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What’s That in Your Hand? - Christ in You

what s Thatin your Hand? Jim FowlerEdited bySylvia BurnettWhat s ThatIn your Hand? byJames A. FowlerEdited bySylvia BOX 1822 FALLBROOK, CALIFORNIA S that IN your Hand? Copyright 2008 by James A. FowlerAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means (includingphotocopying, recording, electronic transmission),without the prior written permission of the author,except for brief quotations embodied in critical articlesor reviews. For information, contact author at BOX 1822 FALLBROOK, CALIFORNIA 978-1-929541-16-4 Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are fromthe New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960,1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975 by TheLockman Foundation, LaHabra, in the United States of AmericaDEDICATIONThis book is dedicated to the late MajorW.!Ian Thomas whom I regard as my foremostmentor in teaching me the glorious gospelmessage of Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col.)

DEDICATION This book is dedicated to the late Major W.!Ian Thomas whom I regard as my foremost mentor in teaching me the glorious gospel …

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Transcription of What’s That in Your Hand? - Christ in You

1 what s Thatin your Hand? Jim FowlerEdited bySylvia BurnettWhat s ThatIn your Hand? byJames A. FowlerEdited bySylvia BOX 1822 FALLBROOK, CALIFORNIA S that IN your Hand? Copyright 2008 by James A. FowlerAll rights reserved. No part of this publication may bereproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted in any form or by any means (includingphotocopying, recording, electronic transmission),without the prior written permission of the author,except for brief quotations embodied in critical articlesor reviews. For information, contact author at BOX 1822 FALLBROOK, CALIFORNIA 978-1-929541-16-4 Unless otherwise noted, scripture quotations are fromthe New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960,1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975 by TheLockman Foundation, LaHabra, in the United States of AmericaDEDICATIONThis book is dedicated to the late MajorW.!Ian Thomas whom I regard as my foremostmentor in teaching me the glorious gospelmessage of Christ in you, the hope of glory (Col.)

2 1:27). Soon after my glorious transformationof spiritual regeneration in 1973, I borrowed andlistened to a cassette tape of Major Thomaspreaching on The Rod of God. that messageimpacted my life immensely, and I refer to suchwithin the text of this book. This entire book, infact, is a recapitulation of what I learned fromMajor Thomas via that taped message. My debt ofgratitude to Major Thomas is beyond calculation,and I would encourage all readers of this book toread the books of W. Ian Thomas and to considersending students to the Torchbearer schools thathe established around the FowlerJanuary, 2008 EDITOR S NOTEThe author, Jim Fowler, originally developedthe message presented in this small volume asnotes for two sermons that he shared with theCommunity Baptist Church in Fallbrook,California, in the fall of 2007. The central theme inall of his works that of Christ in you, the hopeof glory (Col.

3 1:27) is notably present in thisbrief is my pleasure and privilege to participatein Jim s ministry by providing editing assistancefor this book and others, as I share with him apassion for the message he proclaims, as well as adeep and abiding love for the this book bring honor and glory to God,our BurnettJanuary, 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTSI ntroduction ..1 Seeing Red ..5 Just an Ordinary Bush? ..9A Sent One ..13 what s that In your Hand? ..19 Drop It! ..27 God at Staff of God ..41We Thirst! ..47 Then Came Amalek ..51 The Grace of God ..59 Grasping God s Grace ..651 INTRODUCTIONHave you ever been in a situation wheresomeone asked you, what s that in your hand? It may have been as a child when you wereattempting to get a cookie from the cookie jarwithout permission, and your mother, father,grandmother, or someone else saw you andquestioned, what s that in your hand? I recall the time when I took my grandsoninto a store and noticed something in his handafter we had walked out.

4 I asked him, what sthat in your hand? and when he admitted thathe had taken an object from the store, we wentback into the store to allow him to confess histheft to the Biblical narrative tells of a situation inwhich God asked someone that very Israelites were enslaved in Egypt at the had been there for several hundred years,2and there were thousands of them! Due to theirever-increasing population, the Pharaoh orderedthe death of all male Hebrew infants (an earlyversion of ethnic cleansing by infanticide).One Hebrew woman who gave birth to ababy boy defied the Pharaoh s edict. She placedher infant son in a basket and hid the basketamong the reeds at the edge of the River s daughter found the baby when shewent down to the river to bathe. (Was that merelygood luck, or divine providence?) Pharaoh sdaughter named the boy Moses, and hired thebaby s birth mother to be nursemaid for the child(which might have been the first instance of thekind of social welfare where the government paysa mother to look after her own son).

