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September 10: Nehemiah 8:2-3
Key Verse: Nehemiah 8:3
He read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of the men, women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.
Devotion:
Nehemiah was urged to find out who was there in Jerusalem after the walls and gates had been completed. The city was on lock-down during night hours and gates were only to be opened after the sun had warmed up the day. Unlike the UK, this would probably have been quite early in the morning due to the hotter days there.
Some of the people who claimed to be descendants of the priests were excluded because their names had not been recorded in the family trees. This may sound harsh, but this was in accordance with the laws for the Jews at that time. Why was this done? Because Nehemiah was about to ask for the law to be read out and he did not want small things like this to get in the way of people listening to the law.
When we read God’s word, we should prepare ourselves to do just that. There is nothing worse than having something on your mind which will distract you even before you get to grips with what God would want you to hear. We should try to put aside the distractions of the world before we commune with God otherwise we will be fighting our minds trying to listen to two or more things at the same time.
God wants us to have a personal relationship with Him. This means putting aside things which will take us away from that relationship. The reward for making our relationships personal is a much better and deeper relationship with God. Set time aside to calm yourself and your life down a bit before you next read God’s Word – you will find you get much more out of it!
Points to Ponder:
How do you treat your personal relationships?
Will you aim to have a deeper relationship with God?
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September 9: Nehemiah 6:11-16
Key Verse: Nehemiah 6:16
When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realised that this work had been done with the help of our God.
Devotion:
The more we focus on God and His will in our lives, the less we focus on the world around us and the evil one who is waiting to trip us up all the time. The net result from this is we see how God continues to look after us – but when we focus on the world we see how the world diverts us away from God. If we focus on the negative, that is what we see, but when we focus on the positive, we do see more positive things!
Nehemiah was wary of the Prophet Noadiah because her words did not quite marry up with the words He had got from God; there was a difference in the way in which God was asking them to work. The prophet was saying God would be with them if they shut themselves off in the temple – which sounded ok on the surface but was not what God said in the beginning. God had told Nehemiah He would be with the people no matter where they were!
We do need to remember this because God has promised us all He will be with us no matter where we are and what we have done in our lives. We do not have to meet up in church buildings for God to be with us. We do not have to make sure we meet up on the Sabbath so God can meet us then. We can call on God wherever and whenever we are!
God listens to our prayers all the time and is answering prayers all the time. We should not limit God to a day or a place where we can see the result whilst being surrounded by lots of other Christians of like mind! The more we go through the Old Testament, the more we should realise God was with people all over the world and continued to look after people no matter what. But when people walked off in the wrong direction, they lost sight of where God was and how He could help them; they were too consumed with worrying about what the world was doing!
Points to Ponder:
Do you get worried about not being in church?
Will you call out to God from where you are right now?
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September 8: Nehemiah 6:5-9
Key Verse: Nehemiah 6:8
I sent him this reply: ‘Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.’
Devotion:
The more you can recognise the opposition you will get when doing God’s work, the more you will be able to identify empty threats. I know I have faced many a threat in my lifetime and some of them are extremely upsetting at the time, but so many of them are in fact empty threats made by people who are becoming desperate in one way or another.
Our laws in the Western world are designed to protect us from threats, but many choose to use the words and bend them to their advantage and make you more worried about the threat they are imposing on you. It is these types of threats which are more likely to derail us in our work for God because they seem official at the time.
The more we focus on God, the more we may be able to stand up against these people because He will, through the Holy Spirit, allow us to discern the true from false threats we face. The key point is taking any threat directly to God first and not panicking about it... easier said than done I know! But believe me when I say it does work.
Far too often we are surprised when our prayers are answered by God especially when we find ourselves in awkward positions from which there seems no way out. We need to have more faith and realise the more we do put our faith in God the more we realise our faith is upheld by a faithful God. The more we realise this, the greater our faith becomes... but also be aware, the less you rely on God the more likely your faith is going to wane – but it really is all in our heads!
Points to Ponder:
Do you take everything to God?
How much do you really rely on God?
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September 7: Nehemiah 6:1-4
Key Verse: Nehemiah 6:4
Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.
Devotion:
The more you work for God, the more you can expect to have opposition along the way. The closer you get to your goals in God’s work, the harder the evil one pushes against your work to make you stumble. The evil one knows he has lost the war, but that is not going to stop him from trying to win every little battle along the way – just in case!
I continue to thank God each time I come up against opposition because I know I am on the right path... Don’t get me wrong, getting opposition from God’s people is not what I am referring to here, but the people who don’t want to lose their own power.
I hope I will always be wise enough to defer decisions and power to God alone and not to try and work things out for my own glory. This is not a fight we fight to gain glory for ourselves, but a battle we have to which gives all the glory to God our Father. Like Nehemiah I wish more people in positions of power would bow to the wisdom of God instead of building up their own positions.
Sanballat and Geshem continued to try and get Nehemiah to back off, to stop the constant working for God’s glory just so they could gain a bit more glory and a few more followers. We need to constantly work towards the goals which will give glory to our King, Jesus Christ, and always work against the opposition which is going to rise up time and time again.
The opposition may well be invitations to parties or celebrations which, on the surface, look like they are nothing more than good fun. If they do not come from God and are not in support of your work for God, then you should avoid them! Always keep your eyes on God and His work!
Points to Ponder:
Do you keep working with God?
Where are your eyes focused?
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September 6: Nehemiah 5:14-16
Key Verse: Nehemiah 5:14
Moreover, from the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, until his thirty-second year – twelve years – neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor.
Devotion:
One thing I learned at an early age was any work we volunteer to do for God must not have a time limit or span imposed by us. God wants people to step forward and help where we can without worrying about how long we must do the work or when it's going to stop. God will continue to guide you in any position He has given you and will allow you to know when it is time to move on or even stop...
Nehemiah did not complain about how long things took, nor how long it would take them to finish the wall. Even though it took a remarkably fleeting time to fix the wall, the work was only just beginning... This brief paragraph talks about twelve years of work, not as a dull time but a time when they did not take advantage of the weak or poor, even when the law was on their side!
Sometimes the so-called laws of man are bent beyond belief and they become hardships instead of laws which should be protecting those who need protection. The leaders and rich people did not need the taxes of the poor to remain in power or to live on, not really. They had enough but were just being greedy to uphold a broken law. Nehemiah got them to promise to put things right and to give the poor the relief they needed to survive.
Points to Ponder:
What do you do for the poor in your community?
Have you donated to a foodbank lately?
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September 5: Nehemiah 5:1-8
Key Verse: Nehemiah 5:3
Others were saying, ‘We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.’
Devotion:
Have you ever noticed when things start getting back to normal, you find more things to complain about? I’m not judging here to say the complaints were or were not justified, because they were legitimate complaints! But as things change in our lives, so does the focus of the things we seem to care most about. When things are bad we accept a lot of what comes into our lives as unavoidable to acceptable, but as things do improve, the acceptability line moves too!
Nehemiah could see what was happening and it was a class or social standing thing. The people who had thing were protecting what they had and even exploiting the people who did not have; because they were not able to do much about it! Jesus wants us to step back from our self-imposed social standings and step forward to help the people who are closest to us... not closest as in friends or relatives, but our neighbours!
The more we step away from social positions and standings the more we are able to see the real need of the people around us instead of our greed taking over and imposing greater restrictions on those same people. We do need to think more about our neighbours and more about how we can make our communities better places to live, not just for us but for everyone!
Nehemiah did not mince his words and he aimed what he said directly at the people who were responsible for the suffering of their neighbours. Unfortunately, social standing breeds social positions and the more people look at their social positions, the more they work against others who are not in the same social positions. It is a sad fact of life, but one which desperately needs to change!
Points to Ponder:
Do you stick to your social clicks?
Will you step back and reach out to someone from a different social position to you?
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September 4: Nehemiah 4:21-23
Key Verse: Nehemiah 4:23
Neither I nor my brothers nor my men nor the guards with me took off our clothes; each had his weapon, even when he went for water.
Devotion:
How ready are you to fight for something you believe in. We see and hear about many people on the media who are standing up and fighting for things they believe in. People all around the world are rebelling against authorities who have not done what they said they would do or have not stood up for justice. People demand justice, especially when so much of the world is in turmoil – we may think governments are too busy fighting one thing to focus on what the public are demanding... but whom do they stand up for? Is it not the public?
I’m not suggesting we all start a rebellion or anything like that yet, but what I would like to focus on is the strength we gain from standing up together and doing what we believe is right or righteous. God has always wanted us to stand up for righteousness and indeed to stand up for those who struggle to stand up for themselves.
In these verses we see and insight into how the people of Jerusalem were strengthened and spurned on to finish the rebuilding of the wall because they were all working together. They knew an enemy was waiting at the gate (metaphorically and possibly physically speaking) and they knew they had to stand up to the enemy. They had already lived through oppression and nobody felt like they could stand up against these people any more than anyone else – but together they could!
When we want to do something for and with God, we need to look around and find the people who are willing to stand up with us and fight for justice, fight for God and know He is going to back us up when we listen to His instruction. Nehemiah acted on God’s instructions and not his own wants and desires – his heart was driven by God!
Points to Ponder:
DO you walk away from confrontation just to keep the peace?
Are you willing to stand up and do what God asks?
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September 3: Nehemiah 4:10-18
Key Verse: Nehemiah 4:15
When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to our work.
Devotion:
One of the biggest things I have learned over the years is that a team is so much better than trying to do stuff alone; no matter what you are doing in life! It was drummed into us when playing sports at school, and indeed is how we managed to win many of our games – by working as an integrated team we were able to overcome shortcomings in other players as they tried to highlight their own skills rather than working as a team themselves.
This is what God was teaching Nehemiah as they worked to complete the rebuilding of the walls, not just as a team of people but as a team of the people with God too! Remembering God is on your team and you need to work together is paramount in every walk in life! When others see we are working as a team, they may well back off because they know they are losing the battle, either that or they get so worked up they are not winning they make mistakes and fluster themselves.
I love working with God because it gives me a lot of confidence things are going to work out for the better. I love working as a team because sharing the tasks does make it a lot easier and quicker to reach the goal set before us.
But what we must not do is lose focus on the fact we are with God and He should be the captain – not you! Nehemiah had no illusion God was in control, but sometimes it is the sight of a team of people at work which will encourage other people. We do like to see someone else leading or succeeding before we come forward to do the same. Sometimes we must be the pioneers so other missionaries can follow and be encouraged to carry on the work!
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel like you are out on a limb?
Do you know God is by your side?
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September 2: Nehemiah 4:6-9
Key Verse: Nehemiah 4:9
But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.
Devotion:
One thing you can always count on is you will face opposition when you do something good with or for God! Well, you probably will get opposition when you do anything good... But look at the bigger picture and see how many more people are supporting you, often silently, because you are doing something good. It is the few who have the loudest voices which you hear above everybody else though!
God will continue to enable you and support you when you are doing something for Him, but people around you may well take offense because they are no longer the popular ones or are no longer the ones who appear to be in charge. When you step forward and God enables you, you are taking on a position of authority which will get you noticed.
When Jesus came to teach us, it was not with words of encouragement to say you would not face opposition but with words of warning saying you would face opposition. This, as you can pick up from the bible, has been a problem we have faced right from the beginning of time – the more we work with and for God, the more the haters take notice and the more they are encouraged to make a noise about it!
I love the way Nehemiah acted. First, he prayed to God! This must always be our first reaction when we face opposition. Then, he listened to God. This may not be written down, but from past performance, this is what Nehemiah would do. He listened to God and then acted accordingly. So, lastly, he posted guards at places around the wall, not to protect against an army, but to dissuade the haters from starting in the first place. If we listen early, God will guide us quickly!
Points to Ponder:
Would you fight a fire by yourself?
Will you listen to the guidance of One who knows?
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September 1: Nehemiah 4:1-5
Key Verse: Nehemiah 4:4
Hear us, our God, for we are despised. Turn their insults back on their own heads. Give them over as plunder in a land of captivity.
Devotion:
What happens when you get mocked or ridiculed? How do you feel? Who do you turn to? All normal questions and the response of Nehemiah is normal too - “God, don’t let them get away with this!”
It’s OK to get angry when people berate you. It’s OK to want something done about those people – but how we go about it must be in line with what God wants in our lives and in their lives! We can’t really ask God to send fire and brimstone down on them if there is a chance they can get to know God. We can’t ask God to get rid of them just because they are making our lives difficult. But we can let God know our feelings! We can tell God we feel like they should pay for what they are doing to us...
Our relationship with God must be honest and up front. If we are trying to continually hide things from God, we are going to get caught up in those feelings more than we can deal with and our hearts will turn against them in a way which God would not approve of.
We can look at what was happening and consider Nehemiah quite within his rights to want those men to be punished for what they were doing; but consider this: They were speaking up against what God had asked Nehemiah to do and so their judgment must be dealt with by God and not by Nehemiah. So, whilst it was OK for him to get angry, he should defer his anger to God and allow God to deal with it in due course.
When God asks you to do something, we should obey Him no matter what is happening and try to make sure we keep level-headed during our work – even when the mockers and haters come out of the wood and cause us concern. But make sure you are honest with your feelings with God!
Points to Ponder:
Do you just put up with stuff because it’s the Christian thing to do?
Will you allow God to know your true feelings?