Monday, November 26, 2012

Keep on Building


I took a break from Nehemiah for the past few weeks, but was not quite finished with it.   If you did not have the chance to read the other posts on Nehemiah, you can click on the links below.  It is such a great and fascinating book!  I believe you will be blessed by reading it and what the Lord has shown me.

Chapter 1-2 Grab a Brick and a Bible

Chapter 2  You Have No Right

Chapter 3 One Man

Chapter 4 Identifying the Lie

Chapter 4 (cont) Build with a Sword by Your Side, 



Chapter 4 (cont.) Sound Your Trumpet

Chapter 5 Give It Back

Now, that all leads up to Chapter 6.

At the beginning of Chapter 6, Nehemiah had finished building the wall.  The Israelites and Nehemiah had overcome all kinds of adversity and the wall was finished!

It says in Chapter 6, verse 1-2, "When Sanballat and Tobiah, Gesham the Arab, and the rest of our enemies had heard that I had rebuilt the wall, and that there were no breaks left in it, that Sanballat and Gesham sent to me saying, 'Come, let us meet together among the villages in the plain of Ono,' but they thought to do me harm."  

When you are doing the plan of God, the enemy may come along to distract you.  When you are whole and healed and no longer broken with "no breaks left in it", the enemy may try to convince you to come to where he is to do you harm.  He may endeavor to entangle you in an old sin or seduce you with falsehoods  to discourage your progress and cause regression.   He doesn't want us to be healed and whole and he will try to coerce us into believing his lies to harm what the Lord has rebuilt!  

In verse 3 Nehemiah answers his enemies:  "So I sent messenger to them, saying, "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down.  Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you."  

Nehemiah did not buy into his enemies' lies.  He would not succumb to their attempts to thwart the plan of God.  It says in verse 5 that his enemies were persistent and tried five times to convince Nehemiah to meet them.  The fifth time they lied to intimidate Nehemiah, claiming he planned to rebel against the King of Persia with ambitions to rule.

The enemy of our souls will lie to us as well.

We must identify the lie and call him out on it!  "Then I sent to him, saying, 'No such things as you say are being done, but you invent them in your heart.'" Nehemiah 6:8

Our enemy may lie to us to plant fear or discouragement in our hearts. 

"For they all were trying to make us afraid, saying, 'Their hands will be weakened in the work, and it will not be done.'" Neh 6:9

The enemy tried this tactic with me many times.  I was so broken and it seemed like I would never be whole.  I felt no matter how hard I worked, I would still be broken.  That was until I learned that it wasn't up to me.  I didn't need to be strong.  God would be my strength and He would rebuild. 

"Now therefore, O God, strengthen my hands." Neh 6:9   

Where we are weak, HE IS STRONG.  He is my ever lasting fortress and my strength forever!  When we feel weak, we should cry out as Nehemiah did, "O God, strengthen my hands."
 
Yes, the enemy may try to invoke fear and tempt you to sin as did Nehemiah's enemies.

Why does the enemy want to stop the rebuilding?  Why is it so important to him?

Besides the fact that he hates rebuilding in that his goal is to "kill, steal, and destroy"(John 10:10); here is the reason for all the fuss...

"And it happened, when all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations around us saw these things, that they were very disheartened in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was done by our God." Neh 6:16  

When the walls of our lives have been rebuilt from rubble to victorious radiance, the enemy knows that others will see our lives and perceive that this work was done by our God! 

Unbelievers will recognize this work could not have been accomplished without the intervention of a Divine Carpenter.  Our Divine Carpenter is Jesus and He alone can turn our ruins into the radiance of His glory. 

Keep building my friends, His glory awaits. 


 
 






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