and our relationship with God. Our service to Him is not forced; we have always been and always will be given a choice. Choosing to serve Him is choosing to know Him, to become a part of His life as He becomes a part of mine. Unlike human employers, who may not inspire pleasant feelings in their employees, God calls His servants loved children. Once experienced, that love cannot be easily relinquished, and our souls are pierced, joined forever with His. Our wills bend to please Him because we return that incomprehensible, unshakable love to Him. Some would say that this bond is a sacrifice of freedom, a sacrifice of choice. In reality it is the ultimate choice, a choice that is never changing, never ending. It is the choice of a servant.

Oh, My God

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I recently watched a TV show I enjoy in which one young character, upon finding out something she would have to do, exclaimed “oh, my God!” An older character rebuked her, told her not to take God’s name in vain. The young girl responded with great fervor that she hoped it wasn’t in vain, she was going to need all the help she could get.

That little scene stopped me in my tracks. All my life I was taught that using that particular phrase was taking God’s name in vain. All my life I was taught that any phrase using God’s name in conversation was treating it flippantly. As a result, reference to God was reduced to carefully organized and controlled settings. This restriction had the logical effect of limiting my understanding of God’s role in my life and limiting His effect on my heart. God was an intellectual concept I believed in, a set of laws to follow, nothing more.

“Lord my God, you are very great.” “My God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to life my face toward you.” “My God, we know you!” “Lord my God, I seek refuge in you.” “Pay attention to the sound of my cry, my Lord and my God.” “My God illuminates my darkness.” “Vindicate me, Lord my God.” “Deliver me, my God.” “Then you raised my life from the pit, Lord my God!” “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

In our quest to avoid treating His name flippantly, we sometimes forget that we are indeed commanded to call upon His name. When we are in trouble, we call on Him for aid. When we have hurt Him, we cry His name in shame. When we come through the tough times we call on Him in thanks. Throughout scripture the faithful called His name in fear, pain, shame, joy, wonder, and gratitude. “My God” fills the pages of the inspired Word, and was wrenched from the throat of the sacrificial God Himself as He hung on the cross.

When I’m nervous about a test or an interview, oh, my God, be with me. When I am frightened by a bully, oh, my God, give me courage. When unfair words wound my heart and make me angry, oh, my God, give me humility and kindness. When money comes to pay a difficult bill, oh, my God, thank you! When a friend holds me close in a moment of grief, oh, my God, you have comforted me. When I read Your Word, oh, my God, how I love you. How amazing it is to have a God who is with me in every moment of my life! Oh, my God!

Forsaking Assembly

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“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is”

“not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people”

“not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing”

“not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing”

This passage may be one of the most memorized in scripture, at least among people I grew up listening to. It is whipped out like a hammer after a loose nail every time someone isn’t seen at the church building on a Sunday or Wednesday. “Don’t forsake the assembly!” is our usual misquote, with a capital A.

As the people of the Roman empire absorbed the implications of the death and resurrection of Jesus, they experienced a change so great within themselves that they could not identify with the lives they had previously led. They had been empty and became full. They had been meaningless and suddenly had a great purpose. They craved contact with those who shared the unfathomable joy of that revolution, and so they spent every possible moment in each other’s company.

Most of them worked long hours for a meager existence, and many had little to call their own, but what that had they shared. They spent the evening meal in each other’s homes, no matter how plain or poor the surroundings or the food. They socialized with each other on market days in the town square. They gathered informally in public forums or synagogues to read the scrolls available to them and help each other discover the identity of faith.

These transformed people were not a corporation with designated hours to assemble for work. They were a family, and they fed each other’s faith through their shared joy and unrelenting enthusiasm. Unfortunately, as the change they experienced shook the world around them, maintaining such intimate relationship became more and more difficult. Suspected of political revolution, some were imprisoned or killed. Religious jealousy impacted livelihoods and threatened the health and safety of the faithful. Fear began to taint the longing for fellowship, and some began to avoid what they had craved in hopes of escaping notice. The resulting loneliness only exacerbated their fears, putting faith itself in jeopardy.

The writer of the letter to some of the formerly Jewish Christians addresses this problem directly. He reminded them that they had entered a sacred space by becoming a part of God’s family. This sanctuary of the faithful was their protection against the hopelessness around them, the hopelessness and fear that caused others to torment them. If they abandoned that family relationship they became again what they had been before, and the conviction that had been safety within would become doom without.

