Nehemiah 8-10; Psalm 119:1-8
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What a revival!
Chapters 8-10 in Nehemiah play out such a cool scene that all starts
with worship. Ezra opens the Book
of the Law and praises the Lord, and it says, “and all the people lifted their
hands and responded, ‘Amen! Amen!’
Then they bowed down and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the
ground.”
Ezra begins reading the Book of the Law, and this goes on for
hours! But the people, instead of falling asleep or complaining about being hot
or cold or hungry or thirsty or tired or bored, they listened intently. And as he continued to read the people
began to weep. Nehemiah tells them
not to mourn or weep, “For the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
This reminded me of the first time I saw the movie The Passion of The Christ. I was in college, and several of us
went to the theater to see it as soon as it came out. After it was over the entire theater was silent except for
the sound of people crying. I was
crying for several reasons, one of which was just being overwhelmed by His love
and mercy, but also because of guilt for my sin that caused Jesus to go through
that pain and torture. A friend of
mine looked over at me and said, “Why are you crying? He won! He rose from the
grave!”
At the time I couldn’t get my head around her point of view! How could I not be sad after watching
what He went through and knowing that He did it for me? But I know that His amazing merciful plan
is something to celebrate. Just as
I know that He doesn’t want us to hold on to our guilt, but to accept His
forgiveness, and follow Him with our whole heart.
Nehemiah is helping the Israelites see that it was time to move
past the guilt and on to a life devoted to following Him.
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