READ: Nehemiah 1:5-11
Before an endeavor for the Lord, we must be people of prayer to know God’s purpose. A surprising and encouraging element of this prayer is how much Scripture Nehemiah quotes. To know God’s purposes you have to know His Word. Nehemiah read and knew God’s Word, so he knew that they were in exile for a good reason, because they had violated God’s covenant with them, and God said this would happen if they did this. He not only knew this, but he also knew that this exile would not last forever. He held fast to the promises in God’s Word that they would come out of this, and He claimed these promises for Himself and for His people.
PRAY: Lord, help me to know Your will through knowing Your Word. I want to follow You.
READ: Nehemiah 3
That is a lot of names! What can we gain from a passage like this? There are several lessons we can learn, and one of those big lessons is that God sees. We see in this passage a long list of names and what they did to contribute to rebuilding. It was obviously important to God to write down the names of people and what they did, and we have the ability to look back and see what people did. Today, we recognize that we are living in the church age, and God still uses people to build His church. He calls ordinary people like you and me to participate in the building of His church. Like in the days of Nehemiah, we are all called to participate in building what God has called us to build.
PRAY: I want to serve You in any way You see fit, Lord.
READ: Nehemiah 4:7-9
When a work of God is taking place, opposing forces work double-time. In Nehemiah’s case, it came from some outsiders who were trying to threaten and intimidate those working on the walls. Despite opposition, the people persevered. They committed to prayer and they relied more heavily upon one another by stationing guards. As discouraging as opposition may be in the moment, it is often a sign that you are on the right track spiritually. We must remember that we have a spiritual foe. Our spiritual foe is finite and therefore has no need to expend effort to conquer Christians and churches who are not a threat to his agenda. As our church advances, we should expect opposition, but we must also be prepared to recognize it and overcome it.
PRAY: Lord, help me to be ready for opposition and to be strengthened in You.
READ: Nehemiah 6:10-13
The enemies of Nehemiah tried to use fear and intimidation to get him to stumble into sin. Fear can be a very powerful tool of the enemy to get us to do things we would never do; things that we know are sinful. What was the key to Nehemiah’s conquering of fear? His fear of God far outweighed his fear of man. When God puts us on a mission, we do so with obedient fear and reverence. The enemy will attempt to get us to fear something, a possibility, or someone, far more than we fear God and thus cause us to stumble and fail on our endeavor. What fears typically hold you back from fully obeying God? What can you do to increase your fear of God to decrease your other fears?
PRAY: Lord, help me not to disobey because of fear.
READ: Nehemiah 8:1-6
It would seem now that the work is done and that everyone can take a breather as a result of being successful in the work. We get to Nehemiah 8 and we see that the people had a worship service as a result of their work. This worship service reminds us that the reason they did all of this work was not simply so that they could say that they did, but so that they could worship freely and in a more effective way. As we continue our Advance initiative, we must also remember that we are not doing this just so that we can say we did something. There is a goal and a purpose to all of this, and the end result should be worship. When we know this is the end result, it influences the way we work.
PRAY: Lord, help me to remember that we are worshippers of You.
READ: Nehemiah 11: 1-2
You can’t really have a city without the people. Once the wall was built, those who contributed went back to the equivalent of “Suburbs” of Jerusalem. However, what was needed was for people to actually move into the city of God. When there is a work of God, we can all become enthusiastic about what is going on. We may even give of our finances and some effort in order for it to happen; but when it comes down to a full commitment, that becomes an idea that sounds nice for someone else. It’s one thing to like a mission, it’s another thing to give to a mission, but we serve a God who wants us to participate in the mission. As we advance, will you, “Move into the city?”
PRAY: God, show me what it means to fully commit to You.