Year 2, Day 54: Nehemiah 7

Not Even a Genealogy!

Nehemiah 7 is largely a long list of names.  If you found yourself fighting the urge to skip over the list of names because you know internally you weren’t going to be able to keep track of them all anyway, that’s okay.  I confess that I did that as well.  Genealogies are one thing, lists of dozens of seemingly unconnected names are meant to be skimmed in my book!

However, that doesn’t mean that we can simply close our Bibles and declare a vacation day.  So let’s do some theology.  After all, you came to this site looking for some spiritual thought – probably more so today than other days because of the reading we have here in Nehemiah 7.  So hopefully we will not be disappointed in our quest today – even with a chapter of names.

Dawn to Dusk

There are several verses before we get to the names, and in these verses there is a neat thought.  Nehemiah was clear about something: don’t open the gates until the guard can see clearly, and make sure that the gates are shut while the guard is still present and they can still see clearly.  In other words, don’t open the gates when people could be hiding just outside in the shadows and don’t wait to close the gates when enemies could get close to the walls by sneaking in from the shadows.  With respect to the city, Nehemiah is saying that the town is open for business once dawn is over and the town will close for business before dusk even draws near.

This is great spiritual advice, although I don’t think we should take away from this chapter the lesson that we should only do spiritual work when the sun is up.  Yet, for beginner Christian or Christians that are in a place of spiritual weakness I do think there is some warrant to heeding this advice.  In human culture, sin abounds much more prevalently when the sun goes down.  If a beginner Christian wants to avoid contact with temptation until they are more confident in their ability to resist it, being safe and secure in our homes before the sun goes down is a great first step.  Even doing things inside our home like turning the TV/radio off before the sun goes down will prevent us from watching a bunch of programming that might lead us into sinful thoughts.  {Ever notice that fact before?  When the sun goes down, the TV programming becomes quite a bit more … “influential.”}

However, I do think that as we mature in our faith and learn to resist the schemes of the Devil that we can actually do good ministry day or night.  So I think there is a deeper lesson in the opening verses of Nehemiah 7 than simply watching the sun.  What I hear Nehemiah saying on a spiritual level is to be careful to allow access to our innermost spiritual parts only when it is safe and the enemy cannot sneak in.  We need to be careful when picking spiritual mentors.  We need to be careful when listening to spiritual teachers we might find on TV or radio.  {In other words, just because someone is speaking on Christian TV or Christian radio does not mean we should assume that they are speaking from God.}  We should be careful when choosing a church as to whether or not the spiritual leadership is actually spiritual.  {In other words, just because people call someone “pastor,” “elder,” or “deacon” doesn’t mean they speak from God’s perspective.}  When reading books – Christian or non-Christian – we should be careful to be discerning and read them when we are in places of spiritual security.

Quite figuratively I think we can paraphrase Nehemiah’s advice by saying this: “Let not the gates of your spiritual being be opened unless God is near to you.  And make sure you close access to your spiritual being while God is still near to you and on guard.”  It is not good to try and “experiment” with new theology when we are spiritually weak.  It is not a good time to try and find a new church when we are spiritually weak.  It is not a good time to try and change our life when we are spiritually weak.  When we do things during a time when we are vulnerable we are likely to allow Satan into the process and we are likely to go down a path that may seem healthy at the beginning but it really ends up leading us away from God.  Rather, if you are spiritually weak, draw close to God in His Word and in prayer.  Build yourself up with your proven spiritual companions.  When you are spiritually strong, then it is the right time to open the gates to your spiritual being and try something new.

The Names

Okay, I’m almost out of space and I would actually like to say something meaningful about the list of names.  Want to know what is really cool about this chapter?  So far the book of Nehemiah was all about rebuilding the walls.  But this chapter demonstrates that the city of Jerusalem is nothing without people.  God doesn’t want great edifices; God wants people in relationship with Him.  It is great that Nehemiah could prepare the city and do the work.  But as we see in this chapter the work is complete when the city is filled with people coming in relationship with God.

Is not the same thing true about our churches and religious communities?  Programs are good, but people in relationship with their God are what creates importance.  Church buildings can be beautiful, but the people inside who are in relationship with their Lord are more beautiful still.  This chapter may seem like a list of names, but this list of names reminds us that our work is to ultimately be about putting people in relationship with God.  That is where true beauty exists.

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Year 2, Day 53: Nehemiah 6

Further Attack

Nehemiah 6 gives us yet a third means for an attack to come against the work of God.  We saw first the common tactic of external ridicule.  We then saw the utterly destructive attack of internal self-mongerism and greed.  Now in this chapter we see another serious type: attack against the leader.

You have no doubt heard the maxim: cut off the head and the serpent will die.  This is the thought process behind what we see happen to Nehemiah not once but twice in this passage.  Twice an attempt is made upon Nehemiah’s life in order to stop the work of the Lord in Jerusalem.

When Are We Safe?

However, even before we get to that point let’s start in the very beginning of this passage.  We are told in the beginning of this chapter that the walls are complete – although the doors for the gates had not yet been set in place.  The hard work was done, and the project was nearly complete.  Yet Nehemiah still finds himself under attack.  This is a great lesson to hear.  We so often think that when we finish the work of the Lord that the attacks from our enemy will stop.  This is foolishness.  The attacks from the enemy will never stop until the Lord comes back and says once and for all that it is finished and the judgment comes.

Think about it.  Jesus was attacked and even killed.  But after they killed Jesus, have people stopped attacking His awesome name?  Have people stopped defaming His character?  Paul was an incredible evangelist.  Have people stopped slandering his image and the incredible work that he did for God?  How many good Christians have come since Jesus whose names continue to be dragged through the mud?  How many people assaulted Justin Martyr?  Augustine?  Acquinas?  Luther?  Wycliff? I’m not saying that these men {and plenty of others throughout history that I didn’t put on the list} were perfect little saints.  They had their faults just like the rest of us.  But they did great work for the Kingdom of God.  And there name is dragged through the mud even today – especially by Christians!

