Remember me, O my God, concerning this, and do not wipe out my good deeds that I have done for the house of my God, and for its services! Remember me, O my God, for good!
--Nehemiah 13:14, 31b (NKJV)
From the daily Bible reading on August 17, 2013 of Psalm 140; Luke 16; Nehemiah 12:27-13.
Since returning to Jerusalem from captivity, Nehemiah made very good use of the authority given him by King Artaxerxes of Persia. After inspecting the sorry state of the walls and gates around Jerusalem, he led the efforts to rebuild them involving all the people both great and small, a task accomplished in an amazing 52 days, and all the while providing the strategy and leadership for the people to defend themselves against their enemies who wanted the reconstruction disrupted and halted. He ordered a record be made of all the children of Israel now living in Jerusalem. Under his direction, all the people were gathered into a square where the priest Ezra read to the the Book of the Law of Moses and prayed over them. Nehemiah used this opportunity to reestablish the covenant between God and His chosen people. He had all the Levites and singers and other Temple servants moved back into the city and the house of God. Chapter 13 alone tells of how he had the people separate themselves from those who had mingled with other nations and were not of pure Jewish blood as disallowed by the law. He made sure the Levites and priests were receiving their proper portions of the offerings from the people. He put an end to the selling and trading of goods and wares on the Sabbath, even barring the merchants from the city the entire day. And he constantly reminded the people not to repeat the sins and ways of their fathers that had resulted in God exercising His mighty wrath over them and delivering them into the hands of foreign nations.
What we read of Nehemiah's life in our Bible shows a man of great faith who always strove to serve God and to lead the people to do likewise and to obey all of God's commandments and the law as handed down through Moses. Yet his simple prayer in today's focus verse indicates his concern that God may see something in him, something he had done or failed to do, that might erase all the good he had accomplished. We have the advantage of knowing what Nehemiah must have sensed, that works alone, no matter how good nor how many, are not sufficient to get us into heaven. Like Abraham before him, Nehemiah's great faith in God and God's redeeming grace would be his salvation. But his prayer does serve to remind us that God may remember all the bad things we've done as well as the good.
Fortunately, God provides us the remedy for that problem. God gave us His Son, Jesus. The author of the book of Hebrews reminds us of the words of God spoken through His prophet Jeremiah in which God will make a new covenant with His people. With this new covenant in place, God promises, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." (Please reference Hebrews 8:12 and 10:16-18, and Jeremiah 31:31-34. This point is so important, God wanted to be sure we see it three times, contained in both the Old and the New Testaments.) The author of Hebrews tells us Jesus is this New Covenant God made with man. Through His great sacrifice and our belief in Him as the Son of God, our personal Savior, and the Master of our life, we no longer have to worry as Nehemiah did. Our good deeds will be remembered and will earn us rewards in paradise to which our belief grants us entry. But our sins will be forgotten, on purpose, by God. Through God's boundless mercy and endless grace and Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf, our sins are forgiven and remembered no more. Amen.
Loving Father, You sent Your Son to us to forge a new and lasting covenant with us, the sacrifice of the Spotless Lamb for once and for all. By Your grace alone are we forgiven, by Your tender mercy are our sins forgotten. Thank You, Lord, for giving us one last chance to be redeemed! In the glorious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus we pray. Amen.
What we read of Nehemiah's life in our Bible shows a man of great faith who always strove to serve God and to lead the people to do likewise and to obey all of God's commandments and the law as handed down through Moses. Yet his simple prayer in today's focus verse indicates his concern that God may see something in him, something he had done or failed to do, that might erase all the good he had accomplished. We have the advantage of knowing what Nehemiah must have sensed, that works alone, no matter how good nor how many, are not sufficient to get us into heaven. Like Abraham before him, Nehemiah's great faith in God and God's redeeming grace would be his salvation. But his prayer does serve to remind us that God may remember all the bad things we've done as well as the good.
Fortunately, God provides us the remedy for that problem. God gave us His Son, Jesus. The author of the book of Hebrews reminds us of the words of God spoken through His prophet Jeremiah in which God will make a new covenant with His people. With this new covenant in place, God promises, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." (Please reference Hebrews 8:12 and 10:16-18, and Jeremiah 31:31-34. This point is so important, God wanted to be sure we see it three times, contained in both the Old and the New Testaments.) The author of Hebrews tells us Jesus is this New Covenant God made with man. Through His great sacrifice and our belief in Him as the Son of God, our personal Savior, and the Master of our life, we no longer have to worry as Nehemiah did. Our good deeds will be remembered and will earn us rewards in paradise to which our belief grants us entry. But our sins will be forgotten, on purpose, by God. Through God's boundless mercy and endless grace and Jesus' sacrifice on our behalf, our sins are forgiven and remembered no more. Amen.
Loving Father, You sent Your Son to us to forge a new and lasting covenant with us, the sacrifice of the Spotless Lamb for once and for all. By Your grace alone are we forgiven, by Your tender mercy are our sins forgotten. Thank You, Lord, for giving us one last chance to be redeemed! In the glorious name of our Lord and Savior Jesus we pray. Amen.
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