Thursday, August 17, 2017

Thurs.’s Devo - The Dedication of the Temple

Read: Nehemiah 12:27-13:31; 1 Corinthians 11:3-16; Psalm 35:1-16; Proverbs 21:17-18
It is time to celebrate the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem and Nehemiah makes sure it is a great day of praise and joy. He brings in all the Levites from around Jerusalem to help in the celebration. Two choirs of Levites are stationed on the wall. One of them walks one way around the wall and the other the other way until they meet up together. All the while they are singing and praising God. It must have been an awesome sound and sight to see. It was recorded that the sound could be heard from far away! People brought tithes and offerings and gave them to the temple. Nehemiah rid the city of Ammonites and Moabites since they had tried to put a curse on the Israelites. God had turned that curse into a blessing.
Nehemiah left for a season and went back to Babylon to serve Artaxerxes and came back to find Tobiah, God’s enemy, living in a room in the courts of the house of the Lord. This is the very man that worked against the building of the wall. The enemy always tries to infiltrate the church from within and Tobiah was a plant of Satan’s. Nehemiah threw Tobiah out with all this belongings and ordered the Levites to purity the rooms he had used. He also learned that the Levites had not been paid for their job in the temple so most of them had had to go back to working in the fields. Nehemiah changed this and put trustworthy men over the finances of the temple. He also noted that the people were working on the Sabbath and also buying goods on the Sabbath. He put a stop to both of these things. Many had married foreign wives and their children couldn’t even speak the language of Judah - Hebrew. He rebuked them, calling down curses on them. Some of them he beat and pulled out their hair. Nehemiah didn’t play around when it came to purifying the people and following God. He was radical!
Paul explained that the man is the picture of Christ and the woman is the picture of the Church. Jesus is on the same plane as God and has the same authority. The church is submissive to Jesus in everything she does so since she is represented by the women, women need to submit to men out of obedience to God. Men have a great responsibility to use their authority to honor God and women have the same responsibility to honor men as unto God. When either of them get in the flesh and abuse their authority, God is the one who will punish and rebuke them.
Lord, help us to be like Nehemiah in our fight against sin and the things that offend You. May we purify our own hearts first, then the space around us that we have control over. Help us to be good representatives of your glory.

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