Tag Archives: the power of God

Exodus 4: He’s Got Your Back

I try to imagine the conversation between God and Moses.

God: Ok, I want you to go to Pharoah and tell him that I said to let his entire workforce go, so that they can come out here to the desert and worship Me.

Moses: *blink*

God:

Moses: I mean. They’re not gonna believe me. Or even listen to me. Right? I mean, like, I think maybe this might not be … *trails off, just short of telling God He’s got a messed up plan.*

God: *sigh* Throw down your staff…

That’s how I imagine it, but odds are it didn’t go down quite like that.

“Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.”  And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand— “that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.” (Exodus 4:1-5)

When God tells us to speak something, He will back up our words with His power.

The Lord said to Moses, “… Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it…

… Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. (Exodus 14:16, 21)

When God tells us to do something, He will back up our actions with His power.

Joshua and his men circled Jericho the way God told them to, and it fell.

Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal at the word of the Lord, and fire fell on a water soaked altar.

Ezekiel, in obedience to God’s command, prophesied to an army of bones, and that army came to life.

Servants filled the water jars at Jesus’ command, and the water became wine.

 “I [Paul] came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5)

Our obedience to God will result in the presence of the power of God.

Has He called you to speak something? Do something? Preach, teach, prophesy something? Lay something down, take something up, let go, grab hold, walk away from, return to? Let me ask it this way… what has God been asking of you?

“Do whatever He tells you,” His mother told the servants. (John 2:5)

Through the life of Moses, and beyond, we find this principle at work –

We bring the obedience, He brings the power.

But soon, we will discover another principle from Moses and the Israelites –

When we bring disobedience, He still brings the power. But the results are a lot different! Stayed tuned.

irreversible power

The book of Exodus has God’s power, His terrible, beautiful power, on display. But there is also another power on display.

Aaron threw down his staff and it became a snake.  “Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake.” (Exodus 7:11-12)

God turned the water of the Nile into blood. “But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts…” (7:22)

God brought frogs to cover the land. “But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.”  (8:7)

God brought gnats. And that’s where their power found its limit. “But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not.” (8:18)

From these displays of power, I am impressed with two thoughts.

~ The power of the enemy has a limitation, but God’s power goes on, limitless. I love what God said to Pharaoh, after the plagues of blood, frogs, gnats, flies, death to livestock, and boils. “let My people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you…” (9:13-14)

By the time the enemy’s power had reached it’s limit, God’s was just getting started!

~ The enemy can mimic God’s power, but he cannot counter His power. Notice that Pharoah’s magicians only did what God had already done…turned a staff into a snake, turned water into blood, brought frogs to cover the land. What they did not do was turn Aaron’s staff back into a staff, turn the blood back to water, or make the frogs go back where they came from.

They had no power to undo what God had done.  God affirms this truth in Isaiah.

“No one can deliver out of my hand. 
   When I act, who can reverse it?” Isaiah 43:13

And again…

“My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand.” (John 10:27)

Today, I am struck once again by the beautiful, limitless, irreversible power of the God to whom I belong.

here I stand

high_windsSo Ahaz, King of Judah, was under the threat of invasion. Other kings had allied together to overtake Judah and “the hearts of Ahaz and his people were shaken, as the trees of the forest are shaken by the wind.” (Isaiah 7:2) God instructed the prophet Isaiah to speak to Ahaz, giving him comfort and encouragement. But it is what He said in verse 9 that has captured my attention today.

“If you do not stand firm in your faith,
   you will not stand at all.”

Invasion comes, and we scramble for a place to stand through it.  Where do we often find our feet? Two places in particular come to mind right away.

Blame ~ it’s easier to stand firm if you have someone else to blame for what is happening. Some of us find our place of “this is not my fault” and that’s where our righteously indignant feet get planted.

Shame ~ we resign ourselves to whatever is coming, because we assume we deserve it. So many of God’s children stand in shame, unable to get their feet to move onto the solid ground of His forgiveness.

We all have our spot, our place that we plant our feet. We stand on our moral character, our common sense and on traditions. Some are standing in fear, in anger, and in resignation. Some are not standing at all. They are running. Running away from their situation, running to try to stay ahead of the invasion, running to stay in control, running in circles.

And God has said that we will all fall down. All but the one who has chosen to stand on one thing. Faith.  It is the only piece of solid ground in existence…depending, of course, on where our faith rests.

So we dig a little deeper. What do we have faith in? What is it that gives us peaceful assurance and determination when our life is under the threat of invasion? We all know the “right” answer to that question, but for our hearts to be changed, we have to uncover the “real” answer.  For many, our faith moves around a lot. It can look somewhat butterfly-ish at times, even though our faith in God is strong. In times of trial or under the threat of invasion, faith looks for a place to land.  The overall character of God, the fact that He is good, or even the fact that He works everything out for our good can still leave our faith flitting around looking for something solid.

So we turn to people, reaching for someone who will tell us something we can rest our faith on. Someone who can tell us why this is happening and what we should do about it.  Our faith wants to rest on something tangible, and unfortunately, it usually lands on people. Good people, wise people, but still just people.

Which leads me to the scripture that links up with Isaiah 7:9.

“My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” 1Corinthians 2:4-5

I have gone through an invasion of the enemy. It brought destruction to my marriage and to my family.  The invasion took place over many years, and during those years, I stood in all of the places I mentioned earlier. And I fell from every one of them.  Then God broke in, took me by the hand and led me out of destruction and into His fire. While there, He fed me Isaiah 7:9 and 1Corinthians 2:4-5.  He taught me that I could stand against the enemy’s destruction only by standing in faith, a faith at rest solely on His power. And then He proved that it is indeed the most solid place on this earth.

It was His power that overcame the destruction the enemy brought to my family. It was His power that turned our hearts and changed our minds, repaired our broken walls and brought restoration from ruin. Only the power of God could have healed the many wounds inflicted during the invasion of the enemy in our lives. And it is His power that is still at work, repairing, restoring and healing.

No matter what comes, or threatens to come, I will stand in faith. A faith at rest on the power of God to contend for me and my family, to overcome the enemy’s plans of invasion and to restore what has been destroyed.

It is in the incomparably great power of the One who is for me and not against me that my faith has found it’s resting place.