No, friends.  The attacks will not stop when the work is finished.  The attacks will not even stop when we die and our bodies are cold in the grave.  The attacks will keep coming.  Until God declares that the battle for His creation is over, the attacks will come.  What is that other maxim?  There is no rest for the weary.

External Attack Upon the Leader

Nehemiah is clearly attacked in this passage.  Sanballot, Tobiah, and Gesham set him up.  They try to draw him out into the world.  They try to get him out of his area of protection in order to do him in.  When that doesn’t work they try to defame his reputation and make accusations against his loyalty to the Persian King who had made all of this possible.  The end result is that he is attacked.

Nehemiah will have none of it.  He is too smart to fall into their physical trap and he categorically refuses to give any kind of acknowledgement to the war of defamation that they attempt to provoke.  Nehemiah knows that God did not call him to Jerusalem to protect Nehemiah’s own character.  God called Nehemiah to Jerusalem to build the wall.  God doesn’t need Nehemiah to fight.  God needs Nehemiah to focus on the wall.  Nehemiah does just that.

Internal Attack Upon the Leader

When this attempt doesn’t work, they try to lure Nehemiah into the Temple.  Now, this one is pretty devious, but in the respect it is extraordinarily important.  Who was allowed to go into the Temple?  The priests.  There were restrictions on who could go in.  At the very least, one had to be aware of one’s ritual purity before going into the temple.

I can only guess that in the process of working on the wall that Nehemiah had come across blood or some other substance that would have caused him to need to purify himself before going into the Temple.  At the very least, we need to remember that unlike Ezra, Nehemiah was not a priest!  Nehemiah was the cupbearer for the Persian King that God called to organize the rebuilding of the wall.  Nehemiah had no right to go into the Temple.  So here we see that in a last ditch effort to attack Nehemiah they try and attack his religious character.  They try to attack him and make him appear to be a hypocrite and one who is actually unfaithful to God. 

In the end, this subtle attack is almost the most dangerous.  In all the other attacks the goal was to stop the work on the wall and separate Nehemiah from that work.  Here, we see that the goal of internal attack is actually to put a stumbling block between Nehemiah and God.  This attack is designed to cause Nehemiah to do something with which God Himself will find displeasure.  This attack is quite dangerous against the character of Nehemiah.

After all, most of the work is already done.  The wall is built; only the doors needed to be hung.  Yet the attack still came.  The attempt to drive Nehemiah’s character apart from God continued.

The enemy is relentless, folks.  He is not going to stop.  He is willing to do whatever he can.  The fact that the work is almost complete or already complete does not mean that he will stop attacking.  Until God says to stop, there is always more battle to be fought.  Quite often, it is near the end of the battle in which the stakes are raised to their highest point.

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Year 2, Day 52: Nehemiah 5

Greed

Nehemiah 5 is another great chapter on persecution, but this persecution isn’t an external ridicule.  The persecution found in this chapter is a persecution based on greed.  There is a worldly greed demanded from the Persian king.  But even worse is the worldly greed demonstrated by the wealthy Jews as they preyed upon the other Jews who had returned from exile.

Let me explain what Nehemiah is really reacting to here in Nehemiah 5.  The Persian king had a demand for tribute.  Typically, this tribute had to be paid in precious metal – often gold or silver coin.  That gold or silver coin was brought back to the treasury where it was melted down and formed into bricks (sometimes called ingots).  These ingots were easy to store so when it came time for the king to want something made of a precious metal then the metal smiths could melt the ingots down and make the statue, wall ornament, or whatever the king desired.

Here’s where the problem begins.  The Persian king was inherently rooted in greed.  After all, how much tribute does a person need before they have enough?  Unfortunately, “enough” is not a concept that most human beings do very well.  We always want more.  We always want bigger and better.  The more we get, the larger our thirst for more becomes!  There was never “enough,” so the demand for tribute continued.  {For anyone looking for a modern equivalent, this would be a great place to begin a conversation on government size, programs provided, effectiveness of programming, and the taxation required to support it.}

But that is only where the problem begins.  Everyone expects the king to be an egomaniac and have an insatiable appetite for wealth.  That doesn’t make it right, but it is expected – unfortunately.  Where the problem gets really bad is when the Hebrew people begin fleecing each other in order to follow the example of the king.  So let me explain that a little.

Each year, the tribute needed to be paid.  But not everyone had ready access to money.  So a typical Jewish person who was struggling to make ends meet would have to go to their rich neighbor and ask if they could borrow some of the rich neighbor’s “cash on hand.”  The rich neighbor would do what we commonly accept – hand out the money and charge interest.  Well, you know where this is going.  If the poor person didn’t have access to enough money to pay the tribute to begin with, they aren’t ever going to have enough money to pay back the loan.  And usually when people pay with chickens and goats they never catch up.  Wealthy people simply don’t value chickens and goats as much as they appreciate gold and silver.

So the working poor would fall behind.  The interest would pile up and soon they were under an enormous pile of debt.  {Sound familiar to anyone out there?}  They would have to sell their land (and thus they become rentors – responsible for paying a rent that they can’t afford!). They would then be forced to sell themselves into slavery.  Then they would have to sell their children into slavery.  Pretty soon we have a land where the rich have everything and people who should be free find themselves enslaved.  We have a land where if you are not independently wealthy you are a slave to someone who is.

The sad part is that the Jews did it to themselves.  Their desire to store up earthly wealth was more important than relieving the burden of their neighbor.  Let that sentence sink in, because I’m pretty sure that this sentence applies to a good number of Americans – even a good number of American Christians today.  Our desire to store up wealth for ourselves is far more important than releasing our neighbor from their burden.  {Of course, this is a great place to start a conversation about the difference between helping someone in genuine need and enabling poor decision making to continue.  And that is a very important conversation to have.  We don’t want to be enablers.}

But that isn’t even the whole story.  Are you ready for the saddest statement on this chapter?  The saddest fact in this chapter is the realization that there is no record of any kind of building going on!  Yesterday – when we had persecution of an external ridicule in nature – we saw how Nehemiah was able to use it and band the people together and spur the work on even more!  Today, as we are dealing with internal greed and self-mongerism, we see that the work of the Lord comes to an absolute crashing halt.  There is not one sentence about the work of the Lord advancing one step.  External persecution is hard, but internal persecution and greed is absolutely deadly.

