Palm or Fist?

and there is no deliverer from My hand Deuteronomy 32:39

Deliverer – I’m not trying to scare you, but you should be scared.  The question about God’s hand is really simple.  Is His hand an open palm or a closed fist?  Does God welcome your attitudes, behaviors and thoughts with open arms, embracing you as a son or daughter of the King?  Or do you feel a different kind of hand – and a terror about what is to come?

Palm or fist.  Nothing about your life is more important than this.  Why?  Actually, it has nothing to do with heaven.  Concern about a palm or a fist begins here, where we are right now.  Heaven can wait.  If you don’t get the right hand sign here, it will be too late to look for it from six feet under.

Of course, once you know the open palm experience of God’s grace, then this verse is powerful affirmation.  If you are held in His grip, no one can tear you away.  That’s what Paul had in mind in that wonderful passage in Romans – neither height nor depth, neither death nor life, neither things present nor things to come (Romans 8:38).  There is no deliverer from the hand of God.  If He holds me, that news is a great and wonderful thing.  If He doesn’t hold me, then I better do something right now.

The Hebrew is matsil, from the root nasal.  Its primary meaning involves the power of one entity to overcome another.  It is often associated with important Hebrew words that mean redeem, release, set free, ransom and rescue.  Certainly Jesus has these words in mind when He said that He came to set us free.  Freedom never meant cutting us loose.  Freedom is being gripped by the God of deliverance.  When I am safely in His hand, then I know what real freedom is.  It is the assurance that nothing can pull me away from Him.  Freedom is being His captive.

This word is like a lot of life’s experiences.  With the right alignment, it is exhilarating and liberating.  With the wrong alignment, it is terrifying.  Paul summarizes this conundrum with the words, “all things work together.”  The only way all things can work together positively is if you know the inside of God’s hand.