As millennia have passed and some cultures have made the story of Jesus a familiar thing, we have forgotten the transformation that shook the entire world. Our familiarity has bred entitlement, arrogance, and indifference to the incredible gift our Savior bestowed. Rather than crave the company of like hearts, we relegate our contact to formal designated conferences, and suspiciously guard our inner selves from the knowledge of others. We are not family and our emotional ties are stunted because we either were never changed or drew back from the cost. We may show up when required without fail, but we have forsaken the assembly.

Hebrews 10:19–25 (CSB): Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus— he has inaugurated for us a new and living way through the curtain (that is, through his flesh)— and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, since he who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

The Purpose of the Pattern

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When I was a child my grandmother made many of my clothes and taught me to use a pattern. If you have never sewed anything or seen a dress pattern, you might have the idea that it looks like the end result and that it contains all the details needed to produce carbon copy replicas. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

You see, patterns actually tell very little about the end product, and while some details are included and necessary, those details are few and far between. In order to create a garment that will shape and drape properly around a three dimensional human being, many smaller, odd shaped pieces must be fitted together. Some larger pieces must be folded and sewn into even more odd shapes. The size of some pieces must change depending upon the size and shape of the person who will wear the garment. The pattern contains marks to ensure correct joining, measurements for correct adjustments, and marks for sufficient seam width for the garment to hold together. These marks are often not labeled with language, however, and the person using the pattern must learn which ones are which and how to apply them.

The pattern itself cannot become a finished garment. Its purpose is to be applied to fabric with the appropriate markings for the individual transferred to that fabric, which will in turn be sewn together into the shape of the wearer. A pattern can be applied to any fabric, usually one reflecting the personality of the wearer. Different types of fabrics require different treatments; finer fabrics are more fragile, thicker fabrics can only be combined in certain ways, and still others stretch or slip easily so must be cut with great care to preserve the correct shape. The placement of designs within the fabric must be considered when a pattern is placed; the direction of the fabric weave must be carefully considered to avoid misshapen garments. Thread colors, trim styles, even fastener types can all be personalized to the needs or preferences of the wearer. The pattern itself doesn’t command any of this; the person using the pattern must take time to learn each person and each fabric before attempting to make the garment required.

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If the same pattern is used to make garments for three individual people, each of those three garments will also be individual. They will be similar, the same recognizable garment, but one might have more space in the hips while another is slimmer in the shoulder. One may be made of sturdy material with a more sober design, while another may be flamboyantly colored silk. One may zip and have no trim, while another may fasten with buttons and be trimmed with elegant embroidery.

My grandmother also taught me that our lives are to be made according to a pattern, the pieces of which can be found in the stories and lessons of scripture. As a child, still learning the basics of sewing, I didn’t understand what that meant, but as my faith has grown I have learned what a beautiful gift our pattern is. You see, God as Creator understands the incredible uniqueness of each individual human. He understands that with that individuality of nature comes difference in application. The pattern He has provided is minimal, with marks for connection and adjustment that we must learn to read as we learn ourselves, the fabric upon which the pattern is to be applied. Just as a garment sewn for a large person would not fit properly on a small person, or a silk garment would be inappropriate for a manual laborer, applying rules based on one person’s needs or preferences to someone with completely different spiritual requirements cannot work.

We all have the same pattern we are to follow. We are all different types of fabric, designs, and trim styles. We each have the responsibility to know both the pattern and ourselves in order to become a finished garment pleasing to God who created both.

Reality and Proof

When Indiana Jones went to find the Grail, he had to cross a wide, deep chasm with no bridge in sight. His father told him the only way to cross was to take a step out over the chasm, a “leap of faith.” As soon as Indy stepped out as instructed, believing that somehow he would be able to cross, a bridge appeared beneath his feet. It had always been there, he just couldn’t see it until he used it.

The above story is obviously fictional, but it reflects a Biblical truth. The author of the letter to the Hebrew Christians wrote that faith is the reality of hope and the evidence of the unseen. In other words, in order to see what God has in store we have to step out like Indy, knowing that something is there. After we are willing to do that, after we can allow ourselves to know that truth transcends our limited sight, He allows us to see Him.

Enoch lived in the millennia before the flood reset the earth, in a time when men lived for hundreds of years and had opportunity to explore every possible imagination, good or evil. When most others pursued their own ends and lost favor with their Creator, Enoch lived his life in harmony with the God he could not see. As a reward, he was given a gift of eternal life without death, his body changed to walk in the physical presence of God. He saw God more completely than any other before or since.

