PEN ART - THE REFLECTION OF CHRIST IN NEHEMIAH - PART FOUR

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf) 

 The people of Nehemiah's day were in transition.  They probably thought the great days of God with their nation had passed, and that all of God's great deeds had been done.  They had lost any sense of mission, any sense of calling, any sense of challenge.  As a result, they almost missed their chance to see God act powerfully among them.  They almost missed the chance to experience His reclaiming them as His beloved people all over again. 

Isn't that much as our world is today? 

Where are the Nehemiahs of today?  The church must call them forth and put them in charge of the task of restoring the Kingdom of God to the earth. 

 Thank God for Nehemiah pointing the way to Christ, and thank God if you can find a modern Nehemiah hiding in the culture where we currently live.  I pray that each and every one of them will receive their calling and come forth.

The Church has walls and gates to rebuild!  In an amazing period of just 52 days - under constant threat of attack - the walls of Jerusalem were raised.  It was a great miracle.  We need another such miracle with the walls around our church congregations today.  Time is drawing short.  The Bride must be ready.  We must begin to rebuild.  Our leaders, much like Nehemiah, must take a deep breath and start their tasks.

 

In congregations across the land you can hear the people of the church today groaning.   They groan and morn.  They sit and wait for things to change.  That certainly was not the case with Nehemiah.  Nehemiah was willing to DO something.  He makes the journey to Jerusalem himself, after convincing the king that he should be allowed to go.  He brings with him supplies and leadership. Nehemiah had clear vision.  He knew the walls were torn down and needed rebuilding. He realized there were no gates of protection.  The people themselves needed to be rebuilt.  He set about to change things. 

The walls became the metaphor for the broken people.  Nehemiah was not just mending a wall - he was mending a nation.  The nation of Israel was God’s tool for speaking to the world.  Their voice must be heard.  The Church is God’s voice today for speaking to the world.  The silence must end.  The entertaining and babysitting must stop.  The real work must begin.  We need strong walls and gates.  We need brave and courageous people.  We need to love one another and get along with one another and seek God's face together.  We need to be willing to listen to what God tells us collectively, as a nation.

With Nehemiah's Godly leadership, the people of God once again became great.  This happened because they were willing to work together under God's leadership to accomplish a common goal.  The unity of our faith must be restored.  All of God’s people must work together. 

 In Nehemiah’s time everyone pitched in to do the work.  That is; everyone but those who opposed the work that God had led Nehemiah to do.  There will always be opposition.  There were those who did everything they could to stop the rebuilding of the walls and gates of the city.  Opposition of the church is rampant in our culture today.  We can expect it, but our God is greater than the opposition.  We are to be overcomers.  We are to be builders.   This is not the time to stop - this is the time to go to work!

The Godly people of that day in which Nehemiah lived handled much adversity and opposition to obtain the restoration of their city.  God only promised us that the Kingdom will be good.  He never said it would be either easy or safe. We must hold on to our hope.  We must keep moving forward and looking up as Nehemiah did.  With Christ as our hope, the people of God are always moving forward, always seeking God’s Face and always helping and allowing His will to prevail in the earth. 

Because of Nehemiah's Godly leadership and the people's spirit of unity, a broken, disorganized, discouraged bunch of individuals who were alienated from God and from one another transitioned into a strong, well-organized, deeply committed and proud community.  They were rededicated to God, recommitted to each other, and when this happened they began to be respected by their enemies.

God's people haven’t changed much through time.  They still face similar dilemmas and they still ask the same hard questions.  They consistently have their periods of doubt and faith.  But true men and women of God keep looking toward a river whose streams shall make glad The City of God.  Like the few good men in the days of Nehemiah, they look to the future with the hope of a restored Kingdom, where God is in the midst, and they shall not be moved. 

May our hearts join in with Nehemiah’s once more and may the sound of Non Nobis Domine – “Not to us Lord, not to us but to Your Name give glory” ring across the churches in the land.