Nehemiah 6
Okay so I love this one passage from Nehemiah, who was a pretty cool guy that gave up his cush cupbearer job to help God’s people rebuild the wall after they were in captivity. Uh, which they haven’t done yet chronologically but we’ll come back to that. The prophets kept warning them about that if they did not turn to God but they didn’t listen. Anyway so Nehemiah is helping to rebuild the wall around the city, and the enemies of God’s people are all “We thought y’all were broken down and defeated, don’t be building that wall back.” So this one guy in particular starts trying to sabotage Nehemiah by sending all these threatening messages and “thought to do me mischief,” Nehemiah says. But the cool part is, how Nehemiah responds: he says, “And I sent messengers unto them saying, ‘I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?’” Nehemiah 6:3
So a Sunday School teacher that I love, Mary Jane, pointed out that what God is instructing us here through this passage is, and this is written in the margin of my Bible by this passage, we can refuse to engage when someone accuses us wrongly. Nehemiah stayed focused on his work for the Lord and did not stop working to ying and yang with this bully who came back with more threats and even saying he’s going to report Nehemiah to the king, who gave Nehemiah permission to leave his job as his cupbearer to come and do this work for Jerusalem. Again Nehemiah says:
“Then I sent unto him, saying, there are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart. For they all made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done. Now therefore O God, strengthen my hands.” Nehemiah 6:8-9 So he basically tells this guy, not even in person but writes him back and says in another translation, “you have created these things in your own mind.” You made all this up homey! You’re just trying to scare us, and you did, but God’s going to keep us strong so just back off.
I thought that was pretty cool. I mean there are times to engage but, this is one time that God showed us one way to handle threats and distractions that are unfounded.
Nehemiah 8
The last verses I have highlighted from Nehemiah are when my man Ezra had dusted off the book of the law of God and read it to all the people, after they had ignored it for so long, “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” And Nehemiah and Ezra said to the people, “This day is holy unto the Lord your God, mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.”
Cause they realized how far they had strayed from God’s teaching and were like: Dude we were supposed to be honoring God all this time and we weren’t. “Then he said unto them…This day is holy unto our Lord, neither be ye sorry; (some translations say ‘grieved’) for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:8-10
Okay so I love this one passage from Nehemiah, who was a pretty cool guy that gave up his cush cupbearer job to help God’s people rebuild the wall after they were in captivity. Uh, which they haven’t done yet chronologically but we’ll come back to that. The prophets kept warning them about that if they did not turn to God but they didn’t listen. Anyway so Nehemiah is helping to rebuild the wall around the city, and the enemies of God’s people are all “We thought y’all were broken down and defeated, don’t be building that wall back.” So this one guy in particular starts trying to sabotage Nehemiah by sending all these threatening messages and “thought to do me mischief,” Nehemiah says. But the cool part is, how Nehemiah responds: he says, “And I sent messengers unto them saying, ‘I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down: why should the work cease, whilst I leave it, and come down to you?’” Nehemiah 6:3
So a Sunday School teacher that I love, Mary Jane, pointed out that what God is instructing us here through this passage is, and this is written in the margin of my Bible by this passage, we can refuse to engage when someone accuses us wrongly. Nehemiah stayed focused on his work for the Lord and did not stop working to ying and yang with this bully who came back with more threats and even saying he’s going to report Nehemiah to the king, who gave Nehemiah permission to leave his job as his cupbearer to come and do this work for Jerusalem. Again Nehemiah says:
“Then I sent unto him, saying, there are no such things done as thou sayest, but thou feignest them out of thine own heart. For they all made us afraid, saying, Their hands shall be weakened from the work, that it be not done. Now therefore O God, strengthen my hands.” Nehemiah 6:8-9 So he basically tells this guy, not even in person but writes him back and says in another translation, “you have created these things in your own mind.” You made all this up homey! You’re just trying to scare us, and you did, but God’s going to keep us strong so just back off.
I thought that was pretty cool. I mean there are times to engage but, this is one time that God showed us one way to handle threats and distractions that are unfounded.
Nehemiah 8
The last verses I have highlighted from Nehemiah are when my man Ezra had dusted off the book of the law of God and read it to all the people, after they had ignored it for so long, “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.” And Nehemiah and Ezra said to the people, “This day is holy unto the Lord your God, mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.”
Cause they realized how far they had strayed from God’s teaching and were like: Dude we were supposed to be honoring God all this time and we weren’t. “Then he said unto them…This day is holy unto our Lord, neither be ye sorry; (some translations say ‘grieved’) for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:8-10
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