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Acts
11:21 (NIV)
21 The Lord's hand was with them, and a great number of people
believed and turned to the Lord.
This past Wednesday evening we spent some
time searching the Scriptures to answer the question, "How do we have
the hand of the Lord on our Lives?" In this text today we see that when
the hand of the Lord is on you, you accomplish things you could never do on
your own.
Our subject for today is to answer the
question we asked last Wednesday evening. For our answer we have to, as
always, turn to the Scriptures.
When we read "the hand of the Lord was
with them . . .," we ask, "Where else in Scripture does this phrase
occur and, if so, does the context provide us with the answer to our
question?
As I poured over Scripture I was led to
Ezra Chapters 7-8. In these two chapters I discovered the phrase "the
hand of God", or "the hand of the Lord was upon him" several
times in the space of two chapters.
The
following are the references; Ezra 7:6 (NIV)
6 this Ezra came up from Babylon. He was a teacher well versed in
the Law of Moses, which the Lord, the God of Israel, had given. The king had
granted him everything he asked, for the hand of the Lord his God was on him.
Ezra
7:27-28 (NIV)
27 Praise be to the Lord, the God of our fathers, who has put it
into the king's heart to bring honor to the house of the Lord in Jerusalem in
this way
28 and who has extended his good favor to me before the king and
his advisers and all the king's powerful officials. Because the hand of the
Lord my God was on me, I took courage and gathered leading men from Israel to
go up with me.
Ezra
8:18 (NIV)
18 Because the gracious hand of our God was on us, they brought us
Sherebiah, a capable man, from the descendants of Mahli son of Levi, the son
of Israel, and Sherebiah's sons and brothers, 18 men;
Ezra
8:22 (ASV)
22 For I was ashamed to ask of the king a band of soldiers and
horsemen to help us against the enemy in the way, because we had spoken unto
the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them that seek him, for
good; but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.
Ezra
8:31 (ASV)
31 Then we departed from the river Ahava on the twelfth day
of the first month, to go unto Jerusalem: and the hand of our God was upon
us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy and the lier-in-wait by
the way.
Now the question comes, "How did Ezra
get in the position so that God's hand was on him and his work?" We find
our answer in the next passage
Ezra
7:9-10 (NIV)
9 He had begun his journey from Babylon on the first day of the
first month, and he arrived in Jerusalem on the first day of the fifth month,
for the gracious hand of his God was on him. 10 For Ezra had
devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the Lord, and to
teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.
The reason we can conclude that God's hand
was on Ezra was because he had devoted his life to study the Law of the Lord
and to teach it to others and to obey its precepts and principles. This
brings us back to the new believers in Antioch. What did they do to obtain
the hand of God upon their lives?
The answer must be that they studied the
Law of God and sought to teach it to others and obey what it said. As they
studied the Law they understood, by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, that the
gospel must be made known to all peoples of the world. It was just natural
for them to obey it and go to where the need of the gospel was the greatest.
A question for you to consider, "Where
in your life is the gospel most needed?" Perhaps a neighbor or a friend
or a family member or a co-worker? Let's remember the steps, Study, teach,
and obey.
Now may you find as you study God's Word
and seek to obey it and teach it to others that the gracious hand of God
rests upon you.
Studying, teaching and seeking to obey,
Pastor Phil
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