July 22, 2023: Psalm 139:9-10 - The Hand of God

“If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.” - Psalm 139:9-10

We can run but we cannot hide from God. If we could fly at the speed of light and go to the farthest places in our world, there is nowhere we can go where He cannot see us, and that is a good thing. It is a wonderful thing if you are a believer in His Son Jesus Christ, for He will lead us by His hand and hold us with His right hand. The right hand of God is of great importance in the Bible, and to be at the right hand of God is a place of honor in the Bible. However, to be at the left hand of God is a place of judgment and sin. When Jesus comes to earth a second time to judge the nations, the Bible tells us:

“When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…’ Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels…’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-34, 41, 46)

After Jesus died, resurrected, and ascended to heaven, He was placed at the right hand of God, where He is today. Before Stephen was martyred for his faith in Jesus Christ by being stoned to death by Jews, the book of Acts tells us about Stephen:

“But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, ‘Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’” (Acts 7:55-56)

Jesus Christ is the right hand of God - the Messiah - and He takes hold of us who have put our faith and trust in Him for our salvation from sins. Jesus leads us in the way everlasting, and He holds us with His right hand when we are weak. The life of a believer is not an easy one but a difficult one. In fact, Jesus told us that it would be this way,

“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (Jesus Christ; John 16:33)

As Jesus said in the Scripture above, He has overcome the world, and when we keep our eyes on the prize - Him - we can make it through, with Him walking each step of the way with us, the narrow way that leads to life and which few find. (Matthew 7:13-14)

When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we are born again, forgiven of all our sins. As we grow in our faith, and we should grow in it, by reading from our Bible every single day and praying to God every single day so that we may know more about Him and draw closer to Him, we begin realizing that our life in this world is not our best life, no matter how many false pastors try to tell you otherwise. Rather, this life is a temporary stepping stone on our way to eternity. It is critical that we remember that when troubles and sorrows come our way, testing our faith in Him to reveal whether it is genuine or not. There is nothing like going through troublesome times to reveal whether we truly are with Jesus or are against Him. Will we still trust in Him for our salvation when our health issues are not healed? Will we still trust in Him when something happens to our child that rocks us to our core? Will we still trust in Him when bills are due and the money has run out? Will we still trust in Him when He doesn’t fix things for us as we expect Him to? Will we still trust in Him when the world, our nation, is in the midst of war? Will we still trust in Him when most people hate us for putting our faith and trust in Him and persecution rises to the level where our very lives are at stake if we continue to believe in Him? Will we trust in Him no matter what? Do we still trust that He is God and that He is good? Will we still trust in Him to lead us and to hold us with His right hand, or will it become too much for us and will we turn from Him?

We must have the right mind set and not think with our heart, for our heart is deceitfully wicked. This is where having knowledge of the Bible is absolutely critical because if we don’t know what the Scriptures say, there are many false pastors and teachers who are not working for God but on behalf of Satan who are willing to tell us whatever we want to hear and will lull us to sleep with the lies of the devil, without us even realizing we have been caught in Satan’s snare. We must set our minds on Christ and not on the world:

“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1-4)

Did you notice what the Scripture above said? “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” This is critical for believers. It is so easy to get focused on ourselves, our situation, our troubles, our health problems, our family problems, and to become obsessed with it all. Instead of looking inward at us, ourselves, we must look upward at Him. Instead of worrying about all the stress, we are to give it all to Him and trust in Him that He is doing a work in us and through us. Nothing that is happening in our lives is a surprise to Him; He knew it would happen before it happened. When difficult times happen, we must take His hand and let Him lead us through His Holy Spirit who dwells in all believers. Let us remember the power of the hand of God. For believers in Christ, the hand of God is our salvation, our protection, and there is no one who can defeat Him and no one who can separate us from His love:

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-39)

“Indeed My hand has laid the foundation of the earth, and My right hand has stretched out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand up together.” (Isaiah 48:13)

“Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heaven with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and hills in a balance?” (Isaiah 40:12)

“You have also given me the shield of Your salvation; Your right hand has held me up, Your gentleness has made me great. You enlarged my path under me, so my feet did not slip.” (Psalm 18:35-36)

We all have a decision to make whether or not to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation, which is the redemption of all of our sins by His precious blood. That decision we make will determine whether we see the hand of God leading us to life and upholding us with His strong right hand, or whether we will see His hand in wrath against us for denying God’s only begotten Son, choosing instead to believe the lies of the devil.

“The hand of our God is upon all those for good who seek Him, but His power and His wrath are against all those who forsake Him.” (Ezra 8:22)

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” (Hebrews 10:31)

“He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him - the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. (Jesus Christ; John 12:48)

The Bible’s book of Revelation tells us there will be a time when all unbelievers who have died will be resurrected and will appear before Jesus Christ on His throne and will be judged by their works since they did not accept His free gift of salvation. The Bible tells us that our works cannot save us; it is only by the grace of God that we are saved through faith in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:8). Thus, all unbelievers will be found guilty by Jesus and will be cast into the lake of fire:

“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:11-15)

Is God’s hand leading you? Is His right hand holding you? ✝️