Stress Test Devotional May 4
May 04, 2024
NEHEMIAH 1:5-11 | I said, “O Lord God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments; let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Both I and my family have sinned. We have offended you deeply, failing to keep the commandments, the statutes, and the ordinances that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples; but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are under the farthest skies, I will gather them from there and bring them to the place at which I have chosen to establish my name.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you redeemed by your great power and your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight in revering your name. Give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man!” At the time, I was cupbearer to the king.
The first obstacles to renewal are internal. When we struggle, as the exiles did and as those who remained in Jerusalem did, as the church does, we can forget that “God is awesome and great and keeps covenant.” Nehemiah remembers and he prays. He prays repeatedly.
He names the people’s responsibility for their current mess, for they have failed to keep God’s law. But he holds on to God’s promise of mercy and a return articulated by Haggai and Zechariah. He begins the great endeavor of registering city and temple with an appeal for God’s help.
Do you pray for the renewal of VPC?
Use Nehemiah’s prayer as a model for doing so.
