DAY 10.
Read Acts 4:30; 5:12; 14:3; 15:18-19
Key Verses: “Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word, by stretching out your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy Servant Jesus” (Acts 4:29,30.)
One of the prayers we must pray this month is that our hands may become an extension of God’s hand. This was what the disciples did. When we pray and act in faith we can make our hands extensions of God’s hands so as to be channels of blessings.
In Acts 4, the disciples were threatened by the Sanhedrin (council). Under that pressure, they prayed in a unique way that their hands would be one with the hand of God, so that when they stretched forth their hands in the name of Jesus, they would heal and perform miracles. God answered their prayer because we later read in Acts 5:12, that through their hands signs and wonders were accomplished and that led to the growth of the Church. “And through the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were done among the people…Yet none of the rest dared join them, but the people esteemed them highly. And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them” (Acts 5:12-15).
The power of the mighty hand of God can be manifested through our hands especially those set in authority by God over His Church. In the Old Testament, God made the hand of Moses to become his hand of miracles (Exo.4:21). In the New Testament, the disciples and apostles believed and practiced the doctrine of laying on of hands. By the laying on of hands they imparted the Holy Spirit, “And when Paul had laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied” (Acts 8:17-18; Acts 19:6). They healed in the name of Jesus, “they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:18:and Acts 28:8). They imparted spiritual gifts (2Timothy 1:6). They ordained ministers and church workers (Acts 6:6) and commissioned men into the ministry (Acts 13:3, Num.27:23).
The apostles believed that their hands were symbolic and representative of the mighty hand of God. We must be bold to lay hands on the sick to demonstrate the power of the mighty hand of God.
PRAYER: Lord, make my hands to be an extension of yours so that when I stretch forth my hands to pray signs and wonders will follow, to your glory. Amen.
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