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Broken Life? Help and direction is right here in Nehemiah Chapters 1-7.
This great book of Nehemiah is one of the most helpful pictures we have of how to recover from broken lives.
The steps that Nehemiah took covers seven chapters of this book. They are specific steps, orderly–and very effective! Taken in order they will lead to a full Recovery of Usefulness.
Nehemiah 1:11 O Lord, please hear my prayer! Listen to the prayers of those of us who delight in honoring you. Please grant me success today by making the king favorable to me. Put it into his heart to be kind to me.”
*Prayer is not a substitute for Action, prayer is the predecessor, and moves us to Action.
Nehemiah chapters 1-7 is a great read.
Book of Nehemiah is:
* About leadership integrity and character.
* Also about bringing people of God together.
Nehemiah did his part as well as everyone else. There was a strategy! *Leadership without strategy is void.
* Keep your trust in GOD and know it will be tested.
*It Is vital to have vision to keep hope alive.
* When pressure is on you , you will reach your potential.
* Best way to fulfill vision in your life, is to DO something. (Acts 26:14).
As we say in Moving Forward: “A Vision without Action is a Delusion”!
‘You see the trouble we are in’-
*How do you react when the going gets tough?
*Do you collapse in despair and succeed only in making your troubles seem even bigger than they really are?
*There is a better way of dealing with our problems.
**Believing that ‘the hand of his God was upon him for good’,
The men and women of the past have been through these same difficulties, and they have told us how to handle them.
Nehemiah looks at the problem – ‘Jerusalem lies in ruins’- and sets about solving it – ‘Come. let us build the wall of Jerusalem’(2:17-18).
If we take Jerusalem as a symbol of our own lives, there are many of us who fit this description.
You look back on your life:
*You see there are places where the walls have been broken down.
*There is no longer any ability left to resist destructive attacks.
*You have fallen victim to sinful habits that you now find difficult to break.
This is the kind of ruin that is described here in Nehemiah.
Our problems may be great!
BUT Our God is greater!
When your problems threaten to overwhelm you, remember this:
*God has ‘redeemed us by His great power and His mighty hand’. (Nehemiah1:3-6,10).
There is no greater problem than our SIN and God has dealt with that problem.
* Christ has ‘put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself’(Hebrews 9:26). ‘Pack up your troubles’ and take them to Jesus!(Nehemiah2:19-4:9)
Preparation takes time.
There were about 6mths between chap 1 and 2 here. Sometimes God is working and sometimes we have things to prepare too!
Let us not Move Forward unprepared!! And our best way to do so, is to do like he did, pray. Seek God’s plans. If He has put something on your heart, he will prepare the way.
We often want to just go and do. But without Prayer and Preparation, we will fail!!!!
Prayer, Prep, and Timing are everything to a mission.
Serving the Lord is not easy. There are always those who ‘mock and ridicule’ the Lord’s servants (2:19; 4:1-3).
What are we to do when we encounter this type of thing?
* We must pray to God and we must work for Him – ‘The God of heaven will make us prosper, and we His servants will arise and build’(4:4-6; 2:20).
When we face determined opposition from the enemies of Christ and His Gospel, we must pray and we must be practical – ‘we prayed to our God and set a guard as a protection against them day and night’(4:9).
*We need to know our God – ‘the people who know their God will be strong’.
*We need to know our enemy – ‘we are not ignorant about Satan’s scheming’. When Satan comes to us, we must be ready for him and we ‘must firmly resist him’- in the Name of Christ (Daniel 11:32; 2 Corinthians 2:11).
We are not far today from the troubles that Nehemiah fought for over 12 years. **We need to Feed and Return to the Word of God!!!
How many people around you, know that you follow Jesus?
*Nehemiah understood the significance of his people and their city.
*He knew he both needed to be resurrected and transformed.
*He made “bold choices”
**Nehemiah, like Jesus, wanted to see God revealed to His people in His city.
*He understood that the Real Work came in peoples HEARTS.
* We must ALL repair the”spiritual walls” in our own hearts.
Imagine This… If we desire to see God’s Kingdom advance in our days, we are called to RETHINK the way we live.
What kind of people are we?(Nehemiah 7:1-73) Are we ‘faithful and God-fearing’ people’ (2)?
It is so easy to lose our way and become ‘unclean’(64)?
What are we to do when we lose our way, when we forget the Lord, when we wander away from Him?
*** We must Return to the Lord. We must begin again with Him:
* confessing our sin,
*receiving His forgiveness
*and learning to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.
These words may help you to make a new beginning with God:
*‘There’s a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. There’s a door that is open and you may go in: at Calvary’s Cross is where you begin, when you come as a sinner to Jesus’. ‘Cleanse me from my sin, Lord. Put Thy power within, Lord. Take me as I am, Lord, and make me all Thine own…’ (words from song).
Nehemiah 7:1-4 Nehemiah, having finished the wall, returned to the Persian court, and came to Jerusalem again with a New Commission.
* The public safety depends on every one’s care to guard himself and his family against sin.
Thank You, Father, for giving me another day to bring glory to you and that You reveal my own brokenness, not in order to condemn me, but to rebuild my life. Help me see Lord daily. I give to You all that is in ruins and ask that You rebuild me into the person You want me to be. Father I bless your name today. I thank you Lord for your love and your kindness- for waking me up this morning and I thank you Lord for all that you have
done, all that you are doing in my life and I thank you Lord for what you will bring forth in my life to bring YOU glory and honor. I thank you Lord that I do not live and walk by what my naked eye sees but that I walk by faith believing that you Lord God will work out ALL things for my good, that you
Lord God will cause my life to bring YOU glory. I will continue to seek you Lord with all my heart, with all my mind,
with all my strength with all that is within me and I will bless your holy name. In Jesus Name, Amen