Hey everyone.
The school year ended and we went immediately went on vacation. We had great time and now we are settling in to our summer routine.
Any way, I wanted to continue to story of Nehemiah. Nehemiah and the citizens of Jerusalem finished the wall and then in chapters 12 and 13 they have a dedication of the walls. In other words, they celebrate what God has done. If you read 12:31 and following you see that Nehemiah, all the leaders and two large choirs stood on top of this wall. (It is an interesting side note to remember that Tobiah, one of Nehemiah's detractors had said that a single fox could knock these walls down, now a great number of men were standing on it and it was in tact. The work of God was far greater than whatever negative buss was going on around it.)
So Nehemiah bought the people together and they celebrated. 12:43 says that they rejoiced "because God had given them great joy." It is important to celebrate accomplishment and victory. they had worked hard and deserved this celebration, but they were not celebrating themselves and what they had done, they were worshiping and celebrating what He had done. And apparently it was quite a party. 12:43 further says, "The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away."
We began a while back looking at Nehemiah, and how in 52 days he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem that had lain in ruin for over 100 years. My hope was to learn some things to help me in "building" my own spiritual life and ministry. For those who have come along on the journey we have seen Nehemiah, a man who cared deeply about God and his people, who prayed intently, whose trust in God led him to great boldness in dealing with the king and with his enemies. He would not be discouraged or dissuaded for the great work God had placed on his heart and he worked to get everyone involved. He had some things to say about parenting too. Then he celebrated what God had done.
This finishes my study of Nehemiah. I learned a great deal from it, I hope that something has benefited you as well. I have started studying the book of John and will start sharing thoughts on it soon.
Tom