5 Moses was later brought up in the royalhousehold, like a grandson of the king .. living inthe lap of luxury .. with the best education thatmoney could buy. In Acts 7:22 Stephen indicatesthat Moses was educated in all the learning ofthe Egyptians; he was a man of power in wordand deeds. 3 Moses knew all the right people .. he knewthe ins and outs of the Egyptian kingdom .. hewas a trained leader on the verge of a charmedlife and career. But, as is often the case whensomeone has such a privileged upbringing, Moseswas absolutely qualified to be utterly useless!The world is always looking for a personprepared for useful productivity. Jesus, however,championed the useless servant (Luke 17:7-10)who was always available for the Master spurposes. God s ways are not our ways ( :8,9). His ways are counter-intuitive to ournatural thinking. God is not as concerned withwhat a person knows how to do, as with what Hewants to do in and through that was apparently aware of his realidentity and heritage as a Hebrew, and hedecided that he should be the defender of hispeople.

6 When the crunch time came, he wouldstand up and be a useful servant for God. (I haveno doubt that the 40-year-old Moses was sincere,dedicated, committed, motivated, and loved thepeople of God. He would have been a valuable,4hard-working, do-gooder Christian in the churchtoday).5 SEEING RED In Exodus 2:11,12 we read: Now it cameabout in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked ontheir hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beatinga Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked thisway and that , and when he saw there was no onearound, he struck down the Egyptian and hidhim in the sand. Moses obviously had a heart of compassionfor his Hebrew brethren. When he saw one ofthem being beaten, he felt he had to do he had to take action! Cautiously he lookedthis way and that but apparently he failed tolook in God s attempted to solve the problem by thepower of his own efforts, and he ended up beinga murderer!

7 6As Christians we sometimes make that sameerror. When we see a problem, we think it s up tous to devise a solution and take action! .. ratherthan looking to God to see what He wants to try to play God . But our attempts to solvelife s problems by self-effort ultimately even our dedication to God seemsto go awry, as we become dedicated to our owndedication and it becomes an ego-trip of self-glory to see what great things we can do for God(even though we are told in Acts 17:25 that Godis not served with human hands , as though Heneeded anything ).In Exodus 2: 13-15 we read: He (Moses) wentout the next day, and behold, two Hebrews werefighting with each other; and he said to theoffender, Why are you striking yourcompanion? But he said, Who made you aprince or a judge over us? Are you intending tokill me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moseswas afraid and said, Surely the matter hasbecome known.

8 When Pharaoh heard of thismatter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled .. 7He ran for his life! He fled out into the fardesert of Midian (in what is now Saudi Arabia).And there he remained for 40 years. He found alittle shepherd girl to marry and was employedby his father-in-law, Jethro leading a bunch ofsheep around from one patch of grass to attitude of most observers today mightbe, what a shame! what a wasted potential ..all that education and leadership ability .. andhe s leading a bunch of stupid sheep in thedesert. (It s been said of more than a fewpastors).But God had the situation under control. Ithad taken 40 years for Moses to become somebody in the eyes of the world, but it tookanother 40 years for God to make Moses a nobody out in the desert .. to break him .. tomake him of no reputation . that seems to be how God works. Before Godcan work in us, we must be brought to therealization that in and of ourselves we arenothing, and can do nothing.

9 Jesus said in John15:5, Apart from Me, you can do nothing. Paul8wrote in Romans 7:18, In me, that is, in my flesh,dwells no good thing. One day when Moses was sufficiently brokenand deprogrammed just an 80-year-old,weather-beaten shepherd in the desert Godcame to AN ORDINARY BUSH? Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro, hisfather-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led theflock to the west side of the wilderness and cameto Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of theLORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from themidst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, thebush was burning with fire, yet the bush was notconsumed. So Moses said, I must turn aside nowand see this marvelous sight, why the bush is notburned up ! (Exod. 3:1-3).The flaming bush burned .. and burned ..and burned .. and burned .. and burned .. andburned. But it never burned up and it neverburned out the bush was not consumed.

10 Moses thought, How unusual! I d bettercheck this out. A bush that burns and burns andburns, but never burns up and never burns out. (Now, Moses had never seen the so-called10 eternal flame at John F. Kennedy s gravesite, sothis was really unique.)There might have been a few bushes out inthe desert that had flamed up in spontaneouscombustion when the rays of the sun reflected offof a bright rock, but they went up in flames andburned out rather quickly. And, of course, Moseshad no way of knowing about the vast oilreserves that lay beneath the Arabian desert, thatcould have kept a flame going for a long , that is not what kept the flame going in thebush that Moses observed (no matter how somewould explain away the miracles of the Bible).Moses might have engaged in a little personalintrospection when he saw that burning bush. Wow, I sure wish I could have been like thatbush. I was really on fire once, but I burned outat 40.


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