Thursday, April 12, 2018
Download MP3 (right click to save)
There's this one experiment I remember from my grade school science class – no, it was not dissecting a brontosaurus. Our science teacher had this little hand-crank generator wired to a light bulb. And we'd turn that little crank, and it managed to generate just enough juice to light the light bulb. That baby generator was fine for the limited demands of Mr. Light Bulb, but I'd hate to try and run my whole house on it! Bye-bye stove, microwave, refrigerator, computer, lighting, and heat. No way that puny power supply could handle all those demands!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "Power To Meet The Demands."
It's amazing how we try to meet the demands of our life with what amounts to a little hand crank generator. We're browning out, we're blacking out, and we're wearing out because we're not plugging into a much bigger power source.
That power is dramatically on display in our word for today from the Word of God in Exodus 17:8. The Bible says, "The Amalekites attacked the Israelites...Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.'"
Well, the battle is joined and "as long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning." So what's the deal with this staff? We learn in verses 15 and 16 that it represents the power and presence of the Lord. The Bible says, "Moses built an altar and called it, 'The Lord is my Banner.' He said, 'for hands were lifted up to the throne of the Lord.'" So Moses standing on that hill, holding high God's power, represents a leader who was interceding with God for his troops. And when he is, they win; when he doesn't, they lose.
In your world, you may very well be that person – or you need to be. For your family, for your group of friends, for the people at work or the people in your church – your #1 responsibility is to hold high the power...to keep the focus on prayer as the way to win your battles. Unfortunately, our tendency is to trust in hand-crank power – the power of planning, committees, money, good ideas, connections, experts, experience, promotion, and politics. But human generators cannot meet all the demands of our complicated lives. We need the kind of voltage that only prayer can generate.
We tend to feel that we're not doing anything really when we pray. You can tell by the way we say, "Well, I guess all we can do is pray." What? All I can do is go to the Throne Room from which billions of galaxies are governed and talk to the One who runs it all? Now, it might have looked as if Moses was doing nothing, but his intercession was determining the outcome of the battle. So will yours.
We're not just talking about some casual, occasional prayer here. This is prayer that is fervent, it is relentless until the battle is won. So are you leading the people around you to make prayer their first resort; to make prayer their primary method of getting things done? Are you modeling a lifestyle that says "prayer is power" to your family? Do you pray with people about issues or do you just talk about them?
As you and those who look to you face the battles ahead, would you be sure you're standing where Moses stood – above the fray, interceding, reminding your troops regularly of where their power comes from: the high voltage of God, unleashed on your situation through the holy generator that we call prayer.