Oh how the Enemy of the Lord loves nothing more than to come in and disrupt the internal functioning of God’s work.  Any opportunity that we give to Satan to come into our midst and disrupt us from the inside is an opportunity that He will readily accept.  I’m not saying that we can’t have discussion and different opinions – or even wealth.  But when our discussions, our differing opinions, and our desire to increase our wealth lead to the pursuit of different agendas than God’s agenda, then Satan has won.  As we see in this chapter, when Satan wins and we are divided internally the work of the Lord stops.

This chapter has a lot to say on greed.  It has a lot to say about self-mongerism.  It has a lot to say about how we treat our neighbor.  It has a lot to say about generosity and hospitality.  It has a lot to say on whether we are genuinely willing to reflect God’s love or not.

Nehemiah gives us a great counterpoint to the rest of this chapter.  Nehemiah doesn’t even take what is rightfully due to him as a governor of the land.  Nehemiah takes care of the people around him without demanding anything in return (outside of being willing to follow God and assert God’s agenda, of course).  We can be really inspired out of Nehemiah’s example today.

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Year 2, Day 51: Nehemiah 4

For the next 3 days, we will talk about oppression and resistance to the work that God has set before us.  Sometimes that oppression is external.  Sometimes it is internal. Sometimes it is overt.  Other times it is covert.  But there is one true statement: wherever there is the work of the Lord there will be resistance against it.

External Resistance

In Nehemiah 4 we get a picture of the most basic type of resistance: external ridicule.  This is the easiest resistance for the opponents of God’s will to organize.  Anyone who sees something going on that they don’t like can talk about what they don’t like.  Anyone who sees something going on of which they might be afraid can talk about what is going on in negative terms to try an attempt to destroy what momentum has begun.  External ridicule is so simple for the enemies of God’s work to use that it can almost be said to be second nature to human beings.

Think about it. 

• Imagine that a person who makes a commitment in their life to read their Bible every day.  The people around them might be challenged by that decision of faith.  Rather than respond with support or even by being challenged into action themselves, they try to tell the other person that the other person doesn’t have the strength to accomplish their goal.  Or maybe they talk about how hard the Bible is to understand and try and get the other person to believe that they are destined to fail.  Rather than rise to personal challenges, it is easier for outsiders to tear down those who do try to rise up.
• Imagine a person who wants to go serve people in another place on a mission trip.  They might need to raise a bunch of money, get several sets of legal permissions, sacrifice time with their family, and a few other things.  Those around the person who see the spiritual response and who are afraid to face the fact that perhaps God is calling them to respond similarly will begin to convince the person committed to the trip that they won’t be able to accomplish the task.  Maybe they will talk about the potential danger or the unknown.  Maybe they will talk about not being able to raise the financial support necessary.  Again we see how easy it is for people to tear down the other rather than join God’s movement.

Whatever the reason, I think we can see how people feel threatened by spiritual growth and use external ridicule to stop the momentum that may be happening.  It is sad to say, but this kind of resistance is very common in our world.  In fact, I daresay that any movement of the Holy Spirit faces this kind of resistance within moments of the initial calling from the Holy Spirit.  Human beings seem to be hard-wired to react to the movement of the Holy Spirit with external ridicule.  I think a good part of this is that human beings don’t like change and that is precisely where the Holy Spirit tries to bring us.

Detecting and Dealing With External Criticism

Thankfully, although this kind of resistance is the most common resistance we face, it is also the easiest resistance to detect.  Just about any time a person outside of a group lifts up a word of discouragement it is this kind of resistance at work.  It might be evidence of fear of change in the other person.  It might be a sign of jealousy in the other person.  It might be a sign of laziness or lethargy in the other person.  There are plenty of other reasons to which external ridicule may point.  But it is easy to spot because it is almost always present against any movement of the Holy Spirit.

Since it is almost always present, those who desire to be in spiritual leadership need to brace themselves for its presence.  Weak leaders will crumble under this kind of resistance.  But those who are strong in the Lord will find ways to overcome this form of resistance.

Look at what Nehemiah does here to resist the external ridicule that he and the Jews faced.  He brought the Jews together and made sure nobody got isolated where they might be influenced more by the resistance than by the faithful.  Nehemiah set up an intentional network of protection so that nobody found themselves working without being able to trust that someone was watching their back even as they worked.  Nehemiah also trained the whole community to know various warning calls so that if trouble came in another area of the city people could rally to the defense of the place under attack.

We can really learn some lessons from Nehemiah here.  If we are going to do the work of the Lord, then we will come under external ridicule.  We need a network of support around us.  We need to work in the company of others who are going to watch our backs as we work.  We need to also know that there is an even larger community of support that will be there to rally and protect us if we need them.  What we can learn through Nehemiah’s example is the importance of a spiritual community around us that supports us.  We can now see that it is actually through our spiritual community around us that God musters the support we need to survive against external ridicule.

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Year 2, Day 50: Nehemiah 2 & 3

Waiting Upon the Lord

Four months after Nehemiah heard about the plight of Jerusalem he was given an opportunity to serve the Lord with respect to the burden that was placed on his heart.  Four months!  How many of us could wait four months to accomplish something if our spirit was troubled to the level of grief to which Nehemiah was troubled?

This tells us that we need to be patient.  We need to wait for God to prosper us rather than taking things into our own hands.  We need to wait for God to say that the time to act is now rather than jumping out ahead of God.  How difficult is this lesson!

However, we don’t need to just sit on our hands.  We don’t need to twiddle our thumbs while we wait for God to give us the divine “all clear.”  We need to prepare ourselves for the task.  Take a look at what Nehemiah is able to accomplish when he finally gets the attention of the king.  Nehemiah is able to explain his problem, invite the king into empathy for his problem, put out a proper timeline for the resolution of the problem, and make a few requests based on what the king might be able to do to make the resolution of the problem move along more smoothly.  Nehemiah may have patiently waited for God before actually acting, but he certainly didn’t wait for God to say “act” before planning to act!  Nehemiah was ready with a plan so that when God’s opportunity arrived he was absolutely ready to pounce.

