Tues.’s Devo - Building the Wall of Faith

Read: Nehemiah 3:15-5:13; 1 Corinthians 7:25-40; Psalm 32:1-11; Proverbs 21:5-7 As families built the wall where they were, the enemies of God were not happy. Sanballat which means “hatred in secret” was not very secret about his hatred of God’s people and what they were doing. He mocked them and tried intimidation to discourage them. When that didn’t work he resorted to trying to confuse their efforts. Finally he brought physical threats. The ones building the wall had to work with a weapon in one hand and a shovel in the other. They posted guards to keep the workers safe. *** Then they faced eternal problems. The people with large families were having trouble feeding them. Others were morgaged to death because of the famine. And others complained about the steep taxes. To make things worse, Nehemiah found out that the Jews were charging interest on their own people and causing them to sell their children as slaves to them to pay their debt. *** Nehemiah called a meeting to address all of these problems. He rebuked them for charging interest on their own people and demanded they give the interest back to the people. The priests and the people agreed they would do it. *** Proverbs 25:28 says, “He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls.” Since we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit, we need walls around our lives also. These walls are our self-control. They keep the enemy from stealing from us. We build these walls with our faith in Christ by loving God, reading his Word, obeying him and keeping sin far from us. *** In Corinthians, the sexual problem had become so great that Paul suggested the young women not marry until they had fixed the problem. *** Paul tried to get them to look beyond their lives and see the bigger picture. He saw their obsession on getting married as a hindrance in their walk with Christ. Paul was trying to get them to build their wall of faith before they filled their house with things that would distract them from being fortified and mature. *** Lord, thank you that you are working all things for our good and maturity. May we guard our soul and fortify our self against the attacks of the enemy.