Wrapped Around His Finger

Written by Cathy DeGraw | 12 July 2010

Have you ever caught your finger in a doorway?  I had just finished taking my dog for a walk and was putting the leash away in a closet with a folding door.   The fold of the door caught the index finger of my right hand.  Immediately the whole tip of my finger reacted in pain.  As I stood holding my finger up and repeating “ow, ow, ow, ow, ow” my dog looked at me as if to say “well what do you want me to do about it?”  The next day at the office where I work, I had to remember to avoid putting pressure on the tip of that finger.  Each time I forgot and applied pressure to punch in a phone number, press down on a stapler or hole-punch, I got a quick reminder of that folding door.

It takes something like an injury to a part of your body to recognize how much we depend on that part.  After all, this was the finger I use most at the keyboard, the one I most use on my “mouse”, the one I point with, the one I hold my place with, grip with and more.

The week that my finger was healing, I read something in Luke 11v20 about the importance of the “finger of God”.  Luke says that the “finger of God” drove out a demon that was mute.  This demon had caused the man he possessed to be unable to speak.  Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees and their refusal to accept the healing as being from God.  Luke states, “if I drive out demons by the finger of God” then the Kingdom of God has come to you.”  Imagine that, it takes only God’s finger to deliver a man from demonic torment.

Look at some of the other ways the finger of God is described:

• The magicians in Pharaoh’s courts recognized the finger of God.  In Exodus 8v19 they could not compete with the power of God displayed during the plagues brought upon the Egyptians.  The finger of God has the power to make believers even of the enemies of God.

• Psalm 8v3 describes the heavens the moon and the stars as the “work of your fingers.”

• Exodus 31v18 describes the two tablets of stone that we know as the 10 Commandments being “inscribed by the finger of God.”

• Jesus’ finger is described in John 8v6 as he stoops before the crowd who is about to stone the woman caught in adultery and writes with his finger in the dirt compelling her accusers to drop their stones and walk away.

What a mighty and powerful God we serve!  His finger alone brings creation, healing, deliverance, forgiveness, protection, teaching and belief where there was unbelief.

Lord, touch us with just your finger alone.  Point out the places in our lives where we need teaching, correction, healing, and deliverance and continue to point us in the direction that takes us closer and closer to you.

Secret Weapon

Written by Cathy DeGraw | 26 June 2010

How many of you have friends?  Do you know of any enemies?  The Bible says we have an enemy.  Did you know you have an enemy?  He’s the same enemy of God!  His name is satan or the devil.  Do you know what weapon God chose to battle him?

 Psalm 8v2 says “From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.”

 A foe is someone who is not for us but against us.  God is for us and satan is against us.  And an avenger is someone who with evil in his heart wants to get revenge.  God does not choose revenge he chooses forgiveness.

 Now you know you have an enemy.  It’s not your brother or your sister or even the kid in class who picks on you.  It’s not the guy who pulls out in front of you in traffic or the noisy neighbor next door. No, it’s the devil. When our kids were little and they would sometimes get really mad at another person they would say, “I hate so-and-so!”  Doyle and I would correct them and say, “no, you don’t hate them, you’re mad at them because they were mean to you, but you don’t hate them.  The only one you can hate is the devil.”

 Matthew 21v14-16 tells us that “the blind and the lame came to Jesus at the temple, and Jesus healed them.  But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things Jesus did and the children shouting ‘hosanna to the Son of David’, they were indignant (really mad).

 “Do you hear what these children are saying?” they asked Jesus.  “Yes,” replied Jesus, “have you never read, ‘from the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise”?

 Children of all ages, we need you to praise God among us, God wants your praises, and the enemy wants to stop them.  What will you choose to do?  Will you choose to be used by God to defeat the enemy?  Let’s praise the Lord together, He deserves our praise, and He has chosen our praise as His special weapon!