The Hand of The Lord - The Hand of the Lord as Judgment (Daily Devotional)

Greetings and welcome to Living Supernaturally. Thank you so much once again for giving us this opportunity to minister God’s word and to spend a few moments in prayer. This week, we have been talking about different aspects on the hand of the Lord. Today, we will see the hand of the Lord as judgement. Acts chapter 13, verse 11, ‘Now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind…’ God judges us not in some lax or easy standard, God’s standard is high, strict and stringent. God is 100% of everything that He is. So, He is not just 50 % just and 50% merciful and He is having a tug of war, what will I be today? Will I be merciful or show my judgement? God is 100% of everything He is. There is no conflict within Him, no struggle within Him, He can be perfectly merciful and just at the same time. So, as the judge, He gave a sentence that there should be bloodshed for the forgiveness of sins. He gave a sentence that there had to be death of a perfect, sacrificial lamb and then He came as a perfect lamb. He gave that sentence and then He fulfilled that sentence for us. He took it upon Himself so that He remains true to His justice while He remains true to His mercy. In Mathew chapter 13, in the parable of the good wheat and the weeds, where Jesus said, don’t try to pull them up when they are little because sometimes, you can’t tell the difference yet, is this a wheat or weed? The particular word used here for ‘weed’ is something that looks very similar to ‘wheat’. When it is young, it is almost impossible to separate the wheat and weed. But He said, let them both mature and grow together and at the end of the age, they both will grow and it will become very clear, which is the wheat and weed. He says, I will send my angels that they will harvest and separate. It is their job to harvest and separate. We can hardly tell them apart for a long time and then suddenly, as they come into this stage of maturity, the weed stand very tall, arrogant and proud and the wheat bows down low. It is very important for us to understand that God’s judgment is true and righteous altogether, that we can say they’re perfect, righteous, just and good. Even in our own lives, we can welcome His righteous judgment which doesn’t destroy us but to redeem us, to purify us, to strengthen us, to bring us to much greater maturity and to make us more like Jesus. The judgments of God are redemptive, a form of discipline, to keep us from getting destroyed. In Daniel chapter 4, Daniel prophesies over the evil king Nebuchadnezzar who was the leader of the world. God sent through Daniel a warning to him to repent and humble himself. Eventually, God told Daniel that he will eat grass like an animal. Suddenly, he lost his mental abilities, he was driven out, in the fields, in the rain, his hair became scattered and his finger nails grew like claws. The amazing thing is at the end of the 7 years, he came back to his sense and he declared that the God of Daniel is the true and living God. God is merciful, good and righteous at His judgement.

Let us pray, Father, we thank you for your hand of mercy and justice. We thank you that even through those times of troubles that we can look to you and know that your hand is upon us and that you are merciful. We commit ourselves to you, in Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

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