Holy Hand
“ Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, and has extended mercy to me before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty princes. So I was encouraged, as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me; and I gathered leading men of Israel to go up with me .” Ezra 7 : 27 - 28 NKJV It is important to see the great connection between the heart of king Artaxerxes and the hand of the Lord upon Ezra. Obviously, it shows that the true battles of life are not fought with the fists of human hands; but rather by the lifting up of holy hands. It all started by the acknowledgement of Ezra’s engagement with the Lord: “ For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel (Ezra 7 : 10 )”. He knew that it wasn’t in vain that the scriptures say elsewhere that “ The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord...