{"id":35539,"date":"2023-07-10T03:30:59","date_gmt":"2023-07-10T10:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/?p=35539"},"modified":"2023-07-07T11:15:30","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T18:15:30","slug":"july-10-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2023\/07\/10\/july-10-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"July 10, 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div><\/div><\/div>

Continual Supply (<\/strong>Thoughts on Zechariah 4)<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201c<\/em>Now\u00a0the angel who talked with me came back and wakened me,\u00a0as a man who is wakened out of his sleep.\u00a0And he said to me, \u2018What do you see?\u2019 So I said, \u2018I am looking, and there\u00a0is\u00a0a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it,\u00a0and on the\u00a0stand\u00a0seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps.\u2019\u201d\u00a0Zechariah and his people were there to build the temple, so God used this temple lampstand to speak to him. \u201cTwo olive trees\u00a0are\u00a0by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Olive trees were something he had never seen in the temple. And in the vision, the trees supplied seven lamps with oil through seven pipes. Taking care of the lamps was a big job; they had to be filled, cleaned, and the wicks needed to be tended to, so seeing the oil come directly from the trees was a big deal.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>\u201c<\/em>So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, \u2018What\u00a0are\u00a0these, my lord?\u2019 Then the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, \u2018Do you not know what these are?\u2019 And I said, \u2018No, my lord.\u2019\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>So he answered and said to me: \u2018This\u00a0is\u00a0the word of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0to\u00a0Zerubbabel\u2026\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Zerubbabel was the civic leader in Jerusalem and had the responsibility of finishing the work on the temple, and that work had stalled. In chapter three, God spoke to Zerubbabel about purity, and here God is talking about might and power.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Not by might nor by power, but by My <\/strong>Spirit,\u2019 says the\u00a0Lord\u00a0of hosts.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

One thing I read about this might <\/strong>was collective strength<\/em>, and power<\/strong> was individual strength<\/em>. I know I am not smart enough, organized enough, or creative enough to serve or lead any ministry or do anything in my life without the Spirit; anyone else?<\/p>\n

When I was a school teacher, there was a student a few years younger than my students who was quite precocious. I was walking across the quad area when she approached me and asked me if I wanted to be anointed. I was taken aback a little but said, \u201cOf course!\u201d She asked me to kneel down, and I did as she instructed. A few moments later, with my eyes closed, I smelled grape bubble gum as she made a sign of the cross on my forehead. Peeking out, I saw her take her necklace wand with grape bubbles to anoint me. I continued kneeling as she prayed. I get teary when I think about it today.<\/p>\n

What a sweet reminder last week of how much I struggle over trying to operate in my own strength and not the anointing and power of the Holy Spirit. Even when it is small tasks, any resources or might that come from me are done in my own strength and take away the power of the Holy Spirit. Even if it\u2019s a little bit, why would I want to take away what the Holy Spirit can do? Creation, the parting of the Red Sea, giving life to dead bones\u2014there is nothing I can do that can compare to the work of the Holy Spirit. And that sweet little girl reminded me of that that day.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,\u2019 says the\u00a0Lord\u00a0of hosts.\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>\u2018Who\u00a0are\u00a0you,\u00a0O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel,\u00a0you shall become\u00a0a plain! And he shall bring forth\u00a0the capstone, with shouts of grace, grace to it!\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The work of the temple was a huge undertaking. When I have a huge mountain of things on my to-do list, I will picture them as a plain\u2014vast, open land without obstacles!<\/p>\n

\u201cMoreover the word of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0came to me, saying:\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>\u2018The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this\u00a0temple; his hands\u00a0shall also finish\u00a0it. Then\u00a0you will know that the\u00a0Lord\u00a0of hosts has sent Me to you.\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>For who has despised the day of\u00a0small things?\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

For Zerubbabel, I am sure it didn\u2019t seem like small things since the temple lay in ruins for nearly twenty years. In how many of us has God used the very small things to mold and shape our lives in and out of ministry?<\/p>\n

\u201cFor these seven rejoice to see the\u00a0plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the\u00a0Lord, which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>Then I answered and said to him, \u2018What\u00a0are\u00a0these\u00a0two olive trees\u2014at the right of the lampstand and at its left?\u2019\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>And I further answered and said to him, \u2018What\u00a0are these\u00a0two olive branches that\u00a0drip\u00a0into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden\u00a0oil\u00a0drains?\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The two branches, I read, were Zerubabbel and Joshua. Just as the oil trees in the vision continually supplied oil to the lamps on the lampstand, God wants His supply and our reliance on the Holy Spirit to be\u00a0continual<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen he answered me and said, \u2018Do you not know what these are?\u2019 And I said, \u2018No, my lord.\u2019\u00a0<\/em>So he said,\u00a0\u2018These\u00a0are\u00a0the two\u00a0anointed ones,\u00a0who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth.\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Anointed one<\/strong> means literally sons of oil. <\/em>The lampstands needed continual tending, but when connected to the trees, the source of the oil itself, they would never run dry.<\/p>\n

When we get weary and discouraged, it\u2019s a certainty that we are not connected to the source\u2014the continual supply of the Holy Spirit.<\/p>\n

Father, take our little and make it much through the Might and Power of the Holy Spirit, <\/em>that we would not operate in our own strength, but rest in God alone to do the work of His will. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-9fd","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35539"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35539\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35542,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35539\/revisions\/35542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}