Rabbit Trail: Discipleship

For me personally, I think this is really the point of the discipleship process.  The discipleship process helps keep us like a finely tuned motor – absolutely ready to roar into life once the gas pedal is pushed to the floor.  Daily prayer keeps us connected with God.  Reading and internalizing God’s Word keeps us mindful of God’s ways.  Relating to God’s Word as well as to the company of saints around us keeps us spiritually attuned to what God might be saying in our life.  Daily service reminds us of our servant nature so we are ready in line with God’s will when God’s timing is right.  Worship reminds us who it is that we are serving.  Giving of ourselves keeps us in a sacrificial mindset so when God’s timing is ready we do not mind making the sacrifices necessary to do His will.  For me, discipleship is all about preparing ourselves to do God’s will once God tells us that the time is right.

Nehemiah Comes to Jerusalem

Okay, back to Nehemiah’s story for a little bit.  When it comes time to inspect the problem, notice that Nehemiah largely keeps everything to himself.  He inspects at night so that he can focus on the task at hand without being distracted by all the other opinions of people in Jerusalem.  Even when it comes time to talk about repair he speaks to the officials first.  Nehemiah is careful to extend his influence only as far as he can manage it successfully.  Had Nehemiah cast his influence too far too fast, it would have given time for opposition to arise.

I think this is another important step that we as Christians can learn from.  How many of us suffer from casting too large of a net?  We set out with big grandiose plans and try to change everyone and everything that we meet.  Nehemiah’s example is the opposite.  Keep the plans manageable.  Keep the contacts manageable.  It is better to have many small successful steps than to have several large failures {or even several large moderate successes}.  A long line of small yet clear victories will be much more likely to produce good fruit in the long run than a modest chain of wide yet unexceptional victories. 

Rabbit Trail #2: Back to Discipleship

This is good advice for life in general, but it is great advice in the spiritual realm – especially with respect to discipleship!  I would rather deal with someone who has small daily moments of learning from God than a person who goes months or years between divine inspiration – even if those divinely inspired moments are significant.  I would rather deal with someone who worships God with routine even if the routine becomes a bit rote than deal with the person who seldom worship but has an incredible time in the few instances that they do worship.  A long line of small spiritual victories will be far more useful than several sporadic victories – even if those victories are significant.  The fruit of the steady life with far outweigh what little fruit comes from substantial yet sporadic growth.

Delegation

Then a really cool thing happened.  As we hear in chapter 3, Nehemiah modeled this approach to leadership for the people.  Nehemiah knew that the task of rebuilding the wall would simply be too daunting for any one person to undertake.  Again, it goes back to many great small steps being better than one large moderate one.  Nehemiah divides up the work into manageable chunks.  Nehemiah is the spiritual leader and he oversees the whole work.  But the individuals are responsible for accomplishing an amount of work that they can manage successfully.

Rabbit Trail #3: Back to Discipleship

Going back to the topic of spirituality and discipleship, this is perhaps the key.  Just like the walls of Jerusalem were neither built by a single person nor in a single day, our spiritual life is not built by a single spiritual moment nor built in a single spiritual day.  When we divide up the task of being spiritual into smaller more manageable pieces we can indeed be successful – far more successful than if we don’t!

Honestly, consider this point.  How daunting does it sound to say, “I’m going to be the spiritual person that God wants me to be each and every day for the rest of my life?”  On the other hand, how easy is it to agree to these tasks:

• I’ll spend 10 minutes in prayer to God.  I’ll actually make it easier on myself be making sure as a part of my prayer every day I will remember to give God glory, to thank Him for the spiritual mentors in my life, to pray for the people around me that need His presence in their life, to pray for those Christians in this world who are under persecution, to honestly repent of the sins that I committed since I last prayed repentance, to ask that He makes me humble to do His will, to ask Him to make me willing to talk about Him when He gives me an opportunity, to thank Him for the spiritual lessons I learned in the prior day, to thank God for giving me the promise of eternal life through the sacrifice of His Son.  {C’mon, how many of us honestly can’t spend 60 seconds on each of those ten topics?}
• I’ll worship God at least once a week.  {This isn’t hard…}
• I’ll read a chapter of the Bible every day and try to be in communication with at least one other person about what I read.  {Again, this isn’t hard.  In fact, if you are reading this then you are already pretty much doing it!}
• I’ll make sure I have at least one act of service in my life every day, and when I serve I will make it a point to pray to God thanking Him for giving me the opportunity to reflect His love.  {This isn’t hard.  It isn’t like service has to be big or grand every day…}
• I’ll try to talk to one person (Christian, non-Christian, or personal spiritual mentor) every day about something that God has taught me recently.  {This isn’t hard, either.  If you want to fulfill this one, leave a comment on this blog every day and you’ve begun it!  Trust me, I comment back!}
• I’ll give God out of my time, talents, and treasure (limits on each category set between you and God with advice potentially coming from a spiritual mentor).  {This might be the toughest one on the list, but it’s really not that big, either.}

Seriously, nothing on that list is unmanageable.  In fact, accomplishing that list could very well take less than 30 minutes a day {depending on how much you talk, of course.  I would have trouble keeping the 3rd and the 5th bullets to under a half-hour, but that’s just me!  LOL.  Besides, the goal isn’t to keep it under a half hour, I was just saying that it could be done that way!}.  

I think we can learn from Nehemiah’s approach here.  We need to plan so that we are ready to act.  When it is time to act, we need to divide up the task into manageable portions that bring about clear victories.  When we have clear manageable victories, we will be inspired on to greater and greater successes.  And like Nehemiah building a wall around a city, God will accomplish the impossible through us and in us.