Moses, though raised with every opportunity to pursue physical wealth and power, chose the life of a nomad chieftain in order to be close to God. He sought to know God, and submitted his will to loneliness, struggle, and abuse from the people he was tasked to lead. His anger was never roused so greatly as when he saw God disrespected, and when given the opportunity asked to see his protector. He didn’t want proof, only deeper connection, just as you or I would seek to look at and touch someone we love. Because Moses knew God so intimately as to crave such a thing, God allowed the privilege to the point that Moses himself carried so much of God’s glory that other humans could not physically look at him without pain.

Elijah stood almost alone in a nation that hated God. Without divine help his life would have been forfeit many times for his persistence in declaring God’s warnings to people who wanted nothing to do with God. As a reward for a lifetime of faithful service, God gave him Enoch’s gift, and carried him to eternity without death in a fiery chariot of honor.

When Elijah’s protégé, Elisha, was called to God’s service from his life as a wealthy farmer in that same rebellious nation, he not only obeyed, but quite literally burned the trappings of his old life as a sacrifice. He removed his own incentive to ever turn back. He knew God without seeing any evidence of His existence in the land. As a result he was allowed to see Elijah’s divine chariot, and it seems that he was given an even greater gift. Many years later when enemies surrounded his home, death seemed certain, and a fearful servant cried to him, Elisha asked God to show the servant what Elisha himself could apparently already see: an angel host greater than any human army standing ready to defend them. Because Elisha believed in what was invisible, God made it visible to Him.

Daniel and his friends faced immersion in an alien, pagan culture as boys. Despite what seemed to the rest of the Jewish people as visible signs of God’s desertion, the boys trusted that He was still there protecting them and held firmly to a life that honored Him. As a result, God Himself walked with three of them in human form in fires that should have vaporized them and brought them through alive. Daniel’s faith was so strong that in spite of all odds against him that faith gained respect from one godless king after another. Because he knew without seeing that God was with him, God walked with him in human form and told him the history of the next millennium in detail before any of it happened.

When Stephen was arrested for persisting in teaching and working when opposed by the Jewish counsel, his faith shone so brightly in him that even his accusers compared him to an angel of God. He faced what he knew would be at least great pain, if not death, and told a roomful of men who hated him about the power of God. When they predictably sentenced him to a brutal death, God allowed his physical eyes to see the spiritual world he entered by the blows of his enemies’ stones. Stephen saw the glory of God and Christ ruling over all because he had believed it without sight.

I can’t say that I have heard of anyone in our own age experiencing such a gift. Even in ages past it was a rare thing, but in two thousand years not a reference has been recorded. It’s a sobering thought to consider our own faith in light of that which resulted in such intimacy. Perhaps God doesn’t give such obvious boons anymore since He lived and died and rose as a human, but what if He would and our faith isn’t strong enough? Do we have the surety of God to do right while surrounded by doubt and evil? Do we have the surety of God to actively look for glimpses of His glory, to beg for a glance at even the smallest part of Him? Do we have the surety of God to walk away from everything we are and become something else when service to Him requires it? Do we have the surety of God to continue a godly life in the face of abuse and death? Do we have the surety of God to step out over the abyss and find the bridge under our feet, or will we huddle forever whimpering on the ledge while the bridge remains forever invisible?

Lifted Hands

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” Lift up your hands in the holy place and bless the Lord.” Ps. 134:2

“So I will bless you as long as I live; at your name I will lift up my hands.” Ps. 63:4

“I spread out my hands to you; I am like parched land before you.” Ps. 143:6

When a small child wants anything from his parent, he runs to them and reaches both hands up as far as he can reach, fingers spread wide with urgency. It’s an instinct born of need to reach out to the one who can fill that need. When that same child receives what is desired or needed, he raises his hands again, this time in celebration.

In Bible accounts of God’s people approaching Him in prayer, they spread their hands out to Him in a gesture of appeal, much like that of a child. They instinctively reached for the One who could fill every need. When they sang songs of praise they lifted hands high in celebration of His glory and provision. They worshipped Him.

“Therefore, I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without anger or argument.” 1 Tim. 2:8

When we as God’s people approach Him today we must still have this attitude of child-like trust and appeal. We must come to Him without reservation, knowing without possibility of being dissuaded that He will hear and respond. When we offer gratitude, it must be more than just empty words; it must be drawn from deep within us, so joyful that it cannot be buried or contained. We must worship, our hands and our souls spread high before Him.