The Hands of God

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Does God really have hands? No. God, is Spirit. This is an anthropomorphism, a big word. That just means we ascribe human qualities to God in order to better understand Him. You can tell a lot about a person by looking at their hands. You can tell if the person is young or old, male or female. You can tell if they have an office job or if they do manual labor. The hands of a surgeon look different from the hands of a mechanic. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.” John 1:14 says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we be held His glory, glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.“

The hands of Jesus show us His humanity; as He entered public ministry, they became the hands of a miracle worker. Hands that turned water into wine, open the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind, healed the sick, the lame, and the lepers. The hands of Jesus also show us His deity. And though His hands were the hands of deity, they were also the hands of a humble servant. Hands that welcomed the little children, said the hungry and humbly wash the feet of His disciples. “Jesus came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.” In the garden of Gethsemani, His hands were, first, hands of prayer, until the betrayer arrived, bringing the soldiers with them. His hands did not resist, but lay idle by His side as He was unjustly arrested, beaten and scorched. Finally, heavy nails were driven into the hands of God at the crucifixion, holding Him to a cross that He did not deserve, to pay for sins that He did not commit.

The hands of the Savior, the hands of Messiah, are hands that now reach out to us with the offer of life abundant, free and eternal. As we turn to Jesus Christ in faith, trusting Him for our salvation, we enter into a relationship with our Lord and we come under the care of His almighty hands. This is a relationship that can never be broken because no one and no thing can snatch us out of His mighty grip.
Isaiah 64:8 and Psalm 92:4 says “We should sing with joy at the work of His hands, hands of faithfulness.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child and have no compassion on the sun of her womb? Even those may forget, but I will not forget. Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands. (Isaiah 49:15-16)” Your name. My name inscribed on the palms of God’s hands.

His hands are hands of help, the hands of a caregiver. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not so short that it cannot save. Neither is his ear so dull that it cannot hear. Isaiah 59:1)” “Humble yourselves, therefore under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him because he cares for you. (1st Peter 5:6)”
His hands are hands of friendship and hands of fellowship. “The steps of a man are established by the Lord and he delights in his way when He falls. He shall not be hurled headlong because the Lord is the one who holds His hand. (Psalm 37:23-24)”
His hands are hands of protection. “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you will revive me. You will stretch forth your hand against the wrath of my enemies. And your right hand will save me. (Psalm 138:7)” “In the shadow of his hand, he has hidden me. And he has also made me a select arrow. He has hidden me in his quiver. (Isaiah 49:2)” This indicates that each one of us are an arrow kept hidden in the quiver of God. Until the time that His skillful hand draws us into His bow to send us out to impact a time and a place ordained by Him, ordained for His glory and His aim is sure.

In other verses, the Bible calls the hands of God: mighty valiant, righteous, strong, holy, glorious and good. And understanding these qualities should cause us to shout with David the words of Psalm 31, “As for me, I trust in you, a Lord. I say, you are my God. My times are in your hands.” And we do live in perilous times. What a comfort to know that our times are in the mighty glorious and good hands of God. These are the hands of God that worked invisibly behind the scenes in the days of Esther. And these are the hands that work invisibly behind the scenes in your life and my life today, long ago, centuries ago. Today, the hand of God is working in your life to write your story, the part your life is to play in his wonderful plan. That story can only be written in time. But the glory of that story will last for all of eternity. Commit your life, therefore, into the mighty hands of God!

Gene Cunningham - October 10, 2022

How are the Dead Raised Up?

