And so Jesus saw that. He saw that man withered up. He saw that church in a state where it should be reaching, extending beyond itself; and He spoke and He pulled the guy out, got him right out there in front of everyone, so no one can ignore what He's about to do. He tells him two commands. The first command is this, first command's really simple: stand up, rise up. Stand up in front of everyone, and come out. Now that's not easy to do when you're handicapped. When you've got something there that you're embarrassed and ashamed of, you've got to make a decision that you'll move out of your comfort zone, and you're not going to stay with the crowd, and you're not going to stay hidden in the crowd. You're going to stand up, you're going to stand up, you're going to stand up and have your life count. You've got to make that kind of decision of standing up on the inside, and to stand up on the inside means prayer. Put it really clear, prayer. If we're not praying, we're not standing on the inside!
Prayer, faith, felt passionate prayer can only come out of someone standing up on the inside; and you've got to make decisions to do that, otherwise you'll wake up tomorrow, and the pressure and the heaviness and whatever of life, it'll just squish you down; and you say a little nod to God, and your spiritual life begins to wither. You haven't got enough inside you to stand up. God wants us to stand up, be full of life and full of joy - but we've got to do something, so Jesus is calling us, stand up, we've got a prayer meeting this week - RISE UP! You're not praying? Don't stay away from the prayer meeting, come, get stirred up, and then make a decision: I'll decide to build my prayer life, little by little, until I've got something inside me, and I'm standing up.
I remember talking to Jo there some time ago, and Jo was going through a spot of bother in her life, and it withered her up a little bit, and she kind of vanished inside the box. It happens you know. When you get withered in your spirit, you sort of disappear inside, and no one knows where you are; but she made a decision and a commitment to get up and start to pray; and boy, what a great worship leader she's becoming now. This is the thing. This is the life God's given - we've got this great opportunity in a spiritual environment like this to pray, build our life with God. Deal with whatever's withered you. Get to a course that helps you deal with whatever's withered you, face it, name it. This is what Jesus said to do. I love this, and I'll finish with this right now.
Jesus said to the man: stand up; and so it first takes a decision to stand, to arise inside, to begin to start to connect with God, pray, let your life begin to flow again in obedience to Him. The second thing you do, you ask Him to do something you can't do, unless you get a miracle. Now I want you to see this really clearly. He could not physically stretch his hand. It took the power of God to do it, but you know the power of God is always released when you stretch. You never see the power of God in your comfort zone. You never see the power of God in the life you've been used to living, you only see it when you go out and start to take some risks, and start to move beyond your comfort area. That's when you start to see it. You know it's interesting: it's as he stretched, the miracle happened. Most believers don't want to stretch; and often what happens, you put them in a stretch situation - oh man, that's a bit uncomfortable, I'll go back to where I feel safe again.