"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).
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