How strong are your stakes?

Like the saints before us we must remind ourselves and witness to others of our personal experience with God

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Psalm 105: 1-2 Oh give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name: make known His deeds among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing praises to Him, tell of all His wondrous works!

This whole Psalm is full of God’s good deeds, retelling His rescue and protection of the Hebrews as He brought them out of Egypt into the promised land. Psalm 106 follows on with more testimonies to God’s hand over His people. In fact, just turn the pages anywhere in the Book of Psalms and you won’t go far before reading a testimony to God’s glory, a stake in the ground. A reminder for generations to come of all He has done.

We too can join with the psalmist in giving testimony to what God has done for us. We each have a story to tell, stakes in the ground declaring God’s work in our lives no matter how long we’ve been a Christian. In fact, it is often the case that the newer we are in faith the more we are aware of what God has done for us and the more ready we are to share. As the years go by in our walk with God we can forget these times and we can feel that our journey with Him has lost its power. 

Joshua 2 gives account of how Rahab the prostitute helped the spies in Jericho because she had “heard” about the Lord and His awesome work (verses 9-11). A powerful example of a testimony passed on by word of mouth causing awe and fear to all who hear it. 

Isn’t this what we desire? To see lives changed by the hearing of God’s power at work? 

As in Revelation 12:11, like the saints before us we must remind ourselves and witness to others of our personal experience with God. Like falling in love, no one can take it away from you. They may and very often do disagree with you if they are challenged by hearing the truth but they cannot change what is in your heart.

These stakes are like God’s Word itself irrevocable. 

How often in the issues of everyday life do we say “I’m making a stand“ or “there’s a principle at stake here” or “I will not be moved on this one”. If we can be so determined in this way how much more should we make a stand for God Himself?   

We are simply saying “This is what God has done for me". It may seem something very small, so many of our daily blessings are, but we must continue with a thankful heart. What a powerful and yet simple way to witness. These are the times when we meet with God, we know His presence, His voice, His Peace. 

When the bigger testimonies come our way, when God has taken us through major illness, surgery, bereavement, debt and loss of any kind, then we have an even more powerful witness to share. 

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As the apostle Paul exhorts us in Ephesians 6:15 to always be ready to share the Gospel, Kevin challenged us last year to prepare our testimonies and rehearse them so we can tell it in around 5 minutes. We actually practiced this once in our Monday morning Bible group. It needs some refining! once we get going we discover we’ve all got lots to share.

To be effective stakes must be driven well into the ground, each time we share our “glory stories” we are reinforcing these stakes not only to others but just as importantly to ourselves. They are faith building and give us purpose. 

Stakes or markers are good to look back on especially when we feel lost in a wilderness or a dry desert time. When we are physically lost with no one to ask on a country walk or in a busy city centre the best thing to do is to retrace our steps to a familiar spot and start again. Likewise when our spiritual  landscape is flat, nothing is happening, it may seem that God is distant and we are just going through the motions of our faith. So we must return to the “stakes in the ground", remind ourselves of God’s mighty deeds and be refreshed and encouraged all over again.

The patriarchs of old, Noah, Genesis 8:20, Abraham, Genesis 12:7 and then Jacob, Genesis 28:10-12 built stone altars as reminders of where they had met with God each in a very powerful way. There they would worship and sacrifice to Him and like Jacob in Genesis 35:6-15 would return to these places on their journey as the importance of these “markers” were handed down through the generations to keep them alive. 

Isaiah 22:23 “And I will fasten him like a peg in a secure place, and he will become a throne of honour to his father’s house"

As I come to sum up God has reminded me of the word He gave to MCF Life Church exactly a year ago at the beginning of 2022, Isaiah 54:2-3 

Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities. 

What a promise!

As we look forward to all God has for us and continue to pray these verses into 2023 let’s have our glory stories ready, (practice them if you must), and make sure our stakes in the ground are strong.

Author: Margaret Riordan

May God bless and enrich your life

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