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1st Corinthians 15:35-45 documents what kind of resurrection bodies believers in Jesus will have; what it’ll be like. 1st Corinthians 15:35-38 says, “Someone will say,’ How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?’ Oh, foolish one. What you sow is not made alive unless it dies. And what you sow, you do not know that body that shall be. But mere grain, perhaps wheat or some other grain that God gives of the body as He pleases and to each seed its own body.” You plant a little grain of corn, and a great stock of corn grows out of it. The stock of corn doesn't look at all like the grain. The resurrection body will not look at all like the body you have. Thank God for that! But it will be of the same element. It'll be the same body resurrected. The body of Christ as the disciples saw it and the body of Christ as they saw it in the transformation glory on the mount of Transfiguration, it was the same body, but it was majestically and magnificently different. That's the point of Paul's making. Your resurrection body is going to be a vast improvement over the one you now inhabit, Paul says. 1st Corinthians 15:39 continues, “All flesh is not the same flesh. There is a kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another fish, and another birds.” Paul is simply trying to illustrate to the Corinthians (who did not believe in the resurrection) that there are different forms a body can take. 1st Corinthians 15:40 states, “There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, but the glory of the celestial is one. The glory of the terrestrial is another.” So, you have the visual glory of the mountains, the glory of the pines, the glory of the rivers. You also have the glory of the sun, the moon and the stars. Paul continues in 1st Corinthians 15:41-42, “There is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars. For one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead…” Do you know what Paul is saying here? There will be a distinction between your resurrection body and someone else's body. That’s because your resurrection body is going to reflect the glory that you laid hold of in your life on earth. Another person’s resurrection body is going to reflect the glory that they laid all that in their life. Daniel tells us this in Daniel 12:3, Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.” While some stars are really bright, other stars are very faint. Some believers are going to have a reflected glory of Christ in eternity. That is going to be magnificent. They're going to be luminous. Other believers who did very little with their lives, they're going to look like a faint star way off in the distance. Every believer will be able to be evaluated visually as to how they lived for Christ in their life. For example, you’ll look down the street and see a blazing light and say, “There comes the apostle, Paul!” Conversely, looking down the street you see another and say, “There's a there's a light coming. I can hardly see it. It looks like a flashlight that the battery's running out. You’ll say, here comes Gene. He says in 1st Corinthians 15:42, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is shown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory.” We talk often about the dignity of death. There is no dignity in death. Death is a curse. Death is an ugly thing. We put dead bodies in beautiful caskets so that we see only the beautiful casket, not the decomposing body. There is nothing dignified or beautiful about death. Death, frankly, stinks! Thank God He has something greater for us than death! He has given eternal resurrection! 1st Corinthians 15:44-45 says, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. It is raised a spiritual body because there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. So it is really the first man. Adam became a living soul. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” Aren't you glad that you can step out of Adam into Christ? Note: This video contains clips copied from the LUMO Jesus Film Project

From Series: "Jesus' Roadmap for the Future"

The Olivet Discourse -- Jesus' Roadmap for the future, is one of the three major discourses (sermons) of Jesus. They include: 1. The Sermon on the Mount/Galilee Discourse (Matthew 5–7) 2. The Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24–25; Mark 13; Luke 21 3. The Upper Room Discourse (John 13–17) Each of these messages is aimed at a specific period of history, which we call a dispensation. They lay out God’s dispensational plan, like a road map, from the time of the crucifixion to the end of time. The Sermon on the Mount was directed to the generation in which Jesus lived and was His platform as King—if Israel would receive Him. Obviously, they rejected Him as their King. However, this will be the basis of Jesus’ administration during the 1,000-year Kingdom Age (Millennium). Then, the Olivet Discourse was aimed at the consequences of Israel’s rejection of Jesus as Messiah, and anticipated the destruction of the nation (70 A.D.) and the final Tribulation period. Remember that the Church Age is an intercalation—meaning an insertion, like a parenthesis, into the Age of Israel. This means that with the Rapture of the Church, the Tribulation picks up where 70 A.D. leaves off. This is why the Church Age is called a “mystery” (Rom. 11:25; 16:25; Eph. 3:1–13; Col. 1:26–27), which is a graduate course to “the principalities and powers in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10). Finally, the Upper Room Discourse was directed toward the Church Age, which began at Pentecost and would continue to the Rapture (1 Thess. 4:13–18). The uniqueness of this Age is summarized by Paul’s phrase “in Christ,” and all of the elements involved in what we call “positional truth”—our total union with Christ and the indwelling of His Spirit in us, which occurs nowhere else in history. With the removal of the Body of Christ, the Church, Israel would again become the focus of God’s working on this Earth (Romans 9–11; Revelation 6–19).