Tues.’s Devo - Their Next Steps

Read: Nehemiah 11-13: Ps. 126
Nehemiah had a tenth of the people live in the city of Jerusalem and chose them by lot. Others willingly offered to live there. This reminds me of the tithe. The tithe is required but an offering is above the tithe and his freely given. How much more blessed is the offering above the tithe although both are blessed. We are given a list of the men who lived in Jerusalem and kept the temple. They dedicated the wall of Jerusalem with thanksgiving, singing and praise. The priests purified the people and princes were appointed and put in place. Their joy was heard from afar.
They read the book of Moses to the people and realized they needed to change some things. First, they needed to separate themselves from the Ammonites and the Moabites. God had cursed them when they tried to curse Israel and refused to help them when they came out of Egypt. Next, they needed to get Tobiah out of the chamber he had set up in the house of God. Tobiah was not a priest but he had been acting as one. Thirdly, they started paying the Levites and singers the salary they were suppose to be given so they could devote themselves to worship and not fending for bread. They reevaluated how the tithes were being spent and set up financial stewards over the money so it would go to the house of God. Next, they reestablished the Sabbath and shut the gates of the city on the Sabbath so no one could come in or go out. Levites were put in charge of the gates. Then they got rid of their foreign wives.
They did all this change when they started reading the Word. The Word of God will change you. It convicts us of sin, makes a distinction between what is holy and what is evil. It helps us get the Tobiah’s out of our temple. The Tobiah’s are all our man-made intentions and ways we try to get the honor and attention of God that aren’t God-sanctioned. Tobiah stands for our self-will. There is no place for our will in the temple of our heart. Thirdly, we need to pay the rightful attention to reading our Bible, praising God and worship. Reestablishing the Sabbath is about rest. It is about resting in the Lord and not letting stress and worry rule our lives and get through our gates. Our foreign wives are anything that is not of God in our hearts. Then we can pray like Nehemiah: “Remember me, O my God, for good.”