Nehemiah 2 , Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

Max Lucado Daily: THE MATTER OF THE HEART

Isn’t there a time or two when you went outside for a solution when you should have gone inward? Reminds me of the golfer who was about to hit his first shot on the first hole. He swung and missed the ball. Swung and whiffed again. Tried a third time, missed again. In frustration he judged, “Man, this is a tough golf course.” He may have been right, but the golf course wasn’t the problem.

You may be right, as well. Your circumstances may be challenging, but blaming them is not the solution. Nor is neglecting them. Consider the prayer of David. He said, “Create in me a new heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). Real change is an inside job. You might alter things a day or two with money and systems, but the heart of the matter is, and always will be, the matter of the heart.

Nehemiah 2

I was cupbearer to the king.

It was the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king. At the hour for serving wine I brought it in and gave it to the king. I had never been hangdog in his presence before, so he asked me, “Why the long face? You’re not sick are you? Or are you depressed?”

2-3 That made me all the more agitated. I said, “Long live the king! And why shouldn’t I be depressed when the city, the city where all my family is buried, is in ruins and the city gates have been reduced to cinders?”

4-5 The king then asked me, “So what do you want?”

Praying under my breath to the God-of-Heaven, I said, “If it please the king, and if the king thinks well of me, send me to Judah, to the city where my family is buried, so that I can rebuild it.”

6 The king, with the queen sitting alongside him, said, “How long will your work take and when would you expect to return?”

I gave him a time, and the king gave his approval to send me.

7-8 Then I said, “If it please the king, provide me with letters to the governors across the Euphrates that authorize my travel through to Judah; and also an order to Asaph, keeper of the king’s forest, to supply me with timber for the beams of The Temple fortress, the wall of the city, and the house where I’ll be living.”

8-9 The generous hand of my God was with me in this and the king gave them to me. When I met the governors across The River (the Euphrates) I showed them the king’s letters. The king even sent along a cavalry escort.

10 When Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite official heard about this, they were very upset, angry that anyone would come to look after the interests of the People of Israel.

“Come—Let’s Build the Wall of Jerusalem”
11-12 And so I arrived in Jerusalem. After I had been there three days, I got up in the middle of the night, I and a few men who were with me. I hadn’t told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. The only animal with us was the one I was riding.

13-16 Under cover of night I went past the Valley Gate toward the Dragon’s Fountain to the Dung Gate looking over the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken through and whose gates had been burned up. I then crossed to the Fountain Gate and headed for the King’s Pool but there wasn’t enough room for the donkey I was riding to get through. So I went up the valley in the dark continuing my inspection of the wall. I came back in through the Valley Gate. The local officials had no idea where I’d gone or what I was doing—I hadn’t breathed a word to the Jews, priests, nobles, local officials, or anyone else who would be working on the job.

17-18 Then I gave them my report: “Face it: we’re in a bad way here. Jerusalem is a wreck; its gates are burned up. Come—let’s build the wall of Jerusalem and not live with this disgrace any longer.” I told them how God was supporting me and how the king was backing me up.

They said, “We’re with you. Let’s get started.” They rolled up their sleeves, ready for the good work.

19 When Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official, and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they laughed at us, mocking, “Ha! What do you think you’re doing? Do you think you can cross the king?”

20 I shot back, “The God-of-Heaven will make sure we succeed. We’re his servants and we’re going to work, rebuilding. You can stick to your own business. You get no say in this—Jerusalem’s none of your business!”

* * *

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion    
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Read: Psalm 139:1–6, 23–24

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.

Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

INSIGHT
In the Bible we read of God’s omniscience—His knowledge of everything. In 1 Samuel 2:3, Hannah declares that He’s the “God who knows.” In Psalm 44:21, the psalmist says “he knows the secrets of the heart.”

In Psalm 139, David marvels that God knows his every move and thought (vv. 1–4). Yet instead of trembling with fear, David’s awestruck at the thought that God has such intimate knowledge of him (v. 6). Why? Because David has a close relationship with God—he loves and is loved by Him. As a result, he can ask God to search his heart and, if he’s found wanting, to lead him down the right path (vv. 23–24). Our all-seeing and all-knowing God “searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought” (1 Chronicles 28:9).

Wisely Weeding- By Patricia Raybon
Search me, God, and know my heart. Psalm 139:23

My grandchildren are running around my backyard. Playing games? No, pulling weeds. “Pulling them up by the roots!” the youngest says, showing me a hefty prize. Her delight as we tackled weeds that day was how much we enjoyed plucking the weedy roots—clearing away each pesky menace. Before the joy, however, came the choice to go after them.

Intentional weeding is also the first step in removing personal sin. Thus, David prayed: “Search me, God, and know my heart. . . . See if there is any offensive way in me” (Psalm 139:23–24).

