21 Days with Nehemiah

“But out of reverence for God I did not act like that.” Nehemiah 5:15 In Nehemiah chapter 5 there is an outcry among the Jewish people concerning the injustice they had been experiencing among their fellow Jews and from the nobles and officials. People were being exploited and even children had to be sold as slaves to survive. The whole situation upset Nehemiah upon which he spoke to the leaders and said, “ Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?” (5:9) Nehemiah addresses the real issue. Those who are mistreating their fellow men are not walking in the fear of the Lord. Nehemiah was different. He lived his life in reverence for God. In Isaiah 11:2 and 3 we read that the Spirit of the fear of the Lord will rest on Jesus (the stump of Jesse) and that he will delight in the fear of the Lord! To delight in the fear of the Lord is to find joy in God’s abiding presence and to live to give Him pleasure (see Rom 12:1; 2 Cor. 5:9,11)....

“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,...

“So I went to Jerusalem and was there three days. Then I arose in the night, I and a few men with me. And I told no one what my God had put into my heart to do for Jerusalem. There was no animal with me but the one on which I rode. I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire. Then I went on to the Fountain Gate and to the King’s Pool, but there was no room for the animal that was under me to pass. Then I went up in the night by the valley and inspected the wall, and I turned back and entered by the Valley Gate, and so returned. And the officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, and I had not yet told the Jews, the priests, the nobles, the officials, and the rest who were to do the work.” Nehemiah 2:11-16 Nehemiah told no one what his God had put on his heart to do for Jerusalem. He obeyed God in secret before makin...