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Year 2, Day 49: Nehemiah 1

Okay, I’m going to take a paragraph and explain the historical timeline as we transition from Ezra to Nehemiah.  It was about 536 B.C. when Zerubbabel and Jeshua first came to Jerusalem with their initial contingent of Jews to begin rebuilding.  The Temple was finished around 516 B.C.  Under Ezra in 457 B.C., a small spiritual revival begins to happen when he comes to Jerusalem.  Almost a decade later in 445 B.C. God sends Nehemiah to Jerusalem in order to rebuild the walls and provide some security for the refugees that had returned to the land.  We should recognize, therefore, that by the time Nehemiah steps on the scene, almost a century has passed since Zerubbabel and Jeshua were first allowed to return to Jerusalem.

Nehemiah Cares

The first thing that I notice here is that Nehemiah asks for a report.  He is genuinely concerned for Jerusalem and for the exiles that have returned.  But let’s get one thing straight.  Nehemiah is primarily concerned with the relationship between God and God’s people.  The health and safety of the people are important, but the people’s relationship with God is of more importance.

Yes, the report is not good for Jerusalem and the inhabitants.  The report actually focuses on the lack of a wall and the harassment of the people.  But we should not presume to know Nehemiah’s focus from the report he receives.  We should know Nehemiah’s focus from the prayer that he prays.  The report is one thing.  Nehemiah’s prayer reveals where his heart is.

Nehemiah Prays

What is it that Nehemiah prays?  His prayer is a simple prayer that follows a pattern that I have spoken of often – and in truth it is a pattern I speak of often because I’ve heard it spoken by others even more often!  The prayer follows a pattern of acknowledgment of God, confession of sin, humble repentance, promise of obedience, genuinely asking for God’s will to be done.  It is such a natural and simple pattern, but it is a pattern that so often we get it messed up.

• Acknowledgment of God: You might think that this step begins in verse 5 with the opening of the prayer when Nehemiah says, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments.” (ESV)  But if you think that, you would be wrong.  Yes, that part is definitely a portion of the acknowledgment of God.  But that is not where it begins.  Nehemiah’s acknowledgment of God begins in verse 4 when he fasts.  Fasting is humbling oneself before God, but it is more than that.  Fasting is an acknowledgement that we believe God is the one who sustains us.  Fasting by definition is acknowledging God’s place in our life.  And of course, not only does Nehemiah fast but once he has prepared himself through fasting Nehemiah acknowledges that God is of the heavens and the only one who honestly keeps His commandments.
• Confession of sin: Nehemiah confesses the sins of his people, but he also is quick to remember that he and his father’s household are not perfect either.  The spiritual leader might bring the faults of the people before the Lord, but the spiritual leader is also quick to acknowledge the place that they have been in error as well. 
• Humble repentance and promise of obedience: Nehemiah lets God know that He understands the promise that God gave to Moses so many generations ago.  Nehemiah lets God know that he remembers that if the people are obedient to God’s ways that God has promised to be faithful to them, gather them together, and dwell with them.  Nehemiah is telling God that he understands the role obedience plays in response to God’s promises.  God is faithful and powerful.  Our part is obedience.
• Genuinely asking for God’s will to become our will: Nehemiah acknowledges that God has begun to bring His people back and He has begun to redeem them.  Nehemiah asks that he would have the strength of character to do his part in God’s plan of redemption.

Community

Furthermore, notice that in verse 11 Nehemiah not only asks for himself but that he might be surrounded by people who are fervent about doing God’s will and who not only delight but who fear God.  Nehemiah doesn’t want to be a Lone Ranger.  He doesn’t want to do it all himself.  He doesn’t need to stand in the spotlight and have God’s plan revolve around him.  What Nehemiah wants is to be a genuine piece of a much larger puzzle – a puzzle filled with all kinds of people accomplishing God’s greater overarching purpose.  Now that’s a great vision and a humble vision with which we begin a new book of the Bible!

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Year 2, Day 48: Ezra 10

Ezra 10 is a great chapter to follow Ezra 9.  Although the topic of Ezra 10 is challenging to embrace, the overarching result is a great victory.  Let’s talk about the topic, first.

Putting Away Foreign Wives

What we have here is tough to interpret into the modern lens because Ezra is telling the people of Israel that they must put away the “foreign” wives – wives who were neither Jewish by birth nor willing to convert to Judaism.  Basically, Ezra is telling the people to divorce them and get rid of them.  Yesterday I mentioned that in the Christian era this is not the only perspective as Paul talks about a Christian spouse staying loyal to a non-Christian spouse in hopes of winning them to Christ.  But these Hebrew people were living under a different era and their context was totally different.  This was a group of people who were just coming back into faith with God and if they weren’t kept in check the path to backsliding would be quick.

Generally Speaking

As I said yesterday, if we can talk about what is happening here in general terms of sin and not specifically in the context of marriage then we can see it really as phenomenal advice.  We are to put away our sin.  We are to cast aside those things that will not bring us into a closer relationship with God.  We are to take our repentance seriously and bear fruit out of our repentance.

That is precisely what the Hebrew people do.  Well, most of them, anyway.  We are told about a stipulation that any Hebrew who has married a foreign woman and who does not take the vow to put the woman aside loses their land – I’ve got to believe that the stipulation was put in there for a reason.  But the vast majority of the Hebrew people fulfill the requirement.  They honestly do repent and bear fruit of their repentance.  And that is a very good thing.

However, notice that it takes a while for the fruit to come.  Originally the plan was for all the proceedings to be done in a day or two.  But it was the rainy season and miserable weather to travel and conduct this kind of business.  So each family group was appointed leaders and elders who would come around to them and clear the barrier of sin that was between them and God.  And the work gets done, just in a much longer period of time.  {Most people think that what originally was hoped to take 1-3 days actually took 3-4 months to complete.}

It Just Takes Time

I think there is a pretty intentional lesson for us to learn here, too.  We want repentance to be immediate.  We want the effects of our repentance to be immediate.  We want to change things and make them right with God here and now.  Of course, spiritually that did happen that quickly with Jesus on the cross.  But in the real world where that spiritual truth plays out, things like this never happen that fast.  Dealing with sin is a process.  Actually, dealing with sin is a process of processes.  Understanding sin is its own process.  Confessing sin is usually a process.  Understanding how to properly repent and change one’s ways is a process.  Taking that repentance seriously and actually doing it is another process.  Right there we can see that while God justified His people in the single moment of Christ’s death on the cross – that fact working itself out into humanity is a series of processes.  It’s going to take some time.