What a wise approach, to go after our sin by asking God to show it to us. He above all knows everything about us. “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me,” wrote the psalmist. “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar” (vv. 1–2).

“Such knowledge,” David added, “is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (v. 6). Even before a sin takes root, therefore, God can alert us to the danger. He knows our “landscape.” So when a sneaky sinful attitude tries to take root, He’s first to know and point it out.  

“Where can I go from your Spirit,” wrote David. “Where can I flee from your presence?” (v. 7). May we closely follow our Savior to higher ground!

When you ask God to search your heart, what personal wrongs do you discover? How does intentional “weeding” help rid you of a relentless sin?

Loving God, when You show me my personal sin, point me to Your plan to pull those weeds.

My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
Wednesday, March 31, 2021
Heedfulness or Hypocrisy in Ourselves?

If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. —1 John 5:16

If we are not heedful and pay no attention to the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other people are failing, and then we take our discernment and turn it into comments of ridicule and criticism, instead of turning it into intercession on their behalf. God reveals this truth about others to us not through the sharpness of our minds but through the direct penetration of His Spirit. If we are not attentive, we will be completely unaware of the source of the discernment God has given us, becoming critical of others and forgetting that God says, “…he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death.” Be careful that you don’t become a hypocrite by spending all your time trying to get others right with God before you worship Him yourself.

One of the most subtle and illusive burdens God ever places on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning others. He gives us discernment so that we may accept the responsibility for those souls before Him and form the mind of Christ about them (see Philippians 2:5). We should intercede in accordance with what God says He will give us, namely, “life for those who commit sin not leading to death.” It is not that we are able to bring God into contact with our minds, but that we awaken ourselves to the point where God is able to convey His mind to us regarding the people for whom we intercede.

Can Jesus Christ see the agony of His soul in us? He can’t unless we are so closely identified with Him that we have His view concerning the people for whom we pray. May we learn to intercede so wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ will be completely and overwhelmingly satisfied with us as intercessors.

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

The truth is we have nothing to fear and nothing to overcome because He is all in all and we are more than conquerors through Him. The recognition of this truth is not flattering to the worker’s sense of heroics, but it is amazingly glorifying to the work of Christ. Approved Unto God, 4 R

Bible in a Year: Judges 11-12; Luke 6:1-26

A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft
Wednesday, March 31, 2021

Letting Go of Your Little Ones - #8928

It's common to most every religious tradition, some ceremony or service where you dedicate or commit your new child to God. In some Christian traditions, it takes the form of baptism. Others have a brief baby dedication. The last baby we dedicated was our youngest child and that was more than a few years ago. I held the little guy in my hands. I don't do that anymore. Times have changed. I don't pick him up anymore. I would hurt myself badly. He picks me up literally. I mean, he'd greet me at the airport and pick me off the ground and spin me around. That's my baby. A lot of things have changed. One thing never has.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Letting Go of Your Little Ones."

Well, all three of our children grew up. But the transaction that took place that day we dedicated each of them to God is one thing that's still being repeated today. No, we can't hold them physically in our hands anymore. But we can, we must, keep giving them over to the One who gave them to us. The problem is that all too often, we actually try to keep them in our hands, don't we?

There is no more beautiful "release your child" model in all the Bible than Hannah, the woman who prayed fervently for years that God would bless her infertility with a child. God answered that prayer by giving her a boy named Samuel, who was destined to become one of the great leaders of Israel. In obedience to God, Hannah brought her young son to the temple to be trained for spiritual leadership. In part of her prayer in 1 Samuel 1:27 and 28 we find our word for today from the Word of God. She says of this child for whom she had waited so long, "So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life, he will be given over to the Lord."

Do you know how often we moms and dads need to tell God that? Every day for the rest of your life, no matter how old or young your children are. No matter how close to God or far from God they are. But be careful, we're talking here about releasing our son or daughter to God, which means helping them become the person God created them to be, not trying to shape them into the person we want them to be. It means talking to God far more about your child than talking to your child about God, as important as that is.

For some of us who tend to be like control freaks, we have to make sure we're not trying to "play God" ourselves in our child's life. Parents who truly place their son or daughter in God's hands can lay off the nagging, the manipulating, the meddling, the constant criticizing. What we try to control we often end up crushing.

Our job is to say to God each new day, "You gave me this child, Lord. Again, for this new day, I'm giving her, I'm giving him, back to you. I'm available for anything you want me to do to join you in what you're doing in their life, whether you ask me to speak up, or remain silent. Whether you ask me to apologize, to forgive, to sacrifice, or even to change."

A surrendered parent is a parent at peace - a parent who knows that this treasure God has entrusted to them has this day been placed again in God's all-powerful hands. A God who knows the plans He has for that boy, for that girl, plans for good and not for evil, to give them a future. To give them a hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

No matter how big your little ones get, remember whose they really are.