Wednesday, February 3, 2016
VIDEO
These are the memoirs of Nehemiah son of Hacaliah. In late autumn, in the month of Kislev, in
the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes’ reign, I was at the fortress of
Susa. Hanani,
one of my brothers, came to visit me with some other men who had just arrived
from Judah. I asked them about the Jews
who had returned there from captivity and about how things were going in
Jerusalem. They said to me, “Things are
not going well for those who returned to the province of Judah. They are in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem has been torn down, and
the gates have been destroyed by fire.” When
I heard this, I sat down and wept. In
fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven. Then I said, “O Lord,
God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of unfailing
love with those who love him and obey his commands, listen to my prayer! Look down and see me praying night and day for
your people Israel. I confess that we
have sinned against you. Yes, even my
own family and I have sinned! We
have sinned terribly by not obeying the commands, decrees, and regulations that
you gave us through your servant Moses. “Please
remember what you told your servant Moses: ‘If you are unfaithful to me, I will scatter
you among the nations. But
if you return to me and obey my commands and live by them, then even if you are
exiled to the ends of the earth, I will bring you back to the place I have
chosen for my name to be honored.’ “The
people you rescued by your great power and strong hand are your servants. O Lord, please hear my
prayer! Listen to the prayers of those
of us who delight in honoring you. Please
grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into
his heart to be kind to me.” In those
days I was the king’s cup-bearer. Nehemiah
1:1-11(NLT)
In some ways I can identify with Nehemiah hearing the sad news
of what was left of Jerusalem. He had
been born in captivity, and perhaps never even laid eyes on the holy city. Yet, as a Jew, the news of his homeland’s ruin
was almost too much to bear.
I have been privileged to serve nine churches as pastor since
1982; in each the news was somewhat similar to what Nehemiah received, in that
they were churches which had fallen on difficult times. The stories are similar and as heartbreaking.
In the case of Nehemiah, the immediate response was prayer –
a prayer of contrite confession for the sins of Israel. Nehemiah was driven to God by the desolation
of a destroyed heritage.
And, in today’s church, so should we pray…forgive us our
sins.
Some members from one of the churches I serve gathered this
past Sunday evening with a dozen or so other churches to pray. Where did we start? We began at the same place Nehemiah did…confession
of our sins. The pastors were called to
the front and prayed with each other for forgiveness of our own sins and
restoration of relationships. The rest
of the night those 400-500 people lifted up similar prayers that we might
experience the days God’s prophet Joel forecasted – the Spirit of God being
poured-out.
What were the results?
Can we wrap this up with a success story of thousands of lives being
touched, people saved, lives restored, God receiving the glory?
We’ll see.
We’ll see what prayer was as genuine as Nehemiah’s, as
opposed to merely human emotional response of the moment, absent of commitment
to changing the priorities of daily life.
Nehemiah’s last comment of his prayer meeting was that he was
the king’s cupbearer. Now that’s a
strange way to end a prayer, isn’t it? In
the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, those days I was an accountant, lawyer,
surveyor, cashier, college student, retired miner…. But what Nehemiah was doing was connecting
his prayer with the way he spent his days; it was lip joining life! What he had prayed was about to enter into
everything about his past, present and eternity.
Nehemiah saw God respond, and so will we, when we pray from hearts
driven to God.
For You Today
Are you
happy about the state of your church? If
not, the confession booth is still open.
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