The Hand of God was Upon Me...
One thing I'm noticing across our church body is that we seem to be hearing God speak more clearly than usual. In a normal month, I'll usually come across 2 or 3 stories where people hear God speak and receive some kind of confirmation. However, in the 30 minutes following the sermon last week, I heard 5 or 6! I've continued to hear more and more throughout the week.
Most of these testimonies would be a bit difficult to try to explain here, but one excellent example gives us the title for this post and the theme for this season of attack: The Hand of God was Upon Me. On the first day of our fast, Feb 18, I felt like I was supposed to read the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. I felt that God was going to give me specific, timely instruction about navigating this season of attack. The first thing I did was underline every time Ezra said that the hand of God was upon him or the people. I felt like God was saying that to me and to us as a church.
Right after the sermon last Sunday, a woman came to me and said that she had recently started reading Ezra. She said when I was preaching about the attack we are under, she kept thinking of this one phrase she had written down from Ezra. You guessed it: "The hand of God was upon me." She said she felt that God was saying that the book of Ezra and that phrase were important for this season.
As I kept reading Ezra, I noticed the types of attacks that they faced in Ezra 4:1-6. Their adversaries tried to discourage, cause fear, frustrate and accuse. They also "bribed counselors" against the people, and the interesting thing is that Ezra 4:1-2 says that these adversaries came right up to Ezra and asked if they could help them rebuild the temple. They appeared as allies, but when they didn't get what they wanted, they turned against Ezra and the whole plan to rebuild the temple. Ezra 4:24 says that this attack used "force and power" to actually stop their work. Wow. Yikes! The attack was successful for several years.
But GOD
In Ezra 5, God sends the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to correct the people. Ultimately, they overcome the attack and start their work again, but they didn't fight back with force or power, at least not their own. Instead they appealed to the force and the power of the king's previous decree.
Yes, the church is under attack right now, but God has already spoken a decree--many of them, in fact. Our answer is not in discovering some new spiritual practice to fight back against darkness. It's not in figuring out how the attack started or who's behind it. The answer is going to be in laying hold of what God has already said. If he reveals any of those other things, we'll respond accordingly, but until then, we'll focus on what we know--what is written. Here is just one of those instructions:
"Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness..." Matt 6:33
Our response should be, "Okay, God. Please search our hearts and show us any unrighteousness that we need to confess." Following this one command ought to keep us busy enough.
Of course the scriptures are loaded with other decrees and commands, including, "Behold, I have given you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you" (Luke 10:19). That one seems like a timely verse for our current situation. Of course you probably remember that Jesus followed that amazing statement with, "Nevertheless, do not rejoice that he spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in the heaven" (Luke 10:19-20).
I believe Lord is saying that His hand is with us, and if we will fall back on the force and power of the written word, we'll see God do something mighty in us and through us.
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