Tues.’s Devo - Called to Complete Our Mission

Read: Nehemiah 5:14-7:60; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13; Psalm 33:1-11; Proverbs 21:8-10
Nehemiah was the governor of Jerusalem for 12 years and during that time he never imposed upon the people to pay him a salary even though he had the authority from the king to do that. The governors before him had. Instead, Nehemiah fed 150 Jews and officials from his own portion from the king. Nehemiah recounted his deeds in his prayer as he asked for God’s blessings on his mission.
Nehemiah had been repairing the wall and all that was left was to set the gates. Sanballat and Tobia had been their adversaries from the first day and now they were getting very nervous as they saw that Nehemiah had almost completed his task. They ramped up their attack and sent Nehemiah constant letters to meet with him. Every time Nehemiah answered the same: he was too busy with his work to meet with them. The fifth letter they sent was accompanied by a sealed letter to coerce him to meet with them. In the sealed letter was a copy of what they were going to send to the king. It said that the Jews were about to finish their wall and as soon as it was completed they were planning a revolt. Nehemiah had appointed prophets to proclaim him king.
When Nehemiah read it he said, “none of this is true and you have made it all up.” He still refused to meet with them because he knew that they had planned to draw him away from his bodyguards in order to kill him. Nehemiah prayed for strength to finish the work.
When Sanballat and Tobia saw that their plan had been foiled they came up with a plan to get him from the inside. They had followers with in the walls of Jerusalem so they called on Shemaiah to invite him to his house and entice him to hide out in the temple. He told Nehemiah that enemies were coming to kill Nehemiah. Nehemiah refused to run and hide in fear.
The enemies had tried fear, intimidation, isolation, and distraction to keep Nehemiah from completing his task of fortifying the city. None of these worked because Nehemiah knew his destiny and he knew that God was with him to help him.
He finished his wall and gates and appointed gatekeepers, singers and Levites over the city. Jerusalem was large but few people actually lived there and no-one had build houses yet. Nehemiah found the original copy of the list of families who came first from exile. He was looking for citizens and a reason to make the people feel connected to the city. He read off their names to give them pride in their heritage.
Sometimes we just need to hear our name called and know that we are needed and important. This was what Nehemiah was doing when he found their names.
In Corinthians, Paul tells us of our freedom from man’s self-made laws. He uses the example of eating food offered to idols. He knows that an idol is nothing so to eat food offered to idols is not going to affect him in any way because he is not afraid of offending a false idol. But other people, found this very wrong and offensive to their worship of Christ; so for their sake, Paul said that he would not do it in front of people it would offend. Man has come up with a lot of “religious laws” that God could care less about. He cares more about your motives and love and unity among his children. Those need to be our prime targets.
Lord, thank you that we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that we should show forth the praises of you who have called us out of darkness into your marvelous light.