21 Days with Nehemiah

"They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, 'Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.' But I prayed, 'Now strengthen my hands.'” Nehemiah 6:9 Apart from setting all the doors in the gates, the wall is repaired and the all the gaps are filled! Upon hearing this, Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem and the enemies of the Jewish people continue to try and intimidate and destroy Nehemiah. The next tactic of the enemy is to pull him away from the work, isolate him and kill him (see John 10:10). Messages are sent to Nehemiah trying to persuade him to go down from Jerusalem into the valley of Ono. With false rumours and lies about Nehemiah’s motives, Sanballat seeks to get Nehemiah to leave his place of security by reacting to the lies and leaving his work. Nehemiah recognises what is going on and prays that the Lord would strengthen his hands to continue the work. Once again, the Lord is exposing the tactics of the enemy in our li...

“When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews, and in the presence of his associates and the army of Samaria, he said, ‘What are those feeble Jews doing? Will they restore their wall? Will they offer sacrifices? Will they finish in a day? Can they bring the stones back to life from those heaps of rubble—burned as they are?’ Tobiah the Ammonite, who was at his side, said, ‘What they are building—even a fox climbing up on it would break down their wall of stones!’” Nehemiah 4:1-3   We have seen on day 7 and 10 what the enemy tries to do, to stop God’s work. Having heard that the Jews were rebuilding the wall and were well underway, Sanballat now mocks the Jews and their work publicly. He rallies others to join him in his attempt to intimidate the people and ridicule what they are trying to do. If the enemy cannot stop you in private, he will try to do so in public. He will gather others around him to inti...

“But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. ‘What is this you are doing?’ they asked. ‘Are you rebelling against the king?’ I answered them by saying, ‘The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.’” Nehemiah 2:19,20 When we pursue our God-given vision, the enemy will seek to dissuade us by sowing doubt, intimidating us, and questioning our motives. In effect the enemy seeks to draw our attention to ourselves so that as we focus on ourselves and our own limitations, we lose focus of the One with whom all things are possible. After listening to the enemy and disobeying God in the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve became self-conscious and hid from God (see Genesis 3). The enemy knows that self-consciousness draws us away from God and into ourselves. His tactic is to distract us,...