SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 07/27/2011 7:52 AM
My Worship Time Focus: “He Cared Enough to Pray”
Bible Reading
& Meditation Reference: Nehemiah 1:5-10
Message of the verses: “5 I
said, "I beseech You, O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who
preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His
commandments, 6 let Your ear now be
attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am
praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your
servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You; I and
my father’s house have sinned. 7 “We have acted very corruptly against You and
have not kept the commandments, nor the statutes, nor the ordinances which You
commanded Your servant Moses. 8 “Remember the word which You commanded Your
servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful I will scatter you among the
peoples; 9 but if you
return to Me and keep My commandments and do them, though those of you
who have been scattered were in the most remote part of the heavens, I will
gather them from there and will bring them to the place where I have chosen to
cause My name to dwell.’ 10 “They are Your servants and Your people whom You
redeemed by Your great power and by Your strong hand.”
One
of the reasons that I use Dr. Wiersbe’s “Be” books to aid me in my study of
God’s word is that he can make some of the difficult things of the Bible come
alive, but he can also see passages that I would probably read and get little
out of and make them too come alive.
There is another reason and that is I like some of the sayings that he
comes up with and some of the sayings that others have said and he quotes. Today’s SD begins with two of those quotes. The first is by a Scottish novelist Gorge
MacDonald and he said “In
whatever man does without God, he must fail miserably, or succeeded more
miserably.” The next quote is by
a man named Alan Redpath and he said “There is too much working before men and too little waiting before
God.” I find this true in my life
on certain occasions because I have always been a man, who has been in a hurry,
but it is great for me that I married a woman who takes her time and I have
learned from her even though at times it has been hard for me to learn.
There
are twelve instances of prayer recorded in the book of Nehemiah, for he was a
praying man, and this is the first. The
book begins with and ends with prayer.
Nehemiah was a man who did well what God had planned for him to do and
because his faith and prayer life he succeeded in what God called for him to
do.
When
His disciples asked Jesus how to pray He began with praise to His heavenly
Father, “Our Father who art in heaven,”
and Nehemiah uses the term “O Lord God
of heaven, the great and awesome God.” Ezra used this title four times and it is also
found four times in Nehemiah, while Daniel used it three times. This is how all of God’s children should begin
their prayers.
Nehemiah
was experiencing great affliction and was about to do a great work and so he
needed the power of the great God of heaven, the God who spoke and created the
heavens and the earth, the seas and dry lands, the fish in the sea and the
animals on the land, and He also created man from the dust of the earth and
woman from the rib of the man. Why would
we pray to another? Dr. Wiersbe asks “Is the God you worship big
enough to handle the challenges that you face?”
Nehemiah
then begins to quote part of the covenant that God made with the children of
Israel, and this is something that both Ezra and Daniel did in their prayers to
the Lord. It is certain that the Lord
remembers the Words that He has written, but it is important to pray Scripture
back to the Lord, of this importance I am learn more about each day.
Nehemiah
was a man like Ezra who knew the OT Scriptures and this is a great example for
every believer to follow, for the Scripture is the very Word of God that He has
given to His children. Those who do not
know the Lord will not be able to understand the Word of God for it was written
to believers. Through his knowledge of
the Word of God Nehemiah knew that the children of Israel had sinned and that
is why they became exiles and were living in Babylon under Persian rule. Some of the exiles had moved back to
Jerusalem, and this was part of what the Lord had promised in His Word. Nehemiah now learns of some of the disturbing
things that were going on in Jerusalem and this drives him to his knees in
prayer confessing the sins of Israel and like Ezra and Daniel he includes
himself in those sins. He was identifying himself with the sins of a generation
he didn’t even know. Nehemiah did not
use the words “they sinned” and that is why we are in this fix. I have heard it said that it is better to
fact find than fault find. In the movie
Apollo 13 the man in charge told his crew, when they learned of this great
problem they had to “work the problem.”
I believe that fact finding and working the problem are good things to
do otherwise we could be fault finding and not working the problem and then
nothing will get accomplished. Nehemiah
was fact finding and he was working the problem by talking to the God of
Heaven.
One
thing you can see in the prayer from Nehemiah is that he was confident. He had confidence in the power of his God. I
believe that his confidence in his God came from the Word of his God. Nehemiah had a desire to go and to rebuild
Jerusalem and he knew that he did not have the strength to do it, but he knew
that his God had the strength to accomplish this through him. “Faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” (Romans 10:17)
Nehemiah
was confident that his God would raise up others to help to do this work, for
he was unlike Elijah who though that he was the only one to accomplish
something for the Lord. Nehemiah was
also confident that the Lord would work in the heart of Artaxerxes to allow him
to go to Jerusalem to begin this work.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes “To often, we plan our projects and then ask God to bless them;
but Nehemiah didn’t make that mistake.
He sat down and wept (Neh. 1:4), knelt down and prayed, and then stood
up and worked because he knew he had the blessing of the Lord on what he was
doing.” Great example for all of God’s
children to follow!
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Following this great example of Nehemiah’s
prayer is something that has been enlightening to me as I studied this
passage. Waiting is something that I
have never been good at, but something that I am learning. The saying “don’t put the cart before the
horse” is a good example to follow when doing the work of the Lord, for I am to
follow the Lord and not get into a hurry and go before him. That is something that Saul did and it got
him in a lot of trouble.
My Steps of
Faith for Today:
1.
I believe that learning contentment is similar to
learning patience. Both of them can
bring things into my life that will cause me to have contentment and be
patience.
2.
Wait upon the Lord.
7/27/2011 8:57:16 AM
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