"Take Me As I Am, Lord, And Make Me All Thine Own."

Nehemiah 5:1-6:19

What are we to do when we face those who are ‘scheming to harm’ the Lord’s servants and the Lord’s work? - We are to devote ourselves to the ‘work’ of the Lord. We are to ‘pray’ for His strength (6:2; 5:16; 6:9). Critics of the Lord’s work want to argue with us. Are we to ‘come down’ to their level, going round in circles with arguments that lead us nowhere? Nehemiah shows us a better way, God’s way - ‘I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?’(6:3). ‘Completing the work with the help of our God’(6:15-16) - This is the best ‘argument’ against the critics of Christ and His Gospel. Keep working for God and pray that’ many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord’(Psalm 40:3).

Nehemiah 7:1-73

What kind of people are we? Are we ‘faithful and God-fearing’ people’(2)? It is so easy to lose our way and become ‘unclean’(64)? What are we to do when we lose our way, when we forget the Lord, when we wander away from Him? We must return to the Lord. We must begin again with Him, confessing our sin, receiving His forgiveness and learning to live in the power of the Holy Spirit. These words may help you to make a new beginning with God: ‘There’s a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. There’s a door that is open and you may go in: at Calvary’s Cross is where you begin, when you come as a sinner to Jesus’. ‘Cleanse me from my sin, Lord. Put Thy power within, Lord. Take me as I am, Lord, and make me all Thine own...’(Mission Praise, 682, 82).