Just like Ezra, we probably want our problems to be resolved here and now.  But just like Ezra, when we realize that we live in the world we had better accept that it’s going to take some time to resolve our issues with God.  And in the end, that’s actually okay.  The point isn’t so much that I be perfect today as much as I understand that one day God will make me free of sin through His resurrection and redemptive process.  What is important is that I get to that point.  When it happens is far less significant than whether it happens or not. 

As I’ve grown older and experienced more spiritual warfare, I’ve actually come to understand that the process is usually better than the result anyways.  The obvious exception to this is God’s final act of remaking us in His perfect image in eternal life.  But that great moment aside, I find that I learn and grow far more when I am willing to take the time to listen to God and truly change my character in obedience to God than when I make some snap decision and force change in my life without growing into it.  Change done through a period of waiting and listening is always more fruitful than sudden change.  At least that’s true in my life – especially as I get older.

A Final Ponder

As we conclude Ezra, let me ask a simple question meant for deeper pondering.  Which task was easier for Ezra, rebuilding the Temple or rebuilding the spirituality among the people?

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Year 2, Day 47: Ezra 9

Struggling

Ezra 9 is a tough chapter.  It is a difficult chapter for two reasons.  First, it is difficult to read.  There is no action here.  Ezra discovers sin and prays to God.  It is a chapter of conversation and theology, which makes it hard to read and understand.  Second, it is hard to read because it is a chapter that should cause deep and internal probing.  It is a chapter that once understood it will cause us to enter into a period of deep introspection.

A Godly Pattern

So let’s begin where the chapter begins.  Ezra hears the news: the people are intermarrying with the native inhabitants.  Their hearts are turning away from God.  Before long their hearts will follow their spouses into the religions of the Canaanites and all the other native inhabitants.  Before long, the Hebrew nation will be back where it was before the Assyrian captivity.  Ezra tears his clothes and weeps, because He knows what is going on.  It seems like such a sad moment after so much joy in this book of the Bible.

But let’s stop here for a second and go one step back.  The fact that Ezra is able to be in this place is actually a good thing.  Look at the flow of this book.  The people return to the land.  The Temple is rebuilt.  Worship begins anew.  A man of God comes into their midst and begins teaching.  Sin is exposed.  {Imagine that, right?  A teacher of God comes into our midst and sin is exposed!  It’s a natural consequence to the Word of God coming into our life.}

This is inherently a good thing!  Even though the last step in that chain is a dark one, the chain itself is a wonderful chain!  It is good to build people up to a point of desiring a greater place of worship!  But we must understand that a necessary step in that process is this step where sinfulness is exposed.  All of us who have ever returned from a point in our life of captivity under sin have had to come to a point where our sin is exposed.  It is a natural part of the process – it is a good part of the process.  It may not be particularly enjoyable, but it is a good part of the process!

At the same time, it is important to understand that the process as I listed it above is not the complete process.  Exposure of sin must bring about one final step.  It is a step in which we must make a choice.  Up until now God was doing all the work and making all the earlier steps possible.  God makes it possible to return to His Promised Land.   God makes it possible for the temple to be rebuilt out of the consequences of our sinful corruption. {For us in the Christian era the temple is our being.} God makes it possible to worship Him.  God makes it possible for His ways to be taught among us.  God exposes our sin.  Then we hit the one step that is under our control: respond.

The Response

How do we respond?  Well, that is what ultimately will determine whether or not the process is a good process or a tragic process.  If we respond by hearing our sinfulness and repenting of it, then it is a great process!  If we respond in rebellion and refuse to repent of our sinfulness, then it is still a good process but it has a tragic end.  It is still a good process because God’s hand was at work.  It is tragic if we don’t respond to God’s hand at work.

But you will notice something about the response.  It doesn’t only involve confession.  It is not enough for the people of the land to say, “Yup, we screwed up.  Sorry, God.”  No, they have to make it right.  They have to fix the consequences of their sin.  In fact, they have to put away their sin.  They have to put away their foreign spouses.  Trust, me, there isn’t much of a bigger life altering repentance than what this chapter suggests.

I imagine it quite literally went something like this.  Ezra’s teaching is that the people need to say to their spouses: “Either you become Jewish and follow my God with all your heart or this marriage is over.”  That’s pretty blunt, but that is pretty much what this chapter is suggesting.

Please don’t hear me saying that this is my Christian advice for marriage.  I believe that there are several places in Paul’s writings especially that talk about being loyal to non-Christian spouses in hopes of winning them back to Christ.  I think that point has a very valid place in this conversation if we are solely talking about this chapter as it pertains to marriage.  {See 1 Corinthians 7, for example.}

But in more general terms, I am saying that this is great advice when it comes to dealing with sin.  There is no place in our life for “entertaining sin.”  The true disciple of God doesn’t say, “I’ll follow God, but I’m going to keep this sinful dynamic of my life around over here and hope that I’ll learn how to redeem it for God.  Because you know what?  Sin cannot be made righteous!  Sin can only be tacked to the cross and abandoned.  Those who sin can be made righteous and forgiven, but in doing so we are called away from our sinfulness.  That, I believe, is the point of Ezra’s prayer and his interaction with the people.

Once more I find myself repeating a truth that I tend to forget.  Becoming a follower of Christ is about becoming the person God wants me to be.  I often want my faith to lead me to a place where I can be a Christianized version of me still doing the things I want to do.  Following God is about abandoning sin, not manipulating God’s forgiveness so I can embrace it.

What can we learn from this chapter?  God’s process in our life is good, but it is also often painful.  God leads us to crossroads of repentance.  But it is up to us to decide if we are going to follow the sin and abandon God or if we are going to follow God and abandon sin.  In either case, we cannot think we can follow God and keep sin around.  Those paths diverge at the point of repentance.

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Year 2, Day 46: Ezra 8

Aside

I’m going to begin today’s blog post with a bit of a side comment.  Some days I get into the text and I am absolutely filled with ideas to write.  Other days I get into the text and I have a few ideas but I’m not sure about them.  So then I go to my commentaries and determine if I am at least barking up the right tree.  There is yet a third category of days.  These are the days where I genuinely read the text and don’t have much to add besides simply retelling the text.  On those days I usually read through a commentary until I hit an idea that genuinely inspires my writing.

Today happened to be one of those middle days.  I had a few ideas but I wanted to consult a commentary or two before writing.  But here’s the funny part.  Of all the commentaries I trust that grant me access to thoughts about Ezra, there is a grand total of a single paragraph on Ezra 8.  So I feel like I am flying reasonably blind today.  Lord willing I’ll stay on the course!

Willing vs. Unwilling

My first thought today is actually a thought about the difference between a willing participant and an unwilling one.  Think about this in terms of employment.  Just about everyone that has worked can tell the difference between a person who does their job because they genuinely enjoy what they are doing and the person who is there because they need the paycheck and they can’t find a job they enjoy any more than this one.  There is a noticeable difference in these categories.  You can see it in attitude.  You can see it in performance.  You can see it in productivity.  You can see it in conversation.  In almost every dynamic of employment you can see the difference between the person who loves their job and the person who is just there to collect a paycheck.

So it is with faith as we can see in this chapter.  When Ezra called for fellow Jews to accompany him back to Jerusalem to take up the cause of teaching and leading the Hebrew people in worship, dozens if not hundreds of men showed up out of the ranks of the volunteers.  Of all the tallies listed in the first 14 verses, the number 28 is the smallest tally while most of the numbers are 70+ and many are multiple hundreds!  But then we discover that there were no Levites present!   Therefore, Ezra “drafts” some Levites.  Not counting the 220 servants of the Levites (who weren’t really Levites anyway), we have a grand total of 38 Levites who show up!  Can you not see the difference in this chapter regarding the willing versus unwilling participants?

That really got me thinking about my spiritual life.  Barring God taking control and forcing His will on my life, I can genuinely say that I always get more out of the spiritual activities that I do willingly than the ones I do out of resentful obligation.  And I think that is true in community as well as within each individual.  When the community comes together and genuinely serves God with one another – those are the moments that God’s Holy Spirit abounds.  But those moments when we come together and do the task at hand out of reluctant obligation to church policy or church tradition, those are the moments where the Holy Spirit is quenched by our unenthusiastic response.  And don’t get me wrong.  I’m not making any judgment upon the activity itself.  My judgment is against the attitude we bring to the activity.

The Fast

Then we hear about an incredible claim to faith.  Ezra declares a fast and asserts that they will be doing the journey without military escort.  They are going to be carrying all the beautiful and ornate temple furnishings that Nebuchadnezzar had plundered a century ago.  If there was ever a reason for a group of bandits to rob a caravan, here is the time!  In this moment Ezra declares that they will make the trip with God as their sole source of protection.  What incredible faith! 

In an age of all kinds of “safety nets” and “safety measures” like bank accounts, retirement accounts, savings accounts, military patrolled borders, spy satellites, interceptor missiles, deadbolt locks, keyless entry, GPS tracking cell-phones, etc … we could really learn from the boldness of Ezra.  What does it mean in a world like ours to put our faith in God’s protection?  I am blown away by Ezra’s move and bold pronouncement of faith.

 And as we should expect, God does not disappoint.  God delivers.  They arrive safe and sound.  And the people worship God.  What a great testimony to God!

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Year 2, Day 45: Ezra 7

Ezra’s Genealogy

Here in Ezra 7 we have a great record of Ezra’s lineage.  I don’t know why, but this lineage fascinates me.  I guess I think it is pretty neat that Ezra could trace his line the whole way back to Aaron – Moses’ own brother!  I can barely trace my line back beyond my great-grandparents, much less to someone who lived 500 or 800 years prior to me.  That would be like me trying to trace my lineage back to someone who was a contemporary to Martin Luther or even Thomas Aquinas!  That’s pretty impressive.

Ezra’s True Value

But after we hear about Ezra’s pedigree we hear an even more important statement: “Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord, and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel.” (Ezra 7:10, ESV)  This is a three-fold pattern to which I think we should pay some attention today.

• Ezra set his heart to study the law.  One cannot become a knowledgeable person on a topic without studying it.  We don’t give out driver’s licenses to anyone that wants one; a person must first demonstrate knowledge of the vehicular law before one is licensed.  We don’t allow just anyone to do open-heart surgery without doing pretty intensive practice and study first.  Why would we be surprised to find out that God desires that the people who will speak out about Him should know something about Him first?  In fact, I am always amazed at how much people are willing to say about God without practicing the study of His Word beforehand.  For some reason we all think ourselves experts on many topics – including God – without actually having studied about it!
• Ezra then attempts to do the law.  Now, I don’t want that to come across in a works-righteousness manner.  I didn’t say Ezra succeeded in mastering the law and doing everything right and was saved because of it.  But Ezra did put what he studied into practice.  And since he was human he no doubt he messed up once and a while.  The point is that Ezra lived his faith.  To use a few clichés, he walked to talk.  He put his money where his mouth was.  He practiced what he preached.  His study was more than just an academic pursuit of God.
• Finally, Ezra endeavored to teach it to others.  Notice that this is third in the list.  One can only teach best what one has first studied and wrestled against in practice.

Ezra Comes to Jerusalem

So Ezra goes up to Jerusalem to accomplish this task.  He gets a letter from the Persian king to make it happen.  He goes merrily on his way with God’s blessing from the mouth of a Gentile king.  Isn’t it really cool to see how God can work through the full chain of disobedience leading to oppression, oppression leading to repentance, repentance leading to reformation, reformation leading to genuine spirituality, and genuine spirituality leading to the repentant being able to see God’s hand at work in the world around us?

Also notice that as Ezra goes up he is told that he can have a certain amount of the treasury from the Babylonian stores from the captive land of Israel.  Yet, there is one item on the list that is not given a limit as to how much Ezra can request: salt.  Now, salt is very important to life and in ancient days it was far more expensive than it is today.  But I think there is something far cooler than a statement of wealth going on here.  I think God is setting up a message in Ezra’s life about spirituality.

Gold, silver, and other precious things will only get you so far.  We can live without those things.  But without salt, we die pretty quickly.  The electrical synapses in our bodies fail and we have problems with things like heart attacks, renal fatigue, and seizures.  Our intestines need some salt in order to absorb certain minerals.  We can live just fine without gold or silver.  We simply cannot live without salt.

In the New Testament, Jesus compares His disciples around Him to salt (See Matthew 5:13).  In a manner of speaking – especially when He adds “if the salt loses its saltiness,” Jesus is saying that without people of faith life would struggle to continue.  If I may tie this passage back to Ezra’s letter from the Persian King, it could be that the king {knowingly or unknowingly} is making the claim that he understands the role of God’s people.  After all, the king has supported the rebuilding effort and he has supported Ezra’s work to return the Hebrew people to God.  So I think it is legitimate to take from this passage this lesson: without faith, life is hard; without people of faith, life would struggle to continue in any meaningful manner.

Ezra Sets Up Shop

Finally we hear about Ezra’s ability to appoint judges and magistrates.  Ezra is being given power and authority.  Ezra has the king’s trust.  Even though the king is a Gentile king, God has sure worked through him in a way to show grace, power, authority, and even trust.  This book is really turning out to be a wonderful illustration on how God can work through even the most unlikely of sources.

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Year 2, Day 44: Ezra 6

A Victory for God

Today we see a triumphant God.  Today we see that in spite of the distractions and roadblocks established by the local inhabitants of the land, Darius decrees that the Temple be restored.  In fact, not only does Darius go back to the original decree made by Cyrus; Darius actually takes the original decree and adds to it.

Darius reminds the local inhabitants and their regional governors that Cyrus’ decree was that the Temple should be rebuilt and that the implements of the Lord that were taken away by Nebuchadnezzar should be restored.  In addition to this, Darius adds that the remaining cost of the building project should come out of the royal treasury – specifically out of the royal treasury that the local governors had collected for the management of that area of the Persian Empire.  And perhaps even worse, Darius decreed that if anyone else should interfere with the work of the building of the Temple that a beam was to be pulled out of their own house and they were to be impaled upon it.  If that doesn’t send a pretty clear message, I don’t know what does.

I think there are two clear lessons here.  First, God always wins in the end.  We might think we have beaten God, but at best He has only allowed us to walk away from Him and demonstrate our true character.  In the end, God always wins.  So the question that remains is: why resist Him?  He already knows our character, why don’t we just own up to the fact that life is better denying ourselves and picking up our crosses and following Him?

The second lesson that we should learn here is that greater rebellion brings greater consequences.  The nation of Israel had already rebelled and spent several centuries in bondage.  While in bondage, they began to mingle even more with the Gentiles and to further corrupt God’s ways with the ways of the world.  Now, as they are living in the land, they continue to cause trouble for the genuine Hebrew people who yearn for a legitimate relationship with God.  Because of their continuous rebellion, God steps up the consequences even more.  They finally reach a point where through Darius God says, “Interfere with me anymore and you will die.”  That’s pretty severe, and pastorally I recommend not rebelling against God to that level!

Passover

At the end of the passage we see that the Temple is built and the Passover is celebrated.  This is cool.  The Passover hadn’t been celebrated for a long time between the time of the judges until Josiah.  No doubt it fell back into disuse after Josiah rediscovered the law (see 2 Kings 23:21-27).  But here come a new people out of a new bondage and they reinstitute the Passover.  It’s funny how it takes a little persecution and a little bondage to remind us how important God is and how important it is that we meditate on His character and His grace.  The Passover was instituted during one Exodus, and we see here that it takes people who understand that Exodus to really grasp why the Passover was important.

Wow.  As I was typing that sentence I think it really dawned on me just how important that last sentence of the prior paragraph is.  Go back and reread it, please.  It takes people who genuinely understand what it is like to come out of bondage to appreciate God, God’s character, and what God brings to our life.  Man, do I stand convicted.

I have to confess something here.  For most of my life I have struggled with genuine spirituality versus spiritual compromise between God’s ways and the world’s ways:

I’ve read the Bible in its entirety several times in my life, but I had never even come close to saying that I “read the Bible every day” until I began this blog in January 1, 2011. 

I have struggled in the past with daily intercessional prayer, and although I am getting better it is something I still struggle with seeing the importance of it being a part of my daily life.*   I have known the importance of service, but putting myself on a regular routine of service is something that only recently I have been able to accomplish. 

I could go on with other examples, but my point is that I struggle – like the Hebrew people – in remembering to do the things God wants me to do simply because God wants me to do them.  How many times do I say to myself, “Gee, I just don’t feel like my prayer life is going anywhere?”  Well, usually that means that I end up not praying for a while.  But unfortunately what that should mean is that I remind myself, “God wants you to pray, are you going to obey Him or not?”  Or sometimes I tell myself that a certain act of service in my life doesn’t feel productive anymore.  So that usually means that I give myself permission to stop serving for a while.  But really, what it should mean is that I have an opportunity to ask myself, “God wants you to serve, are you going to obey Him or not?”

You see, it takes a people who really understand what life is like without God to truly appreciate life in obedience of God.  The rest of us are able to get sucked into the trap of letting our desires get in the way of genuine obedience.  The rest of us sit back and let our own feelings cloud our response to what God really wants us to do.

In order to not end on such a negative note, let’s think about the joy at the end of this passage.  The Passover is celebrated.  The people are joyous.  Praise is given to God – even for a Gentile king whom God used to make it all possible.  God is truly an amazing God.  And He is every bit worthy of our praise.

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*Don’t get me wrong.  Prayer is always a part of my daily life as there are many forms of prayer.  I pray before I eat.  I usually spend quite a bit of any time that I am along actually talking to God as if He is in the room right beside me – and I genuinely consider that prayer.  But intercessional prayer – prayer that intentionally lifts up the needs of others in my life – is something that I have always struggled to do with any consistency.