Th, 02/12/15, "Day of Praise"
"When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God." - Nehemiah 6:16
God wants us to live with peace and joy that are born from confidence in Him, from certainty in His call to us, and without fear of our enemies.
Peace, joy, confidence, certainty, and no fear.
All these filled the heart of Nehemiah in days of old, and God works to fill our hearts with the same today.
God makes these treasures of the heart possible by giving us eyes of the heart (Ephesians 1:18). The eyes of the heart are able to see things as they really are.
What Nehemiah saw with the eyes of his heart was that God is Sovereign over all things. Therefore, Nehemiah knew that his enemies were only a temporary distraction and that God would deal with them so that Nehemiah could fulfill the calling God had given him.
This is the same lesson that God taught Elisha's servant in 2 Kings 6:15-17 when the servant was worried because the enemy surrounded them. But Elisha assured the servant that those who were for them were greater than those against them. And then Elisha prayed to God that God would open the servant's eyes, and sure enough God did so that the servant was able to see into the spiritual realm where the armies of God stood ready to defeat their enemies.
How did Nehemiah and Elisha see these things? How can we see the victory of God when we're threatened by people and things that would steal peace, joy, confidence, and certainty from us?
In Matthew 5:1-10, Jesus gives us The Beatitudes, specifically in 5:8 we receive the beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Through faith in Jesus and his saving work for us on the cross, God cleans our heart and makes it pure. With our heart clean through faith in Jesus, we can see God. We can see things as they really are with the eyes of the heart. We can see that God is Sovereign over all things. Like Nehemiah, we can know that enemies are only a temporary distraction and that God will deal with them so that, like Nehemiah, we can fulfill the calling God has given us. And we, like Nehemiah, can taste peace, joy, confidence, certainty, and no fear.
God helped Nehemiah long ago. And God will help you today too.
"When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God" (Nehemiah 6:16).
Praise God!
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