The resources God has given us to live a thriving life are His Word, Spirit, and People.
Read God’s Word:
Nehemiah 8-10
Act 2: God’s Covenant People
Scene 9: Return: God Delivers His People Again
Background Information: Nehemiah 8-10
Nehemiah was restoring the physical wall, and Ezra was working to rebuild the wall of truth around the lives of the people. God’s word would only provide protection if they not only heard it, but fully obeyed it. The people received the word with joy and immediately put it to practice by celebrating the festival prescribed in the law for that time of year. At first, they began to weep in sadness when they realized that they had neglected God’s word. Since they did not understand the Word of God, they didn’t know that this was to be a time of rejoicing. As they were more fully instructed, their sorrow quickly turned to celebration, and it was said to have been many years since the people had celebrated with such joy. Obedience to the law of God involved time of great celebration as well as times of solemn reflection and repentance (Leviticus 23:24). Times for national celebration and times for national confession were both built into the Jewish calendar. The American cultural calendar has plenty of times for celebration built into it, but none marked for repentance. Thanksgiving implies a time for national thanks, but it is largely a time for turkey, football and the start of Christmas shopping. We don’t follow the Jewish calendar; Paul wrote that it was a “shadow” of reality. The reality it pointed to was Christ. It’s not wrong to celebrate Jewish or American cultural events as long as we keep Christ at the center of all we do. It would be okay if we had a national holiday that revolved around repentance, but it would probably quickly be monetized and corrupted. The good news is that we don’t need a National Day of Repentance to remember to confess our sins. We can, and we should, confess ours sins as we go. Because of Christ we can continually “mess up, fess up, and move on.”
If we confess our sins he is faithful to forgive them all and completely cleanse us.”
1 John 1:9
We should build times of both celebration of God’s goodness and confession of our sins into our lives. We can do both daily as we meet in our private times with God. We can do both weekly as we gather with God’s people for worship on the Lord’s Day.
Pray:
Praise God for…
Thank God for…
Confess your sins to God
Ask God to speak to us and strengthen our church as we gather for worship tomorrow. Ask God to help us be aware of and to reach out to new people attending on Sunday morning.
Ask God for… (what else concerns you?)
Reflect:
Write down one passage of scripture that stood out to you today.
Write down why this passage stood out to you.
Engage Community:
Text or call someone now and tell them…
– What you are praying for.
– What stood out from God’s word today.