Labor Day: Hands That Bring Reward

dependence were declared on July 4, 1776. A new page in human history was written with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The next great test of ideas, beliefs, and wills would be the Civil War, when brother turned against brother. The catalytic issue was that of slavery. Would there indeed be “liberty and justice for all,” or just for the whites? The Union would ultimately prevail, but it would take generations for the nation to fully heal.

Racial, cultural, and political wounds still exist to this very day. America is divided as strongly as ever. Marriage, abortion, sexuality, health care, and taxation are some of the primary battlefronts in this ongoing war.

Sadly, believers have also become more conformed to the world than transformed by the Word (Romans 12:1–2). Far too many American churches and Christians have either given up the fight in the cultural wars or surrendered to the enemy. Many are AWOL altogether from the battle.

It is only through authentic revival that America will rise to moral and political greatness again. Without it, America will continue her precipitous moral decline. And like all great nations in history, her internal decay will predict and predicate her external decline. As Jesus said, “A kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.” A nation that thumbs her nose at morality and turns her back on God cannot long survive. But by contrast, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” (Psalm 33:12).

On this July Fourth, my exhortation is what Paul wrote to young Timothy: “Fight the good fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). He also urged Timothy to personally flee from the “love of money” that had caused many Christians in his day to “wander from the faith and pierce themselves with many griefs.” The only antidote was the higher pursuit of “righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness” (1 Timothy 6:10–11).

May God give us an authentic revival that can again lead to political virtue rather than vice. Only then can America—or any nation—rise to true moral greatness in the world!

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Labor Day—First Monday in September

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Ecclesiastes 9:10

What skills are in your hands? Do you have the hands of a father, mother, farmer, carpenter, mason, plumber, doctor, teacher, artist, etc.? We were created to work because God is a working God. “By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work” (Genesis 2:2).

In Acts 28:1–10, we see Paul’s servant leadership through the storm and the serpent—both attacks of Satan. On the island of Malta, Paul helped build the fire to warm the shipwrecked crew, and a serpent came out and bit his hand. As an evangelist and entrepreneur, Paul’s hands were vital for his work and worship. Remember that Satan always attacks you at your point of strength to weaken or destroy your work and worship.

Because of the serpent’s bite, Paul’s hands were hurt hands, which all of us have. Before God could use Paul’s hands to heal the father of the chief official on the island, He had to first heal the hurt hand. Paul’s hands then became hands of blessing.

We too must shake off the serpents of Satan. We must have the cleansing blood of Christ heal the poison of the serpent in our lives. Only when our hurt hands have become healed hands and holy hands can they be healing hands.

So on this Labor Day, let’s briefly look at three primary roles of hands in Scripture:

Working Hands: After Jesus healed a paralyzed man on the Sabbath, He told the Jewish leaders, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working” (John 5:17). If God is mightily at work, we must be also! “As long as it is

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