Friday, October 7, 2016
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I've got a friend who travels with me on a lot of my trips; actually, just about all of them. And I depend on him a lot. It's my clock radio. See, if he doesn't get me up in the morning, I make a lot of people very unhappy. Since he's battery-operated, I'm glad there's a display on there that shows when the batteries are nearing death. The other day, as I set my alarm on my first night home from a long trip, I noticed the big "E" flashing at me. That means it was time to replace the batteries. And I did, with brand new batteries of course. But after I closed it up, the radio was still dead. Hmmm. New batteries, all put in properly, dead radio. A mystery. A mystery solved when I opened up the back of the radio and took a good look at those batteries. See, one of them had a tiny piece of plastic on its positive pole, and it was simply interfering with the connection. I remove that, "Hello, things are working again!"
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "What Happened to Your Power."
Sometimes it's us that's experiencing a power failure personally. Like my radio, we're all wired, we're ready to go, but there's this problem-we're powerless. You may be feeling that powerlessness right now in your praying, in your family situation, your relationships, maybe in your ministry, or your work, meeting the challenges that you're facing right now. The power just doesn't seem to be there to meet the demands you're facing.
Maybe there's an obstruction. That's what David is talking about in our word for today from the Word of God in Psalm 66 beginning at verse 17. "I cried out with my mouth; His praise was on my tongue. If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened, but God has surely listened and heard my voice in prayer. Praise be to God who has not rejected my prayer or withheld His love from me!" Now, what does David say could keep an answer to prayer or God's love from getting through? He said sin. It gets between you and a holy God and it breaks the connection. And suddenly, you've got no power.
At another time in his life, David said, "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped...." Power failure because there was sin he wasn't dealing with. The way to get the power flowing again? He goes on to say, "Then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my sin. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord' and You forgave the guilt of my sin" (Psalm 32:2-5).
That day that I couldn't get my radio to work, I didn't realize something was blocking the connection inside. It was the fact that things weren't working that made me go inside and look for what was wrong. That's what God is trying to get you to do right now – look inside and see what's wrong that's causing this season of things not working. Maybe some subtle compromises have crept in and they've cut off God's blessing. Maybe it's what you're watching or listening to, or a subtle something or someone you've started putting ahead of God, or an area of disobedience where you just aren't doing what God's been saying to do or to stop doing. Could it be that lapse of integrity, that deception, that wrong relationship, that bitter or negative or unforgiving attitude, or the anger you haven't dealt with, or the hurtful way you've been treating people you love.
There's so much God wants to give you; so much God wants to do for you. But there's that sin that's breaking the connection between you and Him, interfering with the delivery of His power and His love.
Well, take it from me, when you remove that obstacle, it's amazing how well things start working again!