Exodus 17:8-16 tells us about a battle against the Amalekites and how this battle was won through prayer and working together as God’s people. Battles tend to come at inconvenient times: the Amalekites attacked when the Israelites were weary and worn out, jaded from the journeying through the wilderness. (Deut 25:18) We have to be sober and alert, watching and praying against temptation at all times (Matt 26:41, Mark 14:38, 1 Thess 5:8), for battles often come when we are least expecting them and are not ready to fight. That’s why we are urged to put on our spiritual armour all the time!

Moses’s strategy for winning this battle was two-fold. He told Joshua, ‘Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands.’ (Ex 17:9) The first part seems full of common sense, but the idea that Moses’s role is to stand on top of a hill with God’s staff seems bizarre!

Spiritual weapons do not look impressive or powerful, but we have to understand that to win battles, we cannot rely on human strategy alone. Moses’s staff was ordinary in itself, but it had been used by God in miraculous ways (see Ex 8:5, 16; Ex 7:17, Ex 9:23, Ex 10:13, Ex 14:16, Ex 17:6). God is able to take our ordinary offerings and make something extraordinary out of them (see Jn 6:9, 1 Sam 17:40).

God’s Word and prayer are the chief spiritual weapons we have, and these are ‘powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ.’ (2 Cor 10:3-5, The Message) Jesus used the word of God to defeat the enemy (see Matt 4:4, 7, 10) and promised great results in prayer (Jn 14:14, Jn 16:24, Matt 18:19). Do we believe these are powerful weapons?

Joshua’s role is easy to understand in this battle, but the roles of Moses, Aaron and Hur show us the importance of corporate prayer. Moses needed these two men to hold up his hands and their help was directly influential in the victory that followed. From the seemingly insignificant place of prayer, victory and blessing came and Moses also received a new revelation of God:‘Jehovah Nissi’, ‘The Lord Is My Banner.’ (Ex 17:15) God is our unifying force and our rallying point. His banner over us is love and love too is a powerful weapon in our hands.

Fasting is often associated with giving up certain foods or mealtimes in order to pray, but Isaiah 58:1-14 makes it clear that fasting is more than a religious ritual. We have to fast not only from food (give up chocolate or sugar or miss a meal in order to pray, by all means), but from practices which God abhors. Thus, He tells us fasting also means ‘to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free  and break every yoke’ (Is 58:6), to ‘share your food with the hungry, to provide the wanderer with shelter, to clothe the naked and not turn away your own flesh and blood’ (Is 58:7), and to ‘do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk.’ (Is 58:9) There is a clear connection between fasting and our behaviour and treatment of other people.

Pope Francis has given useful advice for the kind of fasting God wants:

As always in the Christian life, there has to be a renunciation of the wrong and an embracing of the right. Christianity is not all about the ‘Thou shalt nots’, but there does have to be repentance and turning away from wrong things in order to walk on the narrow path of obedience which leads to life. Getting the balance is the hard part: we can either become dour, resentful, pharisaical people, or we can be over-casual, not respecting the holiness and righteousness of God. We need to fast from wrong practices but also to embrace right ones.

The film ‘Now You See Me’ looks at the world of magic and sleight of hand, and this can be a world of great entertainment. Magicians astound us with their tricks and amuse us with their dexterity. Ironically, however, Christians are often accused of living in a world of illusion and make-believe when nothing could be further from the truth. Christians live in God’s reality and must give up the illusion that with a little more effort, a better political system, a bigger budget or a more efficient administrative process, the world will soon be saved.

We must give up the illusion of self-help as our source of salvation if we are to enter into Christ’s salvation which is freely available to us. ‘We should not believe in people or in the good in people that ultimately must triumph,’ warned Dietrich Bonhoeffer, trusting instead solely in God, who creates life out of death and does impossible things. One word from Him, Chris Tomlin reminds us in the song ‘Impossible Things’ and the walls start falling, the blind will see and the sinner is forgiven. Our help is in the name of the Lord our Maker. (Ps 124:8)

Any other salvation is an illusion which quickly becomes a delusion and which inevitably leads to disillusionment (see Gal 1:6-9). Easter invites us to give up illusion and embrace the God-reality of salvation through sacrifice.

Superstition may seem a harmless addition to our Christian lives, often fuelled by pragmatic reasons (‘don’t walk under a ladder because you might get drenched from the window cleaner’s water’, for example). But when we are superstitious, we are actually ascribing to something else the power that only belongs to God.

Some Christians are content to live with this duality, but in Leviticus 19, the ‘holiness chapter’ in the Old Testament which points to the absolute purity of God and the implications this has for us all, we are warned against superstition which involves the occult. Lev 19:31 warns us against reading horoscopes (do we really believe the stars guide our paths or our loving heavenly Father?), consulting psychics, fortune-telling, palm reading, tarot cards and every other kind of occult activity. The only way to live a holy life which pleases God is to get rid of these things (Acts 19:19) and repent, asking God to forgive us and enable us to trust Him alone.

Superstition can often worm its ways into our lives in other forms, however. Anything which keeps our attention on foolish things rather than on Christ needs to go. He deserves our whole-hearted commitment and undivided devotion.

Ps 103:6 says, ‘The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.‘ The concept of righteousness and justice – whether in a local situation, a national or international situation – is well established these days, but it is worth reflecting that Israel’s God gave rules and laws to protect the weak, needy and oppressed in ways that were completely counter-cultural to the nations around them. In David’s day, as in some countries today, might was right and the king often had absolute authority over the people. As far as God was concerned, however, the king was subject to His authority (see 1 Sam 12:13-14) and God’s rule was absolute. Far from leading to oppression, however, God’s laws showed His mercy, compassion and care for those in need.

In England, the Magna Carta in 1215 established the rule of law and we now take this for granted. Nonetheless, we need to understand God’s heart for the oppressed and recognise that good laws are based on God’s laws. God made known His ways to Moses and His deeds to the people of Israel, and from this, we see not only what God does, but how He works. His blessings and favour are available to us, but our response to God’s mercy, compassion, forgiveness, redemption and love means we fear Him and seek to obey Him. If He is so interested in the downtrodden, our focus needs to be in the same place as His.

Garry continued looking at psalms of thanksgiving tonight, focussing on Psalm 103. Like so many psalms, this begins and ends with an exhortation to praise the Lord. This time, however, it begins with self-encouragement: ‘praise the Lord, O my soul’. Sometimes we have to exhort ourselves to praise God (see 1 Sam 30, where David, when faced with loss and an army of followers who now wanted to stone him, found strength in God as he encouraged himself in the Lord.)

Psalms give us reasons to praise God, reasons which focus on the nature and actions of God. This gives us stability, for even when our personal circumstances may be tragic and difficult, God’s unchanging nature gives us reasons for praise. All of us have a tendency to be short-sighted when it comes to troubles: the troubles loom larger in our vision than God! We have to make a conscious effort and choice to focus on God who is forgiving (Ps 103:3, 11-12), compassionate (Ps 103:4, 13-14), healing (Ps 103:3), slow to anger and rich in love (Ps 103:8, 17). The past illuminates an insecure, uncertain future for us, because God does not change.

God’s love and compassion literally encircle our lives and we are ‘stuffed full’ by a God of abundance who satisfies our desires with good things. Just as an eagle’s feathers are continually renewed to enable the eagle to fly well, so too God renews and refreshes us. His laws are good and we can have hope in justice and righteousness becuase of His just and righteous nature. As we dwell on these many things, David encourages us all to praise God – angels, heavenly hosts, all God’s works, as well as his own soul.