DAY 24: GOD CHOSE NEHEMIAH

 THE RHEMA WORD FOR TODAY

(A DAILY DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM)

 

TOPIC: GOD CHOSE NEHEMIAH

DATE: 24 SEPTEMBER, 2020

BIBLE READING: NEHEMIAH 1

MEDITATION/MEMORY VERSE: NEHEMIAH 1:6 (CEV)

I am your servant, so please have mercy on me and answer the prayer that I make day and night for these people of Israel who serve you. I, my family, and the rest of your people have sinned.

 

The kingdom of Israel was torn apart when King Solomon polluted the land with strange gods and sacrifices (1 Kings 11:10-12). Instead of a positive change, there was a great decline and decadence that even the Temple of the Lord was desecrated, so God had to cause the land to lie desolate for seventy years (2 Chron. 36:14-21).

After the land had enjoyed its 70 years of Sabbath rest, God stirred the heart of King Cyrus to cause the release of the exiles and the rebuild of the Temple at Jerusalem (Ez. 1:1-5). About 50,000 returned under Zerubbabel (Ez. 2:64-65; cf. Hag. 2:2). In the seventh year of the reign of Artaxerxes, Ezra assembled the band of exiles, probably about 5,000 in all, who were prepared to go up with him to Jerusalem (Ez. 8). About 13 years later, about 42,000 returned under Nehemiah (Neh. 7:66). So approximately 97,000 Israelites returned from captivity. These returnees are called remnants (Neh. 1:3), which can mean ‘the faithful’.

It was during the batch of Ezra, that the Temple was rebuilt, but the walls that Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed were still in ruins, leaving the city defenceless against enemy attacks. Although an attempt in rebuilding the walls had been made a few years before the batch of Nehemiah. But when some Samarians and other pagan residents of the land had complained, Artaxerxes issued a decrees to stop the project, which these enemies had done with force of arms (Ez. 4:11-23).

When Nehemiah was told about the broken wall, he wept. For sure, he must have known about the destruction of the walls and gate that happened many years ago. And probably he believed that as the Temple of the Lord was been rebuilt, then the city walls and gates should be rebuilt. And a city that does not have a city wall and gate is bound to face serious attacks from her enemy. So Nehemiah wept because of the insecurity of his people. And so in our verse for meditation, Nehemiah prayed, ‘I am your servant.’ Meaning he had the faith that God could use him to do this work.

Out of the over half of the remnants that returned under Zerubabbel and Ezra, no one probably believed that God could use him to do this work. But Nehemiah, who was not a king, a priest or a prophet, but an ordinary citizen who was just a cupbearer to king Artaxerxes trusted God for the national work. The man whom God uses is a man who is willing to serve the purposes of God, and he is also a man who has a burden for God’s people.

Now when Nehemiah saw this great need, and even when he believed that God could use him for this national work, he waited for God’s leading and instruction in prayers and fasting. He exemplified Isaiah 40:21; ‘But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength…’ He saw that he needed the strength from above because he probably he must have learnt of the attempt of rebuild the city wall and the circumstances around the story. He saw that he needed the strength from above to do the Lord’s work; and so he waited for that strength. And we see Ezra who witnessed how the strength from above sustained Nehemiah to rebuild the city walls and gates, saying to the remnants of Israel, ‘the joy of the Lord is your strength.’ (Neh. 8:10).

The kind of burden he felt, was the kind Jesus felt in Matthew 9:36-38, and in our Bible reading we see how he discovered that the root problem to why the city was still not safe was sin, and so he prayed. The kind of prayer he made was an intercessory prayer mentioning himself as those who had sinned against God and who had broken the commandments and decrees of God.

Do you believe that out of the multitudes, God can still use you to bring global transformation? Nehemiah was not a politician, neither was he a prophet, but an ordinary citizen who had faith that God could use him for an extraordinary work. Can God find this kind of faith in you; an ordinary citizen? Can God find the burden Nehemiah had for god’s people and a heart to intercede in you? Be that yielded vessel God can use today!

 

DECLARATION: OUT OF THE MULTITUDES, I TRUST GOD THAT HE WILL USE ME FOR GLOBAL TRANSFORMATION, BECAUSE I AM CHOSEN!

 

FURTHER STUDY: NEHEMIAH 13