God works in our weaknesses

Trevor Withers, 8th January 2006

Christmas reflections, as an aside to the main talk: We're not connected as a body it disrupts the flow of the spirit like a bulb going out on Christmas tree lights.
A candle is destroyed as it burns: we need to become less of ourselves as we allow God to burn in us more.

1 Samuel 13 v 16 to 14 v 17 he story of Jonathan and his armour-bearer.

The above passage echoes where many of us are at this time, the Israelites don't have any weapons and they are cornered by the Philistines. They are humiliated by having to get their farming implements sharpened by their enemies. Many of us feel like that – we know we should have weapons, spiritual capacity, but we don't feel that we have, and we feel that we can't get them sharpened by our friends any more, we feel more sharpened by people outside of the church. We feel that our weapons are blunt and powerless.

Some of us might feel that we want someone like the armour-bearer to say yes I'm with you, I'll support you.

Sometimes God wants us to be the person supporting by being in front, not by staying at the back.

Jonathan does what seems to be a very stupid thing, he approaches his enemy with one spear between the two of them, standing in the valley which is a position of vulnerability. Strange that they decide their course of action based on what the enemy's response was on seeing them.

Steep climb to get up – emphasises vulnerability, they are seriously outnumbered and overwhelmed but they know God is with them so the odds are immaterial. The armour bearer probably took weapons off the dead men so they each ended up with weapons.

The whole army was routed, based on this small but fierce little fight. All because one man chose to put himself in a vulnerable place, to step out, and to see what God would do. Jonathan probably expected just to take over the outpost, but God magnified the effect to the whole army.

God's not worried about Israel's stupidity in getting into this situation, he is concerned with rescuing them regardless.

As we move from 2005 to 2006, we might feel that 2005 wasn't as good as it could have been. We feel that we need God to pick us up and set us straight. We feel weak and vulnerable and we need God's help to step into what he has for us so we can see him work in our lives.

God is strongest where we are weakest – word during the worship. Don't be afraid of your weaknesses, God can really work in them.

Some of us used to be blacksmiths, fashioning weapons, but we have chosen to let our skills lapse and our fire go out.

Reflect with the Holy Spirit on where we are, ask him to revive and re-empower us so we can demonstrate his power to others.

Notes by Louise Chick 8/1/06, 11/01/2006