overcoming

Why prayer is not an option

As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning. Exodus 17:11 (NIV)

Some things only happen if someone prays and will not happen if someone does not pray. That is the intriguing message from this verse. If that is true, it is the most compelling reason there is for a person to pray – especially for the things we want to happen.

This startling lesson on prayer took place shortly after the children of Israel left Egypt and began their journey into the wilderness toward the promised land. They were attacked by a people called the Amalekites, and Moses sent Joshua out with an army of men to fight them. Moses, along with his brother Aaron and another leader by the name of Hur went up on a nearby hill to watch and pray.

Unlike so many of us, they had the enviable benefit of observing exactly what happened when they prayed and when they didn’t. It was like God Himself had engineered a lab experiment on prayer. Having the vantage point of watching from the top of a hill, they were able to see the direct results of their prayers as they surveyed the battle raging in the valley below.

It did not take long for them to discover that winning the battle was directly dependent upon their prayers. The problem was they had to figure out a way to enable Moses to keep from dropping his hands in prayer. So they “took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up–one on one side, one on the other–so that his hands remained steady till sunset.” (vs. 12)

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Two reasons to stand your ground

Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked so hard to achieve. Be diligent so that you receive your full reward. 2 John 1:8 (NLT)

On several occasions in my life God has used this verse as a timely encouragement to stay the course and press ahead into all He has for me. At those times I have taken it as a personal challenge from the Lord to hang in there and not let discouragement or disillusionment have their way. It has helped me appreciate all he has done in and through my life and enabled me to refocus on what is really important.

The sobering truth is that there are ways in which a person can lose what they and others “have worked so hard to achieve.” And that is the concern of the Apostle John in his writing to the unnamed lady and her children in his second epistle. This verse forms the heart of John’s message for them is also meant to be a word of encouragement to all of us.

Although our knowledge about this single parent mom and her family is somewhat limited, we do know that some of her children were believers and serving the Lord along side of her. (vs. 4) We also know that they had the gift of hospitality and used their home to host itinerating ministers of the gospel. In those days, traveling apostles, prophets, evangelists and teachers relied upon the graces of hospitable believers not only to provide food and shelter but also a meeting place for them to minister. There were no church buildings as there are now and the church met in homes where the body of believers gathered regularly for worship, prayer, teaching and fellowship. (Acts 2:42-47)

John’s instructions to this “chosen lady” as he refers to her, and her children warns about deceptive teachers and strongly urges them to be very discerning as to whom they bring into their home and allow to teach. (vs. 7 & 10) The explicit nature of John’s exhortation would lead us to believe that perhaps she, and one or more of her children, were also leaders in that house church that they hosted.

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Overcoming broken dreams

Broken dreams, everybody has them, but sadly most people have trouble resolving them. Picking our way through a field of broken dreams is not easy. The Bible, right from the outset introduces us to the harsh reality of dealing with broken dreams in our lives. Thankfully we can draw wisdom from those who have gone before us. Imagine what Adam and Eve had to go through to cope with their loss of paradise. And of course we all know what happened to the dreamer Joseph’s dreams. He suffered for years before his dreams made sense.

The book of Exodus introduces us to the biggest field of broken dreams anyone can imagine, it’s called the wilderness. First we encounter Moses whose dream of delivering Israel died with the Egyptian he killed. He ended up burying his dream-turned-nightmare in the backside of the wilderness. But the greatest lessons to be learned about overcoming broken dreams is the story of the children of Israel coming out of Egypt and passing through the wilderness into the Promised Land. The wilderness is the is that place we must pass through in the journey from promise to fulfillment. It is here that God teaches us how to pick our way through a field of broken dreams and position ourselves to be overcomers.

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