Prayerfully Running Our Race---Day 205 Through the Bible

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth"(Colossians 3:2).

Today we begin the Book of Nehemiah.  What is our response to the spiritual decay around us among the people of God?  Nehemiah learned that the survivors of the captivity were "in great distress and reproach" and that Jerusalem's walls were broken down and its gates burned with fire".  His response--"I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven" (Nehemiah 1:4).  Nehemiah began his prayer to God with praise and thankfulness for God's faithfulness. The Lord's Prayer also begins with praise to God. I know from personal experience that beginning a prayer with a list of problems spells defeat. Our focus in prayer must be on God. When we begin to consider Him, His power, His faithfulness, His greatness, His position as our Heavenly Father--we begin to experience hope that can replace despair.

Nehemiah then confessed the sins and shortcomings of Israel and rehearsed the words that God Himself had said to Moses regarding gathering His scattered people.  Praying God's Word is powerful and effective as it taps into His will and brings confidence to our prayers.  Nehemiah came to God with humility, with his whole heart, and in accordance with God's will.  Dr. Stanley mentions that many great things God has done for His people has begun with prayer and fasting. Fasting humbles us physically, mentally, and emotionally, and serves to help us focus on our need for God.

"God does not act in many situations because we do not pray.  God waits for either the co-instigator of the negative situation to cry out to Him for forgiveness, or for the victim of the negative situation to cry out to Him for mercy. Then He will act" (Dr. Stanley's "What The Bible Says About Effectively Tackling a Prayer Burden").  In this situation we see both a need for God's forgiveness and for His mercy.  Nehemiah recognized Israel's part in this--their sins had resulted in their captivity, and now they needed God's mercy.

Other lessons from today's reading in Nehemiah include:
-the value of short, wordless prayers,
-the importance of assessing situations for yourself (as a nurse, I came to realize how vital this is.)
In today's scriptures in Acts, we read this: "It is not the custom of the Romans to deliver any man to destruction before the accused meets the accusers face to face, and has opportunity to answer for himself concerning the charge against him" (25:16). King Agrippa, in verse 22, added, "I also would like to hear the man myself" (referring to Paul). Even the Romans recognized the importance of first hand information.
-"When God puts something on our heart, the core issue is always spiritual" (Dr. Stanley).
-Don't be afraid to stand before the enemy with confidence in our standing with God: Nehemiah replied in this way to those who laughed at them and despised them (including at least one official) for what they were doing, "So I answered them, and said to them, 'The God of heaven Himself will prosper us; therefore we His servants will arise and build, but you have no heritage or right or memorial in Jerusalem'" (Nehemiah 2:20).

From Psalm 88:11, we are reminded that life is very short; I think we especially realize this when we pass the age of 50 or 60, and begin to count up how many years we may have left.  Do we feel an urgency in only having a short time left to declare God's faithfulness and loving kindness to others?  (This should serve to motivate us!) The two verses in Proverbs contrasts the lazy with the righteous and implies that laziness is unrighteousness.  It says, "the desire of the lazy man kills him".  Why? "For his hands refuse to labor".  The results?  "He covets greedily all day long".  On the other hand, "But the righteous (not lazy) gives and does not spare"---he has plenty to be generous with because he has gained much through hard work. A Proverb with a similar message says that "hope deferred makes the heart sick" (13:12). Desiring things yet doing nothing to bring goals to fruition is evidently unhealthy.  God wants us to set goals and accomplish them through a good work ethic.

As we conclude in Acts today, there is a subtle lesson here for us. Legal charges can be formulated against believers, although they have done nothing wrong. This happened to Paul as well as to Jesus and without a doubt this pattern would surface if we studied the lives of the apostles and other martyrs in the past as well as today. (Yes, people are being martyred today for the sake of Christ. It has been estimated that 176,000 Christians were killed in one year because of their faith, between mid 2008 and 2009 (World Net Daily). Voice of the Martyrs is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1967, by Richard Wurmbrand, a pastor who was imprisoned for for 14 years in Communist Romania because of his faith.)  "And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 11:39-40 & 12:1)!