How the Hands Tell It All

Friday, April 18, 2014

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Look, you've probably got a picture of yourself you don't like, right? It might be on your driver's license, or an ID card, or a passport. There's probably a picture of you that you do like. That's the one that shows your good side, your hair's just right, you're smiling. Once at a conference there was a lady who I guess appreciated the speaking of one of my fellow speakers there, and she said, "Would you mind if I give you a picture of myself?" He said, "Well, that would be fine." So she signed it with a note, and he didn't really look at the picture until he got to a lunch that I was attending. We were sitting right next to each other, and he opened it up and he said, "Man! Look at this picture!" It was the most unusual personal photo I've ever seen. It was a picture of her hands.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "How the Hands Tell It All."

Our word today from the Word of God comes from Isaiah chapter 49 beginning at verse 15. God asks this provocative question, "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has born?" Of course the answer to that should be, "Never," although occasionally it does happen. He goes on to say, "Though she may forget, I will not forget you. I have engraved you on the palms of My hands."

That lady gave my speaker friend a picture of her wrinkled, worn hands. You could see that those hands had obviously worked very hard for a very long time. And that is how she wanted to portray her life. Well, it seems like God's saying to us here, "If you want to know what I'm like; if you want to know how I feel about you, look at this picture of Me. It's a picture of my hands."

Do you know what the message is in His hands? "I will never forget you." First, look at the hands of God in a stable in a little town called Bethlehem where all of the power of the creative God is packed into this wrinkled little Jewish baby. And here His hands are so powerless. He can't even grab His mama's nose. These are the hands that created the world, and they are now helpless as He becomes a human being to reach us.

And now look at those hands touching people later in His life; touching them with healing at the point of their need. And then, later, you can see those hands nailed viciously to a cross. A few days later, those same hands are extended to His disciple Thomas to prove He is alive. And now Jesus is alive and glorified, but the nail scars are still there. God says, "We are engraved on the palms of His hands."

Maybe you're in a time when other hands have left you or let you down. Well, today your almighty God has His hands open and He cannot forget you. There are nail prints there because of how much He loves you. He paid for your sins, for your wrong doing, for your running your own life. He paid for that on a cross. And no matter how alone you feel right now, He's offering all the grace and all the love, and all the understanding, and all the power you need, and He'll never turn His back on you. If He was ever going to, He would have done it on that cross.

If you don't know this Jesus, if you've never reached out and grabbed that hand and said as Thomas did, "My Lord and My God" and made Him your own personal Savior with total trust, please do that today. It's Good Friday! He's been reaching for you. Won't you reach back? He wants to know you. He wants you to know Him. You are in His nail-engraved hands once you give your heart to Him.

We've kind of set up our website just to be a place where you can begin a personal relationship with Jesus. I've got some scripture there, and I'm there to meet you really, and just share with you how to take the hand of Jesus and belong to Him from this day on. That website is ANewStory.com. Please, this day, go there.

There's an old hymn that pretty well sums it up. "I shall know Him when redeemed by His side I shall stand. I shall know my Redeemer when I reach the other side by the print of the nails in His hands."