What Is
In Your Hand?
Note: The [B] before a verse
indicates opening the Bible to that verse.
The Bible notes many throughout its pages who have been blessed by the
Lord. Luke 12:48b says this: “…unto
whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required;
…”
The question then is this: What is in our hand? Using “hand” figuratively,
let us say it yet another way, “what it is it the Lord
has given us or allowed in our lives?”
There are many Biblical examples of those who either used or abused the
blessing of the Lord as He orchestrated the circumstances of their lives.
The captives of
Moses’ problem? He simply lacked faith in what God could do. His vision was short-sighted; Moses
heard the Lord but overshadowed
his hearing with his own thoughts; thoughts regarding what he
considered to be his own ability and capability in carrying out God’s
direction. Or perhaps, it was
just a matter of his willfulness.
What Moses was missing was that what God was
directing him to do had nothing to do with his ability but with his
availability.
In [B] Exodus 4:2 we see God’s response to Moses.
What is in your hand? A rod! Perhaps this shepherd’s rod was an
unlikely tool to carry out God’s direction, unlikely that is, from human
reasoning. But, we know that with
God nothing is impossible. In God’s
Mercy and Longsuffering He was about to perform a miracle to strengthen Moses’
faith. Not only did God turn the
rod into a snake, the Lord went a step further and performed another miracle
with Moses’ hand: He caused Moses’ hand to wither and then restored it back as
it had been. We see this in
verses 6,7.
All this was done to Moses and used to meet his objections. Also, it was to be used as a sign to
those to whom he was to be sent.
APPLICATION
A rod was in Moses’ hand; a simple piece of wood to shepherd the
sheep. What is in our hand or better said, how has the Lord blessed
us, and with those things with which He has blessed us, have we sought
His will in giving them back to the Lord to be used for His glory?
-2-
Or, have we, like Moses, only seen our
self-imposed limitations and have not seen the Lord IN our lives, or perhaps not had enough faith in Him to be available to
whatever it is He would have us to do.
James 4:2-3 says we “have not because
we ask not.” Also, we “ask, and receive not, because” we “ask amiss, that” we
“may consume it upon” our “lusts”.
And in verse 6, “But He giveth more grace, Wherefore he saith, God resisteth
the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.”
The question before us then is, should we
sit on a mountaintop waiting to see what
the Lord is going to tell us to do and be
satisfied with this… or feel
justified because we are “waiting”? Or should we rather, take inventory of
the Lord’s blessings in our lives and acknowledge what He has placed on the
plate of our lives: our abilities, our blessings, our gifts and talents, our
knowledge, our money, our possessions, to name a few things and having taken
inventory, ASK HIM what it is He would
have us to do with the things over which He has made us stewards? Will we provoke the Lord to
say, “Well done thou good and faithful
servant?”
I remember a time when I moved to CT (1977),
very excited that I had moved from the city to the country and was going to have
my first garden. I knew nothing
about gardening, but I was thrilled at the prospect of growing one. The Lord showed me the valuable lesson
of “What is in your hand” back in 1978.
Our church was having a VBS and wanting to encourage my girls in inviting
neighborhood children, I had them go around distributing invitational flyers to
VBS. One family up the road
responded with a possibility of interest.
The family had two girls about the ages of my girls.
Seeing a possible open door, I followed this up by visiting the home,
offering to give the girls a ride.
The mother was skeptical of this stranger’s offer and said she would take
her girls herself. She did. I made sure to greet her each time I saw
her. She was still a little
distant, but polite. After VBS had
come and gone, I was looking for more ways to keep the contact going to keep
inviting this family to church and also looking for an open door to share the
Gospel, as I shook in my boots.
J The Lord allowed me to
very frequently run into this young mother in various stores in
our small town.
When my garden began to produce vegetables, it was then that the Lord
said, “what is in your hand?” to me.
I shared the vegetables and hoped they would be a means of continuing contact with this
family. Not that my touch was
unique in this family’s life, but it was part of the watering of the seed to
bring this whole family to repentance.
The Lord allowed me to lead this young mother to the Lord and in time, I
was able to hold a ladies’ Bible study in her home. Today this family is in PA as
missionaries to inner-city children.
In my children’s “hand” a VBS flyer; in my “hands” that which the Lord
had provided for me to share, both materially and spiritually.
-3-
WHAT IS IN YOUR HAND? Will we consume upon our lusts that
which the Lord has given us or will we pour them out for His
glory?
The familiar [B]Galatians
Notice there is a colon after
“me”. The colon
indicates the explanation of Christ living in us: “…and the life which I now live in the
flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for
me.”
“I” am not living my life but God is living in me. How?
By faith.
Who’s faith? The faith of the Son of God.
Jesus Christ has taken up his dwelling in my life; I no longer have a say
in what I will and what I will not do.
How can the Lord rule in my life and have His way in me? I must submit my will to His and
basically become the “clay” in His
Hands.
We love to quote Galatians
Oswald Chambers says in the November 3rd account of My Utmost
for His Highest
concerning this verse:
“These words mean the breaking of my
independence with my own hand and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord
Jesus. No one can do this for me, I
must do it myself. God may bring me
to the point 365 times a year, but He cannot put me through it. It means breaking the husk of my
individual independence of God, and the emancipation of my personality into
oneness with Himself, not for my own ideas, but for absolute loyalty to
Jesus. There is no possibility of
dispute when once I am there. Very
few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ—“For my sake.” It is that which makes the iron
saint.
Has that break come? All the
rest is pious fraud. The one point
to decide is—Will I give up, will I surrender to Jesus Christ, and make no
conditions whatever as to how the break comes? I must be broken from my
self-realization and immediately that point is reached, the reality of the
supernatural identification takes place at once, and the witness of the Spirit
of God is unmistakable—“I have been crucified with
Christ.”
Chambers goes on to say, “The passion of
Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a
bond-slave of Jesus Christ.”
On Sunday brother Ken Poole told us of a woman who professed to not be
gifted musically or have the gift of teaching, or any particular noticeable
gift, however, she was available.
With her limitations she still made the effort to arrive early to church
and to prepare the building for others to worship. She would put on the heat, put on the
lights, have the hymnals ready before everyone arrived. This unnamed woman made the necessary
preparations for those who came to worship. Perhaps to some, this is a small and
much overlooked service, but not to God.
In our own church, I’m
blessed by someone who does something very similar to this act of servitude for
the Lord. This person opens up the
piano, preparing it to be used for worship. When he knows I’m playing, he often adds
the piano lamp to the piano. At the
end of the Sunday’s worship, he closes up the piano. It is a quiet servitude that doesn’t
attract much attention and can easily go unnoticed. God sees it
all.
Going back to the woman Pastor Poole spoke of, we see this woman to be a
testimony of obedience to Romans
12:1. She presented
herself as a living sacrifice; she did her reasonable
service.
Referring to Romans 12:2, she had
not ‘conformed’ herself into the world’s thinking, that is, that is that she was
insignificant because she lacked gifts or abilities, but instead she had allowed
God to “transform” her and used her availability for the Lord’s purpose. She brought the Lord glory. When this woman honored God, she also
affected the lives of others and blessed them as well.
All the Lord places in our hand, all that the Lord places in our lives is
to be used to bring Him glory. And,
like this woman, when we bless the Lord and bring Him glory, we will affect the
lives of those around us as well.
We end our devotion tonight with our beginning statement, ‘What is in your hand?’ and verse, Luke 12:48b:
“…unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be
much required; …”
Prepared by
Mercedes
Whelan