The hardest lesson I am learning is also the most important. He is the most attentive Husband, the truest Brother, the most mighty Lord and holiest King.
#UNTIL SUNSET KATARAM FULL#
He is ours, he is full of love for us and delight in us. He will not stop his prayers until he comes again for us. Even now he is praying on for us as we fight (Hebrews 7:25). He battered down Satan and he choked death to death. On the cross he suffered our judgment, our hell, our death.
It depends on the man who held out his arms until the light had gone, until it was finished. The victory does not depend on anything I do. It is about the man on the hill with his arms stretched out against the setting of the sun. The key to survival, health and success (as Christ sees it) in church planting, in ministry, in life, is to remember that it is not about me. For he surely held out to them a holiness even more beautiful than was seen in his life. I take it that he meant what they needed from him. It is not my preaching, my praying or even my holiness – although I am more convinced than ever that Robert Murray M’Cheyne was right in saying this was the greatest need of his people. It is not my planning, my time-management, my leadership that makes the difference. The sin I committed when I led my first church plant in 2004 is the same sin I committed as BroadGrace celebrated 5 years in May 2015. The sin I fall into when things go well is the same sin I fall into when things fail. The ongoing challenge is to think that these necessary things are what make all the difference. We must draw on our all our training and experience. When we plant churches, we are required to plan, strategise and execute. It simply tells us that none of this was crucial. This does not diminish Joshua’s role – his courage, planning, experience or strategy. Joshua fought, but he only won because Moses raised his hands before the Lord in prayer. It was Joshua who fought the battle, and Joshua who overcame the Amalekite army by the sword, but he did so only because Moses kept his hands up. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Moses recorded the battle in Exodus 17:8-16, and verses 10-13 tell us how Joshua won: Joshua led the army, but his skill, experience, training, courage, even his faithfulness and his prayers made no difference at all to the outcome. We don’t know because Moses didn’t tell us and we don’t know because it doesn’t matter. Maybe the men fought with unusual courage, or with quiet desperation. Maybe the tactics that Israel used were conventional, or maybe they were new and clever. Maybe that is how it happened at Rephidim when the Amalekites attacked Israel. Joshua’s skill, experience, training, courage, even his faithfulness & his prayers made no difference to the outcome. Shields braced as they began their counter charge. Israel heard the shouted war-cries as their enemy’s advance turned into a charge. Caleb and his men would move to intercept the brunt of the Amalekite charge when battle was joined, and Joshua was sure the shock of their assault would break against the rock-solid courage of his old friend.Īnd then it was time. When he reached Judah the commander embraced Caleb, arm around his shoulder, as they prayed together. Others followed his example, and the quiet murmur of blessings and requests joined the purposeful creak of leather and jangling of metal as men checked and tightened equipment. He even took time to pray with a timid man here and there. He checked that the captains understood the strategy. Joshua calmly walked among the soldiers, gathered in their fifties and